MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally today, let's start the new year off with some music. Last week we brought you the hits from 2016, so this week we're going to look ahead at 2017 and check out some fresh new music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SINKANE SONG, "U'HUH")
MARTIN: Well, that was a good start. That is a song called "U'Huh" by the artist Sinkane. That's just one song NPR Music's Stephen Thompson has been jamming out to, and he's going to tell us more. Welcome back, Stephen Thompson. Happy New Year, thanks for joining us.
STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: Happy New Year to you, too. It's great to be here.
MARTIN: So Sinkane, came tell me more about them.
THOMPSON: Well, Sinkane's a really interesting musician. I believe based in Brooklyn now, but he's lived in London, in Sudan, in Ohio. And I think his music reflects kind of that globe-trotting nature.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "U'HUH")
SINKANE: (Singing) Well, I'm the first to say. It's all going to be all right. Been feeling that weight. It's all going to be all right. It's always been this way. It's always going to be all right. There ain't no golden days. We're always going to be all right. Kulu shi tamaam.
THOMPSON: If you're going to start off a discussion of the music of 2017, if you're looking at 2017 in general, you want a song where the chorus says everything is fine, we're all going to be all right.
MARTIN: (Laughter) Absolutely. So he sings and plays all the instruments himself?
THOMPSON: Yeah, he's just a really, really talented and interesting guy. And I think that the music reflects that kind of searching nature. None of his songs sound like they're coming from one place in the world.
MARTIN: Speaking of, you know, getting music from the world and enjoying it, there's a band out of Mali that you want to talk about.
THOMPSON: Yeah, they're called to Tinariwen. They've been around for ages and really come of the worldwide consciousness in the last 10 or 15 years. They play I guess what you would call, like, desert blues. They're from the Sahara Desert region in Northern Mali. And they're touring musicians who have sort of traveled the world over the course of the last, gosh, like nearly 40 years. And what I love about this particular song which is called "Sastanaqqam" is it sounds incredibly epic and flowing, and it feels like it manages to be searching and compact at the same time.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SASTANAQQAM")
TINARIWEN: (Singing in foreign language).
THOMPSON: And the guitars are killer. So you can hear how it can be sort of trance inducing and to be brought into kind of a trance in a song that is that - that is that short. It's a three-minute, like, it's the length of a pop song.
MARTIN: Thanks for that. So let's go to something I think that might be a little bit more familiar to folks, a little hip-hop.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHOTGUN")
LITTLE SIMZ: (Rapping) Company is maybe all I needed right now, and you're an easy target. Don't take that the wrong way, but ride shotgun with me.
SYD: (Singing) When I'm out you know I got one. If you don't, then you better cop one 'cause I always keep them rolling shotgun, shotgun, shotgun.
MARTIN: I think we've heard her before. This is...
THOMPSON: Little Simz. She's a singer and rapper from the U.K. And it's a little bit of a fudge to call this a 2017 record because it technically came out on December 16th, but we're going to let it slide because she's still - she's just still being heard for the first time. She just has this really kind of twisty wordplay that still feels like very just musical. It has that like a - almost a sweet quality to it, and she's a wonderful, wonderful live performer.
MARTIN: All right. We are going around the globe here. And next you have a Canadian band for us called...
THOMPSON: Japandroids. Like you said, they're a Canadian rock band, and their songs are all about, like, just, like, living the fullest possible life. And each song just feels like this kind of roll the windows down anthem. But when you pick them apart, they have this real feeling to them. As a, you know, like kind of a dude in his 40s, these songs that are about, like, staying young even though you're getting old, they really speak to me directly. So the album and the song we're going to play here is called "Near To The Wild Heart Of Life."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NEAR TO THE WILD HEART OF LIFE")
JAPANDROIDS: (Singing) And it got me all fired up to go far away and make some music from the sound of singing, baby. Oh, oh. And it got me all fired up.
THOMPSON: So you get a lot of - in the chorus is you get a lot of (singing) whoa, whoa.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: We need that.
THOMPSON: And we need that...
MARTIN: We need that right now.
THOMPSON: ...Especially in an album coming out in, like, late January, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Absolutely, sludge season. All right, and so you've taken us around the world and we love that, but you cut right back to D.C., a local D.C. band, tell us more.
THOMPSON: Yeah, bringing it all home. The band is called Priests. And you listen to the song and it's got like kind of a real garage rock quality to it, kind of just like a classic, almost vintage rumble, but then the voice comes in. It's a woman named Katie Alice Greer, and she's got so much soul and power in her voice, and you just immediately think she is a rock star.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JJ")
PRIESTS: (Singing) ...And wrong. But I always felt like overrun and come baby, I think I kind of know what you're made of.
MARTIN: We got to go because we're rocking out in here so...
(LAUGHTER)
THOMPSON: We're having a moment.
MARTIN: ...We're having a moment. That's Stephen Thompson of NPR Music giving us a look ahead to some music of 2017. Stephen Thompson, thank you.
THOMPSON: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JJ")
PRIESTS: (Singing) ...Normal day. You were just a rich girl all live in a very big jacket on a very big...
MARTIN: For Sunday, New Year's Day, that's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin. Let's keep the conversation going in the new year. Hey, make it a resolution to tweet us on Twitter @npratc. You can tweet me @nprmichel. We are back next weekend. Thank you for listening. We hope you have a great week.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The person whom Turkish authorities say killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub last night is still at large. The attack in an upscale neighborhood killed at least 15 foreigners, including people from France, Tunisia, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Morocco. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, and it's just the latest in a wave of terrorism that's been plaguing Turkey for more than a year. NPR's Peter Kenyon is in Istanbul, where we reached him. Hi, Peter. Thank you so much for speaking with us.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Hi, Michel.
MARTIN: Why did Turkish officials think that this was the work of one person?
KENYON: Well, officials say that's the initial assessment by the security services. What they've seen so far points to a single gunman. There's reports that the shooter used an automatic long-barreled gun, possibly an AK-47. A guard was one of the first victims shot at the entrance to the Reina nightclub. It's in the Ortakoy neighborhood of Istanbul. It's a pretty high-end establishment, the kind of place on the Bosphorus Strait that has its own docks so the wealthy patrons can arrive on their private boats.
This attacker, though, entered from the street, and he just started spraying fire, we're told, on the partiers ringing in the new year. Terrified witnesses spoke about stepping on bodies as they tried to flee. Turkey's prime minister says the attacker left his weapon at the scene and fled in the chaotic aftermath.
MARTIN: There have been previous attacks in Turkey, but responsibility for these attacks has been claimed pretty quickly by either Islamic State supporters or Kurdish militants. So what are people so they are saying about who may have been behind this?
KENYON: Well, that's exactly right. And if this was a directed attack, ISIS and Kurdish militant groups would seem to be leading suspects. Based on past behavior alone, which is to say deliberately targeting civilians and soft targets like this, some analysts are pointing toward ISIS as the most likely suspect. They also note there was a website posting by an Islamist group known to support ISIS, and it called recently for lone wolf attacks aiming at soft targets, places just like nightclubs and theaters. And that post did mention Turkey in particular. That is all speculation for now though, and it's always possible this attacker wasn't motivated by any group. I should note the U.S. embassy in Ankara issued a statement today denying there was any intelligence that it had warning of an attack on a specific venue.
MARTIN: And can you tell us a bit more about the victims, what we know so far?
KENYON: Yes. The funerals have already begun for some of the slain Turks. The state-run news agency says the body of a female security guard who was killed in the attack is being flown to her hometown on the coast. She leaves behind a husband, a 3-year-old daughter. But the picture that's emerging at the moment is one of foreign nationals mostly being killed, some two-thirds of the fatalities possibly according to the state-run news agency.
The father of a 19-year-old Arab-Israeli woman who was killed says he warned his daughter not to go, but she insisted she had to go with her friends. It seems Saudi Arabia, Jordan, possibly Iraq as well lost multiple people in this killing, although we're still waiting for official confirmation on that.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Peter Kenyon in Istanbul. Peter Kenyon, thank you so much for speaking with us.
KENYON: Thanks, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Because this is the beginning of the new year, we decided to look ahead to 2017 by checking in with some of the people we spoke with over the course of the past year about their hopes for the new year. The Rev. William Barber II is one of those people. He's president of the North Carolina NAACP, founder of the Moral Monday rallies there, some of the longest sustained civil rights demonstrations in the modern era. He's also president of a progressive movement called Repairers of the Breach. Rev. Barber joined us in our Washington, D.C. studios. You might remember that yesterday I spoke with Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina. So began - I began our conversation with Rev. Barber by asking the same question I posed to Senator Scott, which is what was his take on the most consequential event of 2016?
WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, actually when I look at this year, I've been deeply troubled by the moral inconsistency and the moral trouble that we have in this country. When you can literally run for office and announce that if you elect me, I will take health care for millions of people. When you can say if you elect me, I'm going to turn immigrants away from a country of immigrants. I want to be more focused on nuclear weapons and war than peace and negotiations. To me, that is consequential because it says that we need a moral revolution of values.
I think that what's so concerning to me is the way in which this political - particularly at the presidential level was handled. You think about what we didn't talk about in a time of deep voter suppression and racist-based gerrymandering. We didn't have a major presidential debate on that. We didn't have a major debate on what it would actually do to repeal health care. We didn't have a major debate on living wages. So in some ways we went through a campaign based on innuendoes and insults without really going in-depth on the issues, and I think that is to the detriment of the soul and the heart of this country.
MARTIN: Given all of that, how does the country move forward?
BARBER: Well, several things. First of all, I think that those of us who believe in justice and liberation and love for all people have to declare that standing down is not an option. We need to, number one, call all people of conscience, whether that conscience is morality is driven by the constitutional faith to stand up.
MARTIN: And what does that mean? What should the posture of Democrats be?
BARBER: One writer, Walter Brueggemann, said you can't have moral prophetic implementation until you have moral imagination. So we have to take on, I think, the fallacy and the heresy of so-called white evangelicalism that has had a lot of influence on our body politic, but it has this limited moral perspective of praying in school or where you stand on abortion, where you stand against homosexuality. We have written that President Trump and requested if he so desires a meeting before the inauguration to really give him counsel from the prophetic tradition, as opposed to just counsel this lining up with this extreme form of religiosity.
MARTIN: What I hear you saying is that the appropriate posture should be to try to engage with the administration around common interests.
BARBER: That's one of the steps. You know, Dr. King talked about six steps to nonviolent civil disobedience. So I'm fully in that we will have to protest, but the first thing you have to do is be willing to sit down with your adversary and give them counsel. I don't think it's about congratulations and cajoling. It is about saying listen, these are the moral values of our Constitution. The first principle of our Constitution established justice. The first principle of faith is how do you treat the poor and the least of these?
MARTIN: I have to ask you about North Carolina. Your state was quite a bit in the spotlight in 2016, from the HB2, the so-called bathroom bill, requiring people to use the bathroom of the gender in which they were born. Also the recent move by the state legislature and governor to limit the power of the newly elected governor. Given all of that, what is your role there in the coming year?
BARBER: Here's what you should learn from North Carolina. We won a three-year battle, a moral battle. Wheb people told us we should just go home, we should just give up, we didn't. And because of that, Trumpism (ph) did not sweep North Carolina. Progressives won the governor's seat, the auditor's seat, the secretary of state seat, and an African-American runs 76 counties - and over 300,000 vote margin for the Supreme Court in North Carolina. We have proven that a sustained moral movement can in fact take on extremism and can bring people together in the South, particularly where the Southern strategy has worked so hard for the last 50 years to divide people along the lines of race and class.
MARTIN: Well, what lesson do you draw from the results of 2016? I mean, on the one hand your preferred candidate Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a wide margin. And yet, people who don't share your point of view are in control of the majority of state legislatures around the country, have consolidated their position in state leadership. What lesson do you draw?
BARBER: There's this movement out there that has to be galvanized. And what we have to do is understand that in every age we have to stand up. This is not the first time America has elected a president that has espoused racism. We talk about Steve Bannon being - and alt-right - being in the Oval - alt-wrong - being in the Oval Office today, where 100 years ago, "Birth Of A Nation" was played in the Oval Office by Woodrow Wilson. What did W.E.B. Du Bois do? What did black and white people do? Then they stood up and they pushed back. When Lyndon Baines Johnson was elected as a Democrat, he was a segregationist. He had no intention on doing the voting rights. What did the movement do? They stood up and they fought back, and they pushed and they changed a moral climate.
So somebody there, they said, well, we did a tweet or we did a rally, it didn't work. I'm in your studios and here we are, the first of the year, the Montgomery boycott would have been in its 31st day (laughter) - in its 31st day and would go on to last over 350 day - almost, 300, I think, and 85 days. What we have to do is recognize we're in a moment that requires sustained moral action, sustained moral challenge. If you register 30 percent of the unregistered African-Americans in the former confederate states from North Carolina to Texas and find a way to bring them together with progressive whites, Latinos, you change the map. If you change the map in the South, you change the country.
MARTIN: As you face 2017, are you optimistic or pessimistic?
BARBER: I'm hopeful, which is different than being optimistic and pessimistic. It is a biblical term. It's a term of faith. It is a term that cries out even from the midst of despair. We must not give up on the heart of this country. They didn't give up in slavery. If they didn't give up in times much worse than this, surely we cannot give up now. We must fight. And I believe that America still has a heartbeat and a pulse, and we have to continue to push it and revive it.
MARTIN: That's the Rev. William Barber II. He's the president of the North Carolina NAACP, pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, N.C. His latest book is "The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, And The Rise Of A New Justice Movement." He was kind enough to join us here in our Washington, D.C. studios for this new year edition. Rev. Barber, thank you so much for speaking with us.
BARBER: Well, thank you and God bless.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now let's talk about what could be one of President Obama's last major decisions before leaving office. The president created two new national monuments using his executive authority under the Antiquities Act. There's Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada and Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Together they total more than a million-and-a-half acres. Tribal nations celebrated the news as their efforts to protect Bear's Ears goes back to the 1930s but others, including Utah governor Gary Herbert, expressed outrage at the decision. Our NPR colleague Ari Shapiro spoke with the governor last week.
So for additional perspective, we called Russell Begaye. He is the president of the Navajo Nation, which includes areas of New Mexico, Arizona and Southern Utah near the newly designated Bear's Ears National Monument. He was kind enough to join us from his home office in the middle of a snowstorm, no less. President Begaye, thank you so much for joining us and happy new year.
RUSSELL BEGAYE: Well, happy new year to y'all. Thank you for doing what you do, services that you provide to the nation. And also happy new years to all of our Indian nation across North America, both U.S. and Canada. We're well connected to our Canadian brothers up there, and also my own Navajo people. So good to be on the air with you, thank you.
MARTIN: So how did news of the designation of this monument reach you, and what went through your mind when you heard?
BEGAYE: Well, we were not certain whether this was going to be the one selected by the president because there were a number of other considerations that was on the president's table. I've had some last minute meetings a few days prior to the designation where I began to feel just a little comfortable that maybe Bears Ears might be one of those.
MARTIN: Could you tell us briefly why is this area so important that you feel it requires this designation as a national monument?
BEGAYE: Back in the 1860s when Navajos were being rounded up and taken on a long walk out to a imprisonment camp, some of the chiefs, especially Chief Manuelito, he took his family up to Bear's Ears for protection. So quite a number of them lived up on top of Bears Ears surrounding areas there in those years when Navajos were at Fort Sumner. And so it's always been a place of protection, plus it's very significant for ceremonial reasons so Bears Ears has always been a part of who we are as a nation.
MARTIN: To that end, I understand that other tribes other than the Navajo also supported this designation. Why is that?
BEGAYE: For them, it's - this is where their tribal members go to gather herbs. They do have sacred sites in the area like the Ute, the Ute Mountain, the Southern Ute, the Zuni people from further south of us where the Navajo Nation is. There's a number of tribes that are in the region that have always taken on regular basis trips up there for ceremonial purposes for prayers. It's always been a part of who we are as a nation in the region.
MARTIN: And yet there's been a substantial outcry from some elected leaders in Utah, including Governor Gary Herbert who spoke to our colleagues at ALL THINGS CONSIDERED - Ari Shapiro - earlier this week. He called this designation an abuse of executive power. He vowed to try to repeal that designation, although that's never been done before. I just want to play a short clip from my colleague's conversation with him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
GARY HERBERT: Those people inside Utah which ought to have some consideration have been ignored. It's not a matter of do we want to have protections, how we're going to provide the vehicle of protection. This is 1.35 million acres. Delaware's 1.6 million, this is about the size of Delaware.
MARTIN: So what's your response to that?
BEGAYE: This is all about Indian leaders wanting to preserve this land that we've always been very drawn to, been a part of, been attached to. To me what this whole fuss is about is taking authority away from Native Americans to have had long historical attachment to the land way before the state was even formed or before the formation of the United States of America. So we have always had this longstanding attachment to Bears Ears. And this gives us an opportunity to have a voice at the table through this collaborative management agreement. So that's what this thing is about.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, looking back over the past year, what do you think is the significance of 2016 from your perspective as the leader of the Navajo Nation? I mean, the developments at Standing Rock and now the successful designation of the Bears Ears National Monument, does it seem as this was some kind of a turning point in the relations with the tribes to the federal government, and do you feel it will last?
BEGAYE: Well, we hope that it will last. In working with the Trump administration, we are going to really work as hard as we can, help them understand that we want to maintain the government to government relationship, that we need a voice at the table of decision making, and hopefully that we will maintain this strong government to government relationship that we've established under the Obama administration.
MARTIN: That's Russell Begaye. He's the president of the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American tribe in the United States, and it was one of the five tribes that petitioned President Obama to create the Bears Ears National Monument in Southern Utah. President Begaye, thank you so much for speaking with us and happy new year to you.
BEGAYE: Well, thank you so much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
With a new year, new laws will kick in in many states. A number of states took steps to raise minimum wages and to legalize marijuana, and in other ways moved in directions that seem at odds with some of the policies espoused by the incoming President Donald Trump's administration, just one more way 2017 seems to be shaping up as an interesting year. We wanted to hear more about directions the states are taking and new laws that take effect today so we called William Pound. He's the executive director for the National Conference of State Legislatures. Mr. Pound, thanks so much for joining us.
WILLIAM POUND: Happy to do so.
MARTIN: So give us an overview. What are some of the new laws that take effect today? I understand a number of states increased the minimum wage?
POUND: The minimum wage increases do take effect in some places now. Some of the bills that were passed at the last election will gradually phase in over a period of years so that it doesn't all happen just at once. Same is true of the cannabis bills, where we have 31 states now in which medical marijuana is legal. In the states that legalized recreational, it will require implementation by the legislature and that will take a period of time.
MARTIN: You know, on both of these issues on the federal level, we've seen that President-elect Trump has nominated appointments to agencies who have very different views of these issues. Andrew Puzder to - as labor secretary, he's been an executive in the fast food industry which has been a staunch opponent of efforts to increase the minimum wage. And then Senator Jeff Sessions is the nominee for attorney general. He's been an opponent of moves to legalize marijuana. I'm just wondering if these positions would affect the momentum of states in approving these laws, or will they otherwise affect the way these laws that have already been passed by the states will be implemented?
POUND: Right, they very well could. On the minimum wage, there is less effect because this is a state minimum wage. The federal minimum wage hasn't gone up, and Congress would have to act to do anything on that. On the marijuana issue, there is quite a federal-state interface. And as we know, the Obama administration has been willing to let the states experiment. Does that continue under the new leadership at the Department of Justice? I think President-elect Trump has indicated that he thought this was a matter for the states. The attorney general designee may have a different view, and that will be a key factor in what the push and pull, back and forth between the federal and state governments is this year.
MARTIN: A number of state legislatures begin their work in January. Are there some big issues that you see percolating around the country that you can tell us about that we can be thinking about and watching for?
POUND: The first one, of course, is budget and finance because that's the one thing the legislature has to do every year is pass a budget. We recently did a survey of the states on the budget, and about 10 of them have revenues that are above normal. About 10 have revenues that are below projections, and the others are pretty much on target. Now, will the economy - will that hold? That's a key question. Also they are talking with the new administration and the Republican Congress now about a number of different things, particularly in the Medicaid program which would affect the amount of federal assistance that goes in and broadly, the issue of health care and the financing of it.
MARTIN: You know, it's long been said that the states are the laboratories of democracy. Do you have any sense of whether voters feel better about their state legislatures? Do we have any sense of that?
POUND: Yes, I think you almost have to look on a state-by-state basis, but generally the state legislature is viewed more favorably than is the Congress. But generally, I think yes and some of the things they're doing - minimum wage and marijuana - are both examples of that. And in the health care, they are experimenting with a lot of different programs on insurance and trying to improve quality and decrease cost.
MARTIN: That was William Pound, executive director of the National Conference of State Legislatures. We reached him in Denver. Mr. Pound, thanks so much for joining us and happy new year to you.
POUND: Same to you, thanks.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The inauguration of President-Elect Donald Trump is just 19 days away, and coal miners nationwide are waiting to see if Mr. Trump keeps election promises he made of new jobs through reopened mines. Reid Frazier of The Allegheny Front spoke to coal miners who say they don't expect miracles, but they do want results.
REID FRAZIER, BYLINE: It's been over a year since the coal mine Dave Hathaway worked in closed. He spent most of 2016 sending out resumes, looking for work. The search gained urgency when his son Deacon was born in August.
DAVE HATHAWAY: I like when he gets milk drunk and just passes back out (laughter). Little coma.
FRAZIER: On Election Day, Hathaway made a choice he hopes will help his long-term job prospects.
HATHAWAY: I voted for Trump. I mean, a coal miner would be stupid not to.
FRAZIER: Hathaway has had a hard time finding a job to replace the $80,000 dollars he made in the coal mines under Greene County, Pa., a few miles from the West Virginia border. He just got hired at a nearby mine. He thinks the election of Donald Trump means he'll have a better shot at keeping this job even though he didn't really like a lot of the things Trump had to say during the campaign.
HATHAWAY: He is a wacko. He still - I mean, he's never going to stop being a wacko. You know what I mean? But, I mean, the things that he did say, the good stuff, was good for the coal mining community. But we'll see what happens.
FRAZIER: Trump won over coal country voters like Hathaway by promising to slash environmental regulations. That message clearly resonated in Greene County, where over the last four years a third of the coal mining jobs like Dave Hathaway's disappeared. Trump won the county by 40 points eight years after Barack Obama basically tied John McCain here. Tom Crooks witnessed the decline in coal firsthand. He's a vice president at R.G. Johnson, a construction firm that builds mine shafts.
TOM CROOKS: Two years ago this week we had 145 employees, and right now we have 22.
FRAZIER: Crooks doesn't use the phrase war on coal, but he does think federal regulations mounted by Obama's EPA have weighed down his industry. One example - the EPA's Clean Power Plan. That rule, which Trump has pledged to eliminate, limits the amount of carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. Instead, Crooks wants to see more government research into making coal as clean as possible.
CROOKS: And really what's happened over the last eight years is the smart people stopped working on coal, in part because of the way the federal government and the state governments looked at us. We just want them to start looking to coal as an option.
FRAZIER: Trump's promise of bringing the coal industry back has attracted interest from at least one Democratic lawmaker in this corner of Pennsylvania. Pam Snyder is a state representative in Greene County. Snyder invited the president-elect to visit her district to tell coal miners his specific plan to help them, but she has yet to hear back from him. Snyder won't say who she voted for, but she does think Trump can help the industry by rolling back environmental regulations.
PAM SNYDER: I care deeply about the environment. But there's a social environment, too, that I have to care deeply about. And when a big chunk of my constituency is thrown into the unemployment lines, what about that social environment?
FRAZIER: Snyder acknowledges what many here know - there's only so much Donald Trump can do to bring back coal. Probably the biggest factor in coal's decline has been the low price of natural gas, some of it produced in gas wells right here in Greene County. Even though she doesn't expect Trump to return coal to the position it once held here, at this point she'll take a modest rebound over none at all. For NPR News, I'm Reid Frazier in Waynesburg, Pa.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time for Words You'll Hear. That's where we try to understand stories we'll be hearing more about by parsing some of the words associated with them. Today, instead of a word, we have a phrase - the five levels of autonomy. And no, it is not the lecture you give to your offspring about when they're planning to move out. It's about cars, self-driving or autonomous cars. And with just about every major car company involved, the race to create a self-driving car that will appeal to the masses is on. NPR's Sonari Glinton joins us from NPR West in Culver City, Calif. to tell us more. Sonari, thanks for joining us. Happy New Year.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: Happy New Year to you.
MARTIN: So I sure want to know what this phrase levels of autonomy means. But the reason we're talking about it, I take it, is that we're going to be hearing a lot about this at the Consumer Electronics Show later this week. Can you tell me more about that?
GLINTON: Well, the Consumer Electronics Show is where a lot of robots are going to be unleashed, and one of the things is robot cars or autonomous cars or self-driving cars. Now, the Society of Automotive Engineers created these levels. They have five levels. So level one would be a little bit of driver assistance, functions like steering wheel or cruise control or adaptive cruise control. And these levels go all the way up to level five, which is no steering wheel and you don't need to do anything. The car can come to you and pick you up and doesn't need you to go at all.
MARTIN: You know, I confess - and maybe this says something about me - that that seems scary to me. So I guess that, I mean - (laughter) you know, maybe that's the challenge for the car makers - right? - is getting people like me to accept that idea.
GLINTON: Of course it is. I mean, that's - that is now their job. We understand that this technology will save lives. More than 36,000 people are likely to be killed on the roads related to automobiles in a year. We know that the driver is largely the problem. Ninety-four percent of those accidents are caused by drivers. Now, there are two approaches to easing us into this. One is the BMW approach, is the way I like to call it, and then the other is Tesla. BMW represents the sort of older school. We'll give you a little bit - a feature here, a feature there, let you feel comfortable. Adaptive cruise control, lane assist, those things, like building steps...
MARTIN: Parking assist.
GLINTON: Yeah, parking assist - building on top of each other so the idea that when it comes to take off the reins, you will be totally comfortable. Tesla's doing it in a completely different way, which is saying, well, let's get this technology into consumers' hands and let them test it out and tell us what they like and what they don't like and let them feel comfortable about it.
MARTIN: So why is the whole question of the five levels of autonomy an important concept?
GLINTON: Everyone needs to know what is expected of the vehicle and what is expected of the driver. A level zero car requires you to put your hands on the steering wheel, your eyes on the road, your foot on the gas in - to move the car. A level four will require a little bit less, but it's still going to require you to be attentive and around. You still are going to have a role for some years to come when it comes to autonomous vehicles.
MARTIN: And what approach have government regulators taken so far toward this whole question of levels of autonomy? And do you foresee that changing?
GLINTON: The Department of Transportation under the Obama administration has said we've adopted these five levels of autonomy. We see this as a way to go. And we want to regulate this industry. You won't be able to bring a car to market unless, essentially, the Department of Transportation has a say-so over it. Now, there is some ambiguity about what will happen in the next administration, but this is essentially where the industry wants to go. Not just the car makers, but the car industry around the globe is moving towards autonomous vehicles.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Sonari Glinton. He covers the auto industry, among other things, and he was kind enough to join us from NPR West in Culver City, Calif. Sonari, thank you so much for joining us. Happy New Year to you.
GLINTON: Happy New Year. It's always a pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now we're going to hear about another kind of big break. There's a new book out that puts a spotlight on the long-forgotten stories of dozens of women who fought to break through the glass ceiling of sports. The book is called "Game Changers: The Unsung Heroines Of Sports History." NPR's Shereen Marisol Meraji has more.
SHEREEN MARISOL MERAJI, BYLINE: This book is dedicated to all the women who were forever told no. That's how filmmaker Molly Schiot opens her book "Game Changers," a book inspired by her own battles with no.
MOLLY SCHIOT: So I was pitching stories to a major sports network.
MERAJI: Stories she wanted to make into documentaries for that sports network.
SCHIOT: They were all about women. And I was just told this one isn't interesting enough or this one doesn't really resonate with us or try something else.
MERAJI: Molly put the rejections in a folder...
SCHIOT: That was called failed pitches to a major sports network.
MERAJI: ...And got angry. That anger compelled her to collect even more of these stories. And she found them hidden in dusty old books at the Los Angeles Public Library.
SCHIOT: Books that, like, nobody's ever opened in - like, since the '60s.
MERAJI: She scanned the photos she found and posted them to Instagram with long captions, dusting off these old stories for a new generation under the handle @theunsungheroines. That eventually became this coffee table book. On page 224, you'll meet Linda Jefferson, a running back for the 1975 Toledo Troopers and one of only four women inducted into the American Football Association's Hall of Fame. Or get acquainted with Florence Barnes on page 150. She convinced a World War I vet to teach her to fly and in 1930 took Amelia Earhart's title as fastest woman on earth. And on page 280, say hello to the women who made all this possible.
SCHIOT: The spring pad to the Instagram feed, which later became the book, was the first story that I ever pitched. And it's based off of the Wake-Robin Golf Club.
PAULETTE SAVOY: Well, any time you're in a book and somebody says you were the inspiration for the book, well, I mean, you know, that's just fabulous.
MERAJI: Paulette Savoy's been a member of the Wake-Robin Golf Club since 1985, but it was founded about 50 years prior by wives tired of staying at home while their husbands teed up on the weekends. Wake-Robin is the first black women's golf club in the United States.
WINNIE STANFORD: The white golfers, they weren't used to seeing black women play golf. And a lot of times they used to hit the ball into our foursome.
MERAJI: Ninety-three-year-old Winnie Stanford is one of Wake-Robin's oldest members.
STANFORD: You had to make up your mind if you were going to play golf. You were - just had to put up with it as long as no one got hurt.
MERAJI: The club fought to desegregate the D.C. public golf courses. And in those early years, they put up with overt racism and sexism. And while they were fighting for integration, they played at the Langston Golf Course, an old dump the city set aside for black golfers in 1939.
SAVOY: When people were playing, sometimes they had to move junk out of the way in order to hit the ball. But at least it was our golf course and we weren't bothered.
MERAJI: That's Paulette again. She and Jean Miller, one of Wake-Robin's most decorated golfers, say things changed a lot by the time they stepped onto the green. They didn't experience the same kind of harassment Winnie dealt with early on. But then again, they're a couple decades younger.
SAVOY: Well, Winnie and I will tell you the truth. You'll never get an age out of Jean (laughter).
MERAJI: Jean's in four different clubs. She travels the world playing golf and considers herself a fierce competitor. But she says there's nothing like Wake-Robin.
JEAN MILLER: It's like coming home. Yeah, there's a whole lot of history behind this club. I'm just so grateful that they accepted me in the group.
MERAJI: Molly Schiot's the first to agree there's a whole lot of history there. And it deserves more than a page in her book.
SCHIOT: My whole pipe dream from the start was to bring their story to life.
MERAJI: And she's not taking no for an answer. Shereen Marisol Meraji, NPR News.
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Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and there's more of it in the atmosphere than there used to be. Some methane comes from farms. Some can escape from leaky oil and gas operations. It's the main component of natural gas. The Obama administration wants to reduce methane emissions. As NPR's Christopher Joyce reports, some people say the government is overreaching.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: Environmental scientist Rob Jackson at Stanford University tracks methane deep underground in drinking water, even in city sewers. He says what he sees lately is alarming.
ROB JACKSON: Methane concentrations in the atmosphere are surging faster than any time in the last 20 years. We understand some of the reason for that but not all of the reason.
JOYCE: Scientists have been pointing the finger at agriculture, especially in Asia and Africa. Feeding more people means more flooded rice fields, more livestock, more manure. But Jackson notes that there are other sources as well.
JACKSON: We also see evidence for some increase from the fossil fuel sector.
JOYCE: Drilling and transporting natural gas comes with occasional leaks. Recent research shows these leaks are more widespread than previously thought. Jackson and other scientists say the uptick in methane poses an increasing threat to the climate. The Obama administration has decided to focus on the oil and gas part of that problem. The Environmental Protection Agency has written regulations to make companies plug methane leaks. The oil and gas industry says, no thanks.
Jack Gerard, who's head of the American Petroleum Institute, recently told reporters he wants the incoming Trump administration to dump the regulations.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACK GERARD: Methane is a top priority, and we'll be pursuing that aggressively.
JOYCE: Some states and oil and gas companies have already sued to stop the regulations which are not in effect yet. Steve Leifer is an environmental lawyer at Baker Botts, a firm that represents oil and gas companies.
STEVE LEIFER: I think everybody understands that there needs to be methane regulation, and it's really a question of degree. I know the industry is very concerned. They're taking it very, very seriously.
JOYCE: And they're arguing the biggest culprit is agriculture, along with natural sources like wetlands. That may be true, but lawyer Mark Brownstein with the Environmental Defense Fund says that's a red herring.
MARK BROWNSTEIN: I think the debate over what's caused the near-term rise has served to obscure the fact that emissions are already too high.
JOYCE: Brownstein says capturing leaked methane from oil and gas operations is easier than changing agricultural practices. In fact, he says it makes economic sense. Leaked methane is money lost. The Defense Fund, along with university researchers and natural gas companies, has studied how much gas is leaking.
BROWNSTEIN: Let's keep in mind what's at stake here. We're wasting enough natural gas every year to serve the needs of 7 million homes.
JOYCE: So far, oil and gas interests are not swayed. They prefer voluntary efforts to limit leaks. The incoming administration may agree. Donald Trump says EPA regulations are a drain on business. So does his pick to run the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. Lawyer Steve Leifer says it's likely that all this will end up in court with lots of other pending environmental regulations.
LEIFER: Well, (laughter) there is no major rule that isn't going to go to court. You just can't find one.
JOYCE: Every change of administration in Washington, he notes, means more business for lawyers. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
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One of the biggest tourist attractions in southern France has been closed to the public for decades. The Lascaux cave contains prehistoric paintings too fragile for big crowds. A near-perfect replica has opened nearby. As NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports, it tries to give visitors a real cave experience.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: On a September day in 1940, while much of Europe was engulfed in war, four teenagers were walking through a forest in southern France when their dog fell down a hole. As they crawled in to rescue it, they discovered a cave with hundreds of prehistoric animals painted across its walls and ceiling. It turned out to be one of the world's best examples of prehistoric art. The Lascaux cave became a popular tourist site after the war, but it had to be sealed off to the public in 1963.
Now the French government has spent $64 million building a replica to recreate the excitement of that first discovery. As visitors walk down a ramp toward the cave's entrance, sounds of the surrounding forest on a summer day are played on speakers. Dina Casson is part of the team that designed the museum experience.
DINA CASSON: When you visit the original cave, you're actually walking through the forest with these sounds. And we wanted to hold as much of that aspect of it as we could.
BEARDSLEY: Once inside, the temperature is cooled so it feels like a real cave. As eyes adjust to the darkness, there are suddenly animals everywhere. The paintings and nearly a thousand engravings were done 20,000 years ago. Archaeologist Jean-Pierre Chadelle says these early human artists used very advanced techniques.
JEAN-PIERRE CHADELLE: (Through interpreter) You can see how they used a magnesium pencil for the black horns of this bull. And here for the softness of the muzzle they used another technique. They blew dried paint made from ochre through a tool crafted from hollow bird bones.
BEARDSLEY: Chadelle used to give tours in the original cave, but it became a victim of its own success. Museum director Guillaume Colombo says the carbon dioxide and humidity generated by all the visitors caused mold and mushrooms to form on some of the paintings.
GUILLAUME COLOMBO: (Through interpreter) Lascaux was so well-preserved for so long because it was sealed like a champagne bottle, so it wasn't affected by temperature changes. And there is a layer of clay in the soil that waterproofed the cave. That's why Lascaux has no stalagmites or stalactites.
BEARDSLEY: Once outside the cave, visitors can delve into the mysteries of these prehistoric humans and their art through interactive exhibits available in 10 languages. It's all inside a glass museum that looks as if it was slipped into a fault line on the hillside. Norwegian Thorsen Kjetilis is one of the architects. He calls the museum a link between the past and present.
THORSEN KJETILIS: It is a very contemporary building cut into the landscape, out of the landscape, just on the borderline between the vertical forest behind it and the horizontality of the farmlands in front of it.
BEARDSLEY: Lascaux IV is the third and most ambitious attempt to replicate the famous cave. Thanks to 3D digital scanning of the actual cave walls, the copy is precise down to three millimeters. Polystyrene and resin recreate every nook and cranny. High-definition images of the paintings were then projected onto the walls and copied pixel by pixel. Francis Ringenbach led the team of 34 artists during the three-year job.
FRANCIS RINGENBACH: (Through interpreter) It was emotional work because we discovered new details as we were decrypting it. And at times, I had realized I was imitating the exact gestures and strokes of the prehistoric artist.
BEARDSLEY: Ringenbach says that's when a shiver would go down his spine. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Montignac, France.
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John Grant is not your run-of-the-mill rock star. First off, he belongs to a special club of musicians who are superstars overseas but relatively unknown here in their home country. Grant was born in Michigan. There's more. He lives in Iceland, speaks four languages. He's openly gay and HIV positive. He's also a recovering addict. As Mark Daley reports, it all comes to play in Grant's music.
MARK DALEY, BYLINE: John Grant's journey from obscurity in Buchanan, Mich. to playing sold-out gigs at London's Royal Albert Hall started in the 1990s with his band The Czars.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GET USED TO IT")
THE CZARS: (Singing) I wanted that. I needed that. I anticipated this for the longest time. I want to be desired by that. I want it to infatuate me. I want to see if I can overcome without saying that.
DALEY: The Czars released eight albums over 12 years. And this was a big deal for Grant, who'd come from a home where his parents were convinced that he needed to be, quote, "fixed" because of his sexual orientation.
JOHN GRANT: When I was young, people were so disgusted by me, just disgusted, you know, I mean, the hatred. You know, before I even knew that I was gay, everybody else had it figured out and, you know, they were letting you know.
DALEY: Grant submerged self-hatred, dysfunctional relationships and anxiety in an oblivion of alcohol and drugs, even as The Czars gained critical acclaim.
GRANT: You know, I spent a lot of time caring and it drove me to really just try and annihilate my brain. And I just felt like I was going to fall apart if I didn't learn to be myself.
DALEY: The Czars split. Grant stopped drinking, and he stopped making music for a couple of years of recovery. Slowly, he says, he began to find the courage to bring his whole self out in his first two solo records. He sang about being HIV positive and railed against a bad boyfriend.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "VIETNAM")
GRANT: (Singing) It isn't complicated. You just don't care. You attack me by not saying anything. You say that you don't bring your anger to me, but it poisons every fiber of your being.
DALEY: Ultimately, Grant realized he was dealing with severe depression.
GRANT: You got to get past the point where, you know, you can't believe that you're feeling this depression. You can't believe that you can't get out of bed again. I don't know. You know, sometimes I still can't believe how much it can beat me down.
DALEY: He tried to work through it in songs that can be painfully self-aware says BBC 6 Music presenter Mary Anne Hobbs.
MARY ANNE HOBBS: I think when you assess most songwriting, even if it's based upon a true story, it's embellished in some way, you know, the narratives are fabricated. But John's lyrics, they're so true they might as well be written in blood.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JESUS HATES F*******")
GRANT: (Singing) Can't believe that I've considered taking my own life 'cause I believed the lies about me were the truth. It will be magic to watch your transformation when you realize that you've been had. It's enough to make a guy like me feel sad. 'Cause you tell me that Jesus, he hates fruit loops, son. We told you that when you were young.
DALEY: John Grant says that those close to him have questioned whether exposing so much of himself is a good thing to do.
GRANT: It can be painful sometimes. Sometimes you might be feeling like you're drudging things up, but that isn't usually what's happening. Usually you've sort of dealt with it and went through it when you wrote the song. And then when you perform it, there's just the joy of connecting with people.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GLACIER")
GRANT: (Singing) This pain, it is a glacier moving through you.
DALEY: Pioneering singer and broadcaster Tom Robinson can hear a more confident Grant in his most recent record. Robinson had a worldwide hit with "2468 Motorway" in the late 1970s, and was one of the first rockers to come out as gay and to mix music with LGBTQ liberation.
TOM ROBINSON: It's so great to hear somebody making music this unashamed and yet this irresistible. If I had heard a song like "Snug Slacks" when I was a gay teenager in the '60s, I think it could have saved me 10 or 15 years of heartache and pain.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SNUG SLACKS")
GRANT: (Singing) Do you think that life is easier when one looks as good as you do? Or do people always say that you're a narcissist?
DALEY: John Grant wants listeners to hear the fun in his music because that's part of him, too.
GRANT: I want it to be a mixture. I want it to be a mixture of pain and laughter, you know, which is a good representation of what life is like.
DALEY: For NPR News, I'm Mark Daley.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GREY TICKLES, BLACK PRESSURE")
GRANT: (Singing) I did not think I was the one being addressed in hemorrhoid commercials on the TV...
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In the U.S., there are still a lot of questions about how Donald Trump will handle his charitable foundation and private business as President. Trump has settled some of the legal problems he faces, such as the lawsuits over Trump University, but there are a number of issues the president-elect still has to deal with.
In a moment, we'll hear about one potential conflict with Trump's business interests in Indonesia. But first, here's NPR's Jim Zarroli.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Last week, Trump brushed aside questions about the conflicts of interest his various businesses pose. Standing alongside boxing promoter Don King in Palm Beach, he told reporters it was no big deal what he does with his companies.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: When I ran, people know I have a very big business. So I mean they didn't elect - they elected me I guess partially for that reason.
ZARROLI: But there are signs Trump is taking these issues seriously. He settled a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board over unionizing two hotels. After saying he'd never do so, Trump also settled a suit by disgruntled customers of Trump University. Norm Eisen, former ethics adviser to President Obama, says these are positive moves.
NORM EISEN: All of these are steps forward, and I think we should do everything we can to try to encourage him to go the rest of the way.
ZARROLI: Among the unresolved questions Trump faces is what will happen to his family charity. Trump has been accused of using funds from the Trump Foundation to make illegal political contributions and pay off expenses tied to his businesses. Former IRS official Philip Hackney says Trump probably needs to shut down the foundation.
PHILIP HACKNEY: It's kind of a legal nightmare to try and handle that organization. From my perspective, it makes a lot of legal sense to just close this thing down. I think politically, too, it makes it easier as well.
ZARROLI: In fact, on Christmas Eve, Trump announced he does want to shutter the foundation, but the New York attorney general says it has to stay open until its investigation is complete. Norm Eisen says that makes sense.
EISEN: We don't want any information to disappear into the ether when the charity closes. That's a particular problem with Donald Trump because he has a propensity for secrecy.
ZARROLI: As he settles into his enormous new job, Trump will be under growing pressure to settle the case which is likely to result in a fine at most. But it's the businesses, not the foundation, that caused the most concern. Again, Philip Hackney...
HACKNEY: It begins to eliminate a minor conflict. I really think the Trump Organization is a much more significant conflict than the Trump Foundation ever was close to being.
ZARROLI: Trump has businesses all over the world, and every decision he makes as president could be seen as having an impact on them. Ethics experts have called on Trump to sell off the properties and place the proceeds in a blind trust to avoid conflicts. Trump has said he doesn't want to do that. For now, he's promising to say what he will do at a press conference early this month. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
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It took about two years and the help of the Israeli government, but in recent weeks a farming couple from Canada has airlifted 119 sheep into Israel. The farmers are Jewish and citizens of Israel, and they say the sheep descend from an ancient breed which roamed the Holy Land during the time of the Bible. NPR's Daniel Estrin has been looking into their supposed biblical heritage and greeted them as they arrived at the airport.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: This is Israel's main airport near Tel Aviv, and an Air Canada jet has just landed with 18 sheep in cargo.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHEEP BLEATING)
ESTRIN: Farmers Jenna and Gil Lewinsky have already flown over from Canada to shepherd their sheep through customs. The sheep have Hebrew names.
JENNA LEWINSKY: Come, Israel.
GIL LEWINSKY: Come. Come. Come. Come.
J. LEWINSKY: Come, Israel. Come.
G. LEWINSKY: Come. Come.
ESTRIN: Gil Lewinsky says he and his wife Jenna are on a spiritual mission.
G. LEWINSKY: You know that Israel is built on the Jewish people returning. And now you have a case of an animal that comes from, you know, the Old Testament also returning.
ESTRIN: Their sheep are a breed called Jacob Sheep. They're found in the U.K. and North America, but the Lewinskys say the breed is originally from the Middle East. And their coats have speckles and spots, as Jacob's flock was described in the Book of Genesis. About two years ago, the Lewinskys wanted help bringing Jacob Sheep to their biblical homeland, so they contacted Eitan Weiss at the Israeli Embassy in Ottawa.
EITAN WEISS: And I was like, what the hell? I mean, sheep? I don't know, it sounded very, very odd, I had to say. But when I did the homework and when they sent me some material I said, I think this is an amazing story.
ESTRIN: The Israeli Agriculture Ministry said no. Canada is not on Israel's list of approved countries for livestock imports. But the Israeli ambassador to Canada got involved and the Agriculture Ministry granted a one-time exception for the Jacob Sheep. I wanted to learn more about the Jacob Sheep, so I visited sheep expert Elisha Gootwine at the Israeli Agriculture Ministry's Volcani Research Center.
ELISHA GOOTWINE: Jacob Sheep are related to Jacob the same as the American Indians are related to India (laughter).
ESTRIN: He says Jacob Sheep are a British breed. They got their name in the late 19th century because their spots and speckles called to mind Jacob's sheep from the Bible. He says all sheep can be traced back to the region because sheep were first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. But the Jacob Sheep breed was not indigenous to ancient Israel.
GOOTWINE: Anyway, it's a nice breed and people will be happy to see it. That's - and a good - it is a good story for journalists (laughter). Not for scientists.
ESTRIN: So it's just - it's a myth.
GOOTWINE: It's a - yes. But what is wrong with myth? If you enjoy it, why not?
ESTRIN: The Lewinsky farmers say it's not a myth. They've traced the Jacob Sheep's roots from ancient Israel to the Iberian Peninsula to England to North America and now to Israel. Jewish and Christian donors have contributed to help bring the sheep to Israel and help the Lewinskys set up a farm near Jerusalem, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry is planning a welcome home ceremony for the animals. Is Israel their original home? The Foreign Ministry's Eitan Weiss told me he sees it as a matter of faith. Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Jerusalem.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAMBCHOP SONG, "UP WITH PEOPLE")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
For nearly a century, New Yorkers waited and waited for a subway extension along Second Avenue on Manhattan's east side. Yesterday, this urban legend came true. From member station WNYC in New York, Steven Nessen reports.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Cheering).
STEPHEN NESSEN, BYLINE: New Yorkers don't usually cheer when a subway leaves the station, but this wasn't just any subway or any old station. To understand why hundreds came out New Year's Day to ride a train, you have to go back to the 1920s. That's when the idea for a subway line on Second Avenue was first floated, but then the Depression hit. The idea was revived again in the 1950s as a replacement for the elevated trains.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: But the old steel skeleton outlived its usefulness. Passengers dwindled, and so the El is being torn down.
NESSEN: But city planner Robert Moses decided to spend money building expressways instead. In 1968, for the first time, the city got federal funding to build a subway on Second Avenue. It was expected to cost $220 million. The TV show "Mad Men" even worked in a reference to the plan that year.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MAD MEN")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (As character) Believe me, when they finish the Second Avenue Subway, this apartment will quadruple in value.
NESSEN: That didn't happen. In 1975, the city was broke. By the 1990s, overcrowding on the sole East Side line had become untenable so the idea for a second Avenue subway line was revived. And in 2004, a plan was approved. The first phase would include three new stations that go from 72nd to 96th St. The Metropolitan Transit Authority even gave a deadline - 2013, and a cost - $3.8 billion. But the public was skeptical, as that deadline was pushed back to 2015 and costs crept up. The MTA finally settled on December 31, 2016.
On New Year's Eve at a newly-renovated station on 72nd St., Governor Andrew Cuomo held an opening night party. There was a five-piece band. A newsstand was converted into a beer bar. And the cavernous station was filled with purple, pink and orange lights. Cuomo helped secure more than a billion dollars in federal funding for the project and the MTA. He also appoints their board members. At the New Year's Eve party, he told the more than 500 invited guests that the Second Avenue Subway is vindication of his vision.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANDREW CUOMO: We needed to show people that government works, and we can still do big things and we can still get them done.
NESSEN: The final costs for the three stations and two miles of track was $4.5 billion. And on Sunday morning, it officially opened to the public.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Let's open up the subway.
NESSEN: Fifty-year-old old Lillian Redl, who lives nearby, was there.
LILLIAN REDL: I am so excited. I've been waiting for this for years, and I'm thrilled to be on the first train.
NESSEN: She says the new line will shave nearly 20 minutes off her commute. And the new station's filled with colorful tile art, including 12 portraits by the artist Chuck Close, are snazzy.
REDL: I love the high ceilings. It looks like there might be some soundproofing and I'm really pleased about that.
NESSEN: And this announcement is sweet music to her ears.
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: This is a Brooklyn-bound Q train via the Second Avenue Line.
NESSEN: Nine-year-old train enthusiastic Jared Margulis was impressed with the clean elevators, but had one suggestion.
JARED MARGULIS: I think they got to work on the train because the train did not say the right stop the train is going to.
NESSEN: Residents are concerned that the new line will also bring higher rents that could push long-time tenants out. The next phase will extend the line to a 125th St. and is estimated to cost $6 billion. Tunneling could start in the next two years. For NPR News, I'm Stephen Nessen in New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE CURE SONG, "SUBWAY SONG")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In Turkey, there's a massive search underway for the person who opened fire at an Istanbul nightclub early on New Year's Day. Thirty-nine people died. Many more were wounded. Now, so far, the government says it has detained eight people but that the gunman is not among them. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.
And we'll hear more about the group and how it grew into a major threat to Turkey in a moment, but first, NPR's Peter Kenyon has the latest from Istanbul.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken).
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Monday morning rush hour traffic in the Ortakoy neighborhood wound past the Reina nightclub, covered with a tarp and a large Turkish flag. Turks learned that ISIS said in a web statement that it was behind the latest act of terror to strike Turkey's largest city. They also heard of eight detentions of people authorities say are possibly connected to the attack but not the gunman, who officials still say likely acted alone.
Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus emerged from a cabinet meeting to say investigators are making progress, particularly with the fingerprints of the attacker and his basic description, which was circulated to the media in the form of a grainy image taken from security footage.
Kurtulmus says the message ISIS sent with this New Year's attack is clear - that it intends to make 2017 just as painful for Turkey as 2016 was. Heard here through an interpreter, he says Turkey has its own message for the terrorist group.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NUMAN KURTULMUS: (Through interpreter) So once again, we would like to reiterate the fact that no matter what plan you make, Turkey will continue to fight against terror within and outside its boundaries. We have the power and the capacity to do this.
KENYON: Kurtulmus also says Turkey has a message for the international community. Stop imposing double standards on the fight against terrorism.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KURTULMUS: (Through interpreter) Every time we have terrorist attacks, we see crocodile tears by the international community. And they just condemn these attacks, but they have such important intelligence capacity.
KENYON: Which should be shared with Turkey, Kurtulmus said. Beyond calling for more intelligence sharing on potential terror threats, Turkey is also trying to pressure the U.S. on the fighting in northern Syria. Ankara wants the U.S. to end its support for Syrian Kurdish fighters that are part of the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition. Ankara sees them as allies of the Kurdish militants its army is busy fighting in Turkey.
As the search for the gunman continues, bodies of the more than two dozen foreign nationals killed at the nightclub are beginning to return home. Turks are attending funerals for the Turkish victims, and everyone's wondering when and where the next attack may strike. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Istanbul.
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We're going to learn more about the complex relationship between Turkey and ISIS. Joining us to discuss this is Omer Taspinar. He's a professor of national security strategy at the National War College. Welcome to the program.
OMER TASPINAR: Thank you for having me.
CORNISH: Now, for long time, fighters of all kinds in the neighboring Syrian war were crossing in and out of Turkey, right? And that included ISIS fighters. In what ways did they use the country as a base?
TASPINAR: Well, geographic proximity itself was a major factor. Turkey has a very long border with Syria, and a lot of the jihadist fighters who came from the West, especially Europe, basically flew to Istanbul. And the border with Syria is just one bus stop away. Turkey also, for a very long time, turned a blind eye to jihadist infiltration to Syria on the grounds that some of these jihadists were just fighting a tyrannical regime, the regime of Bashar Assad.
And to top that, Turkey was very concerned about Kurdish independence in Syria. There are Kurdish groups in northern Syria, and the Islamists fighting against Bashar Assad were also fighting against the Kurds, who are more secular and nationalist group. So Turkey had reasons in a way to not worry too much about Islamist infiltration of Turkey and Syria, and it paid the price down the line.
CORNISH: What do you consider the turning point when Turkey was no longer turning this blind eye to the activities of ISIS over its borders?
TASPINAR: Mainly when ISIS began to target Turkey itself. When ISIS targeted the Istanbul international airport last summer and killed 50 people, that caused a lot of damage for Turkish tourism, for Turkish economy. So Turkey began to realize that these Islamic groups, these radical Islamic groups, were not really in Turkey's interest in terms of fighting the regime in Damascus or the Kurdish groups in northern Syria.
In my opinion, in that sense, the turning point was when ISIL began to attack Turkey. But as long as ISIL targeted the Kurdish groups, on the other hand, in Turkey, the Turkish government continued to have turned a blind eye to ISIL activities.
CORNISH: Now, there was a time when ISIS wouldn't, like, formally claim credit for terror attacks in Turkey even when officials cited them as responsible. And then this attack over the weekend is being considered the exception. Do you see this as a sign that ISIS has become bolder in antagonizing Turkey?
TASPINAR: I see this as a sign that ISIL no longer wants to have any kind of good relations with the Turkish government. In the past, there was a hope that somehow Turkey could be a country that would help the Islamic cause. And there was a sense that Erdogan was on the right side of the war in Syria, fighting against Bashar Assad. Whereas today, Turkey is not only engaged in a war against ISIL on the ground in Syria, but Turkey has also allied itself with Russia and Iran and has brokered a ceasefire in Syria.
But there's a sense that Turkey's no longer really determined to fight the regime of Bashar Assad. And ISIL has become more determined in hitting not just Kurdish targets but these kind of Turkish targets and making it known that it is them hitting Turkey, which is I think a sign that they're growing more confident.
CORNISH: We've been hearing that Turkish officials are promising to fight a terror threat, and they say that they have the power. They say they have the capacity to take this on. From what we know, do they?
TASPINAR: There is definitely a growing sense of determination in terms of fighting terrorism. However, in the last few months, the Turkish government, the Turkish state has engaged in a major purge of the security and military establishment, including the intelligence community, mainly because a lot of people from the Gulen movement, which is an Islamic movement seen by the Turkish government as the mastermind of the attempted coup last summer - and when you have such a major crackdown with thousands of people being fired, discharged, this is bound to create a certain vacuum, a certain problem in terms of capacity and personnel.
And in that sense, I think Turkey has the political will to fight terrorism, but it is lacking now in terms of human capital, human intelligence and the capacity to fight terrorism more effectively, especially in terms of connecting the dots in terms of these intelligence problems.
CORNISH: Omer Taspinar is a professor at the National War College and a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. Thank you for coming in.
TASPINAR: Thank you.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In New York, some 150 poets wailed, whispered and rang in the New Year in verse. They were part of the annual New Year's Day marathon reading at the St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. The event is part of the poetry project, which has for the last 50 years supported the work of contemporary poets. Tom Vitale has more.
TOM VITALE, BYLINE: Bob Rosenthal stood at the podium in the sanctuary of St. Mark's yesterday afternoon and read "Ode to Mendacity."
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BOB ROSENTHAL: (Reading) If I were not in love with all things untrue, I, too, would be lacerated and drained. But I love a generous falsity.
VITALE: Rosenthal wrote this poem specifically to read at the marathon. He says it's about the nature of truth and lies in the wake of the presidential election.
ROSENTHAL: And about how we all share a part in accepting official lies and being controlled by them. We all have to own a part of whatever the results of the election mean to us.
VITALE: The New Year's Day Marathon poetry reading is a tradition that dates back to 1974. It was the brainchild of the poetry project's co-founder Anne Waldman.
ANNE WALDMAN: It's this idea of very naked, open, people speaking from their heart. It's the new year. You want to come with some kind of vision of what it's going to be like.
VITALE: The poetry project archived those visions and donated its recordings to the Library of Congress. Two years after the New Year's Day event launched, Ed Sanders began with a prescient call to arms.
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ED SANDERS: (Reading) This is the age of investigation, and every citizen must investigate, for the pallid tracks of guilt and death, slight as they are, suffuse upon the retentive electromagnetic data retrieval systems of our era.
VITALE: Sanders was followed by composer John Cage reading a work derived from excerpts of Henry David Thoreau's journals randomly arranged by chance.
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JOHN CAGE: (Reading) Wasps are building summer squashes, saw a fish hawk when I hear this. Both bushes and trees are thinly leaved, few ripe ones on sandy banks.
VITALE: Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Spalding Gray, Amiri Baraka, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith and Philip Glass have all performed at the event. The first reader at this year's marathon, Marcella Durand, says poetry is a tool for reflection at the beginning of a new year.
MARCELLA DURAND: Poetry is mysterious, and it's not quantifiable. It's not countable. It's a counterweight to all the pressures and consumerism in our everyday lives. It's another dimension that reminds you that life can be richer and fuller and quieter and deeper.
VITALE: The late poet William Carlos Williams wrote, it is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. Marathon founder Anne Waldman says that in the so-called post-truth fog of 2017, we need poetry now more than ever.
WALDMAN: There's talk of, this will be a good time for poetry, you know, when things get darker and stranger and your very speech is being questioned and the sense of trusting that human thing.
VITALE: Anne Waldman says the role of poetry is to wake the world up to itself or, as Ed Sanders put it four decades ago...
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SANDERS: This is the poets' era, and we should all walk crinkle-toed upon the smooth, cold thrill of Botticelli's shell. Happy New Year.
VITALE: For NPR News, I'm Tom Vitale in New York.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Evangelical Christians are the fastest-growing political movement in Brazil. Their might was on display in 2016. They encouraged the Brazilian Congress to impeach the president. But as their strength grows in Brazil, so does the diversity of their political views. Catherine Osborn reports.
RONILSO PACHECO: (Speaking Portuguese).
CATHERINE OSBORN, BYLINE: On a recent night in Rio de Janeiro, 40-year-old Ronilso Pacheco spoke to a crowd assembled in a downtown square. Pacheco's black, wears a T-shirt and short dreadlocks and reaches his long arms out when he speaks.
PACHECO: (Speaking Portuguese).
OSBORN: He quotes the book of Acts. The multitude of believers are of one soul and heart.
PACHECO: (Speaking Portuguese).
OSBORN: "This is about the power of joining forces," he says, "not to obey groupthink but to subvert it" - crucial in a place like Rio where inequality and urban violence are the status quo. Pacheco, a Brazilian Baptist, is part of a growing group of progressive evangelicals who go against the current of conservative evangelical megachurches.
PACHECO: (Speaking Portuguese).
OSBORN: What Pacheco describes as a call for disobedient Christians has attracted people like high school student Jessica Lene. She's 18 and grew up going to the evangelical church in her low-income neighborhood, or favela, of Manguinhos.
JESSICA LENE: (Speaking Portuguese).
OSBORN: There, she says issues that she thinks are important don't get discussed. One is abortion - illegal but still common in Brazil and especially dangerous for poor women. Another is the effect of the war on drugs on her community, where any day could be interrupted by gunfire. She says her pastor tells her to face difficulties by having faith so she'll go to heaven.
LENE: (Speaking Portuguese).
OSBORN: But she thinks there's work to be done here on Earth, and that's exactly what Pacheco preaches about. He finds inspiration from the 1960s in Brazil when progressive Protestants mixed with Catholic liberation theologists to become major players in leftist organizing. Here's theologian Lusmarina Campos Garcia.
LUZMARINA CAMPOS GARCIA: As Brazil has been historically a country where there are too many differences between the rich and the poor, churches started being concerned about all these differences. And they started thinking, OK, so how do we act?
OSBORN: The key, says Garcia, is these groups took a structural look at problems. They talked about not only inequality but also capitalism, not only urban violence but also the role of prisons.
Based on these views, today's progressive evangelicals founded a network that supports social activists in 10 Brazilian states. Conservative evangelical churches, including that of Rio's new mayor, teach a different approach.
GARCIA: Their morality is very much centered in the individual in their own private lives than in social or historical structures.
OSBORN: Their leaders have pushed back against the increasingly organized evangelical progressives. One influential pastor, Silas Malafaia, told his followers in a video message never to vote for any leftist parties.
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SILAS MALAFAIA: (Speaking Portuguese).
OSBORN: "We follow Jesus, not Marx, whose ideology has failed," he says. Political clashes among Brazilian evangelicals are likely to intensify in upcoming debates over gun control and incarceration. And so for preachers like Pacheco, work continues one conversation at a time. He speaks in plazas, on the street and in favelas like Manguinhos, home to frequent conflict between police and drug traffickers.
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PACHECO: (Speaking Portuguese).
OSBORN: There, Pacheco spoke recently at a memorial for an unarmed 18-year-old who was killed by the police. It was held in a public basketball court to encourage neighbors to join. But as things were getting started, the residents had to instinctively duck down when they heard a noise in the distance.
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OSBORN: The shots didn't continue, so the service rolled forward. Pacheco explained that racism is part of what determines which neighborhoods suffer the most gun violence. It resonated with Lene.
LENE: (Speaking Portuguese).
OSBORN: She says listening to a discussion of Jesus as an activist gives her hope. She agrees with Pacheco that what's sacred is not a far off future but today's difficult journey to making things right. For NPR News, I'm Catherine Osborn in Rio de Janeiro.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Technology was front and center in many of 2016's biggest stories. Just look at the headlines from last week with President Obama announcing measures to punish Russia for cyber meddling in our presidential election. There's no reason to think 2017 will be any different. So on this first All Tech Considered segment of the new year, we listen in as members of NPR's tech team discuss what developments they'll cover in the year ahead.
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AARTI SHAHANI, BYLINE: This is Aarti Shahani. I'm the tech reporter for NPR, and I am in San Francisco.
ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: I'm Alina Selyukh, and I'm the tech blogger in Washington.
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: And I'm Uri Berliner. I'm the tech editor, and I'm here in Washington, too. Hey, Aarti, you're out there in California. You're covering some of the most powerful companies in the world, and as this new year starts, what are the big stories you're following?
SHAHANI: Oh, first of all, Happy New Year to everyone.
SELYUKH: Happy New Year.
BERLINER: Happy New Year.
SHAHANI: (Laughter) I think that I'm continuing this year with what I ended on last year, which is a lot of focus on Facebook. It is a company that is doing extraordinarily well I mean financially, in terms of users. And at the same time, I mean if you stop and think about Facebook's reputation right now, it's been through some real damage.
People question whether Facebook cares about real news and wants to, you know, protect people against fake news. And I do wonder if they're going to take more seriously the crisis they're having with managing their content and also if they're going to start changing who they hire, creating new kinds of positions that show inside the company that they want to change their culture.
SELYUKH: Do you think they're going to have sort of a year of mea culpa at Facebook? Do you think this will really shake them up?
SHAHANI: You know, mea culpa I think is a sort of non-celebratory way to put it (laughter). And from what I gather, the company - they tend to feel pretty good about themselves. And so, you know, if I were to put it this way - I was kind of thinking of an analogy. And of course I'm going to bring it back to a party because I like to go out.
But I remember when I first moved to Silicon Valley from New York. Something that really blew my mind was I kept meeting these engineers who were brilliant but also very low EQ - what we call emotional intelligence. And in some ways, I think that Facebook embodies that exact same kind of person but at a company level.
BERLINER: Aarti, are those fun people to hang out with at parties?
SHAHANI: (Laughter) For a bit. They get things done. They get things done and more than they even expect, right? I mean, like, one of the big lessons of Facebook is you could call it a kind of Frankenstein's monster at some point. They've grown so rapidly and had way more impact than they ever imagined.
BERLINER: So Alina, it's almost like we've become numb to hacks, or we're still reeling from all the hacks. And I know you've covered a lot of them. And just what are the ramifications of all the hacks that we've just been through in the past year?
SELYUKH: I think you're right that there is this sort of numbness. There's this sort of sense of complacency almost among people about these hacks. Nobody's surprised by them anymore. We had major hacks last year. The first of the Yahoo hacks was supposed to be the largest known in history. Then came the second Yahoo hack, which blew that record completely.
SHAHANI: (Laughter).
SELYUKH: And then of course we had another hack that just completely surprised everyone, which was a hack of this company called Dyn. And they just got bombarded with denial of service attack. And I think that was a moment a lot of people realized that all of these Wi-Fi connected things in our homes, in our wrists or whatever could become part of a major hack that we as people who follow this industry may not have anticipated a couple of years ago.
BERLINER: That's the one that kind of freaked me out. Like, you look at that cool new thermostat you put in your house, and all of a sudden, that's the conduit through which hackers get at you. And it's like it becomes kind of a little more ominous, the whole thing, right?
SELYUKH: And I think...
SHAHANI: I got to say. Like, my big lesson in the hack-fest is that our numbness is largely because we're not really sure (laughter), you know, what the harm is. But I also think we're beginning to see how powerful hacked information can be, whether it's in the form of swinging an election or swinging the stock market.
BERLINER: Well, let's just talk about it. I mean 2017 - we're about to have a new president. And President Obama was an ally, a friend of Silicon Valley. They liked him. President Trump - he's much more of a wildcard. What's going on in Silicon Valley? What are the leaders there thinking about with this new administration?
SHAHANI: We don't know how different it's going to be. We just know that Trump is a wildcard. I mean, like, you know, it's funny. The companies here - the major companies - they did not think he was going to win. You talk to people over there - you know, off-the-record conversations with some very high-level people - and they just felt blindsided, which is very interesting for business leaders because business leaders take pride in sort of knowing what's going to happen in the world and making the right bets.
BERLINER: So they didn't have a...
SHAHANI: And that's not what happened.
BERLINER: So they didn't have a plan B, like, in case Trump won?
SHAHANI: I didn't hear a plan B, but I did very quickly hear, you know, over the course of a few weeks a sort of range of responses. One thing that I think is going to really happen is, I think we're going to see some of the major tech companies being forced to come out or deciding to preemptively come out and say something about job training and training people who are no longer employed because software ate their job.
SELYUKH: You know, one of the first conversations you had with a tech leader was with Apple CEO Tim Cook, where he pressed for Apple to build plants in the United States. Like, that is was a very tangible conversation, but it's not one that the tech companies particularly wanted to have.
And so I think there will be a recalibration of how they talk about the industry's impact on the economy. And we have heard that their interest - the thing that they're hoping to get out of this new administration is a new focus on taxes and immigration.
BERLINER: OK, any, like, bets on something really unpredictable happening this year in tech?
SHAHANI: I think that virtual reality headsets and software platforms will get good enough so that you can have remote dates that are a lot of fun.
SELYUKH: And I was going to say that artificial intelligence is going to move on to a point where computers are going to learn all kinds of new skills like a computer. Like, an IBM Watson learns to dance. IBM Watson learns to cook you a meal.
BERLINER: Yeah, I don't have a prediction. I'm going to wait and see. Any journalist worth his salt knows to stay away from predictions right now.
SHAHANI: Oh, come on, Uri.
BERLINER: So I'm going to bail out of that.
SHAHANI: Put a little bitcoin on it.
BERLINER: No, no, no. I'll bet on sports but not on tech.
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CORNISH: That's NPR tech editor Uri Berliner chatting with tech reporters Aarti Shahani and Alina Selyukh. If you've got an idea you think the tech team should cover, get in touch. They're on Twitter @npralltech.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Let's take a moment to recognize one of last year's tech breakthroughs.
TIFFANY BEERS: We have what we call a lace engine.
CORNISH: That's Tiffany Beers, a senior innovator with Nike. The lace engine she's referring to is a motor, battery and control board combo hidden in the bottom of a new Nike shoe.
BEERS: When a user steps into the shoe, when their heel touches the foot bed, it triggers a sensor. What that sensor does is it tells it that the foot's there and that go ahead and tighten.
CORNISH: And after that, with the press of a button, hands are no longer required for tying shoelaces. Beers says it's more than a high-tech fashion statement.
BEERS: If you don't have any challenges tying your shoes, it maybe doesn't change your life very much. But for anyone that has any trouble tying their shoes and getting into their shoes, you know, spending 20 minutes a day maybe putting on your shoes, I get letters from kids all the time that have various challenges. For them, this is a complete game changer.
CORNISH: Now if you want this technology in your sneakers, you can buy it, but it'll cost you $720.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump will take the oath of office in a couple of weeks. We'll hear about some controversy surrounding his inauguration in a moment - first a story about preparations of a different kind. In many cities, local officials are getting ready to defy Trump if he carries through on a campaign pledge to deport millions of people in the U.S. illegally. NPR's Adrian Florido reports.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Days after the election, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said his city will protect immigrants should Trump try to make good on his promises.
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BILL DE BLASIO: If the federal government wants our police officers to tear immigrant families apart, we will refuse to do it.
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FLORIDO: In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti recently announced a $10 million fund to provide lawyers for immigrants facing deportation. The money will be both public and privately donated.
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ERIC GARCETTI: We don't know how far the new administration will go when it comes to our nation's immigration policy, but we all heard the rhetoric, the dangerous rhetoric, of the election.
FLORIDO: Since winning, Donald Trump seems to have backed off of his campaign promise to deport all 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, saying he'll instead focus on immigrants with criminal records. He's also promised to punish cities that don't cooperate. Nonetheless, local leaders in at least 30 states from Arizona to Iowa to Pennsylvania have said they will resist. And their defiance is in turn emboldening grassroots activists. They sense an opportunity to push local leaders further to protect immigrants than they may have been willing to go in the past. At a Mexican restaurant in Durham, N.C. recently, a group of advocates talked strategy over breakfast.
VIRIDIANA MARTINEZ: Like, even if he's guilty, why does he have to deal with an ICE hold, you know?
FLORIDO: Among them was Viridiana Martinez, a 30-year-old who has lived illegally in this country since she was 7. A few years ago, she was among the activists lobbying for the president to protect young immigrants like her from deportation. He ultimately did that with the DACA program. Something else they've been trying to do for years is convince cities to kick immigration or ICE agents out of local jails, where police often turn people over to ICE custody.
MARTINEZ: So this is the thing is, like, how do you break up that collaboration? And, like, the only place that I can think of where that could be pulled off is here.
FLORIDO: She thinks this is possible here because of Durham's immigrant-friendly city council which even before Trump won had directed police to make immigration its last priority. Most of Durham's recent population growth is due to immigration, both legal and illegal. Steve Schewel is a councilman.
STEVE SCHEWEL: What's more important? Is it more important to use your police resources to try to stop violent crime? Or is it more important to use your resources to enforce draconian immigration rules that you don't even believe in?
FLORIDO: He says the city won't know how to respond to Trump until it's clear what the new president is actually going to do. But Schewel says the city will fight back if it has to.
SCHEWEL: We are deeply committed to our immigrant population and its safety.
FLORIDO: Local activists like Viridiana Martinez already have ideas of what they want the council to do. On the one hand, she says this momentum is exciting. On the other, she says it's frustrating that in many places it seems to have been Trump's election that finally got leaders to take a hard stance.
MARTINEZ: Because the reality is we just came out of a presidency where the administration has deported more people than any other.
FLORIDO: This is true. By the time President Obama leaves office, it appears his administration will have deported more than 3 million people. Obama often sold himself as a champion of immigrants, acting unilaterally to create the DACA program, for example. But his strategy to gain support for a broader immigration bill also included showing that he could be tough on enforcement.
CHRIS NEWMAN: And I think it is just a fact that that bet failed to pay off and also had consequences.
FLORIDO: Chris Newman of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network says one of them is that a lot of the local officials now promising to fight Trump's deportation plan did not stand up to Obama's, even though his administration did devastate many immigrant families in their cities.
NEWMAN: And he was able to, on a certain level, get away with it as long as people believed that he was also in favor of comprehensive immigration reform.
FLORIDO: Now that immigration reform seems less likely than ever, Newman says many local leaders are realizing it may be up to them to defend immigrants. Some cities like LA, New York, Chicago are leading the way. Other cities across the country say they'll develop their own plans in the weeks to come. Adrian Florido, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump's team reportedly has had trouble securing top performers for his inauguration. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is an exception. The booking has divided members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including choir members themselves. From member station KUER in Salt Lake City, Nicole Nixon reports.
NICOLE NIXON, BYLINE: This will be the choir's sixth appearance at a presidential inauguration. It also performed for presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. and George W. Bush.
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MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR: (Singing) Glory, glory, hallelujah.
NIXON: Ronald Reagan was moved to tears by the choir's performance of "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic" at his 1981 inaugural parade.
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MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR: (Singing) Glory, glory, hallelujah, his truth is marching on.
NIXON: Reagan called the group America's Choir, a nickname it's proudly used ever since. Standing outside the Salt Lake Tabernacle, Mormon and Utah resident Jason Wanlass says when he heard that the choir had been invited to perform at another presidential inauguration, he was excited.
JASON WANLASS: I don't see it as supporting Trump or not supporting Trump. I see it as supporting an American tradition, which is the presidential inauguration.
NIXON: That patriotic sentiment is shared by many Mormons. But Trump was not popular here throughout the campaign. In Utah's Republican primary, he came in third place after Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Trump ended up winning the general election in Utah. But with 46 percent of the vote, he was the lowest-performing Republican presidential nominee in the majority Mormon state in more than 20 years. Erika Munson calls the choir's performance at the inauguration a conflict of principles.
ERIKA MUNSON: Because on the one hand, you have unity and patriotism, but on the other hand, you have the value of love and care for every human being that Christ taught.
NIXON: Munson co-founded a pro-LGBT rights group called Mormons Building Bridges, and she does not want her church to be connected to Donald Trump because of the comments he's made about women, minority groups and immigrants. But Munson's family is an example of how much this performance is dividing Mormons. Her husband sings in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and will be performing at Trump's inauguration.
MUNSON: For him, he feels like it's his duty to support the Constitution and the inaugural process. And as a citizen, he thinks that's important. He didn't vote for Trump. He doesn't like Trump one bit.
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ERIC HAWKINS: It is a demonstration of our support for freedom, civility and the peaceful transition of power.
NIXON: In a statement, LDS church spokesman Eric Hawkins acknowledged the mixed response among church members and reiterated that the church is politically neutral.
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HAWKINS: The choir's participation continues its long tradition of performing for U.S. presidents of both parties at inaugurations and in other settings, and is not an implied support of party affiliations or politics.
NIXON: That statement wasn't good enough for at least one choir member. Soprano Jan Chamberlin resigned from the group last week in protest, writing on her Facebook page that the performance would look like an endorsement of Trump and all the divisive rhetoric of the 2016 campaign. For NPR News, I'm Nicole Nixon in Salt Lake City.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In Iraq, a few miles from the frontlines of the war with ISIS looms another threat - the Mosul Dam. It's a massive piece of infrastructure that regulates the Tigris River and generates power to the region. But the dam also sits on weak rock that's rapidly eroding. For years, engineers have been warning that the dam is in danger of collapsing and creating a massive flood that could kill more than a million people. With the recent fighting, their calls have taken on new urgency.
Dexter Filkins recently visited the dam and writes about it in this week's New Yorker magazine. Welcome to the program.
DEXTER FILKINS: Hi.
CORNISH: So you actually went to this dam. And what was it like, and were you scared?
FILKINS: I did. I went to the dam. Well, it's - you know, it's enormous - you know, oceans of cement with this enormous lake behind it. But then I actually ventured into what's called the gallery of the dam, which is the very bottom of the dam. And so you can literally - when you're down there with all the workers, it feels like a mine shaft.
And what was so kind of scary was, it's wet. I mean the water - you know, the giant reservoir is pressing up against the walls right there, and the water's coming through. And you know, everything - everybody's splashing around, and they're trying to find these giant cavities underneath the dam, and they're basically very inexact. I mean it's kind of - again, kind of frightening.
They're sort of poking holes in the floor of the dam, and geysers are shooting up. And it's, like - that means there's a sinkhole under the dam. And so then they wheel up these enormous pumps, and they start pumping cement into it until they can't pump anymore. And that's about as exact as it gets.
CORNISH: Can you give us some sense? What are the scenarios should the dam collapse or be weakened?
FILKINS: It's pretty mind-boggling. Both the United States government and the United Nations have run kind of computer models. And I mean for starters, if the dam cracks, then the whole damn will essentially be gone in 12 hours. And what you would have likely is a hundred-foot wall of water that's probably a mile wide rolling down the Tigris.
And so Mosul, which is a city of 2 million people, would be under 80 feet of water in less than an hour. Most of Iraq's population lives along the Tigris River all the way down to Baghdad, all the way down to Basra. And I think that's the great fear, is that all of the population centers of Iraq would essentially be submerged.
And so the wave they imagine would take about three to four days to reach Baghdad. By the time it got there, it would be about 16 feet high. That's high enough to submerge most of the buildings in Baghdad. It would it would probably submerge the international airport. That would prevent relief crews from coming in.
And what is also terrifying is the level of concern that exists within the U.S. government over the likelihood of the dam's collapse. I mean you start reading these documents, and you're like, oh, my God, these guys are really worried.
CORNISH: As we mentioned, Iraq is obviously still dealing with a war. And how likely do you think it will be that they'll be able to fix this problem or to avoid the catastrophe you're describing?
FILKINS: Well, it's very strange. I mean you're at the dam, and it's this kind of looming - I guess what amounts to an environmental catastrophe. But the ISIS front lines are almost close enough to see. They're just a few miles down the road.
There's a team of Italian engineers - they're from an Italian dam construction company - that has been flown in. They feel pretty confident that they can fix it in time. I think that on one hand, they feel confident, but on the other, when you really sit down and talk with most of the engineers who've studied the problem here, they all say the same thing, which is, the dam is great.
It was really well built, but it's in the wrong place because of the geology underneath the dam. And it's always going to be in the wrong place. And I think when you take that fact and you put it in a place like Iraq where the politics are simply not stable enough to have any kind of predictability, you realize why we're in the problem that we're in.
CORNISH: Dexter Filkins is a staff writer for The New Yorker. Thank you for speaking with us.
FILKINS: Thank you so much.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Just last month, Donald Trump said that he would leave his businesses in the hands of his children. The president-elect announced on Twitter that there would be no new deals done during my terms in office. But the Trump organization has been moving forward with two projects in Indonesia, projects that put Trump into partnership with major political figures there. Eric Lipton writes about this in The New York Times. He joins us now via Skype. Welcome to the program.
ERIC LIPTON: Thank you.
CORNISH: So the deals you write about in Indonesia are for two resorts that will essentially, as I understand it, license the Trump name and be managed by Trump businesses. Who are these Indonesia business contacts?
LIPTON: The primary partner there is a billionaire media figure who is known by short name of Hary Tanoe and is building these projects in Bali and Lido in two prominent resort areas in Indonesia. And so there are resort developments with golf courses, and they will be branded as Trump buildings, and they will be managed by the Trump Organization.
CORNISH: Now, how close are these relationships, and why do they raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest?
LIPTON: In the case of a business partner who is going to be developing the hotels, he and the Trump family have become relatively close. There are many photographs of them with Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump. He visited the Trump Towers. And they are side partners in this deal, and a deal which is already paying somewhere between $1 million and $10 million a year - that's a big range but we don't know the exact amount, it's in the financial disclosure reports - to the Trump Organization. So they are going to be working quite closely because not only will the Trump name be on those towers, but the Trump Organization will be managing the properties.
CORNISH: Now, in what ways could this complicate the U.S. relationship with Indonesia? Is that the concern here?
LIPTON: Any time you have a president whose family is involved in international financial business arrangements, it creates at a minimum a question as to will those business relationships affect the president or his administration in terms of how they interact with that foreign country. And so simply having a business relationship with a prominent, you know, businessman in that country is an unusual and unprecedented thing in American history. On the surface there's that, but then in this case it's more complicated because his business partner in Indonesia has political ambitions himself. He ran for vice president unsuccessfully. And he's talking already about possibly running for president of Indonesia. So this guy is a political figure as well as a business leader.
CORNISH: We've heard about how the Trump family has been dealing with their charitable foundations and projects. Can you talk about what action the Trump Organization has taken in the aftermath of the election? Have we actually seen fewer deals or deals dropped? What's been going on?
LIPTON: There have been a number of deals that they are pulling out of or they're terminating including in Argentina, in Brazil, in Azerbaijan, in the country of Georgia, and at least one project in India that they have told The New York Times in a series of interviews that they are no longer going to go ahead with. In some cases, for example, there's a hotel in Rio that is already constructed that they're going to remove the Trump name from. And there's also a building in Azerbaijan that's largely completed which that - will no longer have the Trump name, but it has not yet opened. And in those cases, they're saying that the partners did not comply with the standards of the marketing and branding agreements, and so therefore they are terminating those.
So there are quite a number in different places around the world where they are pulling out of, and that will make their situation slightly less complicated. But there are still many others that will be on the books and continue to go forward while he's president.
CORNISH: Eric Lipton is an investigative reporter for The New York Times. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us.
LIPTON: Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
For many of us a new year means a clean start, the chance to toss out things we don't need anymore or get rid of bad habits. Well, the folks at Lake Superior State University in Michigan say we ought to start with some of the lamest slang and ear-clanging jargon of 2016. They've come up with a list of words they'd like banished from our vocabulary in 2017. And to start - post-truth...
JOHN SHIBLEY: Which is sort of an oxymoron.
CORNISH: Historic...
SHIBLEY: Thrown around far too much.
CORNISH: And a historical leftover from the world of politics - the town hall meeting.
SHIBLEY: Usually civic affairs, they're now overproduced media events.
CORNISH: That's John Shibley. He helps create LSSU's annual - and yes, this is the real title - "List Of Words Banished From The Queen's English For Mis-Use, Over-Use And General Uselessness. It's been going on for 42 years. He says the election inspired many submissions this year.
SHIBLEY: If the political season got under people's skin, they could lock onto our banishment words site and vote for as many words and phrases related to the 2016 election campaign until they felt better.
CORNISH: Echo chamber is on the strike list, as is disruption, but some political submissions didn't make it.
SHIBLEY: We, of course, had a lot of votes for President Trump and Crooked Hillary. We didn't really want to wade into that swamp.
CORNISH: Plenty of nonpolitical words and phrases have been marked for banishment as well, on fleek - millennial speak for on point or looking good. Dad bod - I'll let you figure that one out. And get your dandruff up.
SHIBLEY: People got their dander up, I'm sure. Maybe they bumped into somebody who misspoke and said dandruff, but that received more than 800 nominations.
CORNISH: Maybe it was 800 people. Maybe it was one guy on a computer in his basement. Either way, the texting fave 831 is also on the chopping block. It's code for I love you.
SHIBLEY: Eight letters, three words, one meaning.
CORNISH: Shibley says that was a new one for him, but this next one wasn't. Last year, thanks to Donald Trump, this one was unavoidable.
SHIBLEY: Bigly, which was meant to be big league.
CORNISH: Yes, well, bigly is actually an old word.
SHIBLEY: It was commonly used in the 19th century. It's a good word that we can try to use again.
CORNISH: All right, that was fast. I thought this was supposed to be the banished word list?
SHIBLEY: (Laughter) Well, that's where we have two sides to this. We've never advocated getting rid of words, just using them constructively.
CORNISH: That's John Shibley of Michigan's Lake Superior State University talking about their newly released "List Of Words Banished From The Queen's English For Mis-Use, Over-Use And General Uselessness." His helpful recommendation for 2017 - get a thesaurus, but don't go overboard.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
India begins the new year with a financial crisis brought on by its own government. Back in November, the government declared all high-value currency invalid and withdrew it from circulation. Starved of cash, the Indian economy has seized up. To talk about India's prospects of getting its economy back on track in 2017 is NPR's Julie McCarthy. She joins us now from New Delhi. And Julie, since the government made this move about eight weeks ago, we've been seeing photos of people waiting in long lines outside of banks to get cash. What's it like there now?
JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE: These long bank lines are a lot shorter. And I was really surprised, Audie, to see shopping malls over the holidays flooded with people. So you do see that money is getting back in the hands of the Indian consumer. But that said, there's plenty of banks who still don't have even the limited amount that people are still restricted to withdrawing. And that's something in the order of $300 a week. One woman told me that the bank teller told her, oh, here's half of that. Go manage. And, you know, people do manage.
But, you know, the government didn't print enough money to replace the money it took out, so while cash shortage is easing it's hardly over. It's probably going to last another quarter. And there's certainly no five-point plan here on the part of the government to pull the country out of this mess.
CORNISH: I'm sure they didn't plan on kickstarting a financial crisis. So what was the thinking here in terms of pulling this currency out of circulation?
MCCARTHY: Right. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was ridding the nation of what's known in India as black money. India is thought to have billions of dollars in a parallel economy, income that sits outside the official network in the form of cash. So it was a - kind of a gotcha move to trap people who had unaccounted-for wealth to come clean and pay a big penalty for it.
CORNISH: Is there any evidence that the government's plan actually worked?
MCCARTHY: I think the jury is still out on whether this currency switch did much of anything. No one in the government is saying how much, for example, black money was unearthed. And the problem with this scheme is that, you know, undeclared money is usually very quickly converted into property, luxury cars, gold, jewelry and overseas assets. Smart money doesn't sit idle. And it makes up a very small amount of illegitimate wealth, so say the financial experts.
CORNISH: So how are people in India talking about all this?
MCCARTHY: Well, it's really interesting. You know, you have a lot of ordinary Indians who are standing in these long lines and took a lot of grief and were very inconvenienced cheering Modi on. And he's run with this as this populist kind of Robin Hood move. He's trying to redeem an old campaign promise to end financial corruption, and this looked as if he was going after the rich. You know, but a lot of economic analysts are calling this whole plan a blunder.
They say what you've really done is disproportionately hurt the poor and those who can least afford it, people like daily wage earners. You know, something in the order of 80 to 100 million of them are now without work. There was no cash to pay them. And their projects, which are mostly in the construction industry, just stopped. And there are so many knock-on effects to this cash shortage - you know, micro, small, medium industries on the verge of closing - that analysts have cut 1 to 3 percent off of India's growth rate.
CORNISH: So now you have an economy that's stalled. Do you have a government that is doing anything to get it moving?
MCCARTHY: Well, you know, they need a big jolt now. And at Modi's urging over the weekend, banks came out today and said, we're going to slash our interest rates to the lowest levels in years. And that still means about 8 percent. But whether that goes, you know, far enough fast enough to stimulate things enough is the question. And it's a troubling way for India to start the new year.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Julie McCarthy in New Delhi. Julie, thank you.
MCCARTHY: Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
New Year's Day was yesterday, but today's our holiday here at NPR. And we're in the mood to share a treat with you. So in that spirit, we have a fun interview we're going to air now, essentially re-gifted. It's my conversation with Eddie Huang. You might know him from "Fresh Off The Boat," the ABC sitcom based on his memoir about growing up with Chinese-Taiwanese immigrant parents. He's also a chef. Huang heads Baohaus, a popular bun shop in New York City.
When we spoke last May, he had just released his latest book, "Double Cup Love," which is about food, family, culture and identity. I asked him to talk about the restaurants his father had run when Huang was a kid.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
CORNISH: Some of the names were, like, Cattleman's Steakhouse...
EDDIE HUANG: (Laughter).
CORNISH: ...Fajita Grill, Corleone's Italian Food...
HUANG: Yeah.
CORNISH: ...And my favorite, Coco's Floribbean I think.
HUANG: Yeah, Coco's Floribbean Cuisine - I worked there after school.
CORNISH: Everything but Chinese food.
HUANG: Yeah.
CORNISH: So why didn't he make Chinese food, and why do you?
HUANG: My dad was the businessman's businessman. And the difference between us is, I've opened Baohaus, and I cook food because I'm telling a story about identity. My dad opened restaurants, and he cooked food because he wanted to make money. And I don't think either one is better than the other.
You know, he had to survive. He had three kids, and he did what he had to do. And he looked, and he said, Americans don't respect us. They don't respect our food. They still don't pay as much for, you know, a sizzling filet mignon at a Cantonese restaurant sliced with black bean sauce and onions as they do a filet mignon that they've done nothing to and just put in a Montague broiler.
CORNISH: So fast forward to today. You're living in a very different time. And at the start of this book, your restaurant Baohaus in New York City is doing really well, right?
HUANG: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's doing well.
CORNISH: And people here in the U.S. love your cooking. And then you essentially decide that you need to go back and cook and serve food in China. And so the first time you actually get to cook, you're at a hotel, right? What happened?
HUANG: Yeah, I was actually in a boutique pop-up hotel within a Super 8 motel...
CORNISH: (Laughter).
HUANG: ...That was owned by this Chengdu businesswoman, Hakka Heather (ph). And she had also a bar called Hakka Bar upstairs, and she let me cook there. So me and my brothers brought a bunch of, like, camping stoves. We made red cooked pork. We made some stewed cabbage. We made bitter melon, some seaweed knots.
And people lined up. We served them. There was Hunan people there. There was people from Szechuan there. There was people from Taiwan there. And it was a very special event 'cause I don't feel like all these people had come together before to eat food like this and ask the questions that we did. And we did it with - what's always with me these days is a Dipset soundtrack.
CORNISH: (Laughter) How nervous were you?
HUANG: I wasn't nervous. I was just curious. I know my food's good. If anything, I was nervous that the people eating there would say something that made me question them and write off China or write off my place here. But I wasn't worried.
CORNISH: That would be your take away? Like, you must be wrong (laughter).
HUANG: Yeah, like, sometimes you look at, like the...
CORNISH: Like, what?
HUANG: Sometimes you look at, like, the Amazon readers' reviews of, like, the books and stuff, and it's just, like, this wasn't for you. Like, you're never going to get it. You know, you're very simple. You're very basic, and you're only going to understand inputs into your computer that you have presets for.
So I was worried that the people eating were so programmed that they only wanted what they knew. But these people were very open-minded. They were even more liberal about their Chinese identity than I was, and I think it's because they were more confident in it.
CORNISH: And not only did they like your food. You seemed a little taken aback by the compliments, the way that they complimented it, saying that, well, it's not Chinese. It's not American. It's a mix. There was something about that that you couldn't accept.
HUANG: Yeah, well, it was something about it I couldn't even understand because in America, we have this idea of authenticity. Either you're authentically Chinese, or you're not Chinese. And for a lot of people I know, they're Jamaican, or they're Puerto Rican. They go back to their homeland as well. And you know, their aunts and uncles and cousins that didn't come over to America always got jokes about, oh, look at the way you peel breadfruit. Look at the way you eat oxtails. Like, you're not Jamaican, or you're not Puerto Rican.
And so that was always in the back of my head, and there's always that insecurity like I'm a fraud. But over time, I started to realize they were complimenting me and also that, like, children of the Diaspora - we have a job. We have a duty to take this culture, go to different places and see the different faces that it takes on if you let it go and you let it grow alongside your history and identity.
CORNISH: You write that people don't realize coming from abroad that Chinese food in China is constantly changing.
HUANG: Yeah, Chinese food - when you go back, every time you go on the street, there's something new. I remember 10 years ago, I went to Taiwan, and there was this dish called toa-tng pau sio-tng. And it's big intestine wrapped around small intestine. And they have sticky rice inside of an intestate, and then they have a sausage inside. They put tons of toppings in. It's almost like a Chinese intestine sticky rice hot dog.
CORNISH: That's a lot of information just there (laughter).
HUANG: Yeah. It was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten in my life - like, easily top ten. And sometimes in America, we're afraid to play with our food within the same pantry. And what I mean is, I'm not into fusion. I'm not into a Subway teriyaki sub, right?
CORNISH: (Laughter).
HUANG: That's not my thing. I get the meatball sub at Subway. But I think that food is language. Just like any other language, it has a system. It has a structure. It has references it draws from, and it has values.
And so you can bring your experience to it, but sometimes people clunk them together like Legos. But I like when food comes from an experience. And when you go to China, you'll see that there are new experiences, and as that society changes, so does their food.
CORNISH: Whenever someone does a memoir, it is revealing, right (laughter)?
HUANG: Yeah.
CORNISH: And you're putting yourself out there. And you put out there your fears about having a non-Asian child, your fears of feeling like a fraud. Really, it was like you were rethinking your assimilation in a way that was surprising to me - right? - in a way that seemed different from the guy who brought me "Fresh Off The Boat" and was, like, really into black and hip-hop culture. Did you find yourself rethinking how you thought about these things over the years?
HUANG: Growing up in America, so many Chinese people call you American. In my case, they called me black. And I not only didn't fit in going back to Taiwan or going back to China, but I didn't even fit in in the Chinese-American schools I'd go to on Sundays. And it was very tough, and I was always made to feel like not only was I not American. I was also not Chinese. And this was me going home and really grappling with my own fears, my own insecurities about identity and asking people in the homeland what they thought.
But what I started to realize is, it doesn't matter what Americans thought of me or Chinese people thought of me. It just matters what you think. It's OK to not fit into any boxes or silos. And as much as I've fought against it, as much as I've railed against it, I realized I was the one that felt the most alien 'cause I didn't fit into them.
Part of me was always like, damn, I'm weird. I'm never going to fit in. But this trip, going to China, I really learned to accept and love myself and let somebody else love me. And it was a huge part of my life.
CORNISH: That was Eddie Huang talking to us last year about his memoir "Double Cup Love."
(SOUNDBITE OF THE DIPLOMATS SONG, "DIPSET ANTHEM")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
New parents stress about a lot of things. One of the most common worries is about who will take care of their baby when they go back to work.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
NPR, along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, surveyed more than a thousand parents nationwide. One-third of them reported difficulty finding child care. NPR's Jessica Deahl wanted to unpack this problem, so she started out where most parents do - on a tour of a child care center.
TULLI NORRIS: Hi, good afternoon. I'm Tulli. I am the business manager here at Bright Horizons at Georgetown.
JESSICA DEAHL, BYLINE: Tulli Norris has a very important role at this child care center in Washington, D.C. She fields new applicants and mans a very long waitlist.
NORRIS: OK, we're going to start this way.
DEAHL: It's easy to see why this center appeals. It's clean and orderly. Big windows let the sunshine in, and you see a lot of teachers down on the ground playing with happy babies.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Singing) Where is Quincy? Where is Quincy? There she is.
DEAHL: At any given time, this center could have 50 families waiting for an infant slot. I ask Tulli Norris if she ever encounters desperate families who she wants to help but can't.
NORRIS: It happens, like, all the time virtually. A lot of times what will actually happen is someone will call me very upset and crying that they have to go back to work in a month and what are they going to do? And I'll get off the phone and then I'll go cry to my director. What are we going to do? How are we going to help them? And all I want to do is be able to get them in, but I have to make sure I'm following a process that's fair for everyone. But yes, that happens all the time.
DEAHL: Megan Carpenter of Alexandria, Va., knows that feeling of desperation. She had a hard deadline. Sixteen weeks after her baby was born, her maternity leave would end, and she'd have to return to her job at a nonprofit, so she and her husband started looking for child care early, only a few months into her pregnancy.
MEGAN CARPENTER: You know, our first few interviews, we were asking a lot of questions and were really trying to get a feel for the place. And by place number 10 and 11, our only question was, do you have a spot?
DEAHL: The answer to that question time and again was no, so that meant getting on waitlists - a lot of them - and paying a hefty nonrefundable waitlist fee for each one.
CARPENTER: There were a lot of places that were totally willing to take our hundred-dollar or $200 waitlist fee. We spent over a thousand dollars in waitlists fees and many of which I never heard from again.
DEAHL: Ultimately, Megan and her husband convinced their mothers to take time off their jobs and fly out from Georgia and Missouri to watch the baby in shifts until a center spot opened up. Scenarios like this play out over and over around the country. An analysis of some 7,000 ZIP codes by the Center for American Progress describes roughly half as child care deserts. While Megan Carpenter's experience is representative of what many working parents go through, Narinder Walia's is a worst-case scenario. She lives in Fremont, Calif., and works in biotech. Her baby boy, Avin, was born on Halloween day 2014.
NARINDER WALIA: I was supposed to be going back to work after four months, but what I did not realize is it was not very easy to find child care. I made almost 70-some phone calls, and not many panned through.
DEAHL: If you're not sure you caught that number right, I'll repeat it. She says she called some 70 centers. Three of them were willing to take her baby. Of those, she says, two were messy and disorganized. The third option, an in-home facility, was the best available. It catered to toddlers and older children, but the owner assured her they could handle a baby. What happened on Avin's first day at this in-home facility is hard to hear.
WALIA: I was on the way to go pick him up, and the Kaiser ER called me. And they kind of said, you have to come over. Your son is here.
DEAHL: To settle Avin for his very first nap on her watch, the caregiver placed him belly-down in his bassinet. And while she told Fremont police that she turned him over after 15 minutes, the act of putting him stomach-down goes against established infant care guidelines set by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the thinking being it places babies at much higher risk for sudden infant death syndrome.
Shortly after Avin was placed belly-down in his bassinet, he stopped breathing. On his first day away from his mother, he died. He was 3 months old. The coroner's report confirmed SIDS as the cause of death.
WALIA: I couldn't wrap my head around it because he was totally fine. He was smiling. He was a big baby, all chubby. There was nothing wrong with him.
DEAHL: What happened to Narinder Walia's family is rare, but it happens, and it is the deepest fear of parents who face severely limited child care choices. So this leaves us with a question. Why does the supply of quality licensed infant care not meet the very great demand for it?
The answer's complicated, but here's the central rub. This is an extremely low-profit industry. Costs are high. There's real estate, supplies, insurance and, above all, labor. A lot of states require something like one caregiver to every three or four babies. And centers can't really raise their prices. What parents pay already rivals college tuition. So low profits and high liability make for an uninviting business climate. But some are making it work.
DAVE LISSY: Over the past 30 years, Bright Horizons has grown to operate over a thousand locations now in 42 U.S. states in addition to the District of Columbia.
DEAHL: That's Bright Horizon CEO Dave Lissy. That center we went to earlier - it's one of those thousand-plus locations. Bright Horizons has grown and been profitable. So what's their secret?
LISSY: We've convinced employers to invest over a billion dollars in either capital investments or subsidies for their working families. That just didn't exist before we pioneered the model.
DEAHL: A key word there - subsidies. Employers like Chevron, Home Depot, Starbucks have partnered with Bright Horizons to build child care centers primarily for their employees. They cover most or all of the cost to build these centers. And...
LISSY: After that's all done, on average, tuitions are funded 75 percent by parents and about 25 percent through employer subsidies.
DEAHL: So parents pay their college-tuition-like sum, and employers pay even more on top of that. Bright Horizons is able to build these bright, cheerful centers because they're cushioned from their industry's harsh economic reality by generous employer underwriting. Without that cushion, the rest of the child care sector - the vast majority of it - is weak. And that creates a problem recognized by left- and right-leaning policy thinkers.
ANGELA RACHIDI: There definitely is an issue of child care supply, and there's lots of reasons that sort of feed into that. But I think it is an issue, you know, up and down the income scale.
DEAHL: That's Angela Rachidi of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. She says this is a challenge worthy of government attention and funding.
RACHIDI: Not only does that then benefit children, but it also helps the parents work.
DEAHL: Katie Hamm of the left-leaning Center for American Progress agrees. She says without much greater public support of the child care industry, demand for licensed infant care will continue to outpace supply.
KATIE HAMM: We've heard a lot about infrastructure in Washington, and it seems like there might be some consensus both with the incoming administration and among members of Congress that we need an infrastructure investment. And a lot of people talk about that and mean roads and bridges. But before parents can get on roads and bridges and support our economy, they need child care.
DEAHL: For Narinder Walia, more good quality infant care can't come soon enough. She's expecting another child any day.
WALIA: I'm kind of being very hesitant even thinking about a child care service right now. In my mind, I just want to hold on tight and not let them go, but obviously that's not practical.
DEAHL: Jessica Deahl, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Plenty of vacation, a 35-hour work week - who wouldn't want to work in France? Well, if you have doubts, maybe this next bit of news will convince you. A new law gives French employees the right to disconnect from work after hours. As of January 1, many companies can no longer encroach on workers' personal and family time. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking French).
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking French).
UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Papa, Papa.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: This video from a career management company's website shows a father reading "Little Red Riding-Hood" to his daughter while he continues to take work calls. Then he mistakenly calls his boss the big bad wolf. The ad is funny, but staying connected to your job 24/7 is not, says labor lawyer Patrick Thiebart.
PATRICK THIEBART: Because if an employee receives emails during all their weekends and at night until 11:00 p.m., then I can assure you that at a certain point in time, it can impact the employee's health.
BEARDSLEY: The French government says more and more people are working way too many hours because they cannot disconnect from the office. The new law stipulates that companies with more than 50 workers must come up with a policy to enable their employees to disconnect. It's a difficult issue, says Thiebart, because the digital culture also gives freedom and flexibility.
THIEBART: Everybody is happy with the smartphones and the new technology because actually, for employees, they can work at home, they don't have to spend time, they don't have to spend money in commuting. For companies, it's great because they can also save money because they don't need all the staff in the premises of the company.
BEARDSLEY: Many large European companies and government departments already recognize the right of their employees to disconnect from work. Volkswagen and French insurer Axa have taken steps to limit out-of-hours messaging, including cutting email connections in the evening and weekends. Thiebart says his clients, many of them large corporations, are not hostile to the new French law because they believe a lack of downtime decreases the productivity of their workforce.
Parisians are working up a sweat after a day at the office at this gym in the 15th arrondissement. Jean Luc Bauche is lifting weights, but he's still connected to his smartphone. He says it's a great idea to be able to disconnect, but...
JEAN LUC BAUCHE: No, it's not possible because (speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "The law won't work," he says, "because it's counter to the way society is evolving." Bauche says most people don't dare to disconnect because they're frightened they'll miss something. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
What's the best way to learn a new language? That's a question two researchers in Germany are hoping to answer. And in the process, they're trying to make life a little bit easier for the wave of Syrian refugees who've arrived there. NPR's Joe Palca visited the city of Leipzig in Germany and has the story of the researchers' big idea for improving the way German is taught.
JOE PALCA, BYLINE: On the day I visited, it was freezing cold outside the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. But inside, it was warm and comfortable. Samer al-Kassab has just arrived, and he still has his jacket zipped up. Al-Kassab is 24. He says he was a music student studying guitar back in Syria, but the upheaval there caused him to flee. Now that he's in Germany, he's got to learn the language if he hopes to get back to his studies or get a job. And he heard there was a free language course at the institute.
SAMER AL-KASSAB: I heard about it from my friend. He was study here.
PALCA: Al-Kassab has been taking language classes here for three months.
AL-KASSAB: So we have good chance to study here because it's - they really care about the - not just the learning, also to have fun when you learn.
PALCA: The two scientists running the language program here are Tomas Goucha and Alfred Anwander. Goucha says as he watched al-Kassab and thousands like him showing up in his city, he was moved by their circumstances and he wanted to do something for them.
TOMAS GOUCHA: They have no friends. They have no people to talk to. They're - they lost their roots. And now they're in a completely new country with different habits whose language they don't speak.
PALCA: But Goucha didn't just want to do something for them. He wanted to do something with them.
GOUCHA: Trying to create some kind of a situation where both sides have a contribution.
PALCA: One day, he dropped in on his buddy Alfred Anwander.
ALFRED ANWANDER: Tomas was in my office and we started to talk about this situation. And we came up with this idea.
PALCA: The idea? Design a top-notch, intensive, free language course for a group of refugees, but also get them to help with a language experiment. Goucha says there's a debate about the best way to teach German. The traditional way is to start with a heavy dose of vocabulary and leave German syntax and sentence structure until later. But some now think introducing sentence structure earlier on may be helpful, especially for adults learning German. Anwander and Goucha wanted to see who was right. It took a lot of work to get the project going - designing the language courses, finding teachers and recruiting refugees interested in participating. But eventually, they got a six-month course underway.
ANWANDER: Some of the participants got excited. So, like, they realized, OK, they can contribute to science by just learning their German.
PALCA: Now the course and the experiment are up and running. Halfway through the intensive six-month class, participants come here to the MRI lab at the institute for a brain scan. Now, there's been a lot of research on what happens in the brain when someone learns a second language, but Anwander and Goucha wanted to see if the scans would shed light on their question about when to introduce sentence structure in a language course.
On the day I visited, Muhammad Ammar Dachak was there for his second MRI. The first was when he started the program. Still wearing his street clothes but in stocking feet, Dachak laid down on a narrow bed and technicians slid him into a tunnel in the center of the MRI. From the control room outside, a very precise technician gave him instructions.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking German).
PALCA: Now, German has a different kind of sentence structure from Arabic - or English, for that matter. Consider this sentence about Mary buying a book.
GOUCHA: In English, it would be she says that Mary buys the book. In German, you would say she says that Mary the book buys.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking German).
PALCA: To see what happens in the brain as the refugees learn these sentence rules, Dachak will hear a sentence over headphones while inside the scanner.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Speaking German).
PALCA: Translated literally, that sentence is I think that we a big problem have. That's the right order when you say the words in German. And Dachak has to press a button depending on whether the sentence is right or wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking German).
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Speaking German).
PALCA: It's still early days for the language experiments, but Alfred Anwander hopes doing scans at the beginning, middle and end of the language classes will reveal something important.
ANWANDER: What we wanted to see here in our study - do we also see structural changes in the brain related to the progress of a second language?
PALCA: And maybe someday, the brain scans will help tell which kind of language course will work best for a given person. That's for the future. For now, Anwander says he and Goucha feel good just knowing the language courses they're offering will help at least some of the refugees make their way in their new country. Joe Palca, NPR News, Leipzig.
(SOUNDBITE OF DEER TICK SONG, "TWENTY MILES")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Today the story on Capitol Hill was supposed to be about the new era of total Republican control in Washington, but before the new Congress began, there was fresh drama in the House, where party leaders were overruled. Lawmakers were divided. And President-elect Donald Trump was tweeting in opposition to his own party.
This all came about after House Republicans initially voted late last night to weaken an independent body that investigates ethics complaints against House lawmakers. House speaker Paul Ryan opposed it, but a majority of House Republicans passed it anyway. Then in less than 24 hours, Republicans were forced to reverse course and withdraw the proposal. They say they'll try again later this year.
NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis is here to explain all of this back and forth. Susan, can you hear me?
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Audie.
CORNISH: So why did Republicans all of a sudden back away from this proposed ethics change?
DAVIS: Well, they faced a sudden and swift backlash. One, they heard it from their constituents who were calling them and saying they thought this was a bad idea. There was almost unanimous opposition from outside watchdogs, both liberal and conservative, saying they didn't want to see this happen. And then you had the president-elect weigh in and say, you know, while he may have some issues with the process, he thinks there is much better things Republicans should be spending their time on.
So while the substance of this is still something that a lot of Republicans want to have a conversation about and arguably some Democrats do, too, the optics of doing something like this on the first day of a new Congress with an incoming president who has promised to, quote, "drain the swamp" - it just did not fly.
And it became pretty clear by late morning that if they were going to try and pursue it, they would not have the votes for it on the floor, and that would have been pretty embarrassing for Republicans.
CORNISH: So what was the thinking from the lawmakers who wanted to change it? I mean you described essentially a kind of bipartisan backlash.
DAVIS: Right, you know, and I think that's part of the reason why it's kind of hard to explain this - 'cause it just at this face comes across as saying they're rolling back ethics rules. And the proposal was from Bob Goodlatte. He's a Republican from Virginia. And part of his concern is that the outside - this independent body, the Office of Congressional Ethics, has an ability to take up anonymous complaints against members of Congress. And part of this would have made it - banned those anonymous complaints.
And their part was, in any other normal court proceeding, you have a due process right that allows you to confront your accuser and no more information. And it also sometimes can cost members a lot of legal fees to defend themselves against complaints from unknown sources.
And so there was also an issue of whether this is redundant to the House Ethics Committee, which is a bipartisan committee that also looks at some of these issues. The difference is the House Ethics Committee can only take complaints from members. The outside group could take complaints from members of the public. So by limiting that and potentially putting it under the oversight of the Ethics Committee, it was generally seen as undermining the independence of this group.
CORNISH: Now, Donald Trump in his tweet about this did use the word unfair to describe the Office of Congressional Ethics. But what is it that ultimately changed their minds?
DAVIS: Well, you know, Republicans say that is not the reason, that Trump's tweet was not the reason they did it. But I talked to many lawmakers who were in the room when they decided to reverse course who said their party leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said, look; if this is not a priority for our president-elect, it should not be a priority for us right now.
What they say they're going to do is they're going to direct the House Ethics Committee - again, bipartisan committee, evenly split between five Republicans and five Democrats - to look at this issue, to look at the OCE and to see if they have any recommendations on how to change the system and report back to the House later this year.
Historically and customarily, when there's any changes to the ethics process, it has tended to be done in a bipartisan fashion to eliminate this kind of, you know, fight and drama we saw today.
CORNISH: In the meantime, does this tell us anything about Republicans in Congress and Trump?
DAVIS: Well, I think it tells us that Trump is absolutely going to be willing to criticize his own party when he sees fit and probably on Twitter. You know, I also talked to a lot of Republicans who said maybe this will teach some of the rank and file to put a little bit more trust into party leaders like Paul Ryan who warn them not to do things when they're a bad idea. And maybe going down the line, they might listen to them a little bit more closely.
CORNISH: NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis, thanks.
DAVIS: Thanks, Audie.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President-elect Trump may face some big conflicts of interest once he takes office. To avoid them, a group that includes former politicians, ethics experts and even contributors to the conservative website Breitbart are calling on Trump to sell off his business interests. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: The letter says Trump cannot serve the country as president and also own a worldwide business enterprise without seriously damaging the presidency, and it says simply handing over those operations to Trump's grown children as the president-elect as proposed won't solve the problem.
MICKEY EDWARDS: We haven't had many presidents who have their own personal economic linkages with people in other countries and other governments.
ZARROLI: Former Congressman Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma served as chair of the House Republican Policy Committee.
EDWARDS: He's going to be the one who makes the really vital decisions about Russia when he's got investments in Russia or other places where he's got investments.
ZARROLI: The letter was signed by good government groups such as Common Cause as well as moderate Republicans such as former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman. It was also signed by prominent conservatives, such as Peter Schweizer of the Government Accountability Institute, a harsh critic of the Clintons, and by Breitbart contributor John Pudner of Take Back Our Republic.
JOHN PUDNER: I think this is good for both the country and for him.
ZARROLI: Pudner says Trump campaigned on a platform of cleaning up the swamp, and failing to deal with the conflicts of interest he faces will distract from his effort to reform Washington.
PUDNER: If you have the presidency and people are going to question every week, well, why is he making this decision; was there some business angle on it, I just think it undercuts so much of the reason that people did support him.
ZARROLI: The letter notes that Trump has begun to address the conflicts he faces by terminating business deals in countries such as Brazil and Azerbaijan. He's also said he wants to shut down his charitable foundation, which is being investigated by the New York attorney general.
This is a good start, the letter says, but the only way for Trump to solve the problem is by putting his businesses in a blind trust managed by someone independent. Trump so far hasn't been willing to do that, but his transition team says he may hold a press conference next week to discuss his plans. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Tyrus Wong, the artist behind the design of "Bambi," died on Friday. He was 106. Wong was a Chinese immigrant, and his vision for "Bambi" was inspired by landscape drawings from the Song Dynasty. The film's art was praised as a breakthrough when it came out. But Tyrus Wong's work wasn't widely recognized until he was in his 90s.
Joining me now is Pamela Tom, writer and director of a documentary called "Tyrus," and she knew him for almost 20 years. Welcome to the program.
PAMELA TOM: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
CORNISH: So I think it's best to start with Disney's "Bambi" movie (laughter) because I want to get a sense of what was groundbreaking or what was distinctive about his style at a time when Disney movies were really popular - right? - that golden age kind of window.
TOM: Yeah, yeah. What was so distinctive about "Bambi" was his approach, this very spare and very poetic approach. Prior to "Bambi," they had released "Snow White." And if you look at the forest in "Snow White," you see every detail, every twig, you know, every leaf.
Tyrus took an entirely different approach, you know, with the less-is-more. He had a very painterly style. It was just - you see the - literally the brush strokes in the paintings and in the backgrounds. And he - you know, he was just trying to evoke the feeling of the forest rather than the forest itself. And so when Walt Disney saw some of his sketches, he said, that's it. This is going to be the look.
CORNISH: It's interesting because he was actually a pretty low-level animator there at first, right?
TOM: That's correct. He had gotten married in 1938 and decided he needed a full-time job. So Disney was hiring artists, but they often hired even the most skilled and talented artists like Tyrus Wong as a lowly in-betweener. Those were people who drew the sketches in-between the main drawings. And it was very tedious work. He hated it. You know, he said his eyes felt like ping pong balls.
So when he heard that "Bambi" was in pre-production, he went home, and you know, he read the book and drew these little thumbnail sketches and brought them back to the studio and showed them to the art director.
CORNISH: He also had a very interesting journey to America. As we mentioned, he's a Chinese immigrant, and he left his village when he was 9 years old. What was distinctive about that move?
TOM: Well, a lot of the immigrants to America were coming during that period. There was poverty. There was drought. There was great political turmoil. So like many immigrants even today, you know, he and his father left for better opportunities. What was distinctive about it is that he was coming to America during the height of anti-Chinese the sentiment.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect, which essentially barred all laborers except for a small, narrow class of Chinese. And so they came under assumed identities as the son of a merchant, and he had to memorize these details of a person he was not and was detained at Angel Island for almost a month while being interrogated.
I like to call it the original extreme vetting, but the purpose of Angel Island was to really have Chinese return back to their country, to trip them up.
CORNISH: Yeah, you're talking about an interrogation and detention. He was 10 years old...
TOM: That's right.
CORNISH: ...When he did all this on his own. I mean talk about "Bambi."
TOM: Yeah, exactly, and he never saw his mother again. And he was scared to death. He didn't know where his father was. He was the only kid in Angel Island at the time of his detention. And I think that early experience really informed his life. He became very resourceful, you know? He was a survivor. He knew how to overcome that adversity. And you can imagine that was his first introduction to the U.S.
CORNISH: Today, he has such a reputation among animators, many who cite him and his influence. What do you think his legacy will be?
TOM: Tyrus' legacy will definitely always be connected to "Bambi" for having created such beauty and poetry and lyricism, the likes of which we have really never seen since then. And he continues to influence animators and artists today. You know Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen, Ralph Eggleston - all these people still look to his work for inspiration today.
CORNISH: That's Pamela Tom. She's the writer, director and co-producer of the documentary "Tyrus" about the animator Tyrus Wong. He died on Friday at the age of 106. Pamela Tom, thanks so much.
TOM: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF ASAF AVIDAN SONG, "ONE DAY/RECKONING SONG")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The 401(k) is the most common tool Americans use to save money for retirement, far more than pensions. Congress created the savings plan some 35 years ago. Now some of the 401(k)'s earliest backers say they oversold it. Timothy Martin writes about this in today's Wall Street Journal. He spoke with us from an airport, which explains the background noise you'll hear. I asked him to describe how the creators envisioned the 401(k).
TIMOTHY MARTIN: These people talked about a three-legged stool, that you'd have Social Security - we've still got that - you'd have a traditional company pension, which provide a set payout for life as a percentage of your sort of final years of salary, and then you would have this thing called the 401(k) that would supplement both the pension and the Social Security. And, you know, it just might be there to either buttress a pension or for vacations, paying for grandchildren's college education, that type of stuff. They did not vision a world where the 401(k) would supplant the pension. And...
SHAPIRO: Well, how did it happen that 401(k)s became the alternative to the pension rather than one leg of a three-legged stool?
MARTIN: The 401(k)s came at this moment when pensions to companies and employers were becoming increasingly complicated and expensive. It was just much easier to shift to a 401(k). You know, the upshot for workers was just as companies wanted to give up pensions, workers who had pensions would see their friends with 401(k) accounts and see how much money they were making every year - you know, 15, 20 percent plus, if not more - and sort of saying, like, well, I wish I could get in on that. And...
SHAPIRO: So it sounds like there was no one bad guy. It was a convergence of events where companies wanted to get rid of pensions, workers thought that 401(k)s would do better than pensions. Everybody got on this boat and set sail kind of altogether.
MARTIN: No one predicted that the 401(k) would sort of underperform or underserve, you know, a mass range of workers. I don't think anyone would've signed on. You know, one sort of mistaken perception heading in - these people all thought Americans would see it in their best interest to save as much as they could for retirement. And what we've learned in recent decades is that more people are willing to spend, or want to spend, rather than save.
SHAPIRO: One of the things that really struck me about this article is this is not just retirees or HR managers saying gee, the 401(k) isn't really working as a retirement tool. It is the people who pushed the 401(k). It is the people who said to Congress and said to corporations, this is the tool of the future, this is the answer to your problems now saying, we oversold it.
MARTIN: Yeah. You know, for a lot of these people, they thought it would either sit aside a pension or it would be used with far more robust market returns and willingness by workers to sock away. They had much different visions of what this could become or would become than reality.
SHAPIRO: Your story ends with a human resources executive who was an early champion of 401(k)s now saying the very program that he championed has not created enough for him to be able to retire on.
MARTIN: Yeah, that would be Herbert Whitehouse. He's also unlike a lot of Americans. He's not living off of bologna sandwiches. I mean, he's very, very well off. I did sort of discuss with him - would he be in a better position to retire if he had a traditional pension and he stayed at Johnson & Johnson, the company he was at in the early '80s, for 30, 40 years?
And yeah, he said he would be in a much, you know, comfortable spot. And the basic difference being he wouldn't be exposed to market risk, the economy tanking and stocks falling. He'd get a set payout for life from his company. And that's something that the 401(k) did away with. You could potentially gain more, but you could also potentially lose more.
SHAPIRO: If there's somebody listening to our conversation right now who, like many Americans, has no pension, does have a 401(k), thinks they've been responsible preparing for retirement, but now here's - a 401(k) might not be all it's cracked up to be, what advice would you have for them?
MARTIN: I think as we sort of see some of the situations with baby boomers in particular, with this first wave of 401(k) perhaps have not the retirements that they would have expected, I think that will inform subsequent generations about prioritizing saving more rather than spending and just sort of having a multi-decade view of how much people actually need.
SHAPIRO: That's Timothy Martin of The Wall Street Journal speaking with us via Skype from an airport lounge, which explains some of the background noise. Mr. Martin, thanks very much.
MARTIN: Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Fisk University opened in Nashville after the Civil War to educate freed slaves. Its students have gone on to become stars of the Harlem Renaissance and leaders in the civil rights movement. But the school still grapples with the dilemma that's been there since its beginning, how to become financially sustainable. Emily Siner from member station WPLN has the story.
EMILY SINER, BYLINE: Fisk is perhaps most widely known for its music.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FISK JUBILEE SINGERS: (Singing) Swing low, sweet chariot.
SINER: This is a recording of the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1909. And its musical legacy is intertwined with money. Just five years after the school was founded in 1866, Congress stopped funding black colleges. Historian Reavis Mitchell says money dried up.
REAVIS MITCHELL: When the school reached the point of less than a dollar left in the treasury, and there was no hope, a student course was put together in the fall of 1871.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FISK JUBILEE SINGERS: (Singing) Coming for to carry me home. But still my soul feels...
SINER: That chorus of nine students set out on its first national tour.
MITCHELL: They would present themselves, some the children of slaves, a few enslaved themselves. And the world was astonished by these young people from this place called Fisk.
SINER: The Jubilee Singers became legendary. They performed at the White House for President Grant. They traveled to England and sang for Queen Victoria. She instructed her court painter to create their portrait, which still hangs at Fisk today. And the tours worked. With the money the singers raised, Fisk bought the land it sat on and built the campus's first permanent building. It's still a point of pride even today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing) Lord, I'm out here on your word.
SINER: At Fisk events, speakers frequently invoke the original nine Jubilee Singers, thanking them for their dedication to the school. But as their legacy lives on, so does the financial burden they had tried to relieve. Fisk nearly went bankrupt in the 1980s. Then, a decade ago, it set off a long legal battle when it tried to sell famous paintings donated by Georgia O'Keefe.
The school was later put on temporary probation for its finances. That's not to say it's always been shaky. Marybeth Gasman at the Penn Center for Minority-Serving Institutions actually wrote her dissertation on what she calls Fisk's golden years, the 1940s and '50s.
MARYBETH GASMAN: And that's really the last time that Fisk had, like, real financial success. And they were at the helm of HBCUs.
SINER: To get back to that point, Gasman says, Fisk needs a few things. It needs stable leadership. It's been cycling through presidents lately. It also needs to buckle down on fundraising, getting potential donors excited about the school today - not just its history.
GASMAN: No one's going to give to Fisk merely because of the Jubilee Singers or Jubilee Hall. You know, they want to see what Fisk is doing now.
SINER: That's one of the biggest challenges for Jens Frederiksen. He's in charge of fundraising. He says he wants to move the school away from its reputation of being strapped for cash.
JENS FREDERIKSEN: I think, for a long time, we were probably mired down in a few familiar narratives that sort of usurped all the press.
SINER: Instead, Frederiksen wants to highlight academics. For example, Fisk is nationally ranked for its master's program in physics. He's also trying to increase alumni and private-company donations.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FISK JUBILEE SINGERS: (Singing) Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world, troubles of the world, the troubles of the world. Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world, going home to live with God.
SINER: The Jubilee Singers still have a role in all this 150 years later. They're seen as ambassadors for the university as they travel around the country to perform. But this time, the fortunes of the school no longer rest on their voices. For NPR News, I'm Emily Siner in Nashville.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FISK JUBILEE SINGERS: (Singing) No more weeping and a wailing, no more weeping and a wailing. I'm going to live with God. No more weeping and a wailing. No more weeping...
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In Cambodia, the government has closed its investigation into the killing of a prominent activist and government critic. His death in July prompted a huge public demonstration from Cambodians who were distrustful of their government. The country has a history of political violence. Michael Sullivan has more from Phnom Penh.
MICHAEL SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Kem Ley had a big heart and a big mouth. And that combination probably got him killed. Fellow activist Pa Nguon Teang...
PA NGUON TEANG: He dared to talk the truth. He dared to frankly, openly talk about a sensitive issue. And after his death, it's hard to find any person to talk like him.
SULLIVAN: Kem Ley was talking a lot about one of those sensitive issues just a few days before he was murdered, a report by the watchdog group Global Witness that took aim at Prime Minister Hun Sen, who's been in power for the past 30 years, alleging that he and his extended family accumulated massive wealth and power through corruption and the use of force.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KEM LEY: Abuse of power for private gain.
SULLIVAN: The allegations were nothing new. The evidence, including leaked documents from inside the government, was. And Kem Ley seized on it in interviews like this one on Radio Free Asia and in local newspapers - both the report and the criticism drawing the ire of the prime minister's family. Political analyst Dr. Meas Ny.
MEAS NY: I think people believe that was the tipping point because he got killed two days later.
SULLIVAN: Prime Minister Hun Sen quickly promised a vigorous investigation but has been silent ever since. And when police said they'd caught the man who did it, an unemployed migrant worker from a distant province who said he shot Kem Ley over an unpaid $3,000 loan, there was skepticism. Even the man's wife, who says he was unemployed and frequently drunk, can't figure out where he could find $3,000 to begin with, let alone the Glock pistol he allegedly used to shoot Kem Ley. Journalist May Thittara of the Khmer Times has been following the case from the beginning.
MAY THITTARA: I think he's a fall guy.
SULLIVAN: He says if the government wanted to prove Oueth Ang was the killer, they'd release the CCTV footage from the scene. That hasn't happened. And even the Interior Ministry spokesman has his doubts about the man in custody.
KHIEU SOPHEAK: (Foreign language spoken).
SULLIVAN: Spokesman Khieu Sopheak says he doesn't believe the alleged killer story about lending Kem Ley money. And he doubts a lot more of the details in his alleged confession. So if he didn't do it, who did? Again, Meas Ny.
NY: What I have heard from the inside the government Secret Service - they know exactly who they are.
SULLIVAN: In fact, just about everybody seems to know who's behind it. But nobody dares say so out loud. Environmental activist Chum Hout and his twin brother were with Kem Ley two days before his death.
CHUM HOUT: (Foreign language spoken).
SULLIVAN: "Yes, for sure. Everyone knows who did it," he says. "But if we say the name, we have a problem with the whole family." And there's little doubt which family he's referring to. No date has been set for the trial of the alleged killer. Prime Minister Hun Sen, meanwhile, is looking to extend his decades-long rule in a general election next year. For NPR News, I'm Michael Sullivan in Phnom Penh.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump was scathing in his criticism of U.S. trade policy, policy that had been supported by Republicans for decades. Today Trump announced Robert Lighthizer as his pick to be the U.S. trade representative. Lighthizer is an establishment Republican. But as NPR's John Ydstie reports, he doesn't toe the traditional party line on trade.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: On the campaign trail, Donald Trump often sounded more like a Democrat union leader than a Republican. He said he would tear up NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and be quick to tax imports if trading partners misbehaved. Lori Wallach of Public Citizen, who's a longtime liberal opponent of trade agreements like NAFTA, says Trump's nominee, Robert Lighthizer, also has a healthy skepticism about the free-trade doctrine.
LORI WALLACH: What has always set him apart from other Republican trade experts is that he has never really been based on ideology or theory but rather the actual outcomes of different policies.
YDSTIE: Outcomes, says Wallach, that protected American companies and workers. In the 1980s, Lighthizer was a deputy U.S. trade representative under Ronald Reagan. More recently, in an opinion piece for The New York Times, he argued the Republican Party should not blindly embrace free-trade dogma. But the Trump campaign rhetoric on trade has made some free-trade advocates nervous. Derek Scissors is a resident fellow and trade expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
DEREK SCISSORS: This is not going to be a conventional Republican administration. There are going to be steps which could be protectionist steps. Or they could be sensible adjustments of U.S. trade policy. But it's not going to be conventional.
YDSTIE: Scissors says he supports sensible adjustments but not a radical departure.
SCISSORS: There are things in U.S. trade policy that should be improved. And that's on the table. Then there is an abandonment of an American commitment to free trade, which should not occur and which would be very harmful to the U.S. That also seems to be on the table.
YDSTIE: Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller has said that Wilbur Ross, Trump's nominee for commerce secretary, will actually take the lead on formulating trade policy. Free-trade skeptic Lori Wallach says exactly where the billionaire Ross comes down on trade is a big question.
WALLACH: Ross has supported trade policies, basically, that suit his business interests and opposed others that didn't. And it remains to be seen if Ross will see the American worker as his client or he'll see big businesses as his client.
YDSTIE: Wallach is concerned that other Trump cabinet appointees with corporate backgrounds could also convince the president-elect to move away from his populist positions on trade. She says that makes Lighthizer's nomination very consequential. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In India people worship many gods. Aravind Adiga's new novel is about one of the most powerful ones.
ARAVIND ADIGA: You know, it's often said that Indians have two real religions, the cinema - Bollywood - and cricket. It's the equivalent of sort of baseball, basketball, football and Christmas put together. The question is not why cricket. The question is how you can escape cricket in India. It's just everywhere.
SHAPIRO: Adiga is a journalist and novelist who lives in Mumbai. His writing has never flinched from India's warts. He won the Man Booker Prize for his last novel, "The White Tiger," about a homicidal striver climbing through India's caste system.
His latest novel is called "Selection Day." It tells the story of two brothers from the Mumbai slums. Their father believes that the only way they will achieve anything is if they become champion cricket players, even if that means sacrificing real love and fulfillment.
ADIGA: Some years ago, I was watching a cricket match in Mumbai, at the end of which was a selection match, where you're being picked for the next level. I saw a teenage cricketer walking around with his head slumped that clearly had been defeated. He wasn't going to make the cut.
And that image stayed with me of this young man, you know, at the very prime of his life bent over with failure. And cricket for me is a way of understanding what failure means and whether there's dignity and redemption possible even in accepting that one might not succeed in the way society expects one to succeed.
SHAPIRO: There are so many different levels of success and failure within the context of the book and also within the context of cricket, that you can win or lose a match. You can become a successful cricketer. You can be miserable. You can be wealthy. You could be broke. You could be beaten physically by somebody who claims to love you. It's hard to see where the definition should lie.
ADIGA: I mean ultimately, you know, success has to be something internal. And I'm very struck by the fact that many people who appear to have succeeded in cricket might actually see themselves as failures because you have a society that doesn't yet give full expression in India to the many meanings of success both personal and, you know, professional.
This is how the central character, Manju, while everyone expects him to be a great success, ends up in a sense a double failure not just professionally but also personally in that he doesn't grow into the man he should have become.
SHAPIRO: Manju is the younger of the two brothers, and their father of course is monomaniacal in his pursuit of cricket perfection for his two sons.
ADIGA: Yeah, the father, Mohan Kumar, is a composite of real people I've seen. When you watch a cricket match in India happening at the school level, you'll see invariably a man often with a cycle standing by, you know, on the sidelines and screaming at the top of his voice at one or more of the young men playing the game who are his sons. There are quite a few fathers like him in Mumbai and in every Indian city who...
SHAPIRO: I think in many American cities, too, to be honest.
(LAUGHTER)
ADIGA: Well, what might distinguish the Indian equivalence is the single-mindedness with which they drive their sons to success. A few years ago when I was researching this book and speaking to teenagers in Bombay who are considered the next big thing, I was struck by how similar their fathers were.
The fathers often have sacrificed their lives to make sure their sons succeed. And while that's admirable - the desire to succeed - there's also something disturbing about the fathers' desire to control every aspect of their sons, in some cases extending even to the way the sons comb their hair.
And in a couple of cases where I interviewed boys who were very promising, I noticed that they seemed not to have their mothers around. And as one boy put it to me, his mother had run away. And one look at his father, and I thought I knew exactly why she had run away. This man, the father who is so eager to make his son succeed, is clearly a difficult person to live with. And I could understand the pressures that made these sporting fathers the way they were, but at the same time, they're also disturbing people.
SHAPIRO: There's this moment that is pretty disturbing where your main character who has been striving to become this great cricket player finally delivers the most transcendent performance. And his coach observes that what was missing before was hate, that hate is really what made him triumphant. It's a difficult way to conclude.
ADIGA: Yeah. The phrase for love of cricket is a cliche in India. It's - you know, as I said, people talk of cricket only in this nostalgic, idealistic way. But I was very much struck by the possibility that hate could make you good at something, you know, that the sheer self-loathing could sharpen your instincts, you know, your reflexes, which has been my observation.
SHAPIRO: Has it been your experience?
ADIGA: As a writer, certainly. I mean loathing and self-hatred are always very good for writers, so I'm assuming it's the same for sportsmen as well. A degree of anger at oneself makes you better at something you're doing.
SHAPIRO: Aravind Adiga's latest novel is "Selection Day." Thank you very much for talking with us.
ADIGA: Thank you for having me on.
(SOUNDBITE OF TWIN SISTER SONG, "LADY DAYDREAMER")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The 115th Congress was sworn in today, marking the beginning of a transition of power in Washington. It will conclude later this month when President-elect Donald Trump takes his oath. When that happens, Republicans will have control over Congress and the White House for the first time in a decade. They plan to waste no time in pushing through one of the most conservative agendas in years. NPR's Ailsa Chang reports.
AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: The first day of the new Congress is often likened to the first day back at school. There's a mix of giddiness and nerves. Members get to see faces they haven't seen on recess. But on this first day of school, the most popular guy on campus is learning he'll have to cede a lot of the limelight now.
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PAUL RYAN: You know, I have stood in this spot a very, very many times. It today, though, feels a whole lot different.
CHANG: Here's what's different for Paul Ryan, who was re-elected House speaker today. He was once seen as the only guy who could unify the Republican Party. But in the new world order, Ryan has become sidekick to Donald Trump and even seems to channel the president-elect now when he's talking about voters.
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RYAN: They've looked to Washington for leadership, and all they have gotten is condescension. For years, they've suffered quietly amid shuttered factories and shattered lives.
CHANG: So Ryan says Republicans should take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity under unified government to produce real results.
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RYAN: So I want to say to the American people, we hear you. We will do right by you, and we will deliver.
(APPLAUSE)
CHANG: But deliver exactly what? Some tensions may lie ahead for Republicans. Trump seems receptive to passing a large infrastructure bill that may mean too much spending for fiscal hawks. And Trump doesn't seem as eager as traditional conservatives like Ryan to make sweeping changes to Medicare and Social Security. So Republicans will start on something they can all agree on, dismantling the Affordable Care Act.
TIM SCOTT: Well, when something's already failing, I think the best thing that you could do is replace it.
CHANG: That's Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.
SCOTT: And repealing it is the first step in that process. I am very interested to see how my friends on the other side of the aisle will work with us on that replacement model.
CHANG: The years-long dream of gutting Obamacare is already getting a jump start this week 17 days before Trump even takes the oath of office. Senate Republicans introduced a budget resolution today that paves the way to repeal parts of the health care law, and the new Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, is already taunting them for having nothing to replace it with.
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CHUCK SCHUMER: It is not acceptable to repeal the law, throw our health care system into chaos and then leave the hard work for another day. Mr. President-elect, what is your plan to make sure all Americans can get affordable health care?
CHANG: Trump was nowhere inside the Capitol, but he was everywhere in these speeches. While Speaker Ryan seemed to be channeling Trump today, Schumer spent much of his first speech as minority leader talking directly to the president-elect.
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SCHUMER: If you abandon change and simply embrace the shopworn, hard-right, pro-corporate, pro-elite policies diametrically opposed to the many campaign themes that helped you win working-class votes and get you elected, your presidency will not succeed.
CHANG: Schumer says Democrats will keep tabs on how well Trump can fulfill campaign promises like boosting GDP, bringing down unemployment, getting tougher on China and protecting Social Security and Medicare.
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SCHUMER: We'll fight him tooth and nail when he appeals to the baser instincts that diminish America and its greatness, instincts that have too often plagued this country and too often plagued his campaign.
CHANG: Tomorrow, President Obama meets with House and Senate Democrats to talk about how to counter Republican efforts to undermine the health care law. To keep things even, Vice President-elect Mike Pence says he'll be here, too, meet with House Republicans. Ailsa Chang, NPR News, the Capitol.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Let's talk more now about how Republicans are planning to repeal and possibly replace the Affordable Care Act. NPR health policy correspondent Alison Kodjak is here. Hi, Alison.
ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What are you hearing Republicans are likely to do?
KODJAK: Well, what they're looking to do, at least they tell me, is that they want to gut the law essentially by removing all the taxes that pay for subsidies for people to buy insurance. There's a whole bunch of taxes in Obamacare, taxes on medical devices, taxes on health insurance companies. Wealthy people pay a surtax. And all the money used by those taxes goes to subsidies so that lower- and middle-income people can buy insurance at an affordable price.
SHAPIRO: If those subsidies and those taxes go away, are people who are currently getting their insurance through the Affordable Care Act going to lose their coverage?
KODJAK: Well, that's unclear. Republicans say they don't want millions of people to suddenly lose their coverage. They want to sort of allow a transition period so that they can come up with a replacement for Obamacare after they vote on this repeal.
So what they would do is phase out the parts of the law that they want to repeal over time, probably a two-year period or something. We don't know exactly how that's going to work. The best model we have is a law that they passed a year ago that President Obama vetoed where they phased out most of the law over two years.
But one thing they did was they got rid of the individual mandate that requires people to buy insurance immediately, and that could undermine their whole plan if that is in the new version of the bill.
SHAPIRO: Because if they get rid of the individual requirement that everybody buy insurance, then healthy people won't buy it. Sick people will, and it costs the insurance company a whole lot more money.
KODJAK: Right, exactly because, you know, then they raise premiums, and healthy people are even less likely to buy insurance - just this spiral that goes out of control.
SHAPIRO: So we know that Republicans say they don't want people to lose their insurance, but if it looks like a repeal vote will come as far as two years before a replace vote and we don't know what the replace vote looks like, sounds like it's hard to say for sure whether people will lose their insurance or not.
KODJAK: It is. It - there's just so much up in the air. And you know, what you have is people not sure if they're going to lose their insurance, less motivated to buy insurance. Plus, you have the insurance market, which is a big wildcard here. Insurance companies haven't been making a lot of money or have been losing money on the Obamacare market over the last few years. They've remained committed because the law was there, and they were trying to figure out how to make a product that would be profitable.
If they know the law is going away, there's not a lot of motivation for them to continue trying to sell insurance into this market. And so what you'll have is Republicans trying to keep this market going while they come up with a replacement, but they can't always get the insurance companies to cooperate. They can't force them to sell insurance into the market.
SHAPIRO: If Republicans in Congress have known for years that repealing and replacing Obamacare was one of their top priorities - and this is one of Donald Trump's top priorities for the entire year-plus of the presidential campaign - why wouldn't they have a replacement model all set up and ready to go the minute they took power?
KODJAK: You know, that's a good question. There's been a lot of talk about why over six to eight years they haven't come up with a plan. There have been a lot of proposals out there. They're details vary. And I think the issue is that there's different motivations behind different Republican plans.
Some want to keep as many people covered as are covered now. Others want to give people the option of having insurance and the option of not having insurance. Others are really focused on lowering health care costs.
So what you're finding now - what we're seeing is the variety of different policies out there seem to be focused on universal access to insurance, making insurance available to everybody but getting rid of that mandate that Republicans can't stand which is requiring people to have insurance.
SHAPIRO: Alison, open enrollment in these insurance exchanges is happening now and scheduled to continue through the Trump inauguration and beyond. What happens to that?
KODJAK: Well, the Trump administration will have to at least see this open enrollment through, which, you know, will last a few weeks after he's inaugurated. And then depending on how long it takes for the Republicans to come up with a replacement plan if they want to keep Obamacare going while they - through this transition, they may be into another open enrollment period next fall.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Alison Kodjak, thank you.
KODJAK: Thanks, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Turkish authorities are still looking for the suspect in the shooting at an Istanbul nightclub early Sunday morning. Thirty-nine people died. ISIS claimed responsibility and called the attacker one of its soldiers. Today, officials detained two foreigners for questioning in Istanbul's main airport. In all, at least 16 people have been held.
Joining us from Istanbul with the latest is NPR's Peter Kenyon. Hi, Peter.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: This attack happened almost three days ago. What leads do they have on the suspect?
KENYON: Well there's intriguing bits of information that keep coming out. One new development today - a report in the Hurriyet newspaper that police had detained a woman in the town of Konya that's down in central Turkey. She's described as the wife of the man police believe may have been the gunman.
According to the paper, she told police she and her husband crossed into Turkey in November. She says her husband never expressed any sympathy for ISIS that she knows of. And on these latest detentions, the two foreign men were stopped at Ataturk Airport after their bags and phones were searched. We get that from the state-run Anatolia news agency and no other details about them so far.
SHAPIRO: There's also been some confusion today about a passport that may have belonged to the gunman. What happened there?
KENYON: That's right. This morning, two Turkish media outlets posted images of a passport issued by the Central Asian country of Kurdistan. The photo in the passport does seem similar to the man in a selfie video that's been circulating since yesterday on Turkish media, and that's supposed to be the suspected gunman, although even that's not confirmed.
But then later on in the day, the media withdrew that passport image. The police denied any connection to the attack, so that seems to have been a false alarm.
SHAPIRO: How are people in Turkey responding to this - a major manhunt, 39 people dead, a suspect potentially on the loose?
KENYON: Yeah, it's a very difficult time. And the government has been repeatedly calling for people to show solidarity, stand together against these terrorist attacks. And of course there has been great sympathy for the families of the victims. But as for unity, there's really not too much of that.
You know, immediately after the attack, there was an online debate that just erupted over this campaign that had run in the previous weeks, a conservative campaign telling Turks, ignore New Year's Eve; just focus on Muslim holidays. So obviously there's still social divisions.
And politically - no unity there, either. The opposition party head says, the ruling party's failed to stop terrorism; they should resign. Now, this party's pretty weak. They can't really do too much to the ruling AK Party right now. But it is a time of great stress and tension, and lawmakers are just about to start debating big constitutional changes giving a lot of power to the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And yet there's really not this kind of unity the government's seeking.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Peter Kenyon on the latest on the investigation into that shooting in an Istanbul nightclub over the New Year's holiday. Thank you, Peter.
KENYON: Thanks, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF BONOBO SONG, "GYPSY")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The Office of Congressional Ethics will remain as is. That wouldn't be notable except that late last night House Republicans voted among themselves to strip the office of its independence and much of its power. Then early this afternoon, after outrage from Democrats and a tweet of disappointment from President-elect Donald Trump, they reversed that plan. The Office of Congressional Ethics is the body responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct against members of the House of Representatives. It's faced criticism from members of both parties since it was founded in 2008, not long after a series of ethics violations, including a corruption scandal around former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Leo Wise served as the first head of the office, which operates independently of Congress. He left in 2010. When I spoke to him earlier, Wise said that before the creation of the OCE, ethics investigations in the House were opaque.
LEO WISE: It was, you know, a time when the ethics process was really a black box where allegations about both Jack Abramoff and the members that ultimately - some of whom went to jail over their corrupt dealings with him - were being talked about in the press and in some case in the courts, but there was no sense of what was happening within the institution itself. And I think this was in part an effort to open that up and shine sunlight into it.
CORNISH: So there is a formal committee, the House Ethics Committee, that exists. How does investigation by this independent office work?
WISE: Sure. So there's a board that governs the office. And they have to take a vote to begin an investigation. And then the investigators present their findings to the board. And if there's enough evidence, the board will authorize the investigation to continue. And then if even more evidence is developed, the board can vote to refer the case to the House Ethics Committee to do whatever in their judgment is the best course for the House and for the member.
CORNISH: Does the House Ethics Committee tend to pick up those investigations where you leave off?
WISE: They don't. And I think that speaks volumes about why the OCE was needed.
CORNISH: So all the power comes in, I guess, the end of the process, which is making those records, those fact findings, public.
WISE: I think that's right. That's what brings to light what happened so that the public can know what their elected officials are doing or not doing.
CORNISH: The OCE, though, has been criticized for being overly aggressive. It investigates based on anonymous tips. And as you said, investigations are made public even if the accusations are ultimately dismissed. And then you have members who, you know, are saddled with legal fees or just don't win re-election even though they haven't been convicted of any kind of crime. I mean, what's your response to that?
WISE: Well, the - sort of the facts are the facts. The OCE doesn't decide if people broke the law. It collects the evidence and then it presents it, so...
CORNISH: But the implication is quite the cloud.
WISE: Well, you know, I think when members' conduct is exposed to the public and to their fellow lawmakers, you know, the consequences flow from the conduct. Whereas focusing on the fact the conduct is now known seems to me misplacing where the agency should be.
CORNISH: Why do you think this essentially independent ethics panel has had a target on its back ever since it was created, right? Like, Congress made it and then seemed to, like, regret it almost immediately.
WISE: I mean, I think that's a testament to the fact that it was effective. It did shine light on practices that were in some cases wrong, in some cases resulted in referrals for criminal enforcement actions. And that's not a popular thing. But it was never...
CORNISH: But why were they surprised by that, right? Like, isn't that kind of the whole point of creating it?
WISE: Well, that's a good question. We decided to do the job we were given and to follow the facts wherever they led. And at the end of the day, I think that that's precisely why the OCE has been targeted this way, because it wasn't just, you know, a place where ethics complaints went to die or a mail stop where people could vent their frustration and then that would be sort of tucked away on a shelf somewhere, never to see the light of day.
CORNISH: Leo Wise, former head of the Office of Congressional Ethics. Thank you for speaking with us.
WISE: My pleasure.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Chicago had one of its most violent years in 2016 with a record number of shootings. In a new study, researchers say Chicago's struggle helps prove what some have long argued - that gun violence is not just a law-enforcement problem but a public-health crisis and needs to be treated that way. NPR's Cheryl Corley reports.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: On the last day of the year in Chicago, there was another grim reminder of how many people lost their lives to gun violence.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: If you have a loved one who was killed in 2016, you can walk up and down here and find a cross.
CORLEY: Hundreds of people picked up wooden crosses and marched down Chicago's Michigan Avenue to pay tribute to the 762 people killed by guns. Fulicia Suarau, with family members, carried a cross and photos of her grandson, 17-year-old Elijah Jones, who was killed December 6.
FULICIA SUARAU: Something has to be done. It has to stop. It has to stop. We can't do another year like this.
CORLEY: There were more than 4,000 shootings, not all of them fatal, in the city in 2016. Yale University sociologist Andrew Papachristos has studied the city's violence for years and says the number of shootings in Chicago showed that gun violence nationwide is a public-health epidemic. In a study released today in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Papachristos and others explain and predict gun violence in Chicago through what they call social contagion.
ANDREW PAPACHRISTOS: So if I get shot, for instance, there's a high likelihood that the people around me in my networks will also be victims and that, then, their friends will be victims. And their friends' friends will be victims.
CORLEY: The research is an analysis of the social network of individuals who were arrested together for the same offense over an eight-year period. They were trying to understand the patterns of gun violence by literally looking at it like a public health epidemic like AIDS and tracking how shootings spread among a group of about 130,000 individuals.
PAPACHRISTOS: Not only is it an epidemic. We can actually show in our study how it's transmitted and actually specific individuals who may be at risk. And so when you look at the network figures in the study, every one of those little dots is a real human being.
CORLEY: Papachristos thinks this type of contagion study could provide an almost real-time response to shooting outbreaks by analyzing the patterns of shootings, the individuals at risk and sending out people who could intervene - not just the police. Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson agrees. He supports working with other groups even though the city does plan to hire hundreds more police officers in an effort to fight the gun violence here.
EDDIE JOHNSON: The police department is only as strong as the faith that the community has in it. And I believe that because if the community believes in what we do, and they're a partner in what we do, and we're a partner in what they do, then that will help reduce a lot of this gun violence we see.
CORLEY: Gary Slutkin heads Cure Violence, a violence-prevention model used in more than 50 cities but mostly dropped in Chicago because of funding. He says gun-violence resources typically go to law enforcement. But as this latest study shows, that's only part of the puzzle.
GARY SLUTKIN: This takes us out of morality. This takes us out of - these are good people and bad people - into - there's something going on. It is contagious and that, when it's managed as a health issue, you can rapidly drop it and sustain drops for long periods of time.
CORLEY: Slutkin says that's proven to be true in other big cities like LA and New York, which fund violence-prevention programs and have levels of gun violence far below those in Chicago. Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
People who still see movies in the theater nowadays know to expect, before the film starts, for about 15 minutes, trailers for other movies, commercials, reminders to turn off your cellphone. Well, in India, there's a little something added. NPR's Julie McCarthy reports.
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UNIDENTIFIED BAND: (Singing in foreign language).
JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE: Before this Bollywood blockbuster about a dad training his daughters to be wrestlers bursts onto the screen, everyone rises as if on cue for this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JANA GANA MANA")
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing in Hindi).
MCCARTHY: That's India's national anthem, which, by law, must now be featured before the start of every movie. And everyone in the cinema is required to stand while it's played. In a country that produces more than 1,000 films a year, that's a lot of standing. I asked salesmen Hemant Kumar Singh how he felt about the law of the land telling him to hop to at a movie.
Is that a good idea?
HEMANT KUMAR SINGH: Good idea - very good idea.
MCCARTHY: Why?
SINGH: (Speaking Hindi).
MCCARTHY: "People are getting cut off from their culture," Singh says. "And they're not aware of the importance of the anthem." India's constitution makes it a duty to protect the national anthem. If you interfere with the singing of it, another law says you can go to prison. You might think that's legislation enough - not for 77-year-old Shyam Narayan Chouksey.
SHYAM NARAYAN CHOUKSEY: (Speaking Hindi).
MCCARTHY: Fifteen years ago, Chouksey, a retired engineer, had been hooted down when he stood up in the movie theater while the anthem depicted in the film was playing. He said he was deeply hurt by the ridicule. And from that moment on, he's been seeking greater respect for the anthem. He's petitioned courts to instill a spirit of nationalism. And in late November, he won. India's Supreme Court agreed that the anthem was in need of a boost. The citizens must realize they live in a nation, the court wrote and said, patriotism does not allow the perception of individual rights.
NITIN PAI: It's kind of a national majoritarianism (ph), which says that there is this one highway which all Indians are supposed to walk on.
MCCARTHY: Nitin Pai directs the Takshashila Institution, which examines public policy. He says nationalist attitudes and insecurities about nationhood have been on the rise in India. Pai takes exception to the Supreme Court declaring the need for, quote, "people to feel this is my country, my motherland."
PAI: The idea that you have one single monolithic view of what patriotism is, what nationalism is or, indeed, what India is - it's just so un-Indian. It's just so un-Indian because if India is anything, it's a multitude. It's about diversity. It's about pluralism. It's about people finding and doing their own thing.
MCCARTHY: Pai says Indians also like a bit of mischief, like disobeying the law once in a while.
PAI: So I don't think this kind of regimented patriotism can stay and survive too long in a country that enjoys being unruly.
MCCARTHY: Back at the cinema, even the patriotism is a bit unruly.
(APPLAUSE)
MCCARTHY: In the film finale, the wrestler daughter wins her first international gold medal. As she steps to the podium to the swelling film score...
(SOUNDBITE OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE SONG, "JANA GANA MANA")
MCCARTHY: ...The theater audience leaps to its feet upon hearing India's national anthem.
(CHEERING)
MCCARTHY: Julie McCarthy, NPR News, New Delhi.
(SOUNDBITE OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE SONG, "JANA GANA MANA")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Ford Motor Company is scrapping plans to build a new car plant in Mexico. President-elect Donald Trump had repeatedly criticized the car company for moving production there. NPR's Sonari Glinton reports.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: President-elect Donald Trump has singled out several individual companies. Ford, though, has come in for some special treatment. Trump threatened if Ford built the proposed plant in Mexico...
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DONALD TRUMP: Every car and every truck and every part manufactured in this plant that comes across the border - we're going to charge you a 35 percent tax, OK?
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
GLINTON: That was in the summer. Ford and its CEO, Mark Fields, have repeatedly gotten into verbal sparring matches with the president-elect. In an interview today with NPR, Fields says business was the main factor in his decision making.
MARK FIELDS: Well, the main reason that we're canceling our $1.6 billion new plant in Mexico is essentially because we've seen market demand here in North America for small cars drop off pretty significantly.
GLINTON: I mean you've been essentially president-elect Donald Trump's whipping boy for quite some time, and it looks like politics to a casual observer.
FIELDS: Well, it could look like that to a casual observer, but at the end of the day, you know, we have to do what's right for our business. We have to answer to our shareholders.
GLINTON: Instead of building a new plant in Mexico, Fields says Ford will invest in facilities in Michigan, adding about 700 jobs. When asked to quantify how big of a role the president-elect's tweeting and cajoling went into the decision, Fields couldn't give a percentage.
FIELDS: Clearly it was a factor. You know, we have a president-elect who said very clearly he wants to create a more positive business environment for manufacturing here in the U.S., wants to create pro-growth policies, and those things matter.
GLINTON: Kristin Dziczek with the Center for Automotive Research says Ford isn't losing out on that much by canceling its plans.
KRISTIN DZICZEK: Ford makes decisions based on business. They don't do it on politics. If it happens to make political sense, then they're going to make hay with it.
GLINTON: Meanwhile, I ask Fields how he and the company plan on dealing with the new political environment.
FIELDS: Simple answer - very carefully.
GLINTON: And then he gave a nervous laugh. Sonari Glinton, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The latest National Geographic magazine tackles one subject in depth. The issue is called The Gender Revolution. True to the magazine's form, it explores what cultures around the world think about being male, female or something in between and what science has to say about it. The journalist Robin Marantz Henig wrote one of these articles called "Rethinking Gender." Welcome to the program.
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG: Thanks, Ari.
SHAPIRO: So the issue was about the gender revolution. And I think some listeners might be asking, what gender revolution?
HENIG: (Laughter) Well, don't you get a feeling that we are aware of it kind of? I mean, there's suddenly headlines everywhere about, you know, Caitlyn Jenner coming out as transgender, about bathroom issues. We're reading much more than we did even five years ago about transgender rights and all sorts of things about being a non-binary gender identity.
SHAPIRO: I want to get into that word non-binary because your article explores specifically whether gender is categorical - you're male, or you're female - or whether gender is a spectrum with points in between male and female. Is the answer to that question a cultural answer or a scientific answer?
HENIG: (Laughter) Well, it's a little bit of both because it's more complicated than just feeling like a male when you're identified at birth as a female. There's a lot of people who somehow identify at different points along that spectrum. And it's not one identity or the other.
SHAPIRO: Right. So I think many people are familiar with, for example, Caitlyn Jenner, who publicly said, I was born with the anatomy of a male, but I have always felt myself to be female. But what you're exploring here is something in between there, not - I was born with this biology, but I feel myself to be a different gender. Can you give us an example of what non-binary gender identity looks like?
HENIG: The teenager who I follow all the way through is somebody I call E, who was identified at birth as a girl and was still calling herself female and using female pronouns when I met her when she was 14. And over the course of just a few months, she managed to transform what was feeling right. You know, when I first met her, she still pictured herself as an adult with a beard and who didn't menstruate and who didn't have breasts and who looked kind of like a guy. And she looked like a guy but a childish kind of guy.
By the time I was finished talking to E, it turned out that E was now using the pronoun they. And they were pretty sure that they were going to start taking testosterone and actually continue a transition into a male, even though, when I first met E, they were feeling like male wasn't exactly right, either.
SHAPIRO: You do write about cultures where people who are neither male nor female have long been accepted. Generally, it's not a huge spectrum that is accepted but a specific category that is neither male nor female. Can you give me one example?
HENIG: Right. Well, I went out to Samoa, where there is this third gender category known as fa'afafine. These are people who are born with male anatomy. And yet pretty early on, generally, they are identified as something that's not really exactly male or exactly female. And so they're allowed this third gender where they grow up to continue to have their male anatomy. And yet they behave socially, culturally and sexually as females. It's this interesting intermediate category that does seem to exist in pockets around the world.
SHAPIRO: What did you learn about the scientific basis for understanding gender as a spectrum?
HENIG: That was tricky. They don't actually know why it is that some people end up having a gender identity that doesn't conform with their physiology and their anatomy or their chromosomes.
SHAPIRO: I could imagine somebody listening to this conversation saying, oh, that's just somebody's whims, their feelings on any given day. They don't actually have any biological, scientific difference. They just are impetuous and impulsive and decide one day they want to be a boy and one day they want to be a girl. Having spent so much time with people who don't identify strictly as one gender or the other, did you have that sense at all?
HENIG: Well, I did talk to some people who had that criticism and who thought that if you didn't sort of allow children who say, I feel like a girl - if you didn't like them to live like a girl, they would turn out to just be boys who were variant in their gender expression. But there are also people who are very careful about who they say really is gender variant in one way or another.
And these are people who are consistent and persistent and insistent - those are the three words they use - in saying that, yes, I really am not the gender you have identified me as. I mean, this is a really essential part of who they are. And if you fight them, you'll end up with a great deal of damage to that child.
SHAPIRO: Robin Marantz Henig, thanks so much.
HENIG: Thank you, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Robin Marantz Henig wrote the article "Rethinking Gender" for the special issue of National Geographic that explores the gender revolution.
(SOUNDBITE OF RITCHIE VALENS SONG, "RITCHIE'S BLUES")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Our next story is about something that probably could not have existed even two years ago, an independent video game design company in Cuba. It's the product of a partnership between Cuban entrepreneurs and a U.S. foundation, a partnership made possible by recent changes in U.S. policies toward Cuba. NPR's Greg Allen reports.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Empty Head Games is the company started by two young Cubans, Josuhe Pagliery and Johann Armenteros. In November, the duo launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for their game, Savior.
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JOSUHE PAGLIERY: You set out to save your world, traveling through numerous levels and encountering strange creatures and unexpected situations along the way.
ALLEN: That's Pagliery, the game's creator, director and art designer. In just six days, the campaign hit its $10,000 goal.
PAGLIERY: For me, everything is like a victory (laughter). Everything is like a victory.
ALLEN: Pagliery was in Miami recently, talking about the challenges of launching an independent video game in a country where access to the internet is severely limited. In many ways, he says, he was lucky. His cousins had an Atari game console in the early '90s. And he grew up playing video games.
PAGLIERY: I had the luck to grow up with different consoles that, in Cuba, are not quite common, like Nintendo, Super Nintendo, PlayStation One.
ALLEN: Pagliery's game, Savior, is in part an homage to those old '90s video games. In Cuba, that was a time known as the special period, when the country went into a deep recession following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Pagliery remembers his grandmother was forced to sell the family's silver. But his main memory from that time was when he first saw "Super Mario World," a game released for Super Nintendo.
PAGLIERY: And for me, that was like seeing, you know, like the future (laughter). It was like, wow. I really wanted to play and have the game.
ALLEN: Pagliery graduated from Havana's University of the Arts. With computer programmer Johann Armenteros, he began working on developing Savior. It's based on art and ideas he's been developing for years. Capturing it in computer code, though, is a technical challenge made even harder, Armenteros says, by Cuba's isolation. Speaking on the phone from his studio in Havana, he says with limited internet access, he's largely on his own when it comes to game design.
JOHANN ARMENTEROS: It's very difficult for me because everything that I have to do with the game, I have to figure out how to solve the problem.
ALLEN: In Savior, the player is in a world that's crumbling. You play as a little god who must overcome strange creatures and obstacles to reach the great god and save the world.
ARMENTEROS: This is not a stylized version of "Mario Brothers," if you will. This is a very rich and intense, artistically based game.
ALLEN: Miles Spencer is one of the founders of Innovadores, a U.S.-based nonprofit that runs a tech incubator, an entrepreneur exchange program in Cuba. Spencer says Innovadores helped Pagliery and Armenteros put together their crowdfunding proposal.
MILES SPENCER: It would never occur to someone in Cuba to actually do it this way.
ALLEN: With the first stage of their crowdfunding in hand, Pagliery and Armenteros hope to have a demo of their game ready by the spring. But Pagliery wants Savior to be much more than just Cuba's first independently produced video game. He says it has to be great.
PAGLIERY: Like, it's a good game, not like a good game for a Cuban guy.
ALLEN: Good enough so not just Cuban guys but gamers all over the world want to play it.
Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
When South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu turned 85 years old, he shared a message. He wants the option of an assisted death. That's currently illegal in South Africa, and Tutu says he supports a right to what he calls a dignified death in his country and throughout the world. Peter Granitz reports from Pretoria.
PETER GRANITZ, BYLINE: Archbishop Tutu is considered the moral conscience of South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his anti-apartheid activism, and he chaired South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission which probed human rights abuses committed by all parties during the war that ended white minority rule.
So some were taken aback when the archbishop emeritus of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa said he wants the option to end his life when he chooses.
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DESMOND TUTU: As a Christian, I believe in the sanctity of life and that death is a part of life. I hope that when the time comes, I am treated with compassion and allowed to pass on to the next phase of life's journey in the manner of my choice.
GRANITZ: That's currently illegal in South Africa. The Supreme Court of Appeal reaffirmed that stance earlier this month when it struck down a lower court's ruling that granted an applicant the right to euthanasia.
Tutu, who's lived with prostate cancer for decades and has been in and out of the hospital in recent years, has supported physician-assisted dying for some time, and he says he supports efforts around the globe to legalize the procedure.
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TUTU: I pray that politicians, lawmakers and religious leaders have the courage to support the choices terminally ill citizens make in departing Mother Earth with dignity and love.
GRANITZ: Tutu made that video for advocacy groups which support so-called death with dignity laws. Parishioners file into St. Alban's Anglican Cathedral as the organ starts a few minutes early. The hundred-year-old stone church sits in the middle of tall government buildings in downtown Pretoria.
Musima Gwangwa says Tutu's leadership in ending apartheid and the stances he's taken on human rights abuses around the world serve as a model that Anglicans like her should try and emulate.
MUSIMA GWANGWA: He's more than an icon for us.
GRANITZ: She supports Tutu's desire to control the end of his life, but not all parishioners agree. For Richard Botha, the archbishop's decision is a confounding one. He calls Tutu a global elder, someone willing to criticize leaders for poor judgment. But Tutu's support for euthanasia does not comport with Botha's religious beliefs.
RICHARD BOTHA: I won't remember him for that. I'll remember him for his credentials and his human rights struggle.
GRANITZ: Archbishop Tutu declined NPR's interview request. He's effectively retired from public life, but he's been making his feelings known in editorials. In them, he described as disgraceful Nelson Mandela's last days and how Mandela, known here as Madiba, was used as a political prop in photo ops despite being unable to communicate.
It was an affront to Madiba's his legacy, Tutu wrote in The Guardian newspaper. He went on to argue that South Africa needed to revisit its laws regarding a person's right to die. Judges wrote in last week's ruling they'd welcome action from parliament, meaning the legislature and not the courts should determine whether euthanasia will be legal in South Africa. Advocates for assisted dying could take the case to the constitutional court.
Whatever the outcome of the legal case in South Africa, right to die advocates say Tutu's support for the issue can guide conflicted people across the globe. Barbara Coombs Lee heads Compassion and Choices, a group that lobbies for assisted dying in the United States.
BARBARA COOMBS LEE: It helps to hear a person who has dedicated his life to religion and about whom there's no question that they are deeply religious to say there's no incompatibility between a deep religious faith and support for medical aid in dying.
GRANITZ: At 85 years old, it's unclear whether Archbishop Tutu will win his last social campaign in his home country. And like many times before, this effort is personal. For NPR News, I'm Peter Granitz in Pretoria.
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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Cave floors might hold an important key to understanding long-extinct human ancestors. Scientists in Germany are analyzing dirt from cave floors in search of DNA. NPR's Joe Palca recently visited Leipzig where the research is taking place.
JOE PALCA, BYLINE: Most ancient DNA is extracted from bones or teeth. Matthias Meyer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig says you don't need very much of the bone. Just a thousandth of an ounce will do. But there's a problem - anthropologists hate to give away any of their precious bones.
MATTHIAS MEYER: We've been recently trying to explore new sources of potential archaic human DNA as the fossil record is very limited.
PALCA: So Meyer and his colleagues began to wonder, what if you don't need an intact bone at all? Many of these interesting bones come from caves. What if, over the millennia, some of the bones just degraded into a kind of dust and fell to the floor of the cave? It would be easy enough to get at.
MEYER: You just take a shovel with some dirt, and then you look for DNA. And it's actually been shown in the past that there's DNA from plenty of species can be preserved in caves - in sediments in general for long periods of time.
PALCA: Meyer has some of this DNA from cave floors, and he's been able to begin analyzing it. But there are problems to solve before he can make sense of it. You have to develop methods to be certain that it came from an ancient bone and not a more recent human cave explorer or some contaminating bacteria. And the DNA they'll get will be tiny snippets of all the DNA in an ancient human ancestor. Piecing together the big picture will be tricky. Meyer says they're making headway with those issues.
MEYER: Currently, there are some initial promising results that sort of make it very worthwhile to follow up on this.
PALCA: Now, let's say you can get lots of DNA that you know comes from an ancient human ancestor. What do you do with it? Janet Kelso says plenty. Kelso is Meyer's colleague at the Max Planck Institute.
JANET KELSO: We've initiated a project just this year to try and generate sequences from a large number of Neanderthals to try and understand something about the Neanderthal population histories.
PALCA: Even though they're gone now, Kelso says Neanderthals were on Earth for quite a while.
KELSO: We know Neanderthals lived in Europe and western Asia for 200,000, 300,000 years.
PALCA: And during that time, the climate in those areas changed dramatically. There were times when glaciers covered a large chunk of the landscape. Kelso says if they can get DNA samples from Neanderthals at various time points in their history...
KELSO: We can see - how were they adapting to the environment? How did they differ over time? Can we understand what happened to them in the end? That may not be something you can tell from the sequence, but it would be interesting to try.
PALCA: Another question is just how often Neanderthals and modern humans had sex with one another.
KELSO: Was this something that was happening relatively regularly over some time? Was it quite rare?
PALCA: Kelso says most modern human populations have at least some genetic connection to Neanderthals. But there are many questions about when and where Neanderthals made their contributions to the modern human gene pool. It would be pretty amazing if the answers came from the dirt on the floor of caves.
Joe Palca, NPR News.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
One more thing we want to note in our story yesterday about a study on gun violence - we incorrectly said the study was published in JAMA. It was published in JAMA Internal Medicine, a different medical journal.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In pop culture, movies especially, black holes are described as nightmarish vacuum cleaners, sucking up everything in reach - infinite darkness.
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MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: (As Cooper) It's all black. TARS, do you read me? It's all blackness.
CORNISH: That's Matthew McConaughey's astronaut character in the film "Interstellar." NPR's Rae Ellen Bichell has learned that black holes don't consume everything they draw in. Some shoot out particles and even put on light shows.
RAE ELLEN BICHELL, BYLINE: Jedidah Isler is a professional stargazer. As an astrophysicist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, she spends most days chipping away at the mysteries of the universe, one mystery in particular - how really big, overactive black holes work.
JEDIDAH ISLER: They are billions of times the mass of our own sun. I like to call them hyperactive in the sense that they are just taking on a lot more than an average black hole.
BICHELL: And those monster black holes tend to do something odd. They not only reject material, but they use it to put on a space version of a fireworks show, shooting out shredded stars and other things in a stream of lights and charged particles.
ISLER: Think of them as, like, cosmic water hoses that are spewing out all kinds of particles and light and all these things.
BICHELL: Those jets sling material out in some of the most powerful particle streams ever observed. Theoretically speaking, if an unlucky planet happened to cross paths with one of those jets, Isler says it would not be pretty.
ISLER: It'd basically destroy the planet completely.
BICHELL: Isler's specialty is blazars, also known as blazing quasars - or hyperactive, monster black holes with jets pointed toward a familiar part of the universe.
ISLER: Basically pointed at the Earth, not to sound too dramatic (laughter).
BICHELL: Special telescopes developed in the last few years have spotted a few thousand of them.
ISLER: Thankfully, they are far enough away that they are not going to have any negative impact on us as human beings. But they do serve as really interesting laboratories to understand these really exotic systems.
BICHELL: Isler is using data from big telescopes to investigate what makes a monster black hole throw jets of material into space.
ISLER: They are able to accelerate particles to 99.99 percent of the speed of light. How does that happen?
BICHELL: If she and her colleagues can figure out how these natural particle accelerators work, they may begin to understand the physical laws that guide these bizarre black holes and maybe a lot of other things out there because, Isler says, it isn't just blazars that can do this trick of pulling things in and then flinging them out.
ISLER: That process happens at many different scales across the universe with many different systems.
BICHELL: For example, when planets form, they pull material towards them and tend to shoot it out in jets, just on a much smaller, weaker scale than blazars. Isler says it's something nature seems to do really well.
ISLER: There may be some way that this process is universal in our cosmos.
BICHELL: And these supermassive, hyperactive black holes could lead the way to figuring that out.
Rae Ellen Bichell, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In the week after Election Day, stocks of two major private prison companies increased dramatically, this after months of President-elect Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric about illegal immigration. If he follows through on some of those campaign pledges, it could bring boom times to the industry. NPR's John Burnett reports.
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Go back to last spring to a town hall meeting with Donald Trump on MSNBC to hear what his presidency could mean for the confinement industry.
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DONALD TRUMP: By the way, with prisons...
CHRIS MATTHEWS: I think we're about out of time.
TRUMP: ...I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons. It seems to work a lot better.
BURNETT: Two possible categories of unauthorized immigrants who would go behind locked gates - first, the Trump campaign vowed to stop the catch and release of people who crossed the border without documents to ask for asylum. And second, as president-elect, Trump has said he wants to deport 2 to 3 million criminal aliens.
MARY SMALL: Detention is an inherent part of the machinery of deportation. And so I think that we're looking ahead at the massive expansion of our detention system.
BURNETT: Mary Small is policy director for Detention Watch Network, which opposes private prisons.
SMALL: And what we've seen over the last decade is that when the detention system grows, that's mostly through the use of private prison companies.
BURNETT: The Obama administration played red light, green light with the corrections industry. The Department of Homeland Security relies heavily on private lockups for more than 70 percent of its detainees. And recently, the agency has been signing contracts for hundreds of new detention beds. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice announced in August it wants to phase out all private prisons, including those that hold convicted immigrants. The inspector general declared them less safe and less secure than federal prisons.
But Trump's Justice Department may reconsider private prison contracts, says Michele Deitch. She follows prison issues at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
MICHELE DEITCH: This summer, the Justice Department decided to reduce its use of privatization. And I think that will certainly be looked at again under the Trump administration.
BURNETT: Asked by NPR, the two publicly traded corrections companies, GEO and CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America, declined to comment on whether a Trump presidency would be good for stockholders. In emails, the two companies' spokesmen emphasized their success as private partners for a government that doesn't like to build new prisons anymore. GEO said they provide, quote, "safe, secure and humane facilities for federal detainees."
But it's been a rocky relationship at times. For-profit detention at all levels - federal, state and local - has been the target of frequent lawsuits and harsh criticism. Just to name two, in 2012, a federal judge ordered all young men out of a private youth prison in Walnut Grove, Miss., calling it a picture of horror. And last month, a lawsuit filed by the Texas county of Willacy decried the, quote, "abysmal mismanagement" of an immigrant detention center in the town of Raymondville. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons severed its contract with that private facility after inmates rioted over living conditions in 2015.
Michele Deitch at UT-Austin says what is certain under Trump is more opposition to private prisons, especially the policy of confining asylum-seekers.
DEITCH: And locking them up really is serving no public safety purpose. So yes, I would expect that lawsuits will continue, and challenges will continue to this practice of immigrant detention.
BURNETT: The nation's customs commissioner recently had some startling news from the southern border. Gil Kerlikowske said that apprehensions of illegal crossers - mainly Central Americans seeking refuge from violence, and job opportunities - can reach 2,000 people a day. Most of them don't flee. They surrender to agents. If Donald Trump embraces the prison business like a lot of people think he will, there will be no shortage of detainees.
John Burnett, NPR News, Austin.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Senators have raised a lot of questions about Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state. They're concerned about former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson's many business dealings around the globe, particularly in Russia. Tillerson has now severed ties with the company to try to ease some of those concerns. A confirmation hearing could come as early as next week, as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Rex Tillerson spent his entire career at Exxon and would have reached retirement age in March. The company says he's giving up about $7 million in compensation in order to sever ties early. But ExxonMobil is paying him up front in cash for the 2 million shares he would have received over the next decade and putting that estimated $180 million in an independently managed trust.
Tillerson has also committed to selling off the ExxonMobil shares he currently owns if he's confirmed as secretary of state. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, is calling for a prompt hearing now that Tillerson's paperwork is in.
BOB CORKER: It looks like it's all tidied up and done, so I think he'll have a good hearing.
KELEMEN: But the ranking Democrat, Ben Cardin of Maryland, says he didn't have enough time to go through that ethics plan before meeting Tillerson today. He's also still holding out for Tillerson's tax returns.
BEN CARDIN: I still have always felt that the supplying of the three years of tax returns was an important part of the process.
KELEMEN: Corker has argued that isn't necessary, but Democratic staffers point out that previous secretaries of state held public positions before, so they had a longer history of financial disclosures. That's not the case for Tillerson. And Cardin still has many questions about how much Tillerson will distance himself from ExxonMobil's interests.
CARDIN: The fact that he was CEO of ExxonMobil and his responsibility was primarily to the stockholders and, if he's confirmed as secretary of state, his responsibilities are to the American people - we went over that.
KELEMEN: Take, for instance, Tillerson's experience in Russia. At first, the U.S. supported ExxonMobil's joint ventures with the Russian energy company Rosneft, but things changed, says former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul.
MICHAEL MCFAUL: After Russia invaded Ukraine, the Obama administration put sanctions on many people, including Rex Tillerson's partner Igor Sechin, the head of Rosneft. And that's when ExxonMobil's policy and U.S. policy came into tension.
KELEMEN: Tillerson also ignored U.S. State Department advice to American CEOs last year to stay away from a business forum in St. Petersburg. McFaul says that made a big impression on the Kremlin at the time.
Republicans and Democrats have been raising concerns about his Kremlin ties. Cardin, the Maryland Democrat, had what he calls a candid conversation with Tillerson about that already.
CARDIN: Russia is not a friend of the United States. We have serious concerns about Russia. I think that's a strong bipartisan message that you're going to hear during the confirmation process.
KELEMEN: A process he says is only just beginning. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
A difficult woman - that's a loaded term. But Roxane Gay is not afraid of taking on ideas with baggage. A few years ago, she wrote a book of essays called "Bad Feminist." And with the new book "Difficult Women," she's written a collection of fiction, short stories exploring women's lives and issues of race, class and sex. She's here to talk more about it.
Roxanne Gay, welcome to the program.
ROXANE GAY: Thank you for having me again, Audie.
CORNISH: The opening story of this book is very intense.
GAY: Yes.
CORNISH: Not to make it a big spoiler alert, but it involves sexual assault and a pair of sisters, two young women who are very, very close as a result. And I remember thinking - first of all, I just put down the book (laughter) immediately after reading it. I was like, OK, maybe not my Christmas reading. But it did make me feel like...
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: Maybe not the right choice. But it made me wonder about that as a choice that you made as an author to say right out of the gate - OK, folks - this is the world we're going to be in.
GAY: Yes. You know, it was difficult when I was thinking about which story to put first. And - so it is this dark story, but it's also, I think, a hopeful story in that despite this trauma that these two girls endure. They remain very close, and they have an unbreakable bond. And I was really interested in that unbreakable bond and in how they will follow each other no matter what, no matter where because they've already been to the worst possible place. And so that felt like a really great way to introduce readers to my stories of women who go to impossible places but are fighting to find their way back.
CORNISH: Throughout these stories, there are a lot of messed up fathers...
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: ...A lot of boyfriends who were bad in varying degrees...
GAY: Yes.
CORNISH: ...And a lot of abuse. And I definitely had - the thought occurred to me that it should be called "Difficult Men."
GAY: It could absolutely be called "Difficult Men." The men in these stories are oftentimes not great men. My dad is always like - what did I do?
(LAUGHTER)
GAY: I'm like, nothing - you're - he's - my dad's amazing. And so...
CORNISH: Yeah.
GAY: ...You know, I think it's because I have an amazing father - and amazing brothers - it's knowing how many good men are out there that allows me to explore the men who are difficult, who make horrible decision, yeah.
CORNISH: That's really interesting 'cause for me, I definitely was like - I don't know any men like this. Like, I like my husband a lot. He seems kind of nice.
GAY: Yeah, absolutely.
CORNISH: And it did make me wonder if you knew any nice man.
GAY: I know many. You know, I do try to put good men into my stories. But there are more bad men than good. And I guess that's just an obsession of mine. But it is fiction, and so I take liberties.
CORNISH: You've also been working on a book called "Hunger," which I understand is a memoir that deals with your relationship with food.
GAY: Yes.
CORNISH: And in "Difficult Women," there are also a lot of descriptions of people's bodies and their weight and physically - like, how they physically move in the world. Are you kind of working this out in both places (laughter)? Are you trying out the ideas in both places?
GAY: Yes and no. I write about bodies because we live in bodies. We can't escape them. And so I don't want to write fiction that ignores physical reality and that there are different kinds of bodies in the world. And "Hunger" is, in many ways, the same thing. I was interested in writing a book about wanting to lose weight and working on it but not being anywhere near the end of that weight-loss journey. What is it like to actually live in an overweight body and deal with the world that is not at all hospitable to such bodies? And so I go way more in-depth in terms of physical realities in "Hunger."
CORNISH: Yeah. In "Difficult Women," there are moments where people are described as, like, the flat of her stomach (unintelligible) didn't and their diets - that that also is kind of hanging over everything, the presence of understanding how the world sees you.
GAY: Absolutely. It strikes me that most of my friends are dieting constantly. And it's exhausting, especially, like, as we get older. And it's like oh, my God. Like, when do we stop dieting? My mom's on a diet.
CORNISH: (Laughter).
GAY: And I'm really interested in that. And so I - that's also coming out in some of the stories, like that we're always on some sort of deprivation module. And that's exhausting.
CORNISH: Finally, with "Difficult Women," I will say that there are many, many stories where women are helping each other...
GAY: Yes.
CORNISH: ...Where they have very close friends, loving relationships that get them through all of these things that they're experiencing. And now, that was nice to read (laughter).
GAY: Yeah. I really love my friendships with other women. And I have found so much solace and joy and debauchery with other women (laughter). And so I definitely wanted to put that into the book - that, for me at least, the way I see the world is that women are very good to other women most of the time. And now I know there are so many popular narratives. And many people have had bad experiences with other women, like competitiveness and so on and whatever. But I also think that women, when it's necessary, can come together and will come together and support each other - because I think we know things about what it's like to be a woman in the world and that that common bond really is a strength.
CORNISH: Well, Roxane Gay, thank you so much for speaking with us.
GAY: Thank you for having me again.
CORNISH: Roxane Gay - her new collection of short stories is called "Difficult Women."
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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
When Donald Trump takes office in a couple weeks, he will likely bring dramatic changes to America's refugee resettlement program. He could cut off Syrian refugees altogether. This is what he said in September.
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DONALD TRUMP: We are going to stop the tens of thousands of people coming in from Syria. We have no idea who they are, where they come from. There's no documentation. There's no paperwork.
(CHEERING)
SHAPIRO: Actually, there's a lot of documentation and paperwork. The screening process often takes as long as two years. There are medical tests, background checks, round after round of interviews.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Do you just have your ID?
SHAPIRO: Gasan al-Ferris got through all that vetting, and now the Syrian chef is in Toledo, Ohio, dealing with a different kind of paperwork. He's at the bank learning how to write checks.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: What you would do here is put today's date.
GASAN AL-FERRIS: (Unintelligible).
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: OK, that's fine.
AL-FERRIS: Thank you, (unintelligible).
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: That's right.
SHAPIRO: He's making a payment to reimburse the cost of the plane ticket that brought him to the U.S. I wanted to find out what a new administration will mean for one community that has already taken in more than a hundred Syrians over the last year, so I went back to Toledo, a city where I first reported on Syrian refugees more than a year ago. I met some new people and checked in on families that have been here for a while.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: What is your name?
OMAR AL-AWAD: Omar - I am Omar.
SHAPIRO: That was the first time we met Omar al-Awad and his family in 2015. He was taking an English class at a local church. Here he is today.
O. AL-AWAD: My name is Omar al-Awad. How old - 40.
SHAPIRO: The family's life has changed since the last time we saw them.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)
SHAPIRO: For starters, they now have four children. Baby Salman turned 1 the day before we arrived. He's a full-fledged American citizen. And the other kids are now practically fluent in English. Tsiba is 5. Abdul Jabar is 7, and Hamam is 10.
HAMAM AL-AWAD: I like to go to school.
SHAPIRO: What do you do at school?
HAMAM: Doing math.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Ten minus...
HAMAM: Minus five - that equals five.
SHAPIRO: Omar's wife, Hiyam Al-Awad, says overall, this first year in the U.S. was tough.
HIYAM AL-AWAD: (Through interpreter) We came to a country that is not our country, and everything changed on us - the system, the people, the area, the city.
SHAPIRO: Omar, her husband, is trained as a carpenter. For now, he's working on a hospital cleaning crew. He says he is happy to be working, but what gives him the most pride is watching his kids flourish in school. Two of his children were just named student of the month. He was so proud; he went out and bought them new toys. Omar has come a long way, too.
Are there new refugees who have arrived in the last year who now you have helped because when we came here, you were the newest person.
O. AL-AWAD: (Through interpreter) Yes, I go with them to pay bills. There are days I take them to the doctor, bring them stuff from the store.
SHAPIRO: The U.S. never took in a lot of refugees from Syria. With millions of people displaced, the U.S. only admitted 12,000 or so over the last five years. Some cities in Europe took in twice that many in a given week. Donald Trump may stop admitting Syrian refugees altogether, fearing they could be dangerous. I ask Omar al-Awad whether he feels lucky to have made it to the U.S. while the door was still open a crack.
O. AL-AWAD: (Through interpreter) Of course. Anyone that is able to get out of these countries, whether it's Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey - of course the situation is better here than it is to be there.
SHAPIRO: Those are countries where millions of Syrians sit in refugee camps waiting to see what comes next.
(CROSSTALK)
SHAPIRO: One organization in Toledo works to settle new refugees who arrive here. They help people find housing, furniture and jobs. There's even a new program offering counseling for people who've experienced torture. The group is called Us Together. On this day, new arrivals from Syria are going through an orientation program. A pastor from a nearby church named Luke Lindon speaks to him through an interpreter.
LUKE LINDON: There are some people that you may have heard that may not feel as welcoming. They might be saying some scary things.
UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: (Speaking Arabic).
SHAPIRO: Pastor Lindon is tall and gentle with a shaved head. He sprinkles his conversation with dude and blessings. He wants the new refugees not to feel afraid of differences.
LINDON: It scares our people here, and it scares you all coming in.
UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: (Speaking Arabic).
LINDON: But I'm here to say that nothing defeats fear like a face.
SHAPIRO: When he finishes talking to the group, we sit down with him in an office.
LINDON: My own grandfather is a Slovakian immigrant, worked in the brick yards. And he recalled a time before World War II that, you know, he was not considered white. He wasn't considered part of the populace. He was a problem. And so knowing that, we want to make sure that that history doesn't repeat.
SHAPIRO: It was interesting to me that your remarks to these brand new arrivals didn't hesitate to acknowledge that there will be hostility and there are people who are afraid of you. It's not like you worked your way up to that. That was what you started with.
LINDON: Yeah. It's a reality. We got to name the reality. We have to be truthful, but we also need to reach into this small group and welcome them as well as welcome others who are afraid of the conversation. Some people won't even have the conversation, and that's the one that I'm most struggling for in my own spirit - those who are so fearful they can't even have the conversation.
SHAPIRO: Toledo has seen generations of immigrants, including decades of Middle Eastern emigration. So when we went from one blue-collar bar to another, the openness to refugees was striking. One bartender told us as long as the Statue of Liberty is still standing, refugees should be welcome in Toledo.
Others had harsh things to say off the record. One woman who wouldn't speak on tape said they've got their own country; they should stay there. Then we met Jon Johnstone, who was in the Navy. He's suspicious of people who continue to wear headscarves and speak in Arabic.
JON JOHNSTONE: If you want to come here and turn the United States into Syria, I'm against that. You want to come here and speak English, you want to assimilate, you want to have a pizza, you want to have a beer, you want to eat a chicken wing, I'm all for it.
SHAPIRO: Corrine Dehaby has heard it all. Her family is Syrian-American. Her dad was a U.S. fighter pilot, and she runs the resettlement group Us Together. She stays focused on the positive. Last year, more Syrian refugees arrived than she ever expected.
CORRINE DEHABY: We budgeted for 75 last year, and we went over 235.
SHAPIRO: One-hundred-thirty-five...
DEHABY: Individuals.
SHAPIRO: ...When you planned for 75.
DEHABY: Yes, yes.
SHAPIRO: How do you do that (laughter)?
DEHABY: I don't know. We must be super woman here.
(LAUGHTER)
DEHABY: Sometimes I ask myself, you know, how did I do - how did we do this as a staff, you know?
SHAPIRO: And when new people arrive, the needs of the people who've already been here don't disappear.
DEHABY: They don't disappear. You know, technically, the cases has to be closed in three months according to the American government. But in reality, we're not because they keep coming back and forth for stuff. So we can't telling them, no, you know, we'll close your case. But we can't close the door, you know, on the people. So we have new families. They have lot of needs. And then we have old families that still need - have needs.
SHAPIRO: Those needs keep her busy enough that she doesn't dwell on what will happen after Trump's inauguration. She says maybe his speeches about cutting off refugees were just political talk, empty promises. If the refugees do stop coming, then Toledo's long history of integrating generations of people from other countries may have a pause.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEARLY ORATORIO SONG, "OCCLUDE")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
As Donald Trump's inauguration approaches, we've been taking a look at communities around the country he will soon lead. It's our series Finding America. Today, Roane County, Tenn.
CHARLENE HIPSHER: Roane County is such a beautiful part of the country with the lush mountains and beautiful rivers. But we do have a terrible problem here, and it's opiate addiction.
SHAPIRO: That's Charlene Hipsher. She's an assistant to the local prosecutor. She's helped launch a special recovery court with the goal of getting drug addicts into treatment instead of jail. We sent a producer to spend some time with Hipsher in Roane County.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELLS RINGING)
HIPSHER: We are on the main street in Kingston, Tenn. And we're getting ready to go into a little local restaurant called Handee Burger.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR CLOSING)
HIPSHER: Handee Burger is the heartbeat of this community. You have people from all walks of life here.
Hello, Ms. Jerri (ph). How are - oh, looky here. How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I'm extremely great.
HIPSHER: The people here are hardworking, kind, just salt of the earth. And so you have that. But on the other hand, you have this terrible addiction problem here. It starts tearing our community apart. Its tentacles start coming in and strangling out the very life of what should be an awesome, thriving community.
This is the Roane County Courthouse. It's a beautiful building - brick, big stately columns.
UNIDENTIFIED COURT OFFICER: Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Good morning, officer.
UNIDENTIFIED COURT OFFICER: Do you have anything on you like a cell phone, wallets?
HIPSHER: We're going to head up to recovery court.
Recovery court is intensive supervision and treatment. It's an alternative to a jail sentence that gives a person an opportunity to work on the addiction and, hopefully, leave the program as a productive citizen within the community.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America...
DENNIS HUMPHREY: My name is Judge Dennis Humphrey. I'm general sessions court judge of Roane County and also the recovery court judge in Roane County.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: ...With liberty and justice for all.
HUMPHREY: Ashley (ph), come on up. I understand you've had a pretty rough week. And I'll sympathize with you on that. But you've been - it's encouraging to hear how serious you are about your plans.
We've learned that more jail, more jail, more jail does not work. It does not remedy the problem. But something in the nature of a drug court does - to get to the heart of their problem, try to remedy that, try to work with them to show them that we do care about what's happening.
Gabby (ph), come on up. You should have heard them talking about you a little while ago. I'm proud of Gabby, someone said. She's come so far, and I am proud of you, too. I present the new and improved Gabby. She is really working. She's doing a good job.
(APPLAUSE)
HUMPHREY: I'm really proud of you. You're doing good. All right.
HIPSHER: By the time they have phased up where they're getting ready to graduate, they are a completely different person than they were.
HUMPHREY: They've had a personality change.
HIPSHER: They've had a personality change.
HUMPHREY: They look happy.
HIPSHER: The mother of one of the participants in our recovery court came up to me recently and was telling me thank you because I now see a light that's coming on inside my daughter that I have not seen for many years. And she's becoming that girl that I knew. And that's what we see.
HUMPHREY: Yes.
HIPSHER: And that is pretty cool.
HUMPHREY: Yes.
HIPSHER: That's pretty cool.
There's this old Appalachian song called "I'm Just An Old Chunk Of Coal (But I'm Going To Be A Diamond Someday)." And when I'm here in Roane County, I see chunks of coal that could be diamonds. There's something beautiful laying just beneath the surface. If treatment were available, I just think there are diamonds that are getting ready to bust out all over the place.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Did I leave you enough room for your cream?
HIPSHER: Yes, you did.
SHAPIRO: That's Charlene Hipsher in Roane County, Tenn. That story was produced by Matt Shafer Powell and Jess Mador. It comes to us from Localore: Finding America, a national production of AIR, the Association of Independents in Radio. You can find more stories at NPR and at Finding America.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M JUST AN OLD CHUNK OF COAL")
JOHNNY CASH: (Singing) I'm just an old chunk of coal. But I'm going to be a diamond someday.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And one last thing - you might be able to help us with an upcoming story. We're going to meet two brand new members of Congress, one Republican and one Democrat. What questions would you ask them on their first week on the job?
SHAPIRO: Let us know on Facebook. The show is @npratc.
CORNISH: You can find me under Audie Cornish.
SHAPIRO: And I'm on Facebook @arishapironpr. We want to hear from you.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN FAHEY SONG, "SLIGO RIVER BLUES")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
They call it the Leaning Tower of San Francisco. It wasn't always that way. This luxury skyscraper was billed as State of the art when it opened a few years ago. People paid millions for condos there.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now it's sinking and tilting about six inches to one side. Residents and the city are suing the developer. From member station KQED, Stephanie Martin Taylor reports on the troubled Millennium Tower.
STEPHANIE MARTIN TAYLOR, BYLINE: When I first enter Pamela Buttery's home on the Millennium Tower's 57th floor, I'm not sure which direction I'm facing. But I get a sense the room is tilting slightly to my left. Turns out it's true. To show me, Buttery tosses a golf ball straight ahead toward the window.
PAMELA BUTTERY: So there it goes rolling.
TAYLOR: The ball takes a sharp turn left toward the direction of the tilt.
BUTTERY: And it kind of picks up speed.
TAYLOR: It ends up in the northwest corner of her living room. Buttery bought this unit as the tower was being completed in 2010, but documents obtained by the city show that as early as 2009, developers and city building inspectors knew the tower was settling faster than expected. Buttery and other residents were not told until May of this year, and by then, the building had sunk more than a foot and was leaning six inches to the northwest.
AARON PESKIN: San Francisco has been in the midst of an unparalleled building boom, the largest building boom we've had since World War II, arguably since the Gold Rush.
TAYLOR: That's San Francisco supervisor Aaron Peskin.
PESKIN: And we need to make sure that we're building buildings that are safe, that people's investments are safe.
TAYLOR: Peskin is leading what is likely to be a long series of investigative hearings on the troubled tower. Some key questions - should the city require high-rise developers to drill their foundations into bedrock? Also, why is the building's frame made of concrete instead of steel? Concrete is cheaper, but it's also much heavier.
And what about the massive new train and bus terminal being constructed right next door? Millennium spokesperson P.J. Johnston says workers there have been pumping out huge amounts of water as they tunnel through the soil. Johnston says that process, known as dewatering, is destabilizing the ground.
P J JOHNSTON: We need to stop the dewatering, work together on any remediation that needs to be done to fix any damages, and then we'll sort out all the liabilities later.
TAYLOR: Still, that leaves perhaps the biggest question of them all - how to fix the tower or at least keep it from leaning even more. Some solutions include pouring a concrete collar around the foundation or building a buttress. Millennium resident Pamela Buttery, who is 76, says so much for her peaceful retirement.
BUTTERY: I've moved on into depression about it, so it's a gloomy feeling.
TAYLOR: Even her favorite pastime, putting golf balls, doesn't give her the same joy it once did. No matter which way she hits them, they all end up in the same corner. For NPR News, I'm Stephanie Martin Taylor in San Francisco.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Kimberly Dozier has reported on war, terrorism and national security for years. A decade ago in Iraq, she was seriously wounded in a car bombing. The explosion killed members of her CBS crew along with an Army captain and his Iraqi translator.
Last month, she returned to Baghdad, writing for The Daily Beast. The day she landed in the country, she stumbled upon what she calls possibly the most surreal, disturbing interview of her life. Iraqi counterterrorism officials introduced her to a prisoner in a bright yellow uniform, and they said he was a battalion commander for ISIS.
KIMBERLY DOZIER: I am the survivor of a car bomb. So I'm looking at him going, this man has helped build car bombs. He's helped kill Iraqi civilians. Wow, what do I ask him?
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Dozier says it's tough to know how freely this man could speak while he was detained and surrounded by government officials. She says it's also possible he was tortured, though she didn't see obvious signs of abuse. Given the chance to talk with an ISIS leader who she was told killed dozens of people, she started asking him questions.
DOZIER: I asked him, why did you join ISIS? And he talked about, well, I'd heard that Sunnis were being abused. And I asked, well, did you ever see any Sunnis abused? Did you know any Sunnis who were abused - Sunni Muslims make up 20 percent of Iraq. And he admitted he didn't know anyone.
So I was trying to get to, OK, but why did you stage all of these bloodthirsty attacks? I couldn't get a direct answer from him on that. He said he felt guilty after he'd been caught. But I said, do you think you would have felt that way if you hadn't been caught? And he said, well, no.
SHAPIRO: Since you published the piece, some people have expressed concern that the interview itself could have been a violation of international law since this is a man who has not been tried and convicted. Did you have any concerns about going through with it?
DOZIER: It sort of unfolded in front of me. The fact that we weren't publishing his photograph and the fact that he did seem sincere - it's a judgment call. And in this case, you know, how often do we get to hear the other side other than in propaganda?
Was this another form of propaganda? Well, maybe, but I think when he was talking about - those couple of times when I asked him questions like, what would you say to other Iraqis who ISIS is trying to recruit, in those answers, it really seemed to me he found his voice. And he said, don't do it. They're bloodthirsty. I've ruined my life. I've ruined my family. Don't ruin yours.
SHAPIRO: One of the Iraqi security officials who arranged this interview invited you to his home afterwards, and you describe a meal where he asks you what you think should happen to ISIS killers. How'd you answer the question?
DOZIER: That moment I brought up the South Carolina shooting - Dylann Roof - and how the survivors of that attack and the loved ones of those who were lost turned that act inside out by offering him forgiveness.
And I said, well, I would rather be like that than be vengeful. This counterterrorism official just shook his head and said there's a backlog of Iraqi prisoners who are killers waiting to be executed. They need to be executed.
CORNISH: This was your first time reporting in Iraq since the car bomb in 2006. Did this experience change your perspective on that experience from a decade ago?
DOZIER: Well, I did go back to the bomb scene. Everything's changed. Baghdad had moved on. And yet the violence is still there. For Iraqis in the streets going about their daily lives, they always wonder where the next car bomb will hit. That's sort of a daily calculation.
I have to say. Everyone that I shared with the fact that I survived a car bomb right down to the lady at the consulate who stamped my visa and my passport - she was like, oh, you have shrapnel, too? And then she showed me where she still had shrapnel that you could see visible on her head and her hand.
Almost everyone I came across had had a close brush and had their photographs on their cell phones like I have on mine of them in the aftermath. So it was sort of a - yeah, understand, we're speaking the same language; all right, tell me what's happening today.
SHAPIRO: Kimberly Dozier covers national security for The Daily Beast. Kim, thank you so much.
DOZIER: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF J.VIEWS SONG, "INTO THE NIGHT")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It's been more than 10 years since the U.S. was hit by a major hurricane. Scientists mark that up to chance. But as NPR's Christopher Joyce reports, new research suggests a reason for our good fortune.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: Atlantic hurricanes are born in tropical, warm waters southeast of the continent. Over the past decade, there have been plenty of big ones out there - Category 3 or bigger. But they haven't hit the U.S., or else they've petered out by the time they do, like Hurricane Matthew, which started out last October as a major hurricane. Atmospheric scientist James Kossin with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it didn't last.
JAMES KOSSIN: As it turned up and started to move over to the east coast of Florida, it began to weaken.
JOYCE: Down to a Category 1 hurricane by the time it hit the U.S. So what happened? Matthew was born in the tropical Atlantic. Two things allowed it to grow - very warm water and a lack of wind shear. Wind shear is when you get two adjacent layers of wind moving at different speeds. They break up hurricanes. As Matthew approached the U.S. coast, it encountered cool water and high wind shear, just the opposite of the conditions that created it. That weakened the storm.
Kossin says this is not an isolated case. He's looked at records back to 1947. It's happened before. His analysis shows that there's a sort of bipolar relationship between the tropical Atlantic and U.S. coastal waters.
KOSSIN: In a nutshell, when things are good for hurricanes in the tropics, they're bad for hurricanes near the coast. And when they're bad for hurricanes in the tropics, they're good for hurricanes near the coast.
JOYCE: Writing in the journal Nature, Kossin warns that when the conditions flip, when the Atlantic cools and gets windier, it still breeds hurricanes. And that's when conditions along the coastline tend to intensify hurricanes as they get closer. Kossin says this phenomenon has protected the U.S. in the past, but there's no guarantee it will last.
KOSSIN: This has been a very lucky thing for us. And we've had it in place now for a while, and we don't know how this phenomenon is going to be affected by climate change.
JOYCE: Climate change could strengthen the coastal buffer, he says, or eliminate it. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
You know you're really an adult when you sign a lease for your first place or buy the first piece of furniture to fill it. That rite of passage did not go so well for writer Scott Brody, at least at first. His story begins on move-in day.
SCOTT BRODY: My first furniture purchase as an adult was a poofy, beige, two-seated cloud you would probably call a love seat. I was determined to keep it forever, but my new art-deco-era studio objected. Its narrow doorway stymied my girlfriend Julie (ph) and me for over an hour, and the ultimate damage to the upholstery was significant. But eventually my cloud was in. Collapsing on the love seat, it seemed like the start of something special.
Julie and I had been friends for a long time and had finally decided to give dating a shot. So far, things seemed to be going well. Now living on my own without roommates, it felt like I was taking my adult life seriously for the first time. I was filled with hope until Julie held up her jacket and asked, what is this? A small, round, flattish insect was making its way up the sleeve. Is this a bed bug - definitely not. That's a very small beetle. The internet said otherwise.
Seeking advice, I called my brother, who promptly uninvited me to Hanukkah dinner for fear I was a carrier. Julie suggested I move out immediately. But this wasn't just an apartment. This was my independence.
Here are some fun facts about bed bugs. Fact one - while they prefer beds, they are perfectly content to hide out anywhere dark and cozy. Excessive cleaning, vacuuming and laundering are both required and useless. Fact two - you can't feel the touch of a bed bug, yet when you lie down to sleep, you'll be sure they're crawling all over your skin, mocking you. Fact three - bed bugs will never stop until they ruin your life. One woman was forced to flee with nothing but the clothes on her back. This will begin to seem like a smart choice.
After the exterminator came and unleashed his bug bombs, the apartment reeked of a sickly chemical smell - the smell of victory. We celebrated by staying in, and Julie passed out on the love seat, as she did whenever I tried to make her watch "Harry Potter." For the first time, it felt like home, and then my heart sank. There on the arm rest were two little bed bugs. My love seat had betrayed me. Julie woke up disgusted, furious. This isn't working, she said, and gathered her belongings and left.
What wasn't working? The apartment, maybe - the insecticide, that was for sure - the relationship? Not wanting to think too hard about whether I'd just been dumped, I turned to Google where I discovered fact four. Bug bombs, rather than kill bed bugs, more typically cause them to scatter and spread deep into the walls of an older building like mine. Of course - they were in the walls. Hours later, Julie opened the front door to find me covering the electrical outlets with duct tape, along with the walls, floor, ceiling and windows - my newly-constructed apartment-wide duct tape cocoon. What the hell have you done?
I explained to Julie about the insecticide and how the bed bugs were in the walls and I just had to keep them out and this was my life now. Since I didn't have a job and I was shunned by my family, I'd mostly be a hermit of course. I knew she didn't want to date me anymore, but maybe every now and then we could meet out in public and I'd buy new clothes and change in the public restroom and - Julie cut me off. I'm not breaking up with you.
She told me she'd just come from lunch with her friend who was a lawyer. She hadn't abandoned me. She'd been planning my escape. That night, we parked in front of my brother's apartment, ripped open Target bags and donned fresh-from-the-factory $20 jeans and T-shirts with pictures of The Beatles on them. Our clothes may not have been fancy, but they didn't have bed bugs, and therefore met the dress code for Hanukkah dinner.
With Julie's help, I told my landlord I was moving out. Independence be damned. I had something better. He could keep my love seat. He could not, however, keep my security deposit. With a sudden injection of multiple thousands of dollars, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I went to a store that sold small, sparkly objects and traded in the bed bug money for an engagement ring.
SHAPIRO: Writer Scott Brody and his wife Julie live in Brooklyn.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE GIRLS SONG, "CURLS")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
When Ford dropped plans to build a manufacturing plant in Mexico, President-elect Donald Trump was full of praise. He tweeted, this is just the beginning - much more to follow. Well, that's not being taken as well in Mexico.
NPR's Carrie Kahn is in the city where the Ford plant was already under construction. She joins us now. And Carrie, I understand you're in the area considered Mexico's industrial heartland, right?
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Yes, this is pretty much in the center of Mexico, and there's a bunch of states here. I'm in the state of San Luis Potosi, and the surrounding states really make up Mexico's industrial core. Right now there's a lot of U.S. companies here. And that Ford plant was already under construction and was - it was hooking up into the infrastructure that's here in this industrial heartland.
CORNISH: And rather than build the plant in Mexico, Ford says it's going to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in facilities in Michigan. That's going to add about 700 jobs there. But how are people in Mexico taking the news?
KAHN: They're very upset, not taking it well at all. Like I said, the plant was already under construction, so that work has stopped, and those people are out of jobs. Once the plant was built, it was going to employ 2,800 people, so those are jobs that are not going to be here anymore.
I stood outside the plant, trying to talk to some of the people that were leaving. Nobody really wanted to talk to an American reporter. But one of the guards there did tell me that the situation is very tense. People just got news of this, and they're just very upset.
CORNISH: Do you get the sense that blame is falling directly on President-elect Donald Trump?
KAHN: Overwhelmingly people are placing blame on President-elect Trump. They are very upset with him. I talked to about four or five people - all said the same thing. He hasn't even taken power yet, and he's already doing damage to us. I'll say it nicer than they said it to me. They feel like they're being blamed for a lot of situations that are going on in the United States that is not their fault, and they squarely place that blame on Donald Trump.
They're also mad at their own officials who haven't - they say haven't done enough to stand up to Donald Trump and defend the working Mexicans here and the Mexicans that are living in the United States. They're as angry with their own officials as they are with Donald Trump.
CORNISH: You called this an industrial hub of Mexico, but what other U.S. companies are there?
KAHN: Yes, there's a huge GM plant here. And GM has been very clear to say that the cars that are manufactured there at their plant do not go to the United States for sale. Only a small number of them do because they've been also under fire from Donald Trump. But they say that those cars that are built there are sent to Latin America and to Mexico for sale, so they want to make that very clear.
But this is, like, the core heartland of production and what NAFTA has brought to Mexico. And one person that I spoke to told me, you know, we've seen so much progress being made over the years because of these international companies bringing jobs here, and it just hurts so much to see us losing these jobs now.
CORNISH: And what about Mexico's government officials? How are they reacting to the news?
KAHN: Well, in response to what Donald Trump said - that this is just the beginning - they say they don't see a cascade of companies leaving Mexico. They're more concerned right now of recouping the cost of the Ford plant here, and they want Ford to reimburse them for all of the money that they spent buying the land and getting it ready for them, things like that.
But there is great concern about what people on the street are saying. You know, President-elect Trump hasn't even taken power yet, and already they're feeling the repercussions. What's going to happen when he's actually in power?
CORNISH: That's NPR's Carrie Kahn. Carrie, thanks so much.
KAHN: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
With Republicans in Congress eager to dismantle President Obama's signature health care law, there were dueling motorcades and security entourages at the Capitol today. One belonged to President Obama, the other to Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Both men came to prepare their parties for the looming showdown over Obamacare, as NPR's Scott Detrow reports.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: As Republicans campaigned to take back Washington, there was one promise they kept making to voters over and over. Today, Vice President-elect Mike Pence came to the Capitol to make it clear they want to stick to it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIKE PENCE: The first order of business is to repeal and replace Obamacare.
DETROW: That's why with just about two weeks to go in his term, Obama also motorcaded up to Capitol Hill. He was there to talk strategy with Democrats.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: ...Repeal Obamacare without being...
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Thank you, guests. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: What's your advice for Democrats on how to fight...
OBAMA: Look out for the American people.
DETROW: How the party can slow the Republican push to undo Obamacare - they don't have the votes, but they can sway public opinion. After Democrats emerged from the meeting, many kept focusing on one idea - chaos.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK SCHUMER: Republicans would create chaos in the health care system...
DETROW: Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer was standing next to a big sign with his new slogan for this fight - make America sick again.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCHUMER: ...Because they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. They have no idea what to put in place of the Affordable Care Act.
DETROW: Republicans have already introduced a measure that begins the long process of repealing large parts of Obamacare. So Schumer and other Democrats are going to warn over and over that a repeal without a replacement could upend the entire insurance market and leave many people without insurance at all. House Speaker Paul Ryan insists everything's under control.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAUL RYAN: We have a plan to replace it. We have plenty of ideas to replace it. And you'll see as the weeks and months unfold what we're talking about replacing it.
DETROW: But Republicans haven't agreed yet on what a replacement plan would look like or when it would emerge. What they can agree on and what they're eager to talk about are shortcomings in the current system. Obamacare has been a mess, they say. Its costs have skyrocketed, and it needs to go away as quickly as possible. But...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RYAN: We want to make sure that there's an orderly transition so that the rug is not pulled out from under the families who are currently struggling under Obamacare while we bring relief.
DETROW: Both sides know that whatever comes next is going to be pretty disruptive to a major chunk of the American economy. At the beginning of what's going to be a drawn-out, high-profile fight, they're circling around each other and trying to frame how voters are seeing the issue. That means trying to blame the other side for shortcomings in health care either in the current system or in what it could look like once it's dismantled.
President-elect Trump tweeted a warning to fellow Republicans in the morning, saying they need to make sure, as he put it, Dems are to blame for the mess. Pence backed him up on that point.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PENCE: I admonished members of the House Republican conference today. It's important that we remind the American people of what they already know about Obamacare - that the promises that were made were all broken.
DETROW: Schumer doesn't deny that Democrats currently own health care, as Trump put it. He concedes that ever since Obamacare passed in 2010, voters have blamed his party for every problem in the entire health care system. But Schumer says things will be different with Republicans in charge, especially after they start undoing all the work Obama and other Democrats spent the past eight years building up.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCHUMER: Now they're going to own it. And all the problems in the health care system - and there have been many throughout the years; no one has solved all of them - are going to be on their back.
DETROW: Democrats say in their meeting today, President Obama told them to try and build their argument around personal cases, how health care affects individual voters' lives, especially the 20 million people who have gained health insurance since the law went into effect.
Democrats will try to do that over the next two weekends, holding events in their districts to try and build up support for what they've put in place over the last eight years. Schumer says the party's message is pretty simple.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCHUMER: They're repealing. We're not.
DETROW: But after two midterm elections and a presidential race where they won ground by railing against the landmark law, Republicans are pretty confident in their argument here, too. Scott Detrow, NPR News, the Capitol.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The story of the Titanic that most people know is pretty straightforward - unsinkable ship sets sail. Ship hits iceberg. Ship sinks. A new documentary suggests an extra wrinkle in that 104-year-old story. The claim is that a coal fire that started on the Titanic before its maiden voyage weakened its hull before it hit that iceberg.
Senan Molony is the journalist and author behind the documentary about this. It's called "Titanic: The New Evidence." He joins us now via Skype. Welcome to the program.
SENAN MOLONY: Thank you so much, Audie. And by the way, it's now a 105-year-old mystery, so (laughter)...
CORNISH: That's true.
MOLONY: Happy New Year.
CORNISH: (Laughter) Happy New Year. So help us understand how a fire could get going on a ship before it even set sail and no one notice.
MOLONY: Well, that's the way of spontaneous coal fires. They can come about, and they did come about in this case because evidence was given at the subsequent inquiries after the sinking that there had indeed been a coal bunker fire. And the coal fire was never really tackled and wasn't begun to be dug out, which was the way to treat it in those days, until the ship had actually sailed on her maiden voyage.
CORNISH: So this fire starts, and they are actually trying to fight it as the ship is sailing along. And the theory now is that this actually weakened the hull of the ship. So already it was at a disadvantage before any iceberg came into play.
MOLONY: Correct. What we're seeing now are sort of new photographs that are showing an apparent deformity on the ship's starboard side. A diagonal mark that has caused me in this documentary to investigate the coal bunker fire has launched a series of dominoes, if you like, whereby when the fire is subjected to scientific analysis and allied to the eyewitness testimony in 1912, we're now hearing from the scientists that this fire must have been of the order of a thousand degrees Celsius.
Taking that further and speaking to metallurgists, they're saying that exposure to that level of heat would have robbed that type of steel in the day of 75 percent of its strength. So then when you get an iceberg collision and a massive ingress of seawater - hundreds of thousands of tons of seawater coming in - you have a situation whereby the fire is co-author of the ultimate catastrophe.
CORNISH: You know, we should say that not everyone agrees that the fire was a major factor. Could the ship have gone down even if there hadn't been a fire?
MOLONY: Yeah, the ship would undoubtedly have gone down very probably if there hadn't been a fire. But the point was it would have stayed afloat far longer and certainly into daylight the next day when rescue ships already on their way would have been met by, you know, the floating Titanic and could have affected rescue of maybe hundreds of lives in addition to those that were saved by the lifeboats.
CORNISH: In the end, why do you think that this mystery still fascinates people?
MOLONY: Well, it fascinates people because it has entered the mythic sphere, one thing and another on what comparison's made about deck chairs changing on the Titanic and so forth. The very idea of a maiden voyage sinking is hugely interesting in itself. And it has made a transformation into, as I say, the mythic status now, such that people consider it almost an inviolable idea in itself.
CORNISH: Senan Molony is a journalist with The Irish Daily Mail. His documentary is "Titanic: The New Evidence." Thank you for speaking with us.
MOLONY: You're more than welcome, Audie.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIM ATLAS SONG, "COMPROMISED")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
An Israeli military court convicted an army medic of manslaughter today for killing a Palestinian man who tried to stab a soldier. The attacker was lying on the ground wounded. The shooting was caught on video, and the case has deeply divided Israelis. NPR's Joanna Kakissis reports.
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: As three judges in Israeli military court delivered the verdict against 20-year-old Sergeant Elor Azaria, hundreds of his supporters were gathering in protest.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting in Hebrew).
KAKISSIS: Israeli news video showed them chanting God is with him outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. The court said Azaria needlessly killed a wounded Palestinian assailant last year in March. The Palestinian man, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, had tried to stab an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank but was shot and wounded. Eleven minutes later as Sharif lay motionless, Azaria shot him in the head. An activist filmed the killing, and the video went viral.
Yoaz Hendel is a former combat soldier and the head of an Israeli think tank, The Institute for Zionist Strategies. He says the verdict sends a message that Israelis expect moral conduct even in a tense situation.
YOAZ HENDEL: This is a soldier. This is an Israeli part of us. But in order to live here, you need to be strong enough physically and ethically.
KAKISSIS: But he says that message is not resonating in Israel. Instead, he says that many Israelis cannot understand why Azaria is being punished.
HENDEL: For them, it's very easy to see the reality in black and white. It's peace or war. It's - you are pro the soldier or against the soldier. You are against the terrorist or pro the terrorist.
KAKISSIS: At the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, a 60-year-old businessman named Hezi Costica says he believes Azaria's version of events that he shot Sharif because he thought the Palestinian had a bomb, though it turned out that he didn't.
HEZI COSTICA: (Through interpreter) Even if it had been my son - and I have sons in the army - I would have asked him to do the same. This verdict won't be forgiven for generations to come. We need to support a soldier who does whatever possible to defend his country.
KAKISSIS: Yoga teacher Kady Harari says the verdict tore her apart.
KADY HARARI: I have no words. I was in a taxicab. I heard the news. And I'm going to cry.
KAKISSIS: She says it's divisive and dangerous to punish a soldier she says is defending Israel.
HARARI: I don't think it's unifying Israel at all in the least to see something like this. We're supposed to have each other's backs.
KAKISSIS: But photographer Eyal Warshavsky says loyalty should not come at all costs. He says it's better for Israelis in the long run if their military shows it respects the law.
EYAL WARSHAVSKY: You're not a freelance gunner when you're in these situations. And there are rules of conduct that you have to keep and to obey because that's the law.
KAKISSIS: An Arab member of the Israeli parliament says there are other cases of wrongful killings that the military should be prosecuting. Sharif's family told the Associated Press that the verdict was an achievement by the court. Azaria's set to be sentenced on January 15. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. His lawyers say they will appeal.
He may not ever serve jail time. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he supports pardoning the soldier. But that's up to the Israeli president, who says he wants some time to let the courts continue to work. Joanna Kakissis, NPR News, Jerusalem.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Dylann Roof, the white supremacist convicted last month of killing nine people at a South Carolina church, is back in court again today. The 22-year-old was convicted of federal hate crimes for the shootings at Emanuel AME Church in 2015. Now a jury will decide whether he will spend life in prison or be executed.
NPR's Debbie Elliott is covering the trial and joins us now from Charleston. Hi, Debbie.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Dylann Roof is representing himself for this part of the trial against the judge's advice. He spoke directly to the jury for the first time today. What did he say?
ELLIOTT: Well, it was very brief. He was very soft-spoken. It was hard to understand and to hear him. He acknowledged his opening statement is going to seem, quote, "a little out of place." He did not ask the jury to spare his life, and he didn't explain his racial motives.
He did take that opportunity to explain that he wanted to represent himself to avoid his lawyers arguing that his mental health should be considered a mitigating factor. I'm not going to lie to you, he said. There's nothing wrong with me psychologically.
SHAPIRO: The death penalty is rarely pursued in federal cases. Why are prosecutors arguing for it in this case here?
ELLIOTT: They're saying that the horrific crime itself justifies the most significant punishment available. When you gun down nine people who welcome you into a Bible study, you deserve that ultimate punishment. Prosecutors are also asking the jurors to keep their minds on a number of aggravating factors as well - Dylann Roof's lack of remorse, his intent to incite racial violence, the fact that he targeted this historic church for the impact that it would have.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Williams, during his opening statement, said Dylann Roof killed nine vulnerable people because of the color of their skin. He says they're going to present evidence that will show Roof's writings from jail six weeks after the attack. He showed this image, and you could see in handwriting - I'm going to read you a quote now - "I would like to make crystal clear I do not regret what I did. I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed."
SHAPIRO: Tell us more about what the government is saying as it now presents its side of the case.
ELLIOTT: Well so far, the testimony has been designed to show the impact on victims and what a void these nine deaths have left in this community. The first witness was Jennifer Pinckney. She's the widow of Emanuel Pastor and State Senator Clementa Pinckney. She's also a survivor of the attack. She described being in the church office with her 6-year-old daughter when they heard the gunfire next door at the bible study. She also described a loving and active husband and father, a Pittsburgh Steeler fan, a history buff and a wearer of quirky ties.
You know, at times, there were lots of photographs of family milestones that were both touching and funny stories told. It felt more like a wake than a trial. The Reverend Anthony Thompson testified. His wife, Myra, was killed. He talked about a photograph of her at their wedding and said, that was the best day of my life right there.
SHAPIRO: And what more do we know about how Roof plans to argue his case?
ELLIOTT: Well, he has told the judge he's not going to present any witnesses, and thus far he has not sought to cross-examine anyone who has testified for the government. He's just risen and said, no questions. He did submit a written objection to the number of witnesses the government plans to call. And at that point, the judge denied it and said, you know, the reality is that it wouldn't take so long if there weren't so many victims here.
Even if Roof declines to present a case, the judge has told the jury that they do have to consider certain mitigating factors that have been stipulated, including Roof's age, that he was 21 at the time. He has no prior history of violence, the fact that he confessed and cooperated with authorities. And key here I think is that he offered to plead guilty in exchange for his life sentence. And the judge said that life in prison would offer time for redemption and change. So...
SHAPIRO: All right.
ELLIOTT: We'll see what he ends up doing.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Debbie Elliott in Charleston, thanks a lot.
ELLIOTT: Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
At this time every year, northern elephant seals gather along the California coast. Will Huntsberry visited a colony of some 23,000 seals and sent this audio postcard.
WILL HUNTSBERRY, BYLINE: At Piedras Blancas, it's the beginning of mating season. And the males are trying to figure out who's the strongest.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELEPHANT SEALS GROWLING)
HUNTSBERRY: That sound you hear isn't a diesel engine. It's the sound of war. Sexually mature males have enlarged, floppy noses that help them make the growl. The alphas can weigh 5,000 pounds and be as big as a car. When they fight, it's ugly. They lift their bulky bodies high in the air and then strike hard at each other with their teeth.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELEPHANT SEALS GROWLING)
HUNTSBERRY: The fighting has big consequences. Those who win will end up with harems of around 20 to 30 females. But...
RON KAUTZ: Less than 2 percent of all the males born will ever mate.
HUNTSBERRY: That's Ron Kautz. He's a volunteer tour guide. The males, he says, will spend their whole lives practicing these fighting skills, maybe to no avail.
KAUTZ: Usually what happens is that one of them will decide - OK, you win. And they'll back off.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: How old is that one right there?
KAUTZ: Which one?
HUNTSBERRY: Two young brothers had some pressing questions for Kautz.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: What do the elephant seals eat?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: I think I know - crabs.
KAUTZ: No, they eat a few crabs. But mostly, they eat squid and octopus and skates and rays...
HUNTSBERRY: Right now, the seals aren't actually eating anything. They migrate to Alaska twice each year to do all their feeding. During January and February here on the coast, the mothers will birth their pups and then breed with the alpha males. Each seal then leaves the beach on its own to undertake a solo journey several thousand miles back to Alaska.
KAUTZ: Even when the pups leave here, they leave here one at a time.
HUNTSBERRY: The pups leave by themselves?
KAUTZ: Yeah.
HUNTSBERRY: They just know?
KAUTZ: Yeah. Instinct says it's time to go. If you're ever going to eat again - you can't live off mom's milk forever.
HUNTSBERRY: Tough lesson.
For NPR News, I'm Will Huntsberry.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A lot of our mental abilities peak when we turn 20. We can't process information as quickly as we once did. It takes longer to solve math problems in our heads. There is at least one notable exception. Our ability to recognize faces improves all the way into our 30s. Now scientists say they are starting to understand why.
NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on evidence that brain areas involved in facial recognition keep growing well into adulthood.
JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: Long before babies learn to walk or talk, they can recognize a familiar face, and Kalanit Grill-Spector of Stanford University says this ability improves dramatically as kids grow up.
KALANIT GRILL-SPECTOR: When you're a young child, you need to recognize your family and a handful of friends. But by the time you've reached maybe high school or college, your social group has expanded to hundreds or even thousands of people.
HAMILTON: Think Facebook. Grill-Spector says it's remarkable that our brains can keep track of all those faces because frankly they look pretty similar.
GRILL-SPECTOR: Face recognition is very difficult computational problem, and the reason is that all faces have the same features and the same configuration.
HAMILTON: Grill-Spector wanted to know more about how the brain is able to tell the subtle differences among so many different faces, so she and a team of researchers scanned the brains of several dozen people, including adults as old as 28 and children as young as 5. The brain scans focused on an area that responds specifically to faces. And Jesse Gomez, a Ph.D. student who did much of the work, says the scans showed something surprising.
JESSE GOMEZ: Brain tissue actually seemed to be growing from childhood into adulthood.
HAMILTON: Gomez says the number of neurons stayed the same, but the structures that connected and supported the neurons increased.
GOMEZ: You can imagine, like, a 10-foot by 10-foot garden, and you know, it has some number of flowers in there. And so the number of flowers isn't changing, but it's really - their stems and the branches and leaves are getting more complex, and there's more of them over time.
HAMILTON: Meanwhile, in a nearby area of the brain that responds to places rather than faces, there was no difference between kids and adults. The results, published in the journal Science, help explain how the ability to recognize faces keeps getting better until about age 30 even as other mental abilities have plateaued or are in decline.
But why does this area of the brain continue to grow? It may not be just about recognizing more faces. Suzy Scherf of Penn State University says as we grow up, the faces we pay attention to change.
SUZY SCHERF: Children's face recognition early on is very much tuned to adult faces. And in adolescence, it changes to be highly tuned towards adolescent faces.
HAMILTON: Scherf says understanding how facial recognition develops could make it easier to figure out why some adults are very bad at recognizing faces, a condition known as face blindness. She says it could also lead to a better understanding of why faces are so difficult for many people with autism. Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
If you're trying to download The New York Times on your iPhone in China, there is no longer an app for that. Apple has removed the news app for The New York Times from its mobile store in the country. It's the latest in a long history of tech companies ceding to Chinese restrictions on Western media. NPR's tech blogger Alina Selyukh is here to tell us more. Welcome to the studio.
ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: Hi.
CORNISH: What does Apple say happened?
SELYUKH: Apple says it is complying with a request from Chinese authorities to remove both the Chinese language and English language news apps by The New York Times from its app store in the country. And The Times reports, actually, this decision happened about two weeks ago. And meanwhile, other big Western news apps are still available to download, like The Wall Street Journal. And even some of the other Times apps are still up, like the crossword puzzle - just not the news app.
CORNISH: And Apple has been getting some criticism for this move, right? I mean, how do they justify it?
SELYUKH: The company points out that The New York Times app has long not been permitted to actually display any content to most users and says that it's been informed that the app violates local regulations. Now, Apple isn't specifying what regulations these were exactly, but The Times suggests that it might be the new rules for mobile apps that were issued last year. And they prohibit activities that, for example, might endanger national security or disrupt social order, among other things.
CORNISH: So how significant is this? I mean, is this the first time Apple has, like, removed a news app just because Chinese authorities asked them to?
SELYUKH: This is not the first time Apple has removed an app. They've done that with other apps and specifically media apps in the past, but none of them have been as prominent as The New York Times. And it's important to point out that The Times as a website has long faced crackdowns in China, going back to 2012, when they did a series of stories on the wealth of the prime minister's family. And many other Western news outlets have faced similar retaliatory blackouts - for instance, Bloomberg, Time magazine, The Economist. And users in China have sort of adapted to this. They often use software to circumvent the so-called Great Chinese Firewall to surf the web and access some of these websites.
CORNISH: And I can't imagine it's just news organizations. We know that tech companies have also faced restrictions.
SELYUKH: Certainly. Twitter, Facebook, Google - they've all faced blackouts. Apple's own books and movie services were shut down very soon after first launching. For tech companies, it's been a very delicate market. It's very large. It's very lucrative. For companies like Apple that make actual things, it's a huge manufacturing hub. Apple specifically has had its iPhone sales slump in recent years in China. But then last year, they did this pretty uncharacteristic investment, putting a billion dollars into basically a Chinese version of Uber, a ride-hailing app, Didi. So a lot of these tech companies are walking a very delicate line, trying to stay within the boundaries of local regulations, but also trying to grow their market share there.
CORNISH: That's NPR's tech blogger, Alina Selyukh. Thanks so much.
SELYUKH: Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Doctors at public hospitals in Kenya have been on strike for more than a month. They want better pay and benefits. The government says it can't afford either. NPR's Eyder Peralta visited one hospital with no doctors on duty.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: The halls of Kiambu County Hospital are bare. This is normally a bustling place, but today, entire wings of it are closed. It's just the emergency room that is scattered with patients - moms with babies languidly sitting on metal chairs...
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
PERALTA: ...Men with broken bones, some with serious injuries just hoping to be treated. The nurses are not on strike, so they're doing whatever they can. But if anyone needs complicated care and they can't afford a private hospital, they're out of luck. The only doctor I find is at the end of another long hallway.
DAVID KARIUKI: My name is Dr. Kariuki.
PERALTA: David Kariuki - he's on strike, but he's performing the administrative part of his job.
KARIUKI: The current strike is about better working conditions for doctors, especially those working within the public health sector.
PERALTA: A doctor right out of school in Kenya, for example, makes about $10,000 a year in the public health system, so many are lured abroad or into the private hospitals that regular Kenyans can't afford.
KARIUKI: Of course the public health system continues to be strained because you have fewer doctors to see a growing population. So everyone would get overworked, and probably even stress increases for the individual doctors.
PERALTA: For a population of nearly 50 million, Kenya has only 5,000 doctors in the public sector. A nurse walks me from Kariuki's office to the emergency room, where I find Masa Mawili.
MASA MAWILI: (Foreign language spoken).
PERALTA: He says he came to the hospital because his foot is swollen. He shows me. His foot hardly fits into his sandal, and the swelling extends to his calf.
MAWILI: (Foreign language spoken).
PERALTA: He's already seen the nurses, but they couldn't tell him what's wrong with his foot. So now he sits and waits for a doctor who may never arrive.
Yesterday, President Uhuru Kenyatta met with the doctors union, and his government put out an offer. Some doctors would get a more than 100 percent raise, others significantly less. The doctors want the 300 percent raise that the government agreed to in 2013.
PAUL KAGIRI: Whatever they are asking is very, very, very high.
PERALTA: That's Paul Kagiri. His son got the help he needed at the hospital today, but he says the doctors need to go back to work. The government can't afford to pay them, and there's already been deaths and births reported outside of hospitals. Right now, he says, it's time to think about the wanjiku, the ordinary people.
KAGIRI: Wanjiku right now is suffering a lot. And instead of wanjiku suffering, why not them to give back to the public whatever you have?
PERALTA: Doctors argue it's time for the government to give. The government's offer would cost the country $135 million, so the government says it can't afford to do more. Still, Kenya is so famously corrupt that the offer would cost less than what the government lost in a recent graft scandal involving the Ministry of Health. Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Nairobi.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
When President-elect Donald Trump moves to Washington, it appears that his daughter and son-in-law will be coming along. Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, reportedly have bought a mansion just two miles from the White House. Whether these family members could take an official role in the new administration isn't clear. As NPR's Jim Zarroli reports, a 50-year-old law prevents presidents from hiring their relatives.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: When President John F. Kennedy took office, he did something that shocked a lot of people. He appointed his younger brother Bobby to be attorney general. Darrell West is director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
DARRELL WEST: It was very controversial at the time. Lyndon Johnson in particular did not like that. And when he became president, he helped shepherd this anti-nepotism rule through the U.S. Congress.
ZARROLI: The law said that presidents may not appoint relatives to Cabinet and agency jobs. Julian Zelizer, professor of history at Princeton, says the law made sense for several reasons.
First, constituents need to know presidents are hiring the best people, not just someone they're related to. Perhaps more important, it can be hard for other White House officials to say no to a president's family members.
JULIAN ZELIZER: And so you create an environment where people might be less willing to take on and challenge someone because they're related to the president and because they have this connection.
ZARROLI: The nepotism law hasn't been tested much, but when Bill Clinton named First Lady Hillary Clinton to head his health care reform task force, the move was challenged in court. A federal judge ruled that the law did not apply to the White House staff. Trump's spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway cited that ruling last month on MSNBC when asked about Trump's children working in the White House.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KELLYANNE CONWAY: The anti-nepotism law apparently has an exception if you want to work in the West Wing because the president is able to appoint his own staff.
ZARROLI: The Trump children may also be able to get around the law by working informally without taking a salary. But just because something is legal doesn't mean it's good politics, says Darrell West. He says President Kennedy caused a public backlash when he hired his brother. The same thing could happen this time.
WEST: People might accept the fact that it was legal, but they would not necessarily view it as ethical or wise.
ZARROLI: And Princeton's Julian Zelizer says it's important to keep in mind the spirit of the anti-nepotism rule. He says it was part of a series of laws passed in the '60s and '70s to address the growing distrust of the presidency.
ZELIZER: We shouldn't forget why we have these. It was to try to purify the presidency to a certain respect or to create more accountability in the people that they appoint.
ZARROLI: There's another legal problem to resolve. Unlike the president himself, Ivanka Trump and her husband would probably be subject to conflict of interest laws if they took formal White House jobs. Trump may want his family by his side in the West Wing, but having them there may come at a financial cost. Jim Zarroli, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Classical composers have long had their patrons. Beethoven had Archduke Rudolph. John Cage had Betty Freeman. For contemporary opera composers, there's Beth Morrison. Morrison and her production company have commissioned new works from some of the hottest young artists today. Jeff Lunden has more.
JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE: Over a decade of covering music, I kept running into the same woman coming out on stage before performances or sitting in the theater during rehearsals. She was producer Beth Morrison, and she's not your typical patron.
BETH MORRISON: I don't come for money, and I didn't have any money. And I wanted to live in New York (laughter).
LUNDEN: She runs her empire from a two-bedroom, walk-up apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn - one bedroom for her to sleep in, the other for her eight employees to work in.
MORRISON: I've always run the business from my home maybe much to the chagrin of my board. But for me, the decision is always really clear. I could spend $30,000 to $40,000 on an office space every year, or I could put that into a commission.
LUNDEN: She's commissioned works from such composers as David T. Little, Mohommad Firouz and Missy Mazzoli, whose first opera Morrison produced.
(SOUNDBITE OF OPERA, "SONG FROM THE UPROAR")
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #1: (Singing) There are 100 names for God.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #2: (Singing) There are 100 names for God.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #3: (Singing) There are 100 names for God.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #4: (Singing) There are 100 names.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #5: (Singing) There are 100 names for God.
LUNDEN: Mazzoli calls Morrison in a true individual in every sense.
MISSY MAZZOLI: In the way that she has a vision for her company, in the way she has a vision for her life, in the way that she dresses. You know, Beth has this famous boot collection that is just amazing. But you know, it's sort of a symbol of this commitment to being an individual and to being an iconoclast and to doing things her own way.
LUNDEN: Beth Morrison says she goes with her guts and her ears.
MORRISON: I won't do anything unless I'm, like, mad crazy about the music and the composer and really feeling like they're contributing something to the field that is different than what somebody else is contributing.
LUNDEN: She was mad crazy about David T. Little's "Soldier Songs" after she watched a video he sent.
DAVID T LITTLE: Called me almost immediately and says, we have to do this piece. I don't know where we're going to get the money. I don't know how we're going to do it, where we're going to do it, but we have to do it, which sort of sums up Beth's energy in a way, you know - this, well, we're just going to do it. We'll figure it out. We'll make it work.
LUNDEN: And they've been working together ever since. Morrison featured Little's post-apocalyptic opera "Dog Days" at the annual festival she coproduces to showcase new work called PROTOTYPE.
(SOUNDBITE OF OPERA, "DOG DAYS")
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #6: (Singing) I miss our grass blade duets, the buzzing stems between our thumbs. I miss singing.
LUNDEN: Beth Morrison doesn't have her own theater. She partners with venues in New York and around the country to give works more than one hearing because she says that's what composers need.
MORRISON: They need their works to be seen by as many people as possible. And so for me, I feel like I've succeeded, particularly with an opera project because they're large and expensive, if we've been able to give two to five presentations of the piece in different cities.
LUNDEN: Last fall, she partnered with Opera Philadelphia to present Missy Mazzoli's latest work, "Breaking The Waves." And it's being done at the current PROTOTYPE festival.
(SOUNDBITE OF OPERA, "BREAKING THE WAVES")
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #7: (Singing) His name is Jan, Jan, Jan, Jan - funny name for a man.
LUNDEN: Morrison's commitment to giving works life beyond their original productions has made her composers just as passionately devoted to her. Kamala Sankaram, whose opera "Thumbprint" premiered at the first PROTOTYPE festival, will see it restaged at LA Opera this June thanks to Morrison's efforts.
KAMALA SANKARAM: To decide to make contemporary opera sort of your business takes a lot of guts, you know, and especially to do it yourself as a woman. And I - you know, I don't want to go there too much, but there's still a lot of sexism in our field. And so for her to do this on her own is really kind of astonishing.
LUNDEN: As for Beth Morrison, her current season includes five world premieres, nine tours and her annual festival - all funded and produced out of her apartment nonprofit.
MORRISON: It's been thrilling to be a part of the launch of these incredible composers. And my work with them has helped them, and their work with me has helped me. And it really has been this very symbiotic relationship, you know, that I feel very grateful for.
LUNDEN: For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Yesterday, we visited Toledo, Ohio, to see what a new administration might mean for Syrian refugees. Today, we're going to spend time with one young man whose story is not typical for a refugee.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUITAR MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing, unintelligible).
SHAPIRO: He lives in a house with three other guys who decided they wouldn't mind having a refugee for a roommate. They're all in their 20s. Three of them are recent graduates from the University of Toledo. Mohammed Refaai, is a butcher from Syria.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing) I don't really care. I've got worse problems.
SHAPIRO: It's a weeknight, and Mohammed just got home from work. He's watching his roommates play around on guitars. They have a small basketball hoop in the living room. The ball is bouncing off everything, rarely going through the hoop.
(CHEERING)
SHAPIRO: In the year and a half since Mohammed moved in, he's learned English from the Americans, including the lyrics to some Top 40 hits. In return, he taught them some of his favorite Arabic pop tunes.
MOHAMMED AL REFAAI: (Speaking foreign language).
(LAUGHTER)
MOHAMMED AL REFAAI AND UNIDENTIFIED MEN: (Singing in foreign language).
SHAPIRO: They generally avoid talking about more difficult things. Earlier in the day, the guys made an exception for us while Mohammed was at work.
DOUG WALTON: This is by far the most depth we have ever gone into it. And if Moh was here, we probably wouldn't because he doesn't like the topic.
SHAPIRO: Doug Walton, Andrew Trumbull and Johnny Zellers sit around a small dining room table with us. The topic is politics and whether Mohammed will ever be reunited with his family. That's what makes his story so atypical. He was the only one of his family allowed into the United States as a refugee. His siblings and parents are still in Jordan, waiting for approvals. They've been there since the family fled Syria in 2011. Mohammed is now trying to get a green card so if they can't come to the U.S., at least he can go visit them.
Is it strange to see a national global news story like the presidential election affect someone in your house so directly?
JOHNNY ZELLERS: So we actually got a flier from Trump.
SHAPIRO: That's Johnny Zellers.
ZELLERS: And it had, like, three big issues. I forget what the first two were, but the third one was, like, stop the influx of dangerous refugees from Syria. It's, like, the biggest bullet point. I was like - wow. I was like, no, I want them. Like, we want more of them. Like, we have one. I have one in my house right now. Like, I could go say hi to him.
SHAPIRO: The guys in this house lean conservative. They all take their Christian faith seriously. None of them voted for Trump. It was a mix of Clinton and third party votes. They didn't even know who each other voted for until we all started talking about it the other day.
ANDREW TRUMBULL: Yeah. This is Andrew. And it was weird to have, like, a vote in a situation that felt like we were voting for people who were helpless. Usually we vote on, like, jobs or whatever, and so, like, for me, I'm like - that's not a big deal. Like, I'll find a job. I'll make things work. Whoever gets elected - they're not going to change things that drastically.
SHAPIRO: The guys don't own a TV, so on election night they all went into Doug's room and huddled around their phones with Mohammed to watch the results come in.
TRUMBULL: So we were all kind of together, just, like, kind of hugging him and, like, just kind of watching it all go down.
ZELLERS: We didn't really know how to respond, I feel like. I mean, what do you tell him? He definitely kind of got sad a little bit just thinking of, like, OK, maybe his family may not be able to, like, ever come here. That's, like, the biggest hope that he's had, like, this past year. It's just, like, oh, I hope my family comes. Now with Trump elected, it's like, oh, those chances go down, like, a lot.
SHAPIRO: Mohammed is a butcher at a new Middle Eastern supermarket and restaurant in Toledo. He took a break from work to talk with us. He video chats with his family in Jordan about once a week. He shows them the snow on the ground in Ohio, and they tell him how proud they are that he's learning English and working.
Do you talk about when they might be able to come to the United States? Or is that something that you've just decided not to talk about anymore?
REFAAI: I like it they come - they coming here, but I don't know how. I need to be safe and close to me - my family - but I can't do anything.
SHAPIRO: How does that make you feel?
REFAAI: I feel bad for they not with me, but I can't do anything for help them.
SHAPIRO: I need to point out that when we first met Mohammed a little over a year ago, he barely spoke any English. He learned the terms that a butcher uses every day, and that was about it.
REFAAI: Chicken legs, chicken breast, steak, lamb, beef.
SHAPIRO: Today, he looks confident. He doesn't use an interpreter when he talks to us. I ask what he'll do if he sees his family.
REFAAI: I sit them and watch TV and drink tea, drink coffee. My mom do a good food. Yeah. I miss her.
SHAPIRO: We asked the State Department about Mohammed Refaai's situation. Just like a year ago, they told us they don't comment on specific cases, but veterans of refugee work say Mohammed's situation is not normal.
ERIC SCHWARTZ: The situation you've described is very unusual.
SHAPIRO: Eric Schwartz ran the State Department's refugee resettlement program earlier in the Obama administration. He's now a dean at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. He says once you're over 21, like Mohammed, your case is considered on its own, but even then, grown children are rarely separated from their parents and siblings.
SCHWARTZ: And it would be very unusual for them not to be departing and coming to the United States together.
SHAPIRO: It may have just been an oversight. Schwartz says an immigration lawyer might be able to sort out what happened, but Mohammed and his family don't have one.
SCHWARTZ: This is a program that involves so many tens of thousands of individuals that sometimes, you know, mistakes or problems do arise. And the way they get fixed is somebody asks about them, and somebody presses it.
SHAPIRO: Mohammed fears that his window is closing as the days tick down to Trump's inauguration. The office that issues green cards has told him to stop calling, and that's changed the way the other guys in this house think about their future.
ZELLERS: Like, before, it was just, like, oh, Moh's here. His family will come, and then I'm like - we'll all move on with our lives. We'll all move away or, like, get different jobs or - I don't know. And then Moh will have his family. But now it's like - his family may never come.
WALTON: We've talked about this in a hypothetical way. And Moh does not want that covered. He doesn't even want to acknowledge that could happen because thinking about this family being broken up - that, like, leaves him lost at sea, in a way. But, like, we don't know what's going to happen. So I don't - I don't know what - what's going to be asked of me as his brother. But I guess I'm just more aware that he may have more need for support than he even does now.
SHAPIRO: That's Doug Walton and Johnny Zellers, along with Andrew Trumbull, in the home that they share with Syrian refugee Mohammed Refaai, a man they now think of as their brother.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The country's top intelligence official today doubled down on the assertion that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election by hacking into Democratic Party networks. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says he stands more resolutely today behind that finding in testimony before a Senate committee.
Republican Senator John McCain chaired the panel. He expressed support for the intelligence community and called Russia's meddling an unprecedented attack on our democracy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN MCCAIN: Every American should be alarmed by Russia's attacks on our nation. There is no national security interest more vital to the United States of America than the ability to hold free and fair elections without foreign interference.
CORNISH: One American who is not alarmed or at least not publicly is President-elect Donald Trump. He's openly dismissed the intelligence community's findings on Russia. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins me in studio to talk more. Hey there, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: So we're seeing this extraordinary public back and forth - right? - between the incoming president and the intelligence community which in just two weeks he'll be in charge of. I mean how did that play out in today's hearing?
LIASSON: You heard today a full-throated and almost unanimous defense of the intelligence community's work and competence. The senators all agreed that Russia did hack. The DNI director, James Clapper, called it the most aggressive, direct campaign to interfere in U.S. elections ever.
And a lot of the senators implored Donald Trump respectfully and even in anguished voices to please not dismiss the work of the intelligence community. James Clapper said there's a difference between skepticism - which is healthy, and they welcome it - and disparagement.
CORNISH: And yet Donald Trump tweets out today, quote, "the media lies to make it look like I'm against intelligence when in fact I am a big fan." How do you read that?
LIASSON: Yes, that tweet could be seen as trying to walk back some of the criticisms. Of course he said the dishonest media, which is also his go-to boogie man, is making it look like I'm against intelligence. He also tweeted that the media is making it look like I agree with Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks. Trump tweeted, I just state what he states. There was a lot of pushback to that, too, in today's hearings.
Senators questioned why Donald Trump would believe anything that Assange says, someone who big majorities of Congress feel is not credible and has put lives at risk with his WikiLeaks dumps.
CORNISH: So why is Trump doing this?
LIASSON: That's a good question, and a lot of people are worried and puzzled about it. It could be that anything that undermines the legitimacy of his election is something he's very sensitive to. You've heard his spokesman say that the left is just trying to say he won because Russia intervened. I think the senators today went out of their way to say, no, that's not what they're saying.
But don't forget. All during the campaign, Trump used the WikiLeaks dump of the Democratic National Committee's emails and John Podesta's emails on the stump to attack Hillary Clinton, saying, I love WikiLeaks. And he asked the Russians to hack more and find the 30,000 emails Hillary Clinton supposedly deleted. So either his tweeting is just sensitivity to anyone questioning his win, or it's something more.
He has been saying nice things about Russia, and Vladimir Putin for many, many years - this is one of his few consistent, long-held positions. And either that's just sincere admiration for Putin as an authoritarian strongman, or there might be other ties between Trump and Russia that we don't know about.
CORNISH: So where does this leave the Republican Party, especially in Congress? Is there agreement on this stance on Russia, or are they at odds with Trump?
LIASSON: They're at odds with Trump. There's widespread distrust of Putin and Russia. They believe that Russia is undermining democracy, especially in Europe, through invasions, hacking, propaganda, bankrolling of far-right anti-immigrant parties.
And that's why today's briefing was so important and tomorrow's private briefing for Donald Trump is so important because the question is, after he hears privately and directly from the intelligence community, will he continue to disparage their work and deny that Russia hacked? That's a pretty important moment I think for Congress and for the president-elect.
CORNISH: That's NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Multiple news outlets are reporting that President-elect Trump is expected to nominate former Indiana Senator Dan Coats as his director of National Intelligence. NPR has not yet confirmed that pick.
Trump has already named Jay Clayton, a Wall Street lawyer, as his pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's the agency that oversees financial markets. Some who know Clayton say he's a good candidate for the job. Critics say his ties to big financial firms create too many conflicts of interest. NPR's Chris Arnold reports.
CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: The big question here is whether Donald Trump has chosen a fox to guard the henhouse. Jay Clayton works as a defense lawyer for a firm that's represented Goldman Sachs for decades. He also represented Ally Financial and other financial firms when they struck settlements related to wrongdoing in the subprime mortgage scandal. Also, Clayton's wife currently works for Goldman Sachs.
RICHARD PAINTER: I do think that having a chairman of the SEC whose spouse works at Goldman Sachs or another large investment bank is a serious problem.
ARNOLD: Richard Painter is a law professor at the University of Minnesota and the former chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush. He says Goldman and other big banks had their business model severely restricted by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, and there's already pressure building to scale back that law during the Trump administration.
PAINTER: The decision about whether to repeal Dodd-Frank or how to enforce Dodd-Frank and rulemaking under Dodd-Frank - all those decisions will have an enormous impact on Goldman Sachs. And to have Goldman Sachs have a controlling influence over the career of the SEC chairman's spouse I think could be an untenable situation.
ARNOLD: Still, Painter says he's withholding judgment until he watches the nomination hearing process. Maybe there's a way to resolve that and other conflicts. And he says just because Jay Clayton is a Wall Street insider, that doesn't mean that he'd be a bad SEC chair.
PAINTER: There are plenty of good Wall Street people who could actually aggressively regulate Wall Street. They know where the bodies are buried. They know where the reforms are necessary.
ARNOLD: So is Jay Clayton that kind of Wall Street insider or the kind that would be soft on enforcement? Bill McLucas was a former head of enforcement for the SEC under the first Bush and then the Clinton administrations.
BILL MCLUCAS: What I understand about him is that he's a very, very capable lawyer, very knowledgeable, practical and very results-oriented.
ARNOLD: And McLucas says if he makes it through the congressional hearing and vetting process, if past SEC chairs are any guide...
MCLUCAS: Once they are confirmed, it is rare that the public interest is not their guiding principle.
ARNOLD: Still, there are plenty of skeptics. Former Congressman Barney Frank says that he sees more of the same here - that is, a series of nominations by Donald Trump of people who are too beholden to Wall Street. We reached Frank on his cell phone at the airport today.
BARNEY FRANK: It is one more example of the biggest bait-and-switch I believe in American history, namely Trump winning by claiming he was going to stand up to Wall Street and be tough and then becoming the best friend Wall Street and the opponents of regulation have ever had.
ARNOLD: Frank says the Dodd-Frank law that bears his name gave the SEC strong powers to protect the financial system as well as everyday Americans who are buying stocks or buying their first home. But...
FRANK: You cannot make laws that are self-enforcing.
ARNOLD: If you've got a policeman who's got his feet on his desk, you're not going to be chasing around too many bad guys.
FRANK: Yep.
ARNOLD: So Frank says he's worried that even if Republicans don't have the votes ultimately to repeal laws such as Dodd-Frank, the appointments that Trump is trying to make could still severely weakened regulation. And Frank says that could make the financial system and everyday Americans less protected from wrongdoing. Chris Arnold, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Forget what you think you might know about peanut allergies. Federal health experts released new guidelines today for parents of young children. They draw on research that shows there is a benefit to introducing peanuts during a baby's first year. NPR's Allison Aubrey reports.
ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE: The guidance on peanuts has come full circle over the past two decades. Back in 2000, as the prevalence of peanut allergies seemed to be on the rise, parents of infants were told to hold off on introducing peanuts sometimes until the toddler years, especially if there was a family history of allergies.
The new guidelines from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are based on the findings of more recent studies. Allergist Matthew Greenhawt of Children's Hospital Colorado helped develop them.
MATTHEW GREENHAWT: Now we're saying introduce peanut to your child as early as 4 to 6 months of life. And by doing so, it's associated with a reduced likelihood of developing peanut allergy.
AUBREY: This is in stark contrast to the old thinking that early exposure to peanuts increased the risk of developing an allergy. But over the last few years, several large studies have found that babies at high risk of becoming allergic to peanuts are much less likely to develop an allergy if they are regularly fed peanut-containing foods in the first year of life.
Greenhawt says parents should not worry that these guidelines might flip flop again. He says the new evidence supporting early introduction is very strong.
GREENHAWT: We wouldn't change these guidelines if we didn't feel that this was safe. So parents should rest assured that it's based on very, very cutting-edge science.
AUBREY: And some doctors have already changed the way they treat infants at risk of having a peanut allergy. These are babies who are brought in with severe eczema or egg allergy, the two big risk factors for a peanut allergy. Hugh Sampson is a professor of pediatrics and an allergy specialist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
HUGH SAMPSON: We've taken the approach that if you have a child that has severe eczema or that has egg allergy, that we should try to introduce peanut preferably in the first four to six months of life.
AUBREY: What's important to note is that according to the new guidelines, these high-risk kids who have persistent eczema and other risk factors should be evaluated by an allergy specialist before their parents or caregivers introduce them to peanut-containing foods at home. Allison Aubrey, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Around the world, millions of people with depression and anxiety have no access to psychiatric care. The problem is especially bad in India. There, about 90 percent of people who could benefit from treatment don't get it. A nonprofit has trained locals to fill the need. Joanne Silberner reports on how these lay counselors are making a difference.
JOANNE SILBERNER, BYLINE: Most days, Subhash Pednekar is out the office door by 9:30.
SUBHASH PEDNEKAR: I reach there by 10 o'clock, before 10 also by motorcycle.
SILBERNER: Today, he skips the motorbike, and we're in a car driving through Goa's monsoon rains. He's tall, good-looking and carefully dressed in a button-down shirt and pressed jeans. He looks like one of India's growing class of young tech workers, but he's not. Subhash is what's called a lay counselor. He doesn't have a degree in psychology. He's part of a pilot project in India aimed at making mental health care more available.
We arrive in a nearby village. His patient greets him with a big smile, her husband by her side. It's Mrs. Naik. She doesn't want her first name used because of stigma surrounding depression. She says life wasn't good before Subhash came on the scene.
MRS NAIK: (Through interpreter) There were many issues, emotional stress, some health issues.
SILBERNER: Mrs. Naik is in her mid-50s. She's raised four kids. I ask her what was causing the stress, and it's her husband who answers. He says money and paying for the kids' education. Then she interrupts and blames what she calls tensions.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Tension.
MRS NAIK: (Through interpreter) I had sleeping problems. My hands and legs were cramping. I had too many thoughts on my mind, and I was feeling very tired.
SILBERNER: She went to the health center for a checkup and was referred to Subhash. He visited her seven times. Subhash works for a nonprofit organization called Sangath. It selects local people who've had at least 10 years of schooling to go through an intensive four-week training program followed by an internship.
Subhash had been taught to listen, to keep careful records and to suggest specific activities, much like cognitive behavioral therapy. Mrs. Naik was dubious at first but curious enough to try.
MRS NAIK: (Through interpreter) This is what they taught us. If you are feeling tired, then exercise. Don't think too much. Don't sit around. Do some small chores. Go for a walk.
SILBERNER: Subhash also suggested yoga and meditation. Mrs. Naik's husband was a constant presence. He made sure she kept up with therapy and took her on prescribed walks. She says he was a big help, and now she says her thoughts have changed.
MRS NAIK: (Through interpreter) Now I'm doing well. I'm doing really well.
SILBERNER: Before this job, Subhash knew nothing about depression. After college, he worked at a domestic call center. Then he saw an ad in the paper for the counseling, and his friends encouraged him. They liked his help.
PEDNEKAR: Whenever something's happening in the group, I used to give them good advice.
SILBERNER: Good advice - and now he's been a counselor at the health center near the town of Porvorim for several years. And it's not about the money.
PEDNEKAR: I am not looking at the salary, but I am really happy with the job. We're helping to the people.
SILBERNER: But you're making 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent less.
PEDNEKAR: Yeah.
SILBERNER: He's seen a total of about 90 patients with depression, half of them also alcohol dependent. He's had a high success rate, though a few patients along the way dropped out - a woman whose husband wouldn't let her talk to him, a few people with alcoholism. Vikram Patel, a co-founder of Sangath, says one of the biggest challenges lay counselors face is the patients.
VIKRAM PATEL: They've never experienced counseling. They have no idea why a talking treatment should work.
SILBERNER: Patel says what makes an otherwise reluctant population willing to accept therapy is that it comes from local counselors who have a knowledge of local customs.
PATEL: They come from the same class. They come from the same community. They speak the same dialect. And so they have an identification with their patients.
SILBERNER: That's why Subhash knew he couldn't alienate Mrs. Naik's husband. He had to let him take part in the treatment. Rahul Sidhaye at the Public Health Foundation of India says this project, called Premium, is ready for scale-up.
RAHUL SIDHAYE: So projects like Premium - they come up with a proof of concept that this particular treatment works. Now as we move ahead, we need to actually see whether they work in the real world or not.
SILBERNER: Two recent studies in the journal Lancet show that patients who saw lay counselors did appreciably better than those who did not. China, Ethiopia, Nepal, Uganda and other countries are developing their own lay counselor programs. And Subhash Pednekar - he's happily on the job. For NPR News, I'm Joanne Silberner.
SHAPIRO: And reporting for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Today the head of U.S. intelligence stepped into the rift that's opened between President-elect Donald Trump and the nation's spy chiefs. James Clapper is the director of National Intelligence. He's in charge of all 17 intelligence agencies, agencies that Trump has taken to publicly and repeatedly mocking.
Testifying on Capitol Hill today, Clapper fielded questions on Trump, also on Russia and hacking and on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. We'll hear more about those Assange questions in a moment. But we begin our coverage with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: Today's hearing was officially about cyber threats writ large, but from the get go, it was all about Russia and all about Donald Trump. This marked the first opportunity for senators - in this case, members of the Armed Services Committee - to ask Clapper and other intelligence leaders to respond publicly to Trump's seeming disregard for their work. Clapper's answer - to praise what he called the talented and dedicated patriots of U.S. intelligence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAMES CLAPPER: You only need walk into the lobby of CIA and look at the stars on the wall or the front lobby of NSA and the number of intelligence people that have paid the ultimate price in the service of their country.
CLAIRE MCCASKILL: So let's talk about who benefits from a president-elect trashing the intelligence community.
KELLY: That's Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill. Trump has dismissed CIA conclusions about Russia as ridiculous. And recently he has tweeted about intelligence, putting the word in quotation marks, a tactic widely interpreted as sarcasm. Today, Clapper said policymakers are entitled to be skeptical of intelligence, but he added pointedly, there's a difference between skepticism and disparagement.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CLAPPER: The intelligence community is not perfect. We are an organization of human beings, and we're prone sometimes to make errors. I don't think the intelligence community gets the credit it's due for what it does day in and day out to keep this nation safe and secure.
KELLY: This same theme played out when the questions turn to Russia and whether Clapper and the other spymasters testifying stand by their statement that Russia tried to interfere with last year's election. South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham used his time to push Clapper on how high it went.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LINDSEY GRAHAM: You say you think this was approved at the highest level of government in Russia.
CLAPPER: That's what we said.
GRAHAM: OK, who's the highest level of government?
CLAPPER: Well, the highest is President Putin.
GRAHAM: Do you think a lot happens in Russia big that he doesn't know about?
CLAPPER: Not very many.
GRAHAM: Yeah, I don't think so either.
CLAPPER: Certainly none that are politically sensitive in another country.
GRAHAM: OK.
KELLY: Then Graham closed in for the kill, making plain that when he talked about Russia, the person he was really talking to was his fellow Republican Donald Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GRAHAM: Putin's up to no good, and he better be stopped. And Mr. President-elect, when you listen to these people, you can be skeptical, but understand. They're the best among us, and they're trying to protect us.
KELLY: No senator, Republican or Democrat, offered a ringing defense of Trump's positions on either Russia or the credibility of U.S. spy agencies. Trump himself appeared today to walk back his earlier comments.
Shortly before the hearing got underway, he was tweeting again about intelligence, again in quotes but now saying he's a big fan. It's not clear whether Clapper saw that tweet before walking into the hearing room, but the director of National Intelligence, a man who rarely cracks a smile, mentioned another reason to be in good spirits today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CLAPPER: After 53 years in the intelligence business in one capacity or another, happily, I've just got 15 days left.
KELLY: He'll spend one of them tomorrow fielding questions directly from the president-elect. Clapper is headed to New York along with the heads of the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency. They're delivering a classified briefing at Trump Tower on Russia and its cyber ambitions. Mary Louise Kelly, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The very first questions of the witnesses at today's hearing was not about Russia. It was about Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. The website has posted thousands of Democratic officials' emails among other private documents.
Joining us now for more on Julian Assange's role in this saga is NPR national security correspondent David Welna. And David, give us some context for this question about Assange.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Well, Ari, that question came from the Republican Committee Chairman John McCain, and it appears to have been prompted by a tweet from Donald Trump earlier this week. In it, Trump noted that Assange denied having gotten his information from the Russians.
But instead of going after Trump for seeming to side with Assange rather than the entire U.S. intelligence community, McCain pressed Director of National Intelligence Clapper on whether Assange should be given any credibility. Clapper told McCain he should not, and later in the hearing, he elaborated on why.
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JAMES CLAPPER: He has, in the interest of ostensively openness and transparency, exposed, and his prior exposures put people at risk by his doing that. So I don't think those of us in the intelligence community have a whole lot of respect for him.
WELNA: And I should add that the Justice Department does have an open investigation of WikiLeaks, though it has not brought any charges against Assange.
SHAPIRO: The antipathy of U.S. officials towards Julian Assange and WikiLeaks stretches back for years. Remind us why.
WELNA: Well, you know, it's because WikiLeaks has been leaking officially secret information for a decade now, starting out with video footage shot from a U.S. Apache attack helicopter showing American troops killing 18 people in Iraq in 2007, including two Reuters reporters. It was WikiLeaks that posted the millions of documents that Chelsea Manning took as an Army soldier seven years ago.
In fact, in a video that CNN dug up this week that same year, Trump was asked by a FOX radio host what he thought of WikiLeaks. Here's Trump.
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DONALD TRUMP: I think it's disgraceful.
BRIAN KILMEADE: You do think it's disgraceful.
TRUMP: I think there should be, like, death penalty or something.
WELNA: Two years after Trump said that, Assange took refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London after Swedish authorities sought to question him about charges of sexual misconduct, and he's been there ever since.
SHAPIRO: And there has been this interesting twist recently. Fox News host Sean Hannity talked with Assange earlier this week at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. It seems like Assange has become something of a hero to certain conservatives.
WELNA: Well, it would seem he has. In that interview, Hannity cast doubt not on WikiLeaks but on the insistence by President Obama that Russia directed the email hacking. Here's part of their exchange.
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SEAN HANNITY: You're saying that Russia did not give you this information. He is very closely suggesting that in fact they did, and he's wrong. Is - so my question is, does he know he's wrong? From your perspective - he has to know.
JULIAN ASSANGE: He's playing games.
HANNITY: He's playing games.
ASSANGE: He's playing games.
HANNITY: He's dishonest - fair? Is he lying to the American people?
ASSANGE: He's acting like a lawyer instead of being honest.
WELNA: And Trump weighed in again today on this brouhaha with another tweet that reads, quote, "the dishonest media like saying that I am in agreement with Julian Assange - wrong. I simply state what he states."
SHAPIRO: So a divide here within the Republican Party - where are other Republicans coming down in this Trump-Assange dynamic?
WELNA: This is clearly an awkward subject for GOP leaders who have been no friends of WikiLeaks or Assange in the past, but they seem determined to defend the legitimacy of Trump's election. So we don't hear much questioning of Assange at today's hearing from Republicans other than McCain.
It was Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill who delivered the most stinging denunciation of Trump's apparent siding with Assange.
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CLAIRE MCCASKILL: I think it should bring about a hue and cry. No matter whether you're Republican or a Democrat, there should be howls. And mark my word. If the roles reversed, there would be howls from the Republican side of the aisle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CLAPPER: Thank you for that nonpartisan comment.
(LAUGHTER)
WELNA: Right because keeping this whole discussion about Assange, Trump and the Russians nonpartisan is probably too much to hope for, especially on Capitol Hill.
SHAPIRO: NPR national security correspondent David Welna - thanks, David.
WELNA: You're welcome, Ari.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In Chicago today, four people were charged with hate crimes and other felonies involving the kidnapping and torture of a young man. The attack was streamed on Facebook Live, where police discovered the video. The attackers in the video who are black yell racist slurs while beating and cutting the victim, who is white.
Max Green of member station WBEZ reports on the charges and the victim in the crime that the police are calling sickening.
MAX GREEN, BYLINE: The victim is 18 years old, and his parents reported him missing Monday, telling police they had not heard from their son since dropping him off at a McDonald's in the Chicago suburb of Streamwood. Shortly thereafter, they began receiving text messages from someone claiming to have kidnapped him.
It's unclear what alerted the police to check Facebook, but they soon discovered a live streamed video depicting the missing man cowering in the corner of a room, tied up with his mouth bound in plastic. His eyes exude fear as his attackers repeatedly taunt and beat him, one cutting his scalp with a knife.
The young woman streaming the abuse on Facebook Live repeatedly turns the camera back to herself. For the next 25 minutes, the abuse continues for the world to see as the victim is repeatedly kicked and punched. Police say the torture went on for as long as six hours.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Hey, cut this open.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Unintelligible).
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I'm going to (unintelligible).
GREEN: Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says the victim has an intellectual disability.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SUPERINTENDENT EDDIE JOHNSON: Let me be very clear. The actions in that video are reprehensible. That along with racism have absolutely no place in the city of Chicago.
GREEN: Police say because one of the attackers was a classmate of the victim, he may have gone with his captors willingly. At various points in the video, the offenders not only yell obscenities at the victim but direct profanities toward white people and President-elect Donald Trump. Chicago Police Commander Kevin Duffin says the department was seeking hate crime charges from the beginning.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
COMMANDER KEVIN DUFFIN: His diminished mental capacity, the fact that they tied him up, the obvious racial quotes on - that they post live on Facebook - I mean taken in the totality of the circumstances, the state's attorney agreed with us.
GREEN: Julie Justicz is with the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She says just because the victim is white and his attackers are black doesn't make this a hate crime.
JULIE JUSTICZ: If you had four black youth attack a white person and steal their pocketbook, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a hate crime. It's probably just a crime of theft.
GREEN: She says the racist language used in the video and the fact that the victim has an intellectual disability make a stronger case for the hate crime charge. The video was initially removed from Facebook Live and YouTube but has since popped up again on other streaming services.
Facebook says videos are removed when they depict people celebrating or glorifying crime. Police say the victim has been reunited with his family, and the four individuals charged will appear in bond court tomorrow. For NPR News, I'm Max Green in Chicago.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Something strange has been happening with polling. Ever since election night here, pollsters have been rethinking their work on the presidential race. As our colleague Robert Siegel reports, that season of self-scrutiny extends to other countries, too.
ROBERT SIEGEL, BYLINE: The French had a presidential primary in November - two rounds to pick a center-right candidate for president - there's an election this year - and needless to say, there was polling.
BRUNO JEANBART: My name is Bruno Jeanbart, and I'm deputy CEO at Opinion Way, which is a French polling company.
SIEGEL: A few days before the first round, Opinion Way's polling showed what most polls showed. Three candidates were in contention - former President Nicolas Sarkozy and two former prime ministers, Alain Juppe and Francois Fillon. Juppe looked like the leader.
JEANBART: We are Francois Fillon at 25 percent, Sarkozy at 25, and Juppe was 33.
SIEGEL: Eight points up on his nearest rival. But on primary night, it was the more conservative, more pro-Russian Francois Fillon in a walk. He had 44 percent of the vote - almost 20 points more than the poll had showed - and the following week...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Fillon, President, Fillon, President, Fillon, President.
SIEGEL: Fillon's conservative supporters, chanting Fillon, President, were jubilant. Bruno Jeanbart - not so much.
JEANBART: Yes, it was a bit disappointing.
SIEGEL: Since then, one French newspaper, La Parisienne, has decided to take a break from polling, not just because of bad French polls, but also because of U.S. polls in November and recent British polling. In fact, bad polling in the U.K. has hit a trifecta. First, in 2014, in Scotland's independence referendum, most British polls showed independence losing in a close race.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Should Scotland be an independent country? We're in favor of no.
SIEGEL: As viewers of Britain's ITV saw, independence did lose, but it sure wasn't close. The margin was nearly 11 points. Then, in 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron led his conservative party to a surprisingly decisive election victory that kept him in office. How surprising? Well, George Parker is political editor of The Financial Times.
GEORGE PARKER: The opinion polls, including the opinion polls that we were running in The Financial Times, were suggesting that David Cameron's chances of actually winning the election outright were very slim, indeed.
SIEGEL: Judging from the polls, if Cameron was to win, his party would still fall short of a majority in the House of Commons, and he would need a smaller party, the Liberal Democrats, to form a government. The morning after Election Day, that was not the news.
DAVID CAMERON: I've just been to see Her Majesty, the Queen, and I will now form a majority conservative government.
SIEGEL: Cameron's conservatives had one bid - an absolute majority of seats. The rest is history, and bad polling played a key role. In the days when the polls showed the election would be close, Prime Minister Cameron had promised the Eurosceptic wing of his own party that he would hold a referendum on leaving the European Union. It looked like a safe offer since the pro-Europe Liberal Democrats would surely demand a retraction of that promise as a condition for joining in a coalition. Now there would be no coalition.
PARKER: And as you say, the rest is history because David Cameron was then lumbered with the promise to hold a referendum on leaving the European Union, which he had to honor with disastrous consequences for him, at least, and, some would argue, for the country as a whole.
SIEGEL: Not to mention for what was left of the reputation of British polling. Most polls predicted Britain would stay in the EU. But when they announced the results in the city of Sunderland...
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The total number of votes cast in favor of leave was 82,000.
(CHEERING)
SIEGEL: Those cheers, as streamed by The Guardian, were for leaving. The Brits voted 52 percent to 48 percent to quit the EU. How did 11 British polls do with that one? Sir Robert Worcester has been involved in British polling for decades.
ROBERT WORCESTER: Two of the 11 were internet polls who got it within one point. There was another one that had it 50-50, so they were two points out. So three of the eleven we can say got it right. But of the other eight, they were marginally on the wrong side.
SIEGEL: Worcester is a native Kansan who went to London and started a polling firm called MORI. He says the task of polling entails two objectives.
WORCESTER: You've got to get the people who are going to get out and vote and then how they're going to vote, so it's a two-stage effort.
SIEGEL: And as for that first step, The Financial Times' Parker says the British polls have done badly.
PARKER: The pollsters have been absolutely terrible at reaching the kind of people who are going to vote. And that's partly because, particularly in the case of Brexit, there were people voting who normally were seething with resentment, but couldn't be bothered to go out and cast their ballots. And so they were, in a way, unidentified by the pollsters.
SIEGEL: Bob Worcester sees a problem of evolving methodologies. He actually polled for the British government during the first referendum on staying in Europe back in 1975.
WORCESTER: We were doing face-to-face polls every day, but political polling is almost entirely now split between the phone and the internet. And it's taken quite a long time for the internet to climb in there and get themselves a model that can replicate the population statistically - the demographic profile of the United Kingdom.
SIEGEL: Back in France, how does pollster Bruno Jeanbart of Opinion Way explain his poll's 19-point error in the French primary? Well, Jeanbart says the novelty of a center-right primary open to left-wing voters made it especially tough to figure who would turn out. There was also a debate very late in the campaign that his poll missed. But he also adds this lesson - French voters don't think much of their political parties, and they don't feel very attached to them.
JEANBART: There's only 12 percent in France who have confidence in the political parties. It's very, very low. It means that people don't really believe so much in politics, and so they determine very late sometimes when they are going to turn out or not.
SIEGEL: Late deciders figured in November's polling hours in the U.S. presidential race, too. Courtney Kennedy runs surveys for the Pew Research Center, which did not publish an Election Eve poll this year. Courtney Kennedy says pollsters are examining several possible reasons for bad polling, not in national surveys, which were pretty accurate, but in certain battleground states.
COURTNEY KENNEDY: Particularly in Upper Midwest, there were some systematic, large polling errors in the same direction, which is quite concerning, for sure.
SIEGEL: In Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the polls had Clinton leading, and she lost. One factor Kennedy says pollsters are looking at is late deciders. In exit polls in those states, 12 percent of voters said they decided in the last week. Most of them went for Trump.
KENNEDY: And so if you conducted your poll, you know, in the middle or late of October, you would have missed that late movement.
SIEGEL: She says there are some other post-mortem questions for pollsters. Were Trump voters less likely to take part in polls or less likely to tell pollsters the truth? And when pollsters took their raw data and then weighted various demographic groups to create a model of the electorate, did they know what the electorate would look like? Courtney Kennedy of Pew says they didn't.
KENNEDY: A lot of the assumptions about what people who vote look like is based on the exit poll. And what we've learned is the exit poll data over-represent people that are college-educated, over-represent non-whites. And so, in fact, the people that came out to vote this year were somewhat more white and less educated than many pollsters had expected them to be.
SIEGEL: For every instance of bad polling, you can find unique circumstances that account for some of what happened. But there are also common themes in the U.S., France and Britain. Assumptions about party loyalties and likelihood of voting took a beating this year, and the failures of 2016 have put the very idea of predictive polling on notice for elections this year and next.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: That's our colleague Robert Siegel.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
2016 was the hottest year on record. That's according to an analysis out today by European climate scientists. Donald Trump has expressed skepticism that climate change is caused by human activity. Many climate scientists are urging him to reconsider that skepticism. One of them is Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California. He wrote an open letter to Trump and joins us now. Welcome to the program.
BEN SANTER: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Before you wrote this letter, Donald Trump had already nominated Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency and former Texas Governor Rick Perry to run the Energy Department. Both of those men have questioned the science behind climate change. Pruitt has even sued the EPA on many occasions. So do you really think the Trump administration is open to persuasion at this point?
SANTER: Well, we've got to try. As a climate scientist, if you spend your entire career trying to advance understanding, you can't just sit by idly and say nothing when that understanding is incorrectly dismissed as a hoax, a conspiracy, bunk, a contrived, phony mess. You have some societal responsibility to set the record straight. And that was what my open letter attempted to do - to state in plain English - not in jargon - this is a real problem. And if we as a country back out of the Paris climate agreement, that would be a big mistake.
SHAPIRO: I want to talk about the Paris climate agreement in a moment, but first what is your fear about what will happen to climate science under a Trump administration?
SANTER: Of course, it would be bad if the incoming administration completely ignored this problem and argued that it was not a problem. It was not real. The United States didn't have to concern itself with it. And we would be embracing ignorance with open arms if we ignored this problem.
SHAPIRO: Be specific. What is your fear of what will happen if this administration ignores climate science?
SANTER: Well, if we ignore climate science, and if we back out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, other countries will say, hey, if the U.S. doesn't care about this, why should we?
SHAPIRO: Are other countries really making their decisions based on whether the U.S. does one thing or another?
SANTER: Well, we have a leadership role here. If we tell the rest of the world we don't care about this, you shouldn't either, that will make it much more difficult to get any kind of global effective agreement to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
SHAPIRO: China, for example, seems pretty committed to moving towards cleaner sources of energy whether or not the U.S. does. Do you think China would change its path if the U.S. goes more towards fossil fuels?
SANTER: No, I don't. I don't think China would. It's possible that other countries, perhaps India - they've been frequently mentioned as being sort of skeptical about whether or not to embrace the Paris climate agreement. I think China will decide to move forward. I think they are capable of seeing that this problem has economic opportunities, that folks who figure out and countries who figure out cheap, efficient ways of providing low-carbon energy will be the economic leaders of the 21st century.
SHAPIRO: You work at a lab that gets a lot of funding from the government. What would this mean for you if the government's funding priorities change?
SANTER: I have no idea, but I can tell you that I'm determined to continue to do my job to the best of my ability and to speak out clearly about our scientific understanding and about likely outcomes if we do nothing. That is my job, and if it is not possible for me to do that job, I will go elsewhere and continue to do it.
SHAPIRO: That's Ben Santer, a climate scientist with Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Thanks very much.
SANTER: Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
When people want to get in a jab at Wall Street, they sometimes call what bankers do casino capitalism. Today, Keith Romer from our Planet Money podcast has a story of what happened when one Wall Street firm actually tried to get into the casino business.
KEITH ROMER, BYLINE: The idea was simple. The Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald was going to create a new company, Cantor Gaming. And Cantor Gaming was going to revolutionize the sports betting industry in Las Vegas.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: What happens when Wall Street technology hits Las Vegas?
ROMER: Here's an ad from 2010.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: You get instant sports betting throughout the game, freedom, a huge breakthrough in Cantor technology.
ROMER: It's like a beer commercial from 1985. There are all these women in skimpy bathing suits power walking around holding smartphones and tablets - tablets that let them place bets on Cantor's new system. In addition to the technological bells and whistles, Cantor Gaming offered gamblers one additional perk.
GERARD MCNALLY: Cantor was accepting wagers larger than any other casino was accepting.
ROMER: That's retired NYPD detective Gerard McNally. He says while most casinos would only take $5,000 or $10,000 on a football game, Cantor would take $50,000 and sometimes a lot more than that. Though he didn't know it at the time, McNally was already turning up evidence of the way these higher betting limits were bringing together Las Vegas, Wall Street and illegal betting, evidence in the form of bags filled with cash.
MCNALLY: We tracked the guy from Jersey all the way to New York. And we have our guys watch him, and they're saying, you're not going to believe this; this guy's walking down the middle of Manhattan, and you can see the bag - you could see the money on top of the bag.
ROMER: Like his bag was so full it was overflowing with money.
MCNALLY: Yeah, you could see the money.
ROMER: It turned out these guys were moving around a lot of these bags of money. Eventually McNally traced them to a quiet office park in New Jersey and a gambling ring the police came to call the Jersey Boys.
The Jersey Boys - they were sports bettors. And because it's illegal to place sports bets in New Jersey, they had runners placing bets for them in Nevada with Cantor Gaming.
MCNALLY: They knew who the Jersey Boys were because they needed their help.
ROMER: Remember. Cantor was willing to take much bigger bets on games than other casinos, and that meant that sometimes they took way more money on one side of a game than they could handle. So when that happened, they would call up the Jersey Boys to see if maybe they would bet $50,000 on the other side - clever idea, also illegal. Nevada casinos are not allowed to take bets from out of state.
Second problem - casinos are required to file reports on any big payouts. For the Jersey Boys, Cantor Gaming failed to file a lot of reports. After a two-year investigation, police seized millions of dollars in cash and arrested 25 people, including the head bookmaker at Cantor Gaming. In August, the CEO resigned.
Last fall, Cantor Gaming, now rebranded as CG Technology, agreed to settle with federal prosecutors. There would be no criminal case brought against the company, but it would have to pay fines totaling more than $22 million. Detective McNally is happy with the way the case turned out, but he's not convinced it will really make a difference.
MCNALLY: Did we change anything about it? I don't know. I don't know. Money does weird things I guess.
ROMER: Wall Street lost its bet to remake sports betting in its own image - or maybe just its first bet. Gamblers don't always know when to quit. For NPR News, I'm Keith Romer.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Singer Regina Spektor immigrated to the U.S. in 1989 when she was a kid. Her family were Russian Jews from Moscow, and they settled in the Bronx where her dad, despite their financial struggles, managed to secure his daughter a piano teacher so she could continue her lessons.
Twenty seven years and seven albums later, she's still playing. The theme song to the Netflix prison drama "Orange Is The New Black" - that's her.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU'VE GOT TIME")
REGINA SPEKTOR: (Singing) The animals, the animals - trap; trap; trap till the cage is full. The cage is full.
CORNISH: And while Regina Spektor's songs have always been playful on this and her latest album, "Remember Us To Life," there was a strain of something a little bit darker about the tougher side of life.
I talked to Spektor on this program back in October, a revealing, intimate conversation that's worth hearing again. It started with a description of her childhood in the Bronx right after her family left the Soviet Union.
SPEKTOR: For me, it was amazing because I was a kid, and I was very excited to experience this whole new world. And everything was fun, everything from, oh, wow, we get bananas - I'd only seen them in picture books, you know - to, like, the diversity of the neighborhood and to explore Judaism for the first time. It was really hushed in the Soviet Union. And I knew I was Jewish, but we didn't get to celebrate any of the holidays really or know anything about our culture.
But I saw certain things that I think maybe other kids are protected from. Like, I saw my parents struggling. I knew that we were cutting out coupons and buying dented cans because they were cheaper. And all our furniture was from the garbage. It was just - and to me because I was a kid, all that stuff was really exciting. But I definitely also...
CORNISH: You can feel it, right?
SPEKTOR: Oh, you feel it.
CORNISH: You can feel it in a household.
SPEKTOR: Absolutely. And you also - it's painful to watch your parents not be in control of things. You know, even as we were leaving the Soviet Union, just watching how they were treated at customs as we were leaving, all our suitcases shaken out. The passports were taken from us and were cut in half in a very dramatic way. I watched them be scared, you know? And that was - that really shook the earth for me in a lot of ways.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TORNADOLAND")
SPEKTOR: (Singing) It's so much easier than you think. You try so hard, and every time you get it wrong, you get it right. You get it wrong, but you get it right. You get it right.
CORNISH: So when you, like, write songs of people going through not that same story but that same kind of emotion, it's coming from someplace.
SPEKTOR: It's coming from a place where people want to feel good about themselves because they can afford certain things for their family. And they think that it's some kind of a yardstick for getting it right, you know? They think they're getting things right in life. And I think that so many people don't understand how easy it is to be broke, how easy it is to find yourself in a situation where you're in an absolutely foreign place.
And I think that being an immigrant - I don't know. When I walk through the city, I just think that I see my family. I see us in everybody, you know? I see us.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TORNADOLAND")
SPEKTOR: (Singing) And all the monsters in your mind just want to be nice. They want to be kind. They want to play nice. They want to be softer than the storms around. You feel them through the windows and the doors.
CORNISH: I wondered if you ever think that - how do I say this? I think when you grow up struggling economically with your family - and I have experiences as well - you never quite shake that.
SPEKTOR: That's true.
CORNISH: And you seek it in your work as an adult. Are we hearing some of that here? You know, (laughter) do you find yourself, like, not being able to inhabit that space quite frequently because you can't quite shake it?
SPEKTOR: Maybe the good thing to know is that you don't need to shake it. It's one of those things where it becomes a gift, you know, to get to see things from a different perspective. And I think that I'm always going to think that it's silly to value certain things that no matter how many people find it really valuable, it's always just going to seem a little silly to me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMALL BILL$")
SPEKTOR: (Singing) His destiny was just too big to spend, so he broke it into smaller bills and change. By the time he tried to buy the things he needed, he has spent it all on loosies and weed. And he had spent it all on chips and Coca-Cola. He had spent it all on chocolate and vanilla. He had spent it all and didn't even feel it. He had spent it all and didn't even feel it.
CORNISH: You know, one other thing that's happened to you since your last album is that you had a child. So I'll say congratulations.
SPEKTOR: Thank you. Thanks so much - yeah.
CORNISH: And I remember you singing in this song in 2009 "Folding Chairs." It's from the album "Far." And you're, like, imagining with a lover what it might be like to have a kid (laughter) - like, how much fun you would have. Or the characters are imagining that.
SPEKTOR: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOLDING CHAIR")
SPEKTOR: (Singing) Let's get a silver bullet trailer and have a baby boy. I'll safety pin his clothes all cool, and you'll graffiti all his toys.
CORNISH: So you had the baby boy.
SPEKTOR: (Laughter) Yeah.
CORNISH: Did it come out as cool and as fun as it was described in this song?
SPEKTOR: Yeah, actually. I mean I want to - like, the superstitious person in me just wants to knock on all this - all the wood in this studio. I remember...
CORNISH: It probably really makes you embrace uncertainty (laughter).
SPEKTOR: Oh, yeah. That's the part that's very, very hard. Like, as soon as I had him, I was, like - first of all, it hit me that my parents loved me so much. And it just kind of hit me on this physical level, and I was just like, you love me this much. I am screwed. Like, this is just too much - like...
(LAUGHTER)
SPEKTOR: ...You know? And then, like - and then I had a lot of anxiety because I was just thinking, God, our world is so complicated. And so I was really worried about everything. And then my mom said, well, when I think about you and your brother being little, I just think about how fun it is to be a parent.
And once she said that, some kind of a weight lifted, and I was thinking, yeah, you know, there is this uncertainty, and I can have anxiety about it. Or I could just try and have a lot of fun and laugh and just enjoy the fact that we're just these silly little people that are a little family now, you know?
CORNISH: Well, Regina Spektor, I have to say best of luck to you and your silly little family.
(LAUGHTER)
SPEKTOR: Thank you. Thanks, Audie.
CORNISH: We're rooting for you. Thank you so much for talking with us.
SPEKTOR: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BLEEDING HEART")
SPEKTOR: (Singing) You'd wish they'd stayed.
CORNISH: That's Regina Spektor. I spoke with her about her latest album, "Remember Us To Life," back in October.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BLEEDING HEART")
SPEKTOR: (Singing) Never, never mind your bleeding heart. Never, never mind bleeding heart, bleeding heart.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
For more on today's hearing and the intelligence community's case against Russia, I'm joined by Senator Jack Reed. He's the leading Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Welcome to the program.
JACK REED: Thank you, Audie, very much.
CORNISH: Now, what, if anything, today did we learn that is new - that bolsters the case that the Russian government was behind the hacking of the Democrats?
REED: Well, today, both General Clapper, Admiral Rogers and the entire panel agreed that the Russians were involved in our election. They did it. And I think what was revealing to me, at least, was in a comprehensive way, it was not just hacking from messages and emails. There was fake news stories. There was a social media use. There was a very comprehensive and very calculated strategy that emanated from Russia and apparently was approved at the very highest levels of the Russian government. That is very disturbing. And it also - it appears to be a practice that - a technique that they are using elsewhere as we speak. And if we don't do something about it, we'll be subject and vulnerable to it in the future.
CORNISH: At the same time, James Clapper - James Clapper said that we have no way of gauging the impact. Certainly, the intelligence community can't gauge the impact it had on choices the electorate made. It seems like they went out of their way to make the distinction that we can't truly know the electoral effect of Russia's meddling.
REED: That was very accurate. He said that that's a calculation that the intelligence service is not prepared to make. That's something that I think will be looked at very closely by experts in the field - political scientists, data analysis, other folks. But they were not willing - and, I think, appropriately so - to suggest or to infer what the impact was. They indicated, though, clearly there was a methodical, calculated, deliberate attempt to intrude in the election, and that is very disturbing.
CORNISH: Now, is part of the challenge here of ferreting the answer to more questions about whether, for instance, Russia interfered in the election in some way to benefit the Trump campaign specifically. To interrogate something like that - is it even possible? Is this process just too politicized?
REED: I don't think it's too politicized. The intelligence community is operating on facts. They have to be very careful to ensure they don't disclose their sources and methods. That's why there'll be a very classified annex, one that's less classified and then a public document. But they'll have to deal in facts, not just suppositions or conjecture. And they are - that's their business. They will draw some inferences where there are places where they can't draw a conclusion, and they'll indicate that.
CORNISH: As Trump himself has pointed out, U.S. intelligence is not infallible. Most cite, you know, the intelligence leading into the Iraq war, for instance. Is it wrong to be skeptical?
REED: It's not wrong to be skeptical. I was one who participated in the debate on Iraq and voted against the resolution because I was skeptical of the intelligence. But that was based on looking at the facts, analyzing the case in as rational and as logical way as you can, not simply concluding or dismissing facts. And what is, I think, disturbing to many people on both sides of the aisle - it appears that the president simply - or elect rather - is simply dismissing these facts because they are, for some reason, inconvenient.
CORNISH: There were reports from multiple news outlets that Donald Trump has selected Dan Coats to be the next director of National Intelligence. He's a former colleague of yours in the Senate. What's your reaction to that choice?
REED: I - Dan is someone that I've worked with, someone who I admire - a man of great integrity. I'm sure he'll be given very fair consideration by the - by the Senate - but someone, again, who I admire individually very much. He's someone who is a gentleman and a very thoughtful public servant.
CORNISH: That's Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island. He's the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Thank you for coming on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
REED: Thank you, Audie.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
On January 20, Donald Trump will be sworn in as president, and Barack Obama will leave the White House. Also on that day, Senator Charles Schumer of New York will become the most powerful Democrat in Washington. As the Senate minority leader, he heads his party in the House of Congress that because of Senate rules has really the only chance of stopping or stalling the Republican agenda. And if this week is any indication, Schumer will be spending much of his time responding to statements made by Donald Trump.
In his new office in the Capitol, I asked him about what the president-elect had to say to The New York Times this morning. Before today's intelligence briefing, Trump called allegations of Russian involvement in the election a political witch hunt.
CHARLES SCHUMER: That's not the way to govern. We can't have a Twitter president. This is serious stuff, this governing. And to just, you know, be flip and glib and tweet - nothing wrong with tweeting, it's a good way to reach constituents. And Trump did that very well during the campaign, but you got to do a lot more. And certainly any president - Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative - should keep an open mind until they get the briefing.
CORNISH: At this point, do you think that this process though can accurately be called politicized? I mean, is there any way to separate it from the election?
SCHUMER: I don't think, you know, knowing the people in the agencies who do this, no, I don't think it's politicized.
CORNISH: Then we moved on to the Democrats' message, in particular job creation in an economy that's struggling to bring back manufacturing jobs.
SCHUMER: The bottom line is we lost this election. And when you lose an election, you don't blink, you don't turn away. You look it right in the eye and say, why did we lose? And I think the number one reason we lost is we didn't have a sharp bold economic message that creates jobs and particularly jobs in the heartland and manufacturing jobs. If you have a sharp bold economic message, you can unite everybody.
So what we are going to do as Democrats is put together a really strong platform that focuses on jobs and economic issues. And then you won't have to make this choice that the pundits talk about which is, oh, are you going to appeal to the Obama coalition or the blue collar worker? An economic message, an economic platform unites the factory worker in Scranton, the young woman in Los Angeles struggling to pay her college debt and the single mom in Buffalo who's on minimum wage.
CORNISH: But to implement any part of that platform, somebody is going to end up working with Republicans, and it right now does not sound like you're ready to do that.
SCHUMER: We're going to hold Donald Trump's feet to the fire. He campaigned sort of as anti-establishment, anti-democratic and anti-Republican establishments. But if you look at his Cabinet choices, they're all - they're almost by and large hard-right. So what we're going to do, I think things are going to turn around in a year. I think Republicans will start working with us. But at the beginning, our job is going to be to hold Donald Trump and the Republican majority accountable.
CORNISH: But you also have upwards of 10 Democrats in your caucus who are in very red states, states that Trump won. You've got defections of your own to worry about, don't you?
SCHUMER: Not - on economic issues we are strong and united, and this caucus is united on everything. Take ACA - Obamacare - we had a vote yesterday on keeping all the benefits of ACA, every Democrat voted for it. We had a vote to move forward to debate their bill which would repeal ACA, and not a single Democrat voted no. We did get a Republican vote - Rand Paul. Now they want to eliminate the funding of Planned Parenthood, so people like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are having some qualms about this. So there's even a chance we could defeat their repeal.
CORNISH: Do you think there's always a little something that will draw a defection?
SCHUMER: Look, if Democrats stay united - and that's one of my jobs, so far so good - it'll be much easier to hold them accountable. And if they lose only three votes, they have trouble. And especially since it seems particularly on the House side, but even the president-elect are adopting such a hard-right agenda, makes it easier for us to get some Republican defections. Substantively we're much closer to where the American people are than they are.
They say repeal, but they know that they have to keep the good things in ACA - 20 million people who are covered who wouldn't have been, pre-existing conditions covered. A mom or dad has a child with cancer, and the insurance company can say we're not covering you because your kid has cancer. How about the college kids, 21 to 26, who now get covered?
CORNISH: Are you also listing your bottom line requirements for any Republican alternative that's offered?
SCHUMER: If they want to repeal it, they own it, and they have to come up with an alternative, then we'll look at the alternative. But we're not going to let them repeal it and then say, oh, let's work together to see what we can put together.
CORNISH: But there are no, I guess - is it the mandate? Is that the tax subsidies? Are there any things in a Republican alternative that would appeal to you?
SCHUMER: There might be a thing or two, but we're not for repeal because with repeal you can't keep all the good parts of ACA.
CORNISH: You know, recently you said to CNN that the only way we're going to work with him - Donald Trump - is if he moves completely in our direction and abandons his Republican colleagues. And you and other Democrats really hated that approach when Republicans took it.
SCHUMER: No. Well, what I've said is we're going to stay true to our values, OK, if you read the whole interview. We have values. We're not going to oppose something just 'cause it has Trump's name on it. If Trump were to say tomorrow - which he said in his campaign - he wants to repeal the carried interest loophole which allows a lot of these hedge funds to pay lower taxes than the average American, of course we'll vote with him, but we're going to keep our values. So take infrastructure, where we'd love to get a big infrastructure bill, and Trump campaigned on a trillion dollar infrastructure bill. That's a big bill.
CORNISH: Listening to the House this week, it doesn't look like it's in the front of the line for their priorities.
SCHUMER: No, it's not. But if - but just an example. But then - and I've said this to him in our phone conversations - I said if you're just going to try to do it with tax breaks, you're not going to get anything built and you're going to put huge tolls everywhere. You have to do it with real spending. And I said to the president-elect, if you're going to do it with real spending and garner good Democratic support, you're going to alienate your hard-right 'cause they don't want to spend money. It's going to be his choice, that's what I'm saying.
CORNISH: One of the things that I think many people who have opposed Donald Trump is - have found is that you run into that wall of tweets and that ability to seize the news cycle. How do you break through with your message when...
SCHUMER: Talk to...
CORNISH: ...Things can turn around in an hour?
SCHUMER: We stick to the facts. So Trump called me a name yesterday about ACA because I think, you know, we - he's struggling.
CORNISH: Yeah, he used the word clown.
SCHUMER: Yeah. And I said to him - I didn't tweet back a name, that's derogating the debate. I said I understand your anguish, Mr. President-elect, because you don't know what to replace a ACA with. But instead of calling names, roll up your sleeves and come up with a replacement. So I'm not going to descend to name calling, but I will answer him and answer him vigorously on the facts. I'm going to focus on people and what they need, not on name calling between politicians.
CORNISH: Charles Schumer, thank you so much for speaking with us.
SCHUMER: Thank you. Thank you very much, Audie.
CORNISH: New York Democrat Charles Schumer is the Senate minority leader.
(SOUNDBITE OF MISSION OF BURMA SONG, "TREM TWO")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Growing up without growing apart can be difficult for anyone. We're going to talk now with three people who have managed to do it. They've been making music together since they were children and become megastars in the process. I'm talking about the band The xx.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SAY SOMETHING LOVING")
THE XX: (Singing) Say something loving. I just don't remember the thrill of affection.
SHAPIRO: The trio is Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith. The two singers, Romy and Oliver, met in preschool in a London suburb when they were only three years old.
OLIVER SIM: They had, like, music classes, and I remember sharing a xylophone with Romy in that music class. And yeah, I've also got pictures of it. So I'm sure I'm building memories off a picture.
ROMY MADLEY CROFT: There's one of us standing on a bench as if we're sort of on a stage. And Oliver's on the side that he stands on, and I'm on the side that I stand on, which is quite a beautiful coincidence I think.
SHAPIRO: The two of them met Jamie when they were much older - 11.
SIM: We met on the induction day before school even started. And we were - yet we were in the same art class, and we sat next to each other.
JAMIE SMITH: There you go. I didn't remember the specifics.
SIM: Yeah, I remember exactly.
CROFT: So handy - Oliver's memory is just so helpful to us all (laughter).
SHAPIRO: As adults, the awards have rolled in. Their first album sold millions of copies and inspired other bands. And all three of them have changed. Jamie released a solo album. Oliver gave up drinking. Romy got engaged. Now the group has a new album coming out next week called "I See You."
(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED THE XX SONG)
THE XX: (Singing) Just your love, just your shadow, just your voice...
SHAPIRO: I wanted to know how these three have managed to grow up without growing apart - turns out it's a lot like any long-term relationship.
CROFT: We've probably spent more time together than we have done with our own families (laughter) in the past five years.
SMITH: This is Jamie. When I was starting at a new school - and Romy and Oliver had come to a new school as well - I don't think I wanted to hang out with that many people. There were only a few people there that I liked. So I was quite happy just to stay us. I think just keeping your closest friends around is the best.
SHAPIRO: I think it's easy for people to assume that one grows up and remains friends easily. But I mean when I look at the lyrics to your songs, it doesn't sound like it's been easy at all.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TEST ME")
THE XX: (Singing) I don't know where I went wrong. Tell me should I see someone.
SHAPIRO: Romy, you wrote a song called "Test Me" on this new album. Is it about each other?
CROFT: (Laughter) Well, I guess I kind of feel like we've got to a place where we're comfortable to say that that specific song is about each other. In the past, we've really not wanted to share the sort of the ins and outs of what the songs mean to us because as fans of music, we've really loved having the lyrics of other people's songs as our own and fitting them into our lives.
And - but with a song like that, it sort of just came out I guess that that was written by me about a sort of - a hard time in our friendship - between Oliver and I - and at a time when all three of us were quite distant from each other emotionally and geographically.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TEST ME")
THE XX: (Singing) I'll take it out on you. It's easier than talking it through. Test me. See if I stay. How could I walk the other way?
CROFT: It was very cathartic to write it. And it sort of represents a new time of us actually talking about things rather than just pushing them down. And I think it was a good thing.
SHAPIRO: Do you think that's one of the things that's enabled you not to split apart - is the decision to talk about things rather than push them down?
CROFT: I think that we have really struggled with talking about things. On one hand, knowing each other for so long I think you build up this sort of intuition, which is incredible when making music. And there's so many times we don't even have to talk, and it sort of is understood.
But I think in terms of our personal lives, you can almost end up assuming things about each other. We've had to really work at that. But I think that writing the songs, sometimes we would say things to each other in the music before we could say to each other.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A VIOLENT NOISE")
THE XX: (Singing) If I'm beating every hand away, no one stays. I've got so cautious.
SIM: Songs like "A Violent Noise" definitely - it's one of the earliest songs on the album. And I wrote it while we were still touring "Coexist." So it was...
SHAPIRO: The previous album, yeah.
SIM: Yeah. I think it's a lot of - a big thing that I've been sort of facing is adulthood. We spent most of our 20s just really go, go, go, go, go. And then coming home from - and kind of wrapping up our second album was our first opportunity to kind of be still and be home. And I think just - this age of 25, 26, 27 is quite a fight-or-flight, really kind of dealing with yourself age.
SHAPIRO: At the risk of getting too personal - and if you'd rather not discuss this, that's fine. Oliver, is this a song about sobriety?
SIM: Maybe the beginning's because it was at a point where I was still kind of fighting my side that I was still drinking successfully. It's just kind of the idea of, you know, am I celebrating, or am I escaping?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A VIOLENT NOISE")
THE XX: (Singing) Not to feel - am I too high? Am I too proud? Is the music too loud for me to hear? Now I go out, but every beat is a violent noise. (Unintelligible) with every beat comes a violent noise.
SHAPIRO: When you perform on stage, there is such an intimacy that comes across listening to the music, watching you perform. It's obviously not a romantic intimacy. Oliver and Romy, you're both gay. How would you describe what that intimacy is?
CROFT: I mean, I guess one thing that comes to mind, which is maybe - I think there's, like, so much support and confidence that comes from the three of us being up there together. And that's informed the way that we perform.
When Oliver started moving a bit more - you know, when I realized that, that sort of encouraged me to start doing it. And then Jamie started moving. And then the fact that we're all there together - I think that's something I really cherish.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOLD ON")
THE XX: (Singing) I don't blame you. We got carried away. I can't hold on.
SHAPIRO: Well, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for your time.
CROFT: Thank you very much.
SMITH: Thanks very much.
CROFT: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith are The xx. The new album is called "I See You."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ON HOLD")
THE XX: (Singing) I thought I had you on hold. Where does it stop? Where does it stop? Where do you dare me to? You've got the body. You've got the body to dare me to. Where does it stop? Where does it stop? Where do you dare me to?
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Michelle Obama offered a farewell message as she addressed the nation's young people today. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Michelle Obama spoke during a White House celebration of some of the nation's best school counselors. And in an emotional final speech as first lady, Mrs. Obama offered some counseling of her own.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHELLE OBAMA: For all the young people in this room and those who are watching, know that this country belongs to you, to all of you.
HORSLEY: The first lady spoke specifically to immigrants, Muslims and the poor, people who might feel slighted by the incoming Trump administration. Our glorious diversity, she said, is not a threat to America. It makes us who we are.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Do not ever let anyone make you feel like you don't matter or like you don't have a place in our American story because you do.
HORSLEY: The first lady herself has felt the sting of others' low expectations. When her husband first ran for the White House eight years ago, some dismissed Michelle Obama as an angry black woman. But the first lady says with hard work and a good education, anything is possible. And she urged young people facing the inevitable obstacles not to be afraid but rather focused, determined and hopeful.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: It is our fundamental belief in the power of hope that has allowed us to rise above the voices of doubt and division, of anger and fear that we have faced in our own lives and in the life of this country.
HORSLEY: The Harvard-trained lawyer's voice broke when she recalled how her own blue-collar father went to work every day, dreaming that his children would have opportunities that he never did.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Being your first lady has been the greatest honor of my life, and I hope I've made you proud.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Thank you, you guys.
HORSLEY: As her audience in the east room stood and cheered, Obama promised she'll be working to support young people long after she and her husband leave the White House. Scott Horsley, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It was chaos and confusion at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport this afternoon as gunshots rang out at the busy South Florida facility. At least five people were killed and several others injured. Authorities say a suspect is in custody.
We're joined now by reporter Kate Stein of member station WLRN. She's there at the airport. And, Kate, to start, I know authorities just finished speaking to the media. What did they have to say?
KATE STEIN, BYLINE: Yes, so Broward County Sheriff (inaudible) and a couple of other officials from the FBI came out and gave a press conference. They were explaining that five people have been confirmed dead, and at least 13 people in total were shot. So eight people have been taken to area hospitals.
It sounds as if the only shooting that took place was in Terminal 2 on the lower level near the baggage claim. And the sheriff said right now the scene is considered (inaudible) active. There's passengers sheltered in place. They're not sure when the airport is going to be reopening. And so we're still waiting to see whether or not this was an act of terrorism. They're not releasing any information about the victims right now.
CORNISH: What did Sheriff Scott Israel say was next for the suspect? Is he being questioned by anyone else?
STEIN: He's being questioned by the FBI right now. He was taken into custody. Well, the shooting began at around 1 p.m. He was taken - the suspect taken into custody shortly after that by a Broward sheriff deputy. And it sounds as if he was taken into custody without incident. No shots were fired, and the suspect had not been injured. They are still investigating as to how he got into the airport.
CORNISH: Now, I understand you were able to get to the airport not long after this happened. Can you describe the scene?
STEIN: Yeah, so when I pulled up, it was surprisingly easy to get close to Terminal 2. There was a media staging area sort of along the walkway leading up to the terminal. And from there, I could see Terminal 2, Terminal 1 and a parking garage to the left. And all three of those areas became areas where there was security personnel present.
Terminal 2, by the time I got here, had been cordoned off pretty well. There were police cars down in that area. But the parking garage - you could see SWAT team members searching the garage. You could see them with guns drawn, like, checking each floor, and a helicopter kind of strafed the top of the garage.
And then off by Terminal 1, there had been passengers who looked like they had been deplaned, and they were sheltered, you know, on the tarmac, waiting for further instructions, it looked like. But then the fire alarm began going off in Terminal 1, and people ran away from that building. At one point, people were sheltered between Terminals 1 and - Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. They ran farther away from the terminals out onto the actual runways.
CORNISH: Now, Kate Stein is a reporter from member station WLRN. She joined us from the Fort Lauderdale International Airport. We'll hear more on this story throughout the hour.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The nation's top intelligence officials spent nearly two hours briefing President-elect Donald Trump today. They laid out their case for accusing Russia of, among other things, hacking into Democratic Party networks to influence the presidential election. Afterwards, they released a report detailing a declassified version of their findings. Trump has long questioned those conclusions. After the briefing, he put out a statement saying the meeting had been constructive. He did not say he'd changed his mind. NPR's Tamara Keith reports.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: In the written statement, Trump acknowledges there are constant efforts from Russia, China and others to break into America's cyber infrastructure, but says, quote, "there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election." In fact, the report from intelligence agencies says they didn't actually assess the impact Russian meddling had on the outcome of the election. Trump's statement goes on to say there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines. That is backed up by the report. What the president-elect never says in his statement is that he believes Russia was behind the hacking and release of emails during the campaign.
The report says the intelligence community has high confidence Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign with an aim to undermine the U.S. democratic process and denigrate Hillary Clinton, and that the Russian government had a clear preference for now President-elect Donald Trump. Trump's skepticism about these conclusions is long standing. Here he was in his second debate against Clinton, just days after intelligence officials put out a statement pointing the finger at Russia.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: But I noticed any time anything wrong happens, they like to say the Russians - she doesn't know if it's the Russians doing the hacking. Maybe there is no hacking.
KEITH: Trump has repeatedly pointed to intelligence failures in the lead up to the Iraq War to suggest the intelligence community could be wrong this time. Even this morning before his briefing, Trump said in an interview with The New York Times that he had doubts about the evidence of Russian hacking during the campaign, saying Clinton and Democrats had been badly beaten and the focus on the hacking was really about questioning his win. Quote, "They are very embarrassed about it. To some extent, it's a witch hunt." At a Senate hearing yesterday, Adm. Mike Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency, said some pushback is normal, but this type of antagonism could hurt morale among intelligence professionals.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIKE ROGERS: What we do is in no small part driven in part by the confidence of our leaders in what we do. And without that confidence, I just don't want a situation where our workforce decides to walk 'cause I think that really is not a good place for us to be.
KEITH: In his statement today, Trump made sure to say he has, quote, "tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation."
Former Director of Central Intelligence Jim Woolsey, who advised Trump during the campaign but removed himself from the transition team, says the best bet now for both Trump and the intelligence community is to move on.
JIM WOOLSEY: My suggestion to him is to shake hands and get to work. They've got two weeks. And then they're running the most important, the most powerful country in the world, including the one armed with nuclear weapons, and they've got to get everything squared away. They've got two weeks.
KEITH: Trump says as president, he will appoint a team to give him a plan for stopping cyberattacks and they'll have a 90-day deadline. Tamara Keith, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
North Korea has a history of testing nuclear weapons, and now that danger may be increasing. In his New Year's address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un claims the country will soon test an intercontinental ballistic missile. That could put the U.S. within range of attack. This has been a top national security concern for the Obama administration, and Donald Trump has tweeted, it won't happen.
To talk about this, I'm joined by Ambassador Joseph DeTrani, who's worked on U.S. policy towards North Korea. Welcome to the program.
JOSEPH DETRANI: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
SHAPIRO: How far do you think North Korea is from developing a nuclear weapon that could reach the U.S.?
DETRANI: I think they're very close to having an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the United States.
SHAPIRO: Very close meaning weeks, months, years?
DETRANI: Well, I would think in 2017. And as the - Kim Jong-un said in his New Year's presentation, 2017 is a likely year that they will test launch an ICBM.
SHAPIRO: Is that based on actual knowledge or guesswork? How do we know what we know about North Korea?
DETRANI: Well, I mean we spend a lot of time looking at North Korea's nuclear capabilities but also the missile capabilities and how far they've gone. And they've been spending a lot of time. And we watch what they do with their shorter range ballistic missiles - the Scuds, the Nodongs.
Most recently, they had a successful Musudan, which is 3,000 to 4,000 kilometers. And they've always talked about the KN-08. The KN-08 is their intercontinental ballistic missile. And we're talking about 7,000 to 9,000 kilometers. That touches the whole - most of the United States.
SHAPIRO: Do they have the capability to combine a nuclear warhead with an ICBM, an intercontinental ballistic missile?
DETRANI: Ari, the assessment from some - and I'm one of them - is that North Korea has been able to miniaturize their nuclear weapons. The next step, as you correctly stated, is to now make those nuclear weapons to a missile delivery system. I believe they're working on doing exactly that.
SHAPIRO: What can the U.S. do about that if North Korea has this capability?
DETRANI: Look; we need to sit down with the North Koreans. We need to sit down with the North Koreans and tell them, this is not where you want to go. If you launch an ICBM - a test launch of an ICBM is a threat to the United States. As we speak now, the nuclear threat to the region is great. They have it. They have a capability of touching certainly South Korea, Japan. With the recent Musudan launch, we're talking about going as far as Guam.
SHAPIRO: Is sitting down with North Koreans and saying, this is not the direction you want to go, persuasive?
DETRANI: Well, we haven't been successful so far. There's no question about that. The fact is in 2005 - September 2005, we did get an agreement from Kim Jong-il, the father of Kim Jong-un, that said they would halt their programs and they would look at dismantling their programs.
But they have a number of requests on their part. They're looking for a peace treaty. They're looking for other issues. They're talking about the - if you will, the joint military exercises we have with South Korea. They're concerned that we're interested in regime change. They're talking about sanctions. They're very concerned about security. So when they talk about a nuclear weapon, they talk about a nuclear deterrence. They're saying, we have this nuclear weapon because it's deterring you from effecting regime change.
SHAPIRO: There are certain similarities between Iran and North Korea, but while the Obama administration decided to engage very directly in talks with Iran, it never really did that with North Korea. Do you think that was a strategic mistake?
DETRANI: I do believe in negotiations with North Korea. I really do believe we need to come back to negotiation. We need to try.
SHAPIRO: But, boy, after the criticism from Republicans of the deal with Iran, it's sort of hard to imagine a Republican administration doing a similar kind of negotiation with North Korea.
DETRANI: Iran was a full-court press. We had - we never gave North Korea the same full-court press that we gave Iran. Let me just be very blunt about that. I think if we put that same effort and time into North Korea, I think we can come up to a resolution.
SHAPIRO: You were part of talks with North Koreans this past fall. Did you come away from those talks feeling that things are worse or better than the general public might perceive?
DETRANI: I think things are very bad. I think that things are very bad. I think the situation - look; for the last eight years, we're talking about four nuclear tests. We're talking about over - wow, my goodness, I - the number of missile launches goes over 50 missile launches and so forth. The ability to sit down with the North Koreans over the last eight years has been literally nil. So the situation has become very, very tense. I would say it's quite dire.
SHAPIRO: I'm just imagining somebody sitting in their car in traffic in Los Angeles listening to this conversation, wondering if they should be watching the skies for a missile coming over from North Korea.
DETRANI: I hope that never happens.
SHAPIRO: Well, everybody hopes it never happens. But you're the expert. Should they fear it happening?
DETRANI: I think, as we work hard on this issue here, we will work hard to ensure that it never happens - prevent from happening. And it can be prevented from happening.
SHAPIRO: Ambassador Joseph DeTrani is a former State Department envoy and senior adviser to the director of national intelligence expert on North Korea. Thanks for joining us.
DETRANI: Thank you so much, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF ZOLA BLOOD SONG, "PIECES OF THE DAY")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
We're following the news of a shooting at the Fort Lauderdale Airport in Florida with multiple victims. We'll have updates on that story throughout the program. But we're going to take a step back for a moment to look back at the week's political news.
Senior intelligence advisers briefed President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump on their findings regarding Russian hacking during the U.S. election. Russia has long denied taking any such actions. But to talk more about the politics of this week - our Friday regulars - in Washington here with us, columnist David Brooks of The New York Times. Hey there, David.
DAVID BROOKS, BYLINE: Hello.
CORNISH: Also with us - E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution. Hey there, E.J.
E J DIONNE, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
CORNISH: So as we're hearing elsewhere in the program, the director of national intelligence - his office actually released an unclassified version of this report to the public today. So tonight, people will be able to read this.
And among the big findings they want to read - one, they assessed that Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. They say all three agencies agree with this judgment. What else struck you about this report, David?
BROOKS: First, just the unprecedented nature, at least in the post-Cold War world and maybe including the Cold War era, of one country manipulating and trying to get inside the electoral process of another. It's kind of shocking. The report says it was done for a mixture of motives.
Some of them were personal. Putin took it personally that Secretary Clinton, he thought, reacted badly to the 2011 and 2012 democracy protests that were happening around the Russian Republic and in Ukraine. Some of it was ideological - the feeling that Trump would be stronger in the fight against Islam.
What I think is not clear from the report is how effective it all was. Some of the things that Russia did, including their own TV station, seemed to be a little lame. But I - so we don't know how - what effect it had, but we know the aspiration, which was pretty severe.
CORNISH: Right, and we should note that they say, we did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. E.J...
DIONNE: Yes, and it's - they didn't make an assessment. They didn't say it had no effect. In fact, they have this lovely, dry sentence that says the intelligence community, quote, "does not analyze U.S. political processes or U.S. public opinion." But I think it's very clear that there was this - the RT, which they use a lot to - the RT, the Russians television...
CORNISH: This is Russian Today, the network.
DIONNE: ...Which they use a lot to show where the Russians were publicly in terms of being pro-Trump. That wasn't the main influence. The main influence was through WikiLeaks and trolling in other areas. And there are some fascinating tidbits here.
For example, they say Putin had many - has had many positive experiences working with Western political leaders whose business interests made them more disposed to deal with Russia, such as Berlusconi of Italy and Schroeder of Germany. That paragraph will invite an awful lot of new reporting.
CORNISH: Now, one thing, E.J. - I want to jump in here because even before Donald Trump got his briefing, he was calling the inquiries into this a political witch hunt. And I want to get your sense from the two of you about the relationship between Trump and the security community after this week.
DIONNE: Well, first of all, I think Trump's relationship with Russia is only further underscored by this report. He has refused over and over again to even allow that the Russians were trying to influence the election. And he's stayed very pro-Putin right through to this moment.
That already creates problems for the intelligence community. They're talking about, in the Trump camp, of reorganizing U.S. intelligence. Some of that could be bureaucratic. But in this case, you started to worry, is he trying to defang parts of this community?
CORNISH: Right, David Brooks...
BROOKS: Well, first we're seeing all of American policy being distorted by the gravitational pull of Trump's ego. He wants to take full credit for this election, and the idea of the Russians may have helped him, more of a line, is an insult to his sense of self. And so he's very sensitive to the thought that he got any help in winning this election. But there's a larger and substantive issue, especially within the Republican Party.
The Republican Party, including Paul Ryan and John McCain and others, have always basically believed in the post-war global international order - the organizations, like NATO that we built. And they've considered Russia a threat to it and a threat to the Democratic alliances.
I think Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, his chief ideologist, do not think that way. They think of Russia as a potential ally in the war against ISIS. And they don't particularly value the post-war global international order. And so we could - aside from the personal nature, there's a deep ideological rift here which could be seeing the attempt to really change American grand strategy with Russia turning into an ally and not a foe.
DIONNE: And I think that's exactly right. And the report does - for the intelligence community - underscores that Russia actually saw that overlap in a view of the world with the Trump - Trump and some of his entourage.
CORNISH: Now, before I let you go, I want to just touch on one more thing because Congress was back this week. And before the members of the House could even hang up their coats, you had Mike Pence and President Obama up on the House laying out the strategy on Obamacare. So they're sort of opening salvos in that battle.
We spoke with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer today about how Democrats plan on fighting the repeal of Obamacare, and he told us that Republicans are in danger of overreaching and driving away key votes.
CHARLES SCHUMER: If they lose only three votes, they have trouble and especially since it seems, particularly on the House side - but even the president-elect are adopting such a hard-right agenda - makes it easier for us to get some Republican defections.
CORNISH: So the hope there - Republican defections. E.J., is that hope (laughter) misplaced?
DIONNE: It's not clear yet because you've already - it looks like Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is going to vote against this resolution. If that's true, they need only two more.
CORNISH: And this is the budget resolution which will set the rules going forward that might allow the opening steps towards repeal (laughter).
DIONNE: Toward repeal - but it basically cut...
CORNISH: (Laughter) Did that sound right, David?
BROOKS: Perfect.
DIONNE: It's a partial repeal that would cut the money and, according to the Urban Institute, by 2019, could throw 29 million Americans out - off health insurance. I think there's going to be a lot of pressure on senators from states - from pro-Trump states who have a lot of people there who would lose health insurance.
In West Virginia, according to this Urban Institute study, the ranks of the uninsured would go up 208 percent if this resolution approach went through. That's pressure on some of the Republicans.
CORNISH: David...
BROOKS: Yeah, I - the Republican strategy is to repeal now and then replace Obamacare later. I do not know too many Republican health care experts who think that can work because if you take - if you repeal...
CORNISH: Why? They have plans sitting on the shelves, David Brooks.
BROOKS: It's not clear how serious (laughter) these plans are. You know, if they take away, say, the premium subsidies, which are part of Obamacare, then you get people leaving the exchanges, leaving the system. And you get precisely the death spiral that Republicans in the current system are suffering from.
And so you could be taking away some of the benefits without replacing them with something different. And then the replacement which they think they can push off till after the next election will just never come. And you sort of get the worst of both worlds.
CORNISH: E.J. pointed out Rand Paul, and also red-state Democrats are - who are the defectors you're looking at?
BROOKS: Well, I'm not sure they can get to a plan, (laughter) so I'm not sure we're actually going to get to a vote.
DIONNE: Right, no - I think David's exactly right about that. There's something shifty about saying, we'll take this away now, but really, really, really we promise that we'll give you, in Donald Trump's words during the campaign, something terrific. And I think if they had something terrific to put on the table, they could put it on the table now. Their reluctance to do that suggests that something terrific just isn't there.
CORNISH: Well, I'm sure we're going to hear a lot - (laughter) a lot more about this topic. E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution, thank you.
DIONNE: Good to be with you.
CORNISH: And David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, have a good weekend.
BROOKS: You too.
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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
When the administration changes in Washington, U.S. ambassadors typically offer their resignations. For career diplomats, it's mostly symbolic while political appointees usually leave. Now the incoming Trump administration wants them to know there will be no extensions beyond Inauguration Day. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Some ambassadors with children are scrambling to rent houses so their kids can finish out the school year now that they've gotten word of the no-exceptions policy.
RONALD NEUMANN: This is a little harsher. But it's an administration with a very different outlook, so it's not that surprising.
KELEMEN: That's former diplomat Ronald Neumann, who says in the past couple of transitions, incoming administrations have allowed some political ambassadors to stay in place for a bit.
NEUMANN: Some administrations have left people a little longer if they didn't have a successor right away or the kids were in school or something for sort of family and human reasons, but there's no requirement that they do so.
KELEMEN: Once political ambassadors do leave, there's always a deputy ready to step in, says Barbara Stephenson, president of the State Department's professional association.
BARBARA STEPHENSON: That person is invariably a career diplomat with at least a decade and very often two decades or more of experience. So our best people get these positions.
KELEMEN: So it's not like the embassies will be empty. About 70 percent of the current ambassadors are career diplomats, and they usually get to stay. That was not Kurt Volker's experience as ambassador to NATO before President Obama came to office.
KURT VOLKER: I was notified right around the time of the inauguration - just before, actually - that there was going to be a political appointee to come in and replace me and I should prepare to leave.
KELEMEN: His wife found a job so they could at least stay in Brussels until their children finished the school year. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Michelle Obama's event marked the end of eight years highlighting issues such as education, nutrition and veterans, subjects that are important but not very controversial. Jodi Kantor of the New York Times writes that this strategy has worked, putting the first lady, quote, "as far above reproach as anyone in the mosh pit of American politics can hope to be." At the same time, Kantor suggests it has concealed some of the first lady's true personality. I ask Kantor what she meant by that.
JODI KANTOR: The way to describe it, I think, is that it's a very tightly edited version of who she is. She has mostly stuck to pretty anodyne topics. She's anti-childhood obesity, she's pro-veteran. But the Michelle Obama that her old friends remember, that people knew in Chicago, she was a really incisive social critic. She knew how to drive an argument home. People liked her both in the workplace and socially because she was so frank. One of my favorite Michelle Obama quotes - this was something she told us that the Times in 2008 is - she said, you know, I don't like corporate diversity workshops. She was talking about the fact that they can have kind of an artificial feel. She said, you make real progress when somebody is honest enough to say something that's really uncomfortable. Of course when you're a candidate's wife and when you're first lady and the first African-American first lady to boot, that is very, very hard to do. So we saw her play it safe. She used to remind me - I would watch her speeches, and I would think this is like watching an incredibly high-level gymnast execute a routine she has practiced. She is going to go out there and nail every move, and then she's going to get off the floor immediately.
SHAPIRO: But unlike a gymnast, it sounds like you're saying the routines she performed as first lady were not life or death. There was no risk of her falling and breaking her neck 'cause she was doing routines that were not terribly Controversial or high stakes.
KANTOR: Well, except that he was the first African-American first lady, and there was always so much at stake with her husband's agenda. Aides and advisers said over and over again, it's not that she's trying to conceal her true feelings, it's that she does not want to be a political liability to her husband. And that is what is so interesting now because for the first time we're about to enter a moment when she really doesn't have to worry about her husband's political career. And not only that, but she's going to be living in Donald Trump's America. I mean, think of what we're about to watch on Inauguration Day. She's going to hand over the keys to her house to this man who smeared her husband, who is going to work to undo everything the Obamas tried to do together. You know, how does she really feel about that? What is her true opinion, and is she going to start sharing it with us?
SHAPIRO: A lot of Democrats would love to see her become more overtly political and overtly partisan after she leaves the White House. Do you think that's likely?
KANTOR: You know, that's what I really wrote about in today's story. Michelle Obama kind of has two identities. In private, she is actually often much more vehement than her husband about Republican opposition. It was very hard to get sources to put it on the record, but they would describe the way she talked about Republicans and opposition in private. And, you know, her remarks were scorching. The level of heat that she can give off in these conversations is often much greater than what Barack Obama does.
SHAPIRO: And do you think we'll now hear that in public?
KANTOR: I don't know if we'll hear it fully because she is also a great admirer of the kind of Laura Bush approach to public life. When she said a few months ago when they go low we go high, I think she was talking about general political rhetoric, but she was also talking about herself. She is somebody who really wants to take the high road. And also, I mean, let's say she became more vocal after the presidency, right? That just begs another question which is does she want to become kind of a partisan warrior thwacking it to Republicans, or does she want to transcend? Does she want to try to bring the country together? For the Obamas in many ways, they have always considered that the higher mission.
SHAPIRO: Jodi Kantor of The New York Times. Her book about the president and first lady is called "The Obamas: The Partnership Behind A Historic Presidency." Thanks a lot.
KANTOR: Thanks so much, Ari. It's great to be with you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Oakland, Calif., is finally getting a new police chief. The department has been under civilian control since last summer after it went through three chiefs in just over a week. From member station KQED, Alex Emslie reports.
ALEX EMSLIE, BYLINE: In June, the Oakland Police Department saw a flurry of resignations stem from a sexual exploitation case involving about a dozen officers and the teenage daughter of a police dispatcher. The scandal prompted Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf to place the department under the city administrator's control and make this now famous statement.
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LIBBY SCHAAF: As the mayor of Oakland, I am here to run a police department, not a frat house.
EMSLIE: The sexual exploitation scandal is just a recent example of the police department's woes. They stretch back at least 14 years, when the department was placed under the watch of a federal judge. The city is still working to satisfy the court's mandated reforms. That's the context in which Mayor Schaaf named Anne Kirkpatrick as Oakland's next police chief.
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SCHAAF: Oaklanders wanted a leader with integrity, able to change culture.
EMSLIE: Schaaf called it a toxic macho culture in June. But, she says, the tenacity to change it isn't all the city looked for in its next chief.
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SCHAAF: Someone who would deliver on fair and just policing, prevent violence and increase accountability, and of course, most importantly, build community trust.
EMSLIE: Kirkpatrick is the first woman to lead the department, but she says don't make too much of her gender, what Oakland police need is leadership.
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CHIEF ANNE KIRKPATRICK: I'm grateful for being a woman, but I will be your leader.
EMSLIE: Kirkpatrick comes most recently from the Chicago Police Department, where she was a bureau chief in charge of reforms, but she's only had that job for about six months. Before that, she was the chief deputy sheriff in King County, Wash., where Seattle is located. Kirkpatrick's most recent chief of police position was in Spokane, Wash., where she led that force for six years. While there, she butted heads with her officers union over misconduct cases. That resulted in lawsuits and a near vote of no confidence among the rank and file. Kirkpatrick says she'd handle that relationship differently today, but she wouldn't back down from holding her officers accountable.
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KIRKPATRICK: I cannot and will not be bullied by a vote or lawsuits or whatsoever. I'm going to do my part, and then everybody else has to do their part.
EMSLIE: That stance may very well be what landed Kirkpatrick the job in Oakland. The city was looking for a reformer who can take on and change entrenched culture and engender public trust, but building trust in Oakland may be the toughest job of all.
MYA WHITAKER: The chief will be walking into a no-trust zone right now with our community, and she's very aware and open to the fact that she will need to break barriers.
EMSLIE: Mya Whitaker is a youth advocate who sits on Oakland's Police Department's Citizen Review Board.
WHITAKER: As usual, we're open to it, but we are definitely going to be holding her accountable.
EMSLIE: If Anne Kirkpatrick is successful in her new job beginning in February, that accountability will flow downhill to her command staff and officers. The city's hopeful that she can satisfy the last handful of reforms mandated by the federal court. Those include improving officer discipline, tightening up internal affairs investigations and addressing racial disparities in police stops and arrests. That's all while managing relationships with her officers and their union and chipping away at the city's high violent crime rate. For NPR News, I'm Alex Emslie.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
More details are emerging about Esteban Santiago, the man arrested after a shooting today at Fort Lauderdale's airport. Five people were killed and eight injured in the baggage claim area at Terminal 2. Authorities say he acted alone. Fort Lauderdale's airport is shut down. Dozens of planes with passengers are still on the tarmac and are still being evacuated.
We're joining now by - we're joined now by NPR's Greg Allen. And Greg, tell us what we know about what happened today.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Well, Audie, it started today around 1:00 o'clock. And what happened is that a shooter started firing his pistol, his gun in - around the baggage claim in Terminal 2, as you say. It created pandemonium. We had many people shot. I think it was 13 people shot in all.
Authorities say five people died. Eight were wounded. Five actually went to the hospital and received care. They're all in stable condition. So that's the good news on it. But it was pandemonium there. It's led to the - Terminal 2 being evacuated and the whole airport being shut down. And as you say, people are still out on airplanes and still leaving the airport this late hour.
CORNISH: We've been hearing some detail over the hour about the suspect. Where's that coming from? What more do we know about him?
ALLEN: Well, we're getting it from various sources. Esteban Santiago was a member of the - of various military - of the National Guards and the U.S. Army. He was - grew up in Puerto Rico, served there in the National Guard, was in the Army, served in Iraq, later was in Alaska. And he was with the Alaskan Army National Guard.
He was released in - he - his term ended there in August of last year, and he released - was released at a time under issues that were what they called poor performance and in case - in fact some strange behaviors. He was AWOL on a number of occasions, didn't show up for drills. And there was some discussion that he was not - that he actually had some mental issues. That's what we get from various sources.
And what that has to do with the shooting, it's hard to say at this point. We don't know what he was doing in Florida. We do believe that he arrived on a flight with a bag - with a gun in a checked bag. He took the gun out of the checked bag, loaded it in the bathroom and came out and started firing.
CORNISH: So just to be clear, it was in his checked luggage, and then he opened fire at that baggage claim.
ALLEN: That's right. And why that baggage claim? What led up to that? There's no sense at this point. He fired for some time. It's hard to know how many bullets were fired. Authorities say they didn't fire at him at all.
He surrendered, basically threw himself on the ground spread-eagled and was apprehended once he'd finished firing without incident. And they have him in custody, and he's being interrogated by the FBI and the Broward Sheriff's Department.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Greg Allen with more detail about the shooting in - at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. Greg, thanks so much.
ALLEN: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We're following two major stories today. We'll have the latest details on today's shooting at the Fort Lauderdale Airport in a moment.
First, Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered a campaign aimed at influencing the 2016 presidential election. That's among the conclusions of a new intelligence report on Russia and hacking. The report represents the combined views of the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency. The declassified version was just made public this afternoon.
I asked NPR's Mary Louise Kelly if this has been the first time U.S. officials have publicly accused Vladimir Putin himself of interfering with the U.S. presidential election.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: It is, and so it's a big deal. The Obama administration has danced around saying that. Right up to President Obama, no one has actually come out and said it until today. And I think the reason is it's obviously a big deal to level that kind of charge at the head of state of a foreign country. The report also weighs in on what Putin's goals might have been in doing this.
And it says - I'm going to read you - this is a bit of a long quote, but it's important. (Reading) Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency. It goes on to say, (reading) we further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
SHAPIRO: Does the report have anything to say about whether Russia succeeded, that is, whether Russia changed the outcome of the election?
KELLY: An extremely important point of course, and the answer is no. The report does not make an assessment on the impact that these Russian activities had on the outcome of the election. In effect, the report says that's not our job.
The report does note Russian intelligence they believe got and maintained access to U.S. state and local electoral boards but - an important but - notes the types of systems that Russian actors targeted were not involved in vote tallying.
So the bottom line here, Ari - this report presents no evidence that Russia's efforts changed the outcome of the election. It says they tried but does not weigh in on whether they succeeded.
SHAPIRO: What does the report tell us about how Russia pulled this off?
KELLY: It describes it as a blend of cyber activity, secret covert activity - also efforts right out there in the public view - so Russian-state-owned media, such as RT, social media trolls. And the report notes Russia has a history of these influence campaigns. This one marks a significant escalation from anything U.S. intelligence has seen before.
SHAPIRO: We said that this report represents the views of all three big U.S. spy agencies. Do they all agree? Is this unanimous?
KELLY: On most points, there appears to be consensus but not all. As I was reading through, this one caught my eye. This is where the report is describing how Russia might have tried to help Trump's chances, and it says one way was, quote, "by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him." And it notes all three agencies agree with this judgment, but it says the CIA and the FBI have high confidence. The NSA, the National Security Agency, has moderate confidence.
Now, this is interesting because President-elect Trump has criticized, has mocked U.S. spy agencies for, among other things, getting intelligence wrong in the past, getting it wrong on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He has challenged U.S. intelligence. He said, why should I trust you now?
So I think this is the answer from the intelligence community. They lay out right in bold on page one that they have refined tradecraft over the last 10 years, that they have tightened standards, for example, for describing sources, how reliable they think the sources are, tightened standards for expressing where people don't agree, where there may be uncertainty. And I think the message behind those words is loud and clear. They got it wrong on Iraq. They have made changes to get it right in future. President-elect Trump, trust us now.
SHAPIRO: As you mentioned, Donald Trump has been very skeptical, and he was briefed on the classified version of this report today with more detail on sources and methods than the version that we've seen. Did he come out of the meeting persuaded?
KELLY: We don't know. He did put out a statement, his read-out of the meeting. He called it constructive. He said he has tremendous respect for the intelligence community. He does not say whether he was persuaded. So watch and wait.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, thanks very much.
KELLY: You're very welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
For reaction to the intelligence report, we turn to Congressman Adam Schiff of California. He's the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and he has also seen the classified version. When I spoke with him earlier today, he said he found the evidence of Russian interference overwhelming.
ADAM SCHIFF: I've been on the Intelligence Committee for about a decade, and I think this is among the strongest evidence I've seen on any major finding so I think the case is very powerful. I hope it certainly persuaded the president-elect today, but who knows?
SHAPIRO: We have been hearing about evidence of Russian hacking for the last few weeks. Have you seen anything in this report that significantly changes what we already know?
SCHIFF: You know, unfortunately I really can't go into the specifics about it. You know, I can say this, I was very disappointed in the statement that the president-elect put out after he was briefed and received the report. The part that really, I think, struck me was a claim in his statement that the report - or the implication was the report showed that the hacking had no effect on the outcome of the election. That's not really the subject of the report. And, in fact, I think that conclusion that he's reached is contradicted by all the facts. It's one thing to say that there's no evidence that the Russians hacked our voting machines and tampered with the vote counting, and that's accurate. There's no evidence of that. But it's another to say that the daily dumping of derogatory information that was hurtful to Secretary Clinton and helpful to Donald Trump had no effect on the outcome. Clearly, it had effect on the campaign.
SHAPIRO: It's hard to remember an issue that has so unified Democrats and Republicans in Congress, while President-elect Donald Trump stands on the other side of this. How do you expect Congress and the White House to move forward on the Russia issue?
SCHIFF: There's bipartisan support, I think, to establish stronger sanctions on Russia, a better deterrent against future Russian meddling. I don't think what we've done yet is going to be enough. And so you see senators like Graham and McCain and others who are willing to push hard for this, as well as many Democrats.
SHAPIRO: And so are you saying that you expect Congress to write sanctions into law even if once Trump is president he opposes that?
SCHIFF: I do, I do. I think there's going to be support among members on both sides of the aisle, there already is. The question it will be - does the Republican leadership have the will to take it up? Because I think there's going to be very strong support among the members.
SHAPIRO: What specifically do you expect Congress to do?
SCHIFF: Well, what I think we should do, both in the Congress and in the new administration, is bring together a really focused effort on pushing back against Russian covert influence all over the world. And I think our countermeasures are really inadequate, so we need to identify those that are the Russian trolls working on social media, how they're using their media platforms, how they're using their cyber operations. What are they doing? How do we push back against it? How do we inform our allies of their actions? What are the whole spectrum of countermeasures we need to take to protect ourselves and our way of life?
SHAPIRO: And what does this mean about future elections in the United States if Russia had such a significant involvement in this past one?
SCHIFF: It means that they're very much at risk. And probably the more proximate fear right now is we have very significant German elections coming up, and I think the Russians have every intention to interfere in the elections as well as the elections of France and a lot of our other European allies. So this is a very clear threat. It's one not only to the United States, but to liberal democracy everywhere.
SHAPIRO: Congressman Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, thanks for joining us.
SCHIFF: You bet. Thank you.
SHAPIRO: And NPR has reached out to several of Congressman Schiff's Republican colleagues, including the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes. They have declined interviews. We continue to pursue a Republican perspective on the report.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
With the swirl of controversy over Russian hacking, Obamacare and more, it's easy to forget that there were 55 new faces on Capitol Hill this week.
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PAUL RYAN: Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States?
CORNISH: This year's freshman class survived one of the most bruising and divisive elections in memory, but we're going to meet two new lawmakers who were all smiles - Florida Democrat Val Demings and Michigan Republican Paul Mitchell.
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RYAN: Congratulations, you are all now members of the 115th Congress.
(APPLAUSE)
PAUL MITCHELL: My name is Paul Mitchell. I'm from Michigan's 10th Congressional District, now the congressman from that district.
VAL DEMINGS: Val Demings, representing Florida's 10th Congressional District.
MITCHELL: It's a great day here. I think it was leader McCarthy said if you walk in this building, you walk on the floor of the House and you don't get goosebumps, it's time to go home.
DEMINGS: Two of my sons are here, as well as two siblings. I think the last time my siblings were in D.C., they were in middle school. But then to be back to see their baby sister sworn in as a member of the 115th Congress is such an honor for our family.
MITCHELL: I grew up in a working class family. My dad built trucks on the line. I was the oldest of seven. I was the first of my extended family even go to college, never mind graduate. And I was able to get to a point that I was CEO of a company. I helped people develop skills so they could go to work, and now I'm a member of Congress. Only in America does that happen.
CORNISH: The honeymoon was over quick. The message wars launched over the future of Obamacare. Neither Demings - a former police chief - nor Mitchell - a former CEO of a job training company - had experience in legislating. We sat down with them to find out what it's like getting thrown in the deep end. For instance, Congressman Mitchell watched a story that blew up his first day, when Republicans tried to make changes to an independent ethics office and immediately had to backtrack.
MITCHELL: You know, I wasn't aware that it was a conversation that was going on until we went to conference that evening.
CORNISH: And it was considered a surprise to everyone.
MITCHELL: Apparently not everyone. There's some - apparently there was some chat...
CORNISH: Yeah.
MITCHELL: ...Discussion going on with various people in leadership, but it wasn't shared with the majority of the conference that I'm aware of.
CORNISH: But did you basically have to get up to speed all of this in a day?
MITCHELL: Oh, yeah. That's life here. I guess the good news is when you're CEO of a company, stuff happens that you don't get to predict in the morning, and you better figure out what's going on.
CORNISH: I want to ask you one or just two questions from Facebook because...
MITCHELL: From Facebook? Whoa.
CORNISH: ...We put out this call to our listeners to ask them, you know, what would you want to know from a freshman lawmaker in their first week? And this one comes from Marty Wayman (ph) from Frankfort, Ky.
MITCHELL: Sure.
CORNISH: She poses it this way. She thinks you're in a difficult position. She says whether to curry favor with a multimillionaire unrealistic out of touch administration, or branch off within your party and risk being punished and becoming as ineffective as the Democrats.
MITCHELL: I ran on - with my voters - I ran on what I believe are the key issues, which are extreme regulatory oversight that in my opinion doesn't create a better economy, doesn't create jobs. You can't regulate a better economy. I ran on fixing our health care system because - just because health - you have health insurance doesn't mean you have quality health care. I'm going to pursue the things that I told the voters in Michigan in my district I would do. I didn't run for office based on a tweet from Donald Trump or anybody else, and I'm - my responsibility is to be effective for my constituents.
CORNISH: Malik Shaw (ph) of Forest Grove, Ore. has this question. He says regarding the issue of Obamacare in your state, what do you feel is most essential - preserving the bits that work or eliminating the bits that don't?
MITCHELL: You can't have that kind of dichotomy even as there are components of it that you like. If we don't fix the system, all of it collapses in one massive, you know, groan.
CORNISH: So you don't see a piecemeal way to deal with it?
MITCHELL: That wasn't the question, though. The question is, which is more important? How I believe it's going to be dealt with is there will be a process to repeal the Affordable Care Act. There will be a transition process in place. We can't have anybody losing health coverage, but the current system is going to collapse on its own weight if we don't fix it, and I believe as firmly as possible.
CORNISH: But you think your party is ready with an alternative?
MITCHELL: We will be ready with an alternative. Is every nuance of it together? No. But back in my district, the 10th congressional district, I'm putting together a health care task force so we can talk about key things that need to be in our health package going forward. Now, I don't believe a freshman can rewrite the Affordable Care Act, but I believe I can have an impact in terms of some key things need to be there. I'm going to engage in that process so we can in fact make sure people are heard.
CORNISH: Val Demings is in a different position. While the Democrat won her district, Florida went to Trump. I asked the former Orlando police chief what she thought the message was from her voters on Obamacare.
DEMINGS: The Affordable Health Care Act has not been perfect. But I do believe and I know my constituents believe as opposed to just throwing it away, abandoning the millions of people who now have coverage including seniors and children, let's work together to make it better. Let's work together to lower the premiums.
CORNISH: Does that mean working with the other party? Do you feel like you're in a position to cross the aisle yourself as a Democrat?
DEMINGS: What the Republicans will tell you is that every American in this country should have access to quality health care, and so that opens the door for us to work together to deliver to the American people quality health care. I know for a fact that the Affordable Health Care Act does that. What I am hoping is that my Republican colleagues, who many I've met, they are people who are coming here from various backgrounds and we talked about let's be different. Let's work hard to find some common ground.
CORNISH: We asked our listeners on Facebook for what questions they might have for a freshman lawmaker, and one of them asked something I think goes to your point. Her name is Becky Zimmer-Ryan (ph). And she says, why should we trust that you'd be able to close party divisions and actually get things done? What makes you immune to the inertia that has gripped Washington for two decades?
DEMINGS: I'm coming out of a job where I was held accountable every day. I'm coming from a job where the media practically visited our department every day. Everybody has their role for the time that they've been here, and I honor and commend and applaud anybody who's willing to put themselves and their family through public service. Because if you're committed to doing it right, it comes with a great responsibility, but it can come - it can be like bringing on the weight of the nation on your shoulders. But because of what I've done, I believe that should give Becky and others great hope.
CORNISH: You can see why she's asking, right? It's like the first week of Congress.
DEMINGS: I understand.
CORNISH: It's like the president comes and only speaks to his party. The vice president-elect comes and only speaks to his party. It looks like it's baked in, this division.
DEMINGS: Maybe the president - and I will never speak for President Obama - but maybe he felt like his party would be the only ones listening. Change begins at home, and so I see no issue at all with the president working with and working on his home team. And now let's get on the field.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
French voters will choose a new president this spring. After Donald Trump's victory here and Britain's vote to leave the EU, it appears France could follow the populous trend and could choose someone once thought to be an unlikely winner. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley joined a group of journalists who sat down today with the far-right politician Marine Le Pen.
MARINE LE PEN: Bonjour.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Marine Le Pen strides into the room in a blue wool blazer and her casually quaffed platinum blonde hair, taking a seat in front of a campaign poster that reads, in the name of the people, Le Pen wishes everyone a happy new year.
LE PEN: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: I began by asking Le Pen if the chaos surrounding Britain's exit from the EU hasn't changed her mind about a possible French withdrawal.
LE PEN: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "Au contraire," says Le Pen. She says the day after she's elected president of France, she'll go to the EU and negotiate a return of French control over its borders, currency, finances and laws. And if she doesn't get it, she says, she'll call a referendum on France leaving the EU.
LE PEN: (Through interpreter) The EU knows the people don't believe in it anymore, so it functions through threat, intimidation and blackmail. The way the EU reacted to Brexit was very revealing, especially for anyone who thought it had an ounce of democracy left in it.
BEARDSLEY: When asked if she thinks she could be elected on a populist wave like Donald Trump...
LE PEN: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: ...Le Pen asks, "what's populism? If it's someone who wants to defend government for the people, of the people and by the people, then yes, I'm a populist."
Le Pen has been criticized for her admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin and because her party, the National Front, has taken a loan from a Russian bank with close ties to the Kremlin. Le Pen says that's because French banks wouldn't lend her party the money. Asked if she fears Russian intervention in the French presidential election, she laughs.
LE PEN: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "Every time something goes wrong, it's because of the Russians," she says, calling accusations of Russian hacking in the U.S. election not credible. "The U.S. can't lecture anyone," she says, "since it listened in on the personal phone conversations of its closest European allies."
The 49-year-old former trial lawyer and mother of three took leadership of the anti-immigrant National Front Party from her aging father in 2011. Analysts say she succeeded in breaking with the party's fascist, anti-Semitic past and moving it more toward the center. She's attracted both criticism and popular support for her anti-immigrant policies. She says she's not against legal immigrants, and she's not anti-Muslim.
LE PEN: (Through interpreter) There are two Islams. One is a religion that is perfectly compatible with French values, and practicing Muslims, like Christians and Jews, have never posed a problem. But there is another political, fundamentalist, totalitarian Islam that wants Sharia law over French law, and I will fight it without mercy.
BEARDSLEY: Le Pen doesn't believe popular support for Brexit and for Donald Trump is a passing phase. She says many people have finally rejected what she calls savage globalization that has brought mass migration and factory closures.
LE PEN: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "Free trade is dead," she says, "and the world is turning a page." "There's a new economic and cultural patriotism," she says, "and it's the way of the future." Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
(SOUNDBITE OF SUNDARA KARMA SONG, "DEEP RELIEF")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
House Speaker Paul Ryan announced yesterday that Republicans will once again push to cut off federal tax dollars to Planned Parenthood. Republicans have tried and failed to do this in the past. President Obama vetoed a similar bill last January.
Now with a Republican president about to take office, the party has its best chance in more than a decade to get it signed into law. Joining us now to discuss this is NPR's congressional correspondent Susan Davis. Hey, Sue.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Start with some basic facts. How does Planned Parenthood receive federal funding, and what does it use that money for?
DAVIS: OK, so Planned Parenthood is not funded directly by the federal government. What they do is they provide a number of health services mainly for poor women, and then they're reimbursed by Medicaid for those services they provided. It's illegal to use those Medicaid funds to pay for abortions with very few exceptions in federal law. They also get money through a federal grant program that's known as Title 10. It's for family planning, but it's also illegal to use those funds to pay for any abortion services.
Now, Planned Parenthood does provide legal abortions, and they do refer patients to providers that also do. But those are not paid for by taxpayers. And this, Ari, is where the politics come into play on this issue and the divide over access to those abortion rights - not only whether it should be legal but what role the federal government has in all of this.
SHAPIRO: So explain what exactly Republicans are proposing to do here.
DAVIS: OK, so Republicans are looking to add a defund provision into a bigger budget bill they're working on to repeal parts of Obamacare. We'll probably see that bill by late February. And that bill is protected by special budget rules, so it can't be filibustered in the Senate. And the filibuster is what Democrats have used in the past to block these similar defund efforts. And they don't have that tool in their tool kit this year.
Also what's motivating Republicans at this particular time - the why-now question. There was also a report out this week by a Republican-led House committee that was heavily critical of Planned Parenthood on a number of issues but particularly the role they play in not only abortion services but facilitating the transfer of fetal tissue that's used for medical research. This is also a very controversial debate and Republicans are very much against it. But this latest defund effort is just part of a very big, broad debate over abortion and Planned Parenthood and what services they can and should be allowed to provide.
SHAPIRO: Donald Trump has a mixed record on Planned Parenthood. During the campaign, he praised the organization, saying they do very good work for millions of women. But he has also said sometimes in the same breath that he supports cutting off federal funding. So which Donald Trump do you think Republicans will be dealing with here?
DAVIS: You know, I can't say for sure, but I do know that his inner circle is very much for this. A key player in all of this is Vice President-elect Mike Pence. He offered legislation to defund Planned Parenthood when he was a member of the House, and it passed then. But it fizzled in the Senate because of that filibuster I mentioned, and it was tried - it was done in a different way then. Pence has been a leader in this movement his entire political career. There is zero ambiguity of where he is on this issue. And he's the Trump administration's top liaison on Capitol Hill.
I do have to say, Ari. One person who could be interesting to watch in all of this - Ivanka Trump. You know, she's been this moderating force for her dad on this and other issues mainly affecting women. Now, of course we don't know if she's going to weigh in on this, but if she does, it's going to be interesting to watch. And we don't know what Trump's going to do until he says it or tweets about it.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) And what have we heard from Planned Parenthood and the group's allies in Congress?
DAVIS: Shortly after Paul Ryan said on Thursday that they were going to move fund with this - move forward with this, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards tweeted, not without one hell of a fight. This is going to be a really pitched battle.
Two interesting people to watch - Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. They are Republican senators, but in the past, they have opposed similar efforts, and they could be allies of Democrats on this. Also, public polling has shown that a majority of Americans oppose cutting off all funds. So this is a risk here for Republicans but one at this moment they are ready to take.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Susan Davis, thanks a lot.
DAVIS: Thanks, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAURA VEIRS SONG, "IKARIA")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Another classic TV show has been retooled for Netflix. Today the streaming channel released "One Day At A Time", a new version of the sitcom from the '70s and '80s. It's focused on a Cuban-American family, and as NPR TV critic Eric Deggans tells us, the show highlights how far TV still has to go in authentically depicting Latino lives.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Penelope is a former Army nurse back from tours in Afghanistan, raising her two kids in an apartment with her mother. She's separated from their father, a former soldier now working in private security overseas. And when the nightmares come, recalling Penelope's life in a war zone, her mother, played with over-the-top perfection by Rita Moreno, is there to console her.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ONE DAY AT A TIME")
RITA MORENO: (As Lydia) Oh no. Oh no, no, no. You were just having a nightmare. You are not at war. Everything is OK.
JUSTINA MACHADO: (As Penelope) OK, except I'm 38 years old sleeping with my mom.
(LAUGHTER)
DEGGANS: This is the new face of Netflix's "One Day At A Time", featuring three generations of Latinas living under one roof and a theme song sung by Gloria Estefan.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE DAY AT A TIME")
GLORIA ESTEFAN: (Singing) This is it. This is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball. This is it.
DEGGANS: The original "One Day At A Time" was the first TV sitcom starring a divorced single mother. Netflix's version centers on Hispanic characters, who are seriously under-represented on television. The new show explores issues like religion and sexism through three very different perspectives.
Here, the apartment building superintendent, also named Schneider like in the original show, interrupts Penelope's daughter Elena as she tries explaining modern sexism to her mother.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ONE DAY AT A TIME")
ISABELLA GOMEZ: (As Elena) I'm not talking about old people sexism. It's much more subtle now. Men assert their power through micro-aggressions and mansplaining.
MACHADO: (As Penelope) Oh, mansplaining. Is that like man-scaping?
(LAUGHTER)
GOMEZ: (As Elena) No. Mansplaining is when...
TODD GRINNELL: (As Schneider) It's when a man explains something to a woman...
(LAUGHTER)
GRINNELL: ...That she already knows, but he acts like he's teaching her. Does that make sense?
(LAUGHTER)
DEGGANS: Legendary TV producer Norman Lear who developed the original series also serves as an executive producer on the new version. In an interview with NPR last year, he said the Netflix show actually doesn't have much in common with the classic series.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
NORMAN LEAR: What we're doing with "One Day At A Time" here - it doesn't even seem but for the title to be based on it because this is three generations. It was only two generations on the original. And we're not looking at the old scripts. This is all fresh stuff. And as I said, one of the huge differences is we're dealing with veterans.
DEGGANS: But even though it touches on hot-button social issues the way classic Norman Lear sitcoms always have, Netflix's "One Day At A Time" too often falls short at its main mission - to be funny. The broadly-acted, laugh-track-filled sitcom-style that seemed bold in the 1970s feels a bit dated now, and the characters wear their Cuban culture on their sleeve in ways that can deal heavy-handed and close to stereotypes.
These days, TV seems to treat Latino characters and stories the way black characters were handled in the 1970s and 1980s - featured well on a few specific television shows but largely under-represented and stereotyped elsewhere. Netflix's "One Day At A Time" is a small step towards rectifying that situation, especially when Moreno cuts loose in dramatic moments, explaining to Penelope why she believes in God.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ONE DAY AT A TIME")
MORENO: (As Lydia) When you were deployed, I went to church every day. And I prayed that he would keep you safe, and he did. So don't you tell me about God.
DEGGANS: If "One Day At A Time" can elevate its comedy to match the more serious moments, it just might become the kind of groundbreaking television show the original was. I'm Eric Deggans.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE KNUX SONG, "CAPPUCCINO")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
We have more now on the shooting this afternoon at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport in south Florida. A gunman killed five people and injured several others before law enforcement took him into custody. Reporter Kate Stein of member station WLRN has been reporting today from the airport. And Kate, can you start by giving us the details of how this happened?
KATE STEIN, BYLINE: So what we've heard from Broward County sheriff's officers is that a gunman around - shortly before 1 o'clock Eastern this afternoon opened fire in Terminal 2 near the baggage claim. That individual was taken into custody pretty quickly by a Broward County sheriff's officer and without any harm to the gunman. We have, as you said, five people killed. Eight, it sounds like, are wounded. And it's been a pretty chaotic scene here this afternoon.
CORNISH: We know there have been some press conferences so far from the governor, from law enforcement. What more were they able to say?
STEIN: So the Broward County Sheriff's Office said basically all the things that I just mentioned to you. Governor Rick Scott, the governor of Florida, came in just about an hour ago now, and he condemned this as a senseless act of violence. He's very emphatic that he does not want this to happen again, especially in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting, anywhere in Florida.
CORNISH: Now, we know that you were able to get to the airport fairly soon after this happened. Can you describe what that scene was like?
STEIN: Yeah, it's - I mean throughout the afternoon, we've seen SWAT teams with guns drawn leaving the parking garage. We've seen people running from the terminal to farther out on the runway. We've seen helicopters, you know, strafing the area. And we've seen just a lot of people, you know, upset outside the airport kind of waiting and watching. Right now passengers are still - well, would-be passengers are still locked down in the terminal.
CORNISH: Were you able to speak with any of them?
STEIN: I have talked with a couple of people outside the airport but no one inside so far.
CORNISH: Kate Stein, reporter of member station WLRN - she spoke to us from the Fort Lauderdale International Airport. And we just want to recap for you now what we know at this time. This gunman killed five people and injured at least 8 others before being taken into custody almost immediately by law enforcement. Officials say they believe he acted alone.
Now, so far, the person who has identified him - Florida Senator Bill Nelson says he is Esteban Santiago. The Pentagon has released a statement verifying that this 26-year-old was a National Guard soldier first serving in Puerto Rico and then Alaska. He'd also been a combat engineer and served in Iraq. We'll have more on this story throughout the show.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We are spending the hour on an issue that we believe concerns Americans from across the political spectrum. We're talking about violence, especially gun violence. Needless to say, the attack at Fort Lauderdale International Airport yesterday has focused our attention on this again. Five people were killed and several others wounded by a former Army reservist who struggled with mental illness according to his family. But we are going to focus our conversations today on a place that's been forced to confront violence on a daily basis. We are talking about Chicago.
More than 4,000 people were shot in Chicago last year. More than 700 people were killed there. There were more murders in Chicago last year than in New York and Los Angeles combined. And the new year has not brought respite. We're going to hear from a variety of voices - former gang members, public officials, including the head of the Chicago police, survivors and researchers. We'll start with NPR's Cheryl Corley who's reported from Chicago for many years. Cheryl, thanks so much for speaking with us.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: Oh, you're quite welcome.
MARTIN: So I'm going to ask you to set the table for us because you're not only a beat reporter; you're a native of Chicago. Is there a sense in Chicago that there is something unique happening?
CORLEY: I think if you had asked me that a few months ago, I'd probably say it depends on where you live since much of the violence is concentrated among a small group of people and neighborhoods on the city's South and West side. And I think what's really different is just the sheer numbers. In other cities like St. Louis and Baltimore have much higher murder rates than Chicago, but that said, just the number of murders in the city far exceeds other cities as you mentioned, New York and LA. And that just has people very concerned here.
MARTIN: This week, this incident where four young adults allegedly abducted an acquaintance of theirs and abused him terribly and broadcast this on Facebook Live, what are people saying about this?
CORLEY: People are just really shocked by this. You know, what we know about the case is that it started off with the victim and a suspect he considered to be a friend hanging out. We learned at their bond hearing - and all of the suspects, four of them, all African-Americans - they were denied bond. We found out that a play fight turned into something really ugly and hateful, but also have learned now that there was an effort to get money and to say that they held this victim captive.
And I think that the only thing that may be common with what's happening with gun violence here is that the Facebook suspects used social media to broadcast what was happening. And we often have cases where gang members here will post something on social media, often some sort of taunt, that sparks some of the gun violence that occurs here.
MARTIN: You've done a lot of reporting on all aspects of this. Can you just give us an idea of some of the things that people are talking about in addressing this issue?
CORLEY: Some of the things that police have talked about a lot and the mayor have talked about a lot, they want to get legislation that would be stronger on repeat gun offenders. That's something that they've talked about. There's also been a lot of talk, too, about doing things in communities and expanding summer job programs here. You know, it's just a conundrum that people are trying to address in a variety of ways here.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Cheryl Corley. Cheryl, thank you so much for speaking with us.
CORLEY: You're quite welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We hear now from Congressman Danny Davis. He's represented the 7th Congressional District since 1996, but gun violence is not just an abstract concept to him. His 15-year-old grandson Javon was killed in a dispute over borrowed clothing last November, and Congressman Davis delivered the eulogy. He was kind enough to host us in his offices on Capitol Hill. Congressman, thank you so much for speaking with us about this difficult topic. And if you don't mind, if I may say, I'm so sorry for your loss.
DANNY DAVIS: Well, thank you very much. As a matter of fact, a good part of getting over it has been the reaction of people all over the country and in many other places throughout the world.
MARTIN: One of the things that came out, though, when your grandson was killed is that you noted that you've delivered eulogies for some two dozen young Chicagoans who've been killed. So the question is why? Why is this happening?
DAVIS: I mean, the over-arching, over-reaching issue is poverty. Black unemployment in Chicago is off the chart. I mean, there are communities where literally 40 to 50 percent, especially of the youth male population, is unemployed. I've been around low-income people all of my life. I mean, growing up, low income, the community where I've chosen to live, low-income. But there's never been a time, to my knowledge, I would say, where the lack of positive thinking - I mean, everybody that I knew growing up practically had little in the way of resource, but we all have the hope and the possibility that as soon as we finished high school and went to college or went to the Army that we were going to have access to employment. We were going have a chance.
Many of the young people living in inner-city America don't see themselves - I mean, they even talk about things like death and dying. And there's a tremendous loss of hope. And of all the things to lose, I think nothing is worse or more difficult to overcome than the loss of hope.
MARTIN: The terrible incident that took your grandson's life, they were fighting over borrowed clothing. Like, one kid had borrowed something from another...
DAVIS: Well, they had a little...
MARTIN: But the question I have is they were all 15 and 16 years old, why did a fight over borrowed clothing, like, you know, somebody borrowed somebody's pants and they wanted their pants back result in somebody shooting somebody?
DAVIS: Because it's more than that. They had a swapping group where you swap me your jacket for a week, and I swap you my gym shoes. Part of the group decided that, hey, I want my item back right now without returning your item. And then the overall frustration was such and they had such a sense of protectiveness and a sense of machoism that, as a result of the discussion, somebody feels that, hey, I can come invade your space and take back whatever the item is that we had been dealing with.
MARTIN: Congressman, do you remember when you got the phone call? I don't know where you were when you found out about your grandson. Can you take us back to that? What...
DAVIS: I do remember. As a matter of fact, one of my staff persons and I had just come back to the office and one of the police commanders was on the phone and he said, I have some bad news to tell you. And I said, bad news, well, I'm pretty accustomed to bad news (laughter). He says, but not this kind. He says, I want you to just brace yourself. I understand that your grandson may have been shot.
And I say, well, where where was it? What's the address, so I can get over there? And he said - he gave me the address, which was their home address. And I said, how is it? He say, it's pretty bad. He said, it's pretty bad. I think you may want to come right away. I couldn't, for the moment, think. And by then, my son called, and I said, oh yeah, I heard that Javon - he says, daddy, he's gone. That's how it felt. That's how it felt.
And so, you know, I've kind of pledged to myself that I will spend more time, more energy if there's any way that I can to try and influence some diminution of guns in our society. One thing I always say when I discuss guns with people - if a gun is not present, it's generally more difficult to do irreparable harm.
MARTIN: If there hadn't been a gun there, they might have had a fistfight and then it would have been over, you know.
DAVIS: That is correct.
MARTIN: Do you see any sign that people agree with you that something about this country's use of guns and the role that guns play in this culture has to change?
DAVIS: There are millions and millions of people who think about guns the same way that I do. You know, one of my favorite songs, something by a guy named Sam Cooke used to sing - oh, it is so profound. It may be a long time coming, but I know some change is going to come. That's the way I feel about this issue.
MARTIN: That's Congressman Danny Davis. He's an Illinois Democrat. He represents the 7th Congressional District in Chicago. Congressman Davis, thank you so much for speaking with us. And once again, I just want to say I'm very sorry for the loss of your grandson.
DAVIS: Thank you very much. And I do believe the change will come.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A CHANGE IS GONNA COME")
SAM COOKE: (Singing) It's been long, a long time coming but I know a change gonna come. Oh, yes it will.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We are talking about violence in Chicago this hour, and now we turn to Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois. He is a Democrat. He serves as Senate Minority Whip. He served in the Senate for some 20 years and was in the House before that. And as local leaders continue to try to address violence in the city, Senator Durbin has been involved with those efforts. When we reached him on Friday, I started with the big question we've been posing this hour - why Chicago?
RICHARD DURBIN: You know, I can't tell you why. You're looking for an easy explanation. I don't think there is one. I say to my colleagues in the Senate, you think this is about gangs - well, somewhat. Is it about drugs? Somewhat. But it's also about Facebook. People are dissing folks on Facebook and getting killed for it. It's about a fight over tennis shoes where a congressman's grandson is killed in his home. I mean, it's nonsensical. It's ridiculous. And it's just heartbreaking.
MARTIN: Presumably, you thought about this over some time and you also have colleagues from, you know, all over the country. And when you see that Chicago had more murders than Los Angeles and New York combined, does it make you think that there's something unique about the situation in Chicago that somehow doesn't exist somewhere else?
DURBIN: There are two measurable things - first, the number of guns. Our city of Chicago is awash in guns. They come in from every direction, from the suburbs, from Northern Indiana gun shows, from Mississippi for goodness sakes. They make it into the city. They're confiscated in these gun crimes at a rate of about one an hour every day, every week, every month. The second thing that we know for sure is the level of poverty and unemployment in our African-American neighborhoods is among the worst in the nation. You put those two volatile things together and you end up with folks with guns and no purpose in life and killing people for no reasonable purpose at all.
MARTIN: President-elect Donald Trump has said in tweets that Chicago's mayor Rahm Emanuel should ask for federal help to bring down the rate of violence. Do you agree with that? What would that look like?
DURBIN: Well, I could tell you what it'd look like. The mayor suggested an increase in the police department, and we need some federal funds to help us do that. We need resources and training and equipment. And you could help us do it. I hope he will.
MARTIN: On the other hand, there's a federal investigation going on right now into the practices of the Chicago Police Department. And their fraught relationship with minority communities is something that has become very well-known around the country. What would it look like to fix that relationship?
DURBIN: I joined in the formal request for the Department of Justice to do a civil rights investigation after the Laquan McDonald case, which has been widely publicized. I was with the attorney general of the state and the mayor of the city asking for it. And I'm sure there're going to be recommendations and there that'll be painful but necessary. I hope that that's reported before President Obama leaves office so we can move on it as quickly as possible.
But that is one of the real problems here is the breakdown in confidence in the minority communities when it comes to our police departments. Folks are not reporting crimes. They're not really cooperating in a way that communities have to cooperate for the police to be most effective. And there have been some very notorious headline incidents of police abuse and excess. You put those together and things are in a pretty sorry state at this moment.
MARTIN: Senator, I just have to ask your state of mind here. You've been in public life for a long time. You've been thinking about this for a long time. How are you?
DURBIN: Troubled by it. Very troubled. We were watching that "60 Minutes" show and my wife said, somebody has to do something. And I realized, I am somebody. I'm the senator from the state of Illinois. You know, I'm doing my best to understand what I can do from the federal level. But yes, I care, and a lot of people care. And this killing has to stop.
MARTIN: That's Senator Dick Durbin. He's Senate Minority Whip. He represents Illinois. Senator, thanks so much for speaking with us.
DURBIN: Thanks, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Gun violence in Chicago is largely discussed as an issue of crime and punishment. But now we have two guests who say it should be looked at as a public health issue. Tracing outbreaks of diseases, say the flu or Ebola, can help predict where they strike next. Both of our guests say that that same kind of data tracking can help predict and ultimately prevent gun violence in places like Chicago. Gary Slutkin is a physician and epidemiologist. He's founder of the national organization Cure Violence. Andrew Papachristos is a sociology professor at Yale University who studies social networks and street gangs. And I started our conversation by asking Dr. Slutkin when he began to think of gun violence as a public health issue.
GARY SLUTKIN: Well, I may have been biased by the fact that I am a public health guy. I'm an infectious disease doctor and I had been working on other health epidemics at World Health Organization, epidemics like tuberculosis and cholera and AIDS. And when I came back to the U.S., not really intending to work on this problem but confronted by it, I got interested and began to look at graphs and maps and charts. And that's what epidemiologists do as boring as it is.
And it just looked to me like violence was behaving the same way as the other problems that I had been working on. Also, you know, I was asking people about what was the greatest predictor of violence? And the answer was a preceding violent event. And that's definitional of contagion is that it produces more of itself. I mean, what is the greatest predictor of a case of flu or of a cold is a preceding case of flu or a cold.
MARTIN: Professor Papachristos, let's go to you now. Your research is similar but focuses more on social networks as a common denominator in a lot of gun violence. Can you tell us more about that?
ANDREW PAPACHRISTOS: Yes. So I actually started approaching it in much the same way as Gary looking at it as an epidemic the way it concentrated. And when we talk about violence, we often talk about it as numbers, and that's part of what makes an epidemic, but it's actually an interaction. It's a behavior. And there are certain types of epidemics, whether we're talking about contagious diseases or other types of social epidemics, that are actually transmitted through behaviors. And so part of this early work actually found that gunshot violence and victimization is even more concentrated within social networks and actually has this way of being transmitted between individuals.
MARTIN: So Professor Papachristos, let me ask you this first, is that a philosophical issue that some decision-makers makers object to looking at it in this way?
PAPACHRISTOS: I do think that where gun violence is concerned one of the big challenges in dealing with data or violence prevention programs around this is how we frame the problem of gun violence. Because when we talk about gun violence, we always default to a criminal justice paradigm. And what we are actually talking about is victimization. And we need to change the discussion around sort of gun violence to focus on individuals as victims. Because in cities like Chicago and in most of our large cities, most of the victims of gun violence and gun homicides are young men with criminal records who we don't often like to think about as victims. We often think about them as perpetrators or suspects. So changing that narrative becomes key. That's one thing.
The other thing is when we think about gun violence and we default to this sort of offender or crime-based model, we are unable to enact a public health framework, which is broad and wide. And so in this context, if we think about something like obesity as a public health epidemic, if someone goes into the E.R. with a heart attack, we save their lives. And we don't look at their BMI. We save their lives. Hopefully, a primary care physician will later say, hey, you know what? Let's talk about diet or stop smoking. At the same time that cities are going to fight food insecurity and look at food deserts, at the same time that Michelle Obama's going to talk about getting fit - all of these things are combating an obesity epidemic that we believe is in the best interest of our citizens, but when it comes to things like gun violence, we don't have that same holistic approach.
MARTIN: Dr. Slutkin, before we let you go, building on what Professor Papachristos just said, do you see that you're making any headway?
SLUTKIN: There's great progress in violence being treated as a health issue now. There are some cities, for example in New York and Los Angeles, that have this in the city budget. Kansas City and Baltimore's Health Department are managing this. But the resources are short, and the need for public education so that people can begin to reinterpret this. People need to reinterpret when they hear the word criminal, they heard the word gang, that they're being scared by what we call the scary words. Whereas, really, this is a problem of behavior and norms and transmission and epidemic and social change and behavior change. I mean, this is a health issue.
MARTIN: That was Dr. Gary Slutkin. He is a physician and professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. We also heard from Professor Andrew Papachristos. He is a professor of sociology at Yale University.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Of course crime is a police matter, and the Chicago Police Department, though, has come under scrutiny. The Department of Justice is expected to release soon findings from an investigation into the Chicago Police Department which stems from the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald which was caught on tape. Another former Chicago police commissioner, Garry McCarthy, recently told the program "60 Minutes" that the department is in crisis and the city is in a, quote, "state of lawlessness," unquote.
We reached out to the city, and we were put in touch with Chicago's current police superintendent Eddie Johnson, as well as Lisa Morrison Butler. She is Chicago's commissioner of the Department of Family and Support Services. They were both kind enough to join us from member station WBEZ in Chicago. I thank you both so much for joining us.
EDDIE JOHNSON: Thank you for having us today.
LISA MORRISON BUTLER: Thank you.
MARTIN: Superintendent Johnson, I'm going to start with you. You started serving as superintendent in April just eight months ago, but you've been around Chicago your whole life. You grew up there. Why is this happening?
JOHNSON: Chicago has a gun problem. That's where our violence stems from. To be honest, Chicago isn't out of control, but we have five police districts that are actually responsible for the majority of the increase in our gun violence this year. But I think one of the main factors that contribute to it is the fact that we do a terrible job of holding repeat gun offenders accountable for their crimes.
MARTIN: So it's guns.
JOHNSON: Yes.
MARTIN: Guns. Commissioner, what about you? What's your take on this?
BUTLER: I agree with my colleague. I don't think that we are that different from other major cities around the country. I do think we have captured the spotlight and the attention of the nation, and that's fair. But at the same time, as the superintendent suggested, this is not an easy solution, if you will. There's not just one thing that's wrong here, but I do think that the proliferation of guns in Chicago and some of the challenges we have holding repeat gun offenders accountable contributes greatly to the problems that we have.
MARTIN: Agreed. I mean, I think that no one is saying that this is only Chicago's problem, but it does stand out when you note that in 2016, Chicago had more murders than Los Angeles and New York combined which are both large cities, which both have - they have the problems that large cities have. And so when you see a statistic like that, it naturally stands out. Is there something unique about Chicago?
JOHNSON: The violence in Chicago is not just about what police are or are not doing. We have long-term issues. The economic support that we have to give these impoverished areas, the mental health treatment, better education, better housing - all of that stuff matters. You know, the police is just one piece of it. And going back to the - what's the difference between New York and LA and Chicago - we do have double the murder rate that those two do combined. But we also take more guns off the street, more bad guys with guns off the street than both those departments together. And it's not because we're that much better than them, it's because the proliferation of handguns in Chicago is so much more.
MARTIN: And why is that? Is that geographic?
JOHNSON: We sit right in the middle of the country, so you have a lot of sources that put guns into this city. You know, a lot of cities across the country are experiencing that, but we recognize that we're taking the national spotlight because of the size of our city. You know, so it doesn't escape us that 762 homicides - that's a large number. And we don't plan on revisiting that number this year.
MARTIN: What can you say to citizens of Chicago - I mean, WBEZ reported this week that 41 children were wounded or killed in shootings last year. What can you say to them to say that 2017 is going to be a different year?
BUTLER: One of the things that I can say is that we are doing everything that we can to make sure that vulnerable, at-risk boys in 20 of our highest need communities will have the opportunity to have a relationship with a caring adult. And I can say that the University of Chicago's research would indicate that if they can have that relationship, that they are 45 percent less likely to themselves become a victim of violence. That's what I can say.
MARTIN: Superintendent, before I let you go, I do have to ask how is morale in the police department?
JOHNSON: I think morale is good. You know, despite what people think, you know - you look at the nationwide narrative and the rhetoric going around involving law enforcement, you would think that it would be very damaged. And don't get me wrong. The officers right now are very cautious about ensuring that they do their jobs correctly. But I tell you when it comes to morale, you look at what happened the other day when those beat officers found a young man wandering down the street. If they didn't care and if morale wasn't good, they didn't have to stop and investigate that to the extent that they did to find out what happened.
So I think that the majority of officers in Chicago want to go out there and do the job properly and respectfully and professionally. They just want to know if they make an honest mistake that we have their backs which we do and that the community has their backs. But in terms of morale, I would say it's pretty good right now.
MARTIN: That's Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, and Lisa Morrison Butler is the commissioner of the Department of Family and Support Services in Chicago. They were both kind enough to speak to us today from Chicago. Commissioner, Superintendent, thank you both so much for speaking to us.
JOHNSON: Thank you for having us today.
BUTLER: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we'd like to get perspective from someone who's responsible for holding the police accountable. Lori Lightfoot is a former federal prosecutor who serves as president of the Chicago Police Board. She also chairs Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Police Accountability Task Force which investigates the police department and recommends changes. Lori Lightfoot helped write a report last year which included data on how the Chicago Police Department disproportionately targets African-Americans with more than 100 recommendations to improve relations in the neighborhoods they serve. I started our conversation by asking her thoughts on what needs to happen to reduce violence especially gun violence in Chicago.
LORI LIGHTFOOT: We need to have more federal gun prosecutions in Chicago. Our federal partners from the U.S. attorney's office, the ATF, the FBI need to be much more invested in this overall strategy. Chicago Police Department cannot tackle this issue by itself. This is not a problem that we're going to arrest our way out of. We're dealing with a huge re-entry problem - literally thousands of people coming back from the Illinois Department of Corrections to the same communities that they left, and those communities just don't have the resources right now to absorb that huge influx of re-entry. So we've got to tackle that problem. It's not sexy. It's not popular, but if we're going to really get at the root causes of a lot of this gun violence, we've got to deal with these issues as well.
MARTIN: I do want to ask you about the relationship between the police and the communities that they are working in. How would you describe it? And how - is that relevant?
LIGHTFOOT: It's highly relevant. Community engagement, respectful engagement has to be as important a tool for law enforcement as their gun and their badge. And it's something that has - is clearly fractured, clearly broken. And I know Superintendent Johnson has spent a lot of time himself working on it. But it's got to be an ethos that is embraced by every single sworn member of the department. If police officers are viewed by people in the community as a foreign, invading entity, they will never be successful.
MARTIN: Do you believe that after so many years of hostility between the police and the community that it is possible to repair this relationship?
LIGHTFOOT: Well, I think it has to be. In Chicago, we are in a state of crisis. We need all hands on deck. I think there has to be a continued acknowledgement of the checkered past in the relationships between the community and the police. And the Police Department has to take responsibility and ownership of that issue.
In our history in this country, the police have been used as a bludgeon against communities of color, particularly black folks in the segregated South and frankly in the North in enforcing Jim Crow laws. We know that history, so this is not an easy and delicate topic. But it's one that we have to dive in, we have to embrace because I said before I'm 100 percent convinced that if we don't take steps in each other's direction to try to address this strained and fractured relationship, those communities that are most in need, those people that are most desperate for quality and effective policing, they're going to be further victimized by the failure in that relationship. And we can't afford that to happen.
MARTIN: That's Lori Lightfoot. She is president of the Chicago Police Board Chair of the police accountability task force in the city. She was kind enough to join us from member station WBEZ in Chicago. Lori Lightfoot, thank you so much for speaking with us.
LIGHTFOOT: Thank you very much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
All this hour, we've been talking violence in Chicago. We've been talking about this because of the sheer numbers. To be clear, other cities have higher murder rates per capita, even worse gun violence on a per capita basis, but nowhere are the sheer numbers as high as they are in Chicago. So far this hour, we've heard from local and national officials and academics and activists who've been trying to address this.
But we also wanted to hear from people who've been involved with violence, especially people who've been involved with gangs. So we reached out to Edwin Day, Mario Hardiman and Andre Evans. All of these men grew up on the South Side of Chicago and were introduced to gang life in their early teens. Edwin and Mario grew up in the early '90s when the city was experiencing its last big spike in violence. Andre grew up there more recently in the late 2000s. All of these men are now activists who try to steer kids away from gang life, and they're all with us now. Gentlemen, thank you all so much for being with us.
EDWIN DAY: Thank you.
ANDRE EVANS: Yeah.
MARIO HARDIMAN: Thank you.
MARTIN: So Mr. Day, Edwin, I'm going to start with you because you're a teeny bit older, so, you know, what most people want to know is what's the appeal?
DAY: Wow. The appeal - I think that when you think about it, young people who are looking for something to gravitate toward, that feeling of ownership or belonging. And so I think they just kind of gravitated towards it because of that. I think that if there were other avenues or outlets or resources that was available, then they would particularly gravitate towards that...
MARTIN: Can you tell us your story a little bit?
DAY: Yes.
MARTIN: What is your story?
DAY: Yes.
MARTIN: What happened with you?
DAY: I experienced being involved in gang life, gang activity at an early age. As an early teen and adolescent, my mother passed which was my rock, my everything, and so once she passed, that caused me to not necessarily know how to grieve in that grieving process. And over time, it changed our living situation - ended up moving with the grandparents and eventually ended up kind of gravitating towards that which caused me to be involved with gangs, to be involved with drugs. And, yeah - that's pretty much the story, but glory be to God that I was able to make it out.
MARTIN: Mario, what about you? What's your story?
HARDIMAN: Well, I grew up in the (unintelligible) houses which is - which they tore those projects down and rebuilt it to what is called West Haven Park now, I believe. So I was born there about - roughly about '79 and so coming up there, I came from a pretty dysfunctional background where most of my uncles and aunts were getting high off heroin, cocaine and some of the - some of my female relatives were prostitutes.
So - and in that environment, most of the other people in the neighborhood were the pimps, drug dealers, dice shooters, ticket scalpers, some type of hustler, some type of, you know, shyster. So I looked up to those characters and eventually became somewhat of a few of those characters myself - gambling and selling drugs, using marijuana. So coming from that dysfunction, all of those behaviors are learned. So a lot of these guys that are carrying out these shootings and acting up on the streets - it comes from a lot of times the uncles, other older males in the neighborhood. It's pretty much all of this stuff is learned.
MARTIN: Andre, what about you? What's your story?
EVANS: So my story, you know, I was born in Detroit. I'm actually a triplet, so, you know, my biological father was on drugs. And so we moved from Detroit to Inglewood, so I grew up in Inglewood where my grandmother still lives. And then from there, I bounced around to 2644 which is more closer to the West side, but still, you know - still is still on the South side. And now my family's in Chatham. And so, you know, I bounced around - but anyway, it's the same pattern. You know, I felt isolated, you know - the whole emotional thing. You're just dealing with my emotions and not having my biological father in my life.
And so that really compelled me to - that was the number one source of why I wanted to - why I got involved in GDN. And I think the second reason was really to protect my brothers as well. You know, there would be a lot of times when, you know, people would be having hits out on my brothers or things happening to my brothers and just in a lot of ways, it was a way for me to protect them. And I'm the same thing with Mario. I was more of a hustler. I was more of a thing to do enough what I had to do to kind of fit the role. I fit the part where, you know, like Dre's cool. He's down. But I never had to, you know, like I said, God bless that I never had to kill anyone or anything of that nature. But I was always fighting, always in the streets, always doing different ways to make money. But I never did get involved with the drug scene or more so, you know, like I say, killing people.
MARTIN: Edwin, what about you? Did you ever shoot anybody?
DAY: No. I haven't. I haven't shot anybody, but I've tried to shoot people...
MARTIN: Yeah, exactly. Well, why?
DAY: Well, I was involved in gang life. I felt that there was others that was trying to do to me and my people bodily harm, and so we felt at the time that we would protect ourselves at all costs. And so there were times that I would pick up a gun and try to shoot people. I didn't - I've never done it or I never shot anybody, but I have shot a gun and tried to shoot people. And the ironic thing about that, I guess, things come full circle. I was shot. And so...
MARTIN: That's part of the story, isn't it?
DAY: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
MARTIN: That people are as likely to be victims as they are to be perpetrators. Right? So why - what happened with that? Why did you get shot?
DAY: And so what happened was - like I say - we were involved in gangs and drugs, and so you're talking about monies being exchanged. And so that's what changes. That's where the violence heightens when you talk about drugs and monies and things of a sort. And so at this particular time, we were in what was called a gang war. And so guys would come in and try to shoot us and kill us, and we would kind of go back and forth try to shoot them and kill them.
And so one particular night, I was in a home where we were kind engaging in all of this negative activity. I was leaving out and actually prepared to go and put my gear on to go and cause somebody else harm. And so unknowing to myself as I walked down the stairs, there was a guy that was waiting for me on the side of the building in the bushes or what have you. And he could have killed me. I will say that he could have killed me because he could have waited 'til I got to the bottom step and just kind of walk right up on me and shot me in the back of the head, but he didn't. And I thank God for that.
He waited until I kind of got to the edge of the curb, and he rose up out of the gangway and he started to shoot me. And so as I ran, I'm running across the street trying to get to my house, and I kind of catch one in the back of my leg. And I felt that and from then I continued to catch numerous shots - my back, my leg, my arms - all over. It was a total of nine shots that I ended up receiving. I can remember it kind of like it was yesterday. I was telling myself if I can just make it to the other side of the street, I'll be fine. And so he continued to shoot, unload on me. And I did make it. I did make it to the other side of the street. And by the time I made it to the other side of street, I had caught so many shots that I just kind of collapsed right there. He was gone. I was down. And that's what happened.
MARTIN: Well, we're glad you made it...
DAY: Amen.
MARTIN: ...To the other side of the street. One of the reasons we're having this conversation today is that, as you know, there were more than 700 murders in Chicago in 2016. There were 4,000 people shot in 2016. Why is this happening? Andre, do you have some insights into this? I mean, people - there are - there's one argument that back in the day, these gangs were basically businesses. They were like organized criminal enterprises and that there were structures. Now, that isn't necessarily - that's not seen as a positive thing, but that there was more order.
Now people are saying that it's actually a lot more chaotic and that these are really loose affiliations that people just shoot each other over disputes that, you know, other people might have an argument about, but it becomes deadly. Do you - Andre, do you have some insights into that? And obviously I want to hear from the others, too.
EVANS: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I agree. When you have different factions, you don't have leadership, and people can kind of run amok and do what they want to do. Then, you know, you've got these kids - plus I see, you know, close down these schools. And they close down - what? - the 20, 25 schools in (unintelligible). It made it worse because now you've got these kids that are crossing into other territory, and they're forced to confront those things.
And that's why I mentioned that I think in this day and age, it can be even more risky because I've - I even know friends that, you know, that were shot at or that were always being jumped or that were forced to join gangs just because they live somewhere. And they be like oh, so-and-so come from this block, so we going to mess with him like that, you know, just do random pick-'em-outs, as they say, just because so-and-so comes from that side of the street per se. You know, and I had one of my best friends in high school who, you know, tried to join a gang, and they beat his jaw in with the gun. So, you know, I've - I can go stories for days on just different experiences that I witnessed and I've seen and just the impact of the divide of it all.
MARTIN: Edwin, what about you? Why is this happening?
DAY: Well, I feel like young people at this stage that we're in in Chicago, I think we have young people who are just kind of hopeless and giving up as it relates to life and doing something productive in their life. And so, yeah, that's what I think it is. Young people are just - they're caught up in a culture and a way of life, even saying I can - and that's a part of the reason why we do what we do today, you know, to go out and to mentor, walk with young people and try to get them to dream again, get them to have hope again is because I think that when we were out, you know, there was a certain level of violence and things that happened on in the community.
But it's so much worse now. And so we want to try to go in, and we want to try to clean up what we did because I think that our young people just really don't have the hope. They can't see themselves outside of that 8 to 12-block radius or they can't see themselves doing well for them and their families outside of committing violent acts.
MARTIN: Before we let each of you go, obviously, the hopeful part of our conversation is that each of you found a way out. And so I just wanted to ask each of you what is your story about how one can get out? And by extension, what would fix this? What would change this so that we're not continuing to have this conversation year after year after year? Edwin, do you want to start?
DAY: I think that it starts by really having a love and a concern for someone other than yourself, to be able to go out and say, you know what? Let me go in and let me grab one. I'll just grab it. It doesn't have to be a whole group of young people, but let me grab one and talk to him. I think that it starts with love. It starts with compassion. It starts with caring for someone other than yourself.
MARTIN: Mario, what about you, Mario Hardiman?
HARDIMAN: Yes. I don't have a clear answer for that, but I can say that my experience is with traveling a lot and seeing that the world was bigger than Chicago and understanding that black people weren't doing the same things everywhere I went. I've been to - last year alone I went to like 10 different cities to experience what the black experience was in different places, and I saw that Chicago - that's small, you know. Chicago is very small when you look at things outside of that and what's happening outside of it.
I start realizing though through travel that I really wasn't living life because in Chicago, despite - when the people come here and they love the city and they see Navy Pier and they see downtown, they see Lake Shore Drive, that's all beautiful. But most of us that come from Chicago, we stay within probably a eight to 10-block radius and don't go too much further than that. So we're pretty much confined because we're scared of the violence. So people are saying that, you know, there's so many people are afraid especially like white people right now in the city, but black people are more afraid than anybody in the city because we're the ones who are confined to these radiuses and the violence around us.
But I don't know how we could do this, but we need to have, like, maybe a special correlation (ph) that comes from the government and that will aid the black community and stand behind the black community and let the black people lead their own efforts to solve some of these problems because the problem is a lot of people of these social service organizations and a lot of these other institutions - they don't actually understand what's going on there.
MARTIN: Andre, what about you? Final thought from you.
EVANS: I think that everyone has to find their hustle. So for me, you know, I'm a motivational speaker. And maybe a lot of that comes with the Navy. I've been to Compton. I've been to Miami, St. Louis. I go to a lot of any major city. And I just go to the different hoods and I - in those urban communities, I try to speak to them from my experiences in Chicago. And I'm always being able to relate to them.
Compton showed me so much love. You know, (unintelligible) - so it's really for me is like they - one of the other gentlemen mentioned before, it's, you know, Chicago has our issues, but there are a lot of ties and a lot of parallels in other black, urban communities. And so really for me what - trying to tie it together - what I'm really trying to say is about find your hustle is, for me, speaking - motivational speaking is my hustle. That's my way, you know, right now of giving back to the community, but I think that there are multiple ways to tackle if you want to look at Chicago alone, deal with the situation.
MARTIN: But before I let you go, may I ask you all do you have hope? Do you believe that in your lifetimes this can be fixed?
DAY: This is Edwin. I believe that things will change, I mean, because even now as we sit at various places at this roundtable and just kind of talking about it - starting with the dialogue, and you have younger people - even though you have violence that's going on in the community, you do have young people who are trying to affect change in their communities, that are raising up. And I do believe it's not going to take one of us, but it's going to take all of us.
And so I believe that the tide is changing. But what gets publicized is the negative, and so times are going to change, and we just have to keep our hands to the plough and continue to move forward with the change that we want to see in our community and our world.
MARTIN: Edwin Day, Mario Hardiman and Andre Evans are all former Chicago gang members. Mario Hardiman and Edwin Day are speaking to us from member station WBEZ in Chicago. Andre Evans joins us from Charleston, S.C. Andre is actually a graduate of the Naval Academy, and I do want to mention that all of them are now activists who work to steer other kids away from involvement in gangs. Thank you all so much for joining us today and happy New Year to you.
DAY: Thank you.
EVANS: Thank you.
HARDIMAN: Happy New Year to you as well.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally, today we want to look ahead to President Obama's farewell address to the nation on Tuesday. It will take place where it all started for him politically, the city of Chicago. That got us thinking about the custom of a presidential farewell address, and we found out it started off with - who else? - George Washington. Washington's farewell address set the bar for future presidents. His words from that address are even read aloud every year by a member of the Senate. Last year, it was Senator Chris Coons of Delaware.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRIS COONS: It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness, that you should cherish a cordial, habitual...
MARTIN: Here to talk with us about the art of the farewell address is John Avlon. He's an author and political analyst with a new book out this week "Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning To Future Generations." And I started our conversation by asking him what George Washington was trying to convey to the American people in his farewell address.
JOHN AVLON: He had the greatest team of ghostwriters in history - James Madison on the first draft and then Alexander Hamilton. But while the final words may have been largely Hamilton's, the ideas were all Washington's. And Washington's farewell - you got to appreciate - was the most famous speech in American history for the first 150 years of the Republic. And yet, today, it's almost entirely forgotten. Washington wanted to leave his friends and fellow citizens which is who he addressed the open letter to published in the American daily advertiser, a series of lessons culled from his life and his understanding of history.
He came up with a series of warnings that are remarkably prescient, prophetic to us today - hyper-partisanship, excessive debt, foreign wars, particularly - and this is almost eerie with the debate we're having of Russian hacking today - the danger of foreign influence in our politics as a way of subverting sovereignty.
These were some of the forces he felt could destroy our democratic republic, and he wanted to warn future Americans when he was off the stage and dead, long gone that these were the really important things to remember and they had transcendent value. And to that extent, it's a talismanic document. It connects the past, Washington's present and the future.
MARTIN: You said just now that the speech has been largely forgotten, but his farewell address has been read aloud in the Senate every year since 1862. And there's a gorgeous duet in Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway hit "Hamilton" that certainly brings it to life. But why do you say it's been largely forgotten?
AVLON: Well, it was the most famous speech in American history. It was taught in public schools. Students memorized it the way people do the Gettysburg Address today. But it's sort of the Old Testament to the Gettysburg Address's New Testament. It's sort of these stern rules from a distant god of how to live, and not this sort of hopeful, you know, poetic premonition on rebirth. So it was sort of eclipsed in the national memory. And when Lin-Manuel Miranda brought it back for "Hamilton," it was really the first time in a long time it had gotten that kind of attention.
MARTIN: Has the farewell address become, though, a custom or is it just something that certain presidents choose to deliver?
AVLON: The presidential farewell address is close to a standard operating procedure for outgoing presidents. There's this idea that perhaps President Obama was doing something unusual by giving a farewell address - far from it. Washington's example was followed by subsequent presidents. Eisenhower's is the most famous farewell, but that continues a really specific tradition that's also core to Washington which is that of the presidential warning, the warning from a parting friend. And I wouldn't be surprised if President Obama carries that forward.
MARTIN: Let's hear a little bit from Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER: In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought by the military industrial complex.
MARTIN: Interesting coming from a person who was a military leader.
AVLON: Exactly. And that's why it had so much moral authority. And both Washington and Eisenhower both warned against overgrown military establishments in their farewell, but Eisenhower took that point and really elevated it. And one of the most fascinating things in doing the book for me was looking at how Washington's farewell address echoed on throughout the years, how it was picked up by different people to wage debates about original principles.
You know, one of the stories that I captured in the book was that of Bill Clinton's farewell address, and his speechwriter, Jeff Shesol, was working on it. But what's interesting is - as he described to me - is that Bill Clinton didn't really want to, in his words, confront his political mortality and kept pushing off the speech prep until the last day of the address. But even then, that speech - it contained a warning about those voices that would try to remove America from the activities of the world and therefore cede American leadership.
MARTIN: Let's play a little bit of that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BILL CLINTON: America cannot and must not disentangle itself from the world. If we want the world to embody our shared values, then we must assume a shared responsibility.
MARTIN: So looking ahead to President Obama's farewell address, do you have any sense of what he will say? And do these addresses still have impact?
AVLON: I think they do because they serve as a bookend to a presidency. I think it inevitably will be partly a recitation of his record. But then I think there will probably be a section that is a warning to his fellow citizens, and there will be a lot of people who instinctively say that, oh, that's out of the American tradition or, oh, that's a cheap shot at an incoming president. But in fact, that is a core part of the farewell tradition.
MARTIN: That was John Avlon. He wears many hats. He's editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast. You've probably seen him on CNN as an analyst, but today we're talking about his latest book "Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning To Future Generations." He was kind enough to join us from our studios in Washington, D.C.
And what better reason to hear from the Broadway play "Hamilton." This is Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hamilton and Chris Jackson as George Washington and the words you will hear come directly from George Washington's farewell address.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "HAMILTON")
LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA AND CHRIS JACKSON: (As Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, singing) The benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart and the happy reward as I trust of our mutual cares, labors and dangers.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're thinking about the week ahead here in Washington, D.C. It's going to be a busy one. Senators will hear from nearly 10 nominees to Cabinet and other top executive positions over three days. There are so many Cabinet-level nominees that in some cases, Senate confirmation hearings will begin without completed background checks and ethics clearances, a move that top Democrats are criticizing.
So that's why for our regular feature Words You'll Hear, where we try to give you a preview of an important upcoming story, this week's word is confirmation. NPR senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving is here to tell us more. Hi, Ron. Thanks for joining us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Michel.
MARTIN: So set up the next week for us, if you would.
ELVING: The hearings are going to begin on Tuesday with Jeff Sessions - he is the nominee to be the new attorney general - and then also that same day John Kelly, who is to be the secretary of homeland security. Those are going to be pretty high-profile because of the very strong interest in Jeff Sessions and his background. He is a senator from Alabama, for a long time the only senator to support Donald Trump for president.
And, of course, the homeland security function would include the wall and all kinds of talk about what Donald Trump's going to do with respect to securing the borders. On Wednesday, we will definitely have more on the Sessions nomination, plus Rex Tillerson, secretary of state nominee, Mike Pompeo, CIA director, and Betsy DeVos to be the secretary of education.
Now, both Tillerson and Pompeo are going to run smack into the controversy about Russian hacking in the U.S. election campaign and particularly about the intelligence report that we're all looking at, the consensus of American intelligence agencies saying that the hacking was done directly from Vladimir Putin down and was done to help Donald Trump.
MARTIN: Apart from the substance of the kinds of things that the Senators are expected to discuss or question the nominees about, let's just talk about the scheduling. They are pretty tightly scheduled. And they're also happening the same week President-elect Trump is expected to hold his first press conference since before the election. Now, is that customary?
ELVING: It's not customary. There are going to be as many as five different nominees under consideration on Wednesday alone at exactly the same time of day as Donald Trump is giving his first news conference, if he actually does do it, in nearly six months. So that's going to be a very heavy news day no matter what else happens that day.
It's going to be very hard for the news people to get around to all of these hearings. And it's going to be even harder for all of our news consumers to try to get their minds around all that evidence about all those different nominees on that given day when there's such a big distraction as Donald Trump's first news conference.
MARTIN: Now, have the Republicans - who control both houses, obviously, and the Senate is the convening body here - has anybody asked them why they're scheduling things in this way? And has there been any response to that from Senate Democrats?
ELVING: Well, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that there isn't much time left, the inauguration is less than two weeks away, that it's time to get down to it. And they're just in a hurry. And they are going to try to get as much done in as little time as possible. Now, the Democrats say there was only one other time in our history that we had this many hearings all in one day, and that was back in 2001. And at that point, all of those people had gotten their sign-off from the Office of Governmental Ethics, which many of these people have not.
MARTIN: To that end, Senate Democrats are circulating a letter from the Office of Government Ethics expressing concern that these reviews are not finished for several nominees. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
ELVING: Well, this is a Cabinet that has a lot of billionaires and multimillionaires. And so the Office of Government Ethics, which has been around since the '70s and the aftermath of the Watergate scandals, they have announced that they have not gotten all the tax returns that they need, they have not gotten all the disclosure forms that they are required to get from many of these nominees.
And Walter Shaub Jr., who is the head of the Office of Government Ethics, has sent a letter saying that the confirmation hearings being scheduled for these people are of, quote, "great concern" to him because there has never been a hearing for a Cabinet nominee without getting the sign-off from the OGE.
MARTIN: That's Ron Elving. He's an editor and correspondent for NPR's politics team. Ron, thanks so much for joining us.
ELVING: Thank you, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we'd like to turn to a relatively arcane issue that often surfaces in the closing days of an administration - executive clemency. President Obama is days away from leaving the White House. And historically, that's when some of the most controversial requests for clemency are granted. On his last day in office, President Bill Clinton pardoned fugitive Marc Rich, who'd been charged with tax evasion. During his last month in office, President George H.W. Bush pardoned his defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal.
President Obama has already established important precedence in executive clemency, having commuted the sentences of more than a thousand people so far. In nearly all those cases, he commuted sentences of nonviolent drug offenders who would be out of prison under modern sentencing guidelines. But in the next few days, people will be watching to see if President Obama does anything on particularly controversial cases that may be under consideration, like that of Edward Snowden, who publicized the U.S.'s secret data collection program.
To find out more, we called someone who studies clemency closely. Professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. is the director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard University. I started out by asking him whether these last-minute requests for clemency make a difference.
RONALD S SULLIVAN JR: Well, yes, I think it does. We will never know how much of a difference it makes. The power of pardon, the power of clemency is one of the few powers that rests unrestrained in the office of the president. I'm in the middle of another one. I represent the family of Jack Johnson, the country's first African-American heavyweight championship. And I am sending in a last-minute posthumous pardon request to the president. And I hope he is moved by some public pressure because there are a lot of people who really think that this pardon ought to go through.
MARTIN: On what grounds? Tell me about that. Tell me a little bit more about Jack Johnson. Tell me a little bit more about that story.
SULLIVAN: Oh, well, Jack Johnson was convicted under something called the Mann Act. He was an African-American man who had married a white woman. Sexual relations between African-Americans and whites in that era was legally prohibited, so the prosecution and the conviction was clearly based on race bias. So we certainly hope that this will be another example of a posthumous pardon.
MARTIN: And what about the controversial cases that have started getting public attention - Edward Snowden, Leonard Peltier - thoughts about that? I am asking you predict, but - I apologize, but I am interested in your prediction.
SULLIVAN: (Laughter) So those are interesting cases. So what historically has happened - it is a way for the executive branch to correct manifest injustices that occur in the judicial system. So with respect to cases like Snowden, is there a reasonable and articulable injustice that Edward Snowden suffered or is suffering in the justice system? It really depends on the way in which the president views Snowden's actions.
Does he view him more as a patriot or more as a person who knowingly violated the law? If it's the latter, then that is not consistent with the historic justifications for the pardon. If it's the former, then the president very well may do it. So my prediction with Snowden is no.
MARTIN: Very interesting. Before we let you go, I understand that this is a story with a final chapter yet to be written, which will be written in the next couple of days. But from what you know now, what do you think President Obama's legacy will be on executive pardons, executive clemency?
SULLIVAN: I think his legacy on pardons generally will be that he was very cautious with respect to persons who are convicted or who were convicted of drug crimes. I think he will go down in history as one of the most aggressive users of the pardon privilege. He's done more, as you said, than the past 11 presidents combined, and I really hope in these last few days that he will.
MARTIN: That was Harvard University law professor Ron Sullivan. He was kind enough to join us from his home office in Cambridge, Mass. Professor Sullivan, thank you so much for speaking with us.
SULLIVAN: Thanks so much and take care.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Earlier today, four Israeli soldiers were killed and at least 17 injured in Jerusalem after a Palestinian man ran them over with a truck. It's the latest attack in an ongoing wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians over the past several months. NPR's Joanna Kakissis reports from Jerusalem.
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: It was a sunny, chilly afternoon when the army cadets had just gotten off their buses at the Armon HaNatziv neighborhood at a promenade overlooking the Old City. Lea Schreiber, a 33-year-old tour guide, was about to show the soldiers around. Then she heard something awful.
LEA SCHREIBER: We heard screaming and shouting. And I didn't understand at first what was going on. And I was looking to the road and I saw a truck going up from the road onto the sidewalk. And I saw a lot of soldiers there on the grass.
KAKISSIS: The soldiers had been hit. Schreiber thought it was an accident until she saw the man in the truck reverse and drive over the soldiers again.
SCHREIBER: There was no - not any logic to make reverse. It was very obvious. He wanted to kill.
KAKISSIS: He killed three cadets and one officer, all in their 20s. Three were women. The driver was shot dead.
(SOUNDBITE OF POLICE SIREN)
KAKISSIS: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the attack and said it was inspired by Islamic State, but he offered no evidence to support that claim. The driver was identified as a 28-year-old Palestinian, Fadi al-Qanbar, from the neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber in East Jerusalem.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: No, no, no, no.
KAKISSIS: As night fell, his neighbors gathered around a barrel fire to mourn him. His 37-year-old cousin, Samer al-Qanbar, said he also felt sorry for the families of the soldiers killed. He insisted Fadi had no affiliations with Islamists. Since this latest wave of violence began in October 2015, at least 37 Israelis and 231 Palestinians have died. Joanna Kakissis, NPR News, Jerusalem.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to turn back now to that disturbing story out of South Carolina. You'll remember that Dylann Roof was found guilty of killing nine members of the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015. The U.S. Justice Department charged Roof with a hate crime and is now seeking the death penalty. During the sentencing hearing last week which will determine Roof's sentence, Roof told jurors that he had dismissed his lawyers and was representing himself because he rejected any claims that he is psychologically impaired.
Prosecutors are arguing that Roof deserves death because of his obvious lack of remorse, his blatant racial animus and his stated desire to start a race war. But there are other points of view. A number of the family members of the victims have publicly expressed their opposition to the death penalty. Some have said that the years of appeals that accompany a death sentence will be an additional burden to the family and to the community trying to heal.
So that prompted us to want to consider the competing moral and ethical claims here. Which moral principle should prevail? So to think this through, we called Jack Marshall. He's an ethicist lawyer and the founder of the blog Ethics Alarms, and he was kind enough to join us in our studios in Washington, D.C. Jack Marshall, thanks so much for joining us.
JACK MARSHALL: Thank you, Michel. Always an honor.
MARTIN: So what are the ethical questions here?
MARSHALL: You know, ethics is the matter of society trying to decide what's right and what's wrong, and we learn over time. And the idea is to come up with standards that will lead to a more healthy society. And it's different from the moral position. I mean, the moral position may be held by the families that killing anyone is wrong. Society shouldn't kill people. It's hypocritical for them to do that. It's really a Christian position.
The ethical position is a little bit more tricky, and that is isn't it important that society express absolute revulsion at something? There is some level that actually justifies the ultimate penalty. And we have to get by all sorts of legal problems and basic problems, fairness problems. You don't want to have capital punishment where it's going to be handed out in disparate ways or on racially biased ways and you don't want to execute the wrong person. But, you know, in a situation like Dylann Roof, there's no question that he did it, so...
MARTIN: But when you have a situation where you have a group of people, those who were primarily affected by this...
MARSHALL: Yes.
MARTIN: ...Whose family members were murdered, who have a moral objection, what weight should that be given in this decision about what sentence Roof should be given?
MARSHALL: The death penalty is not for the victims. It's not for the victims' families. It's for society, and it's to make a statement. And it's to set a standard. One of the important things about having a death penalty for something - be it Osama bin Laden or Hitler or Jack the Ripper or whatever we want - it means that then we can calibrate other heinous acts down from that. So we can't delegate the decision to them, and we can't overweigh their particular take on it. It's part of the consideration, but I think it can't be given undue weight.
MARTIN: Do you feel at the end of the day - are you satisfied that the appropriate ethical questions are being asked in this case?
MARSHALL: I think we have to ask our self what - looking at this case, what is in the long range best interests of society as a whole? And therefore, what is the message we need to send to all citizens to say we are drawing a strong line in the sand that say this will not be tolerated and people that do this will no longer have a right to anything, including life, in our society? We have to decide if there is going to be some behavior that we are willing to say that about, and that's the ethical issue.
MARTIN: That was Jack Marshall. He is an ethicist. He is an attorney. He's the founder of the blog Ethics Alarms. He was kind enough to join us here at our studios in Washington, D.C. Jack Marshall, thank you so much for speaking with us.
MARSHALL: Thanks, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now we're going to take a few minutes to mark the passing of an artist you've probably seen many times without even realizing it. Indian actor Om Puri worked in short films, TV series and hundreds of movies including "Gandhi."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GANDHI")
OM PURI: (As Nahari) Here. Eat, eat. I'm going to hell, but not with your death on my soul.
MARTIN: Om Puri died Friday at the age of 66 in Mumbai. NPR's Andrew Limbong has this appreciation.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: If you didn't recognize his scene in "Gandhi," maybe you caught him as the strict patriarch in the 1999 British movie "East Is East."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "EAST IS EAST")
PURI: (As George Khan) You've been married to me 25 years and know nothing?
LIMBONG: Or as a thoughtful, empathetic policeman in the acclaimed Bollywood movie "Ardh Satya."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ARDH SATYA ")
PURI: (As Sub-Inspector Anant Velankar, speaking in foreign language).
LIMBONG: Or more recently maybe you saw him working alongside Helen Mirren in 2014's "The Hundred-Foot Journey."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY")
PURI: (As Papa) You seduced his mind with your awful, tasteless, empty sauces, with your pitiful little squashed bits of garlic.
LIMBONG: Om Puri was game to do all sorts of movies ranging from arthouse to more commercial works. He told WHYY's Fresh Air in 2000 that he treated all of them with equal respect.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
PURI: Like going on the set on time. But our stars are quite notorious. I mean, they don't show up on time. This is, you know, something which is very, very annoying.
LIMBONG: Om Puri was born in a small town in 1950. His father was in the military, and he wanted to be a soldier, too, until he got to college and started acting in socially relevant plays.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
PURI: I was very shy and very reserved as a child, very, very introvert. And I think somewhere I feel that by acting in those social plays, those plays were giving voice to my emotions.
LIMBONG: And it was a voice that earned him honors from both British and Indian governments along with fans around the world. Andrew Limbong, NPR News.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now let's talk about one of the most celebrated chapters in American history, the space race of the 1950s and '60s. The stories of Alan Shepard and John Glenn are well-known, but what about the stories of all the people who worked to get them into space and back. There's a new film out that tells the story of one group of unsung heroines of the space race. The film is "Hidden Figures," and it's in theaters around the country as of this weekend.
Based on a recent nonfiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly, it's the story of the black female mathematicians - or human computers, as they were called - who helped NASA crunch the numbers to safely launch the first Americans into orbit and whose contributions went largely unknown for decades.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HIDDEN FIGURES")
MAHERSHALA ALI: (As Jim Johnson) Pastor mentioned you're a computer at NASA. That's pretty heady stuff.
TARAJI P HENSON: (As Katherine Johnson) Yes, it is.
ALI: (As Jim Johnson) They let women handle that sort of...
HENSON: (As Katherine Johnson) If I were you, I'd quit talking right now.
ALI: (As Jim Johnson) I didn't mean no disrespect.
HENSON: (As Katherine Johnson) I will have you know I was the first negro female student at West Virginia University graduate school. On any given day, I analyze the venometer (ph) levels for air displacement, friction and velocity, and compute over 10,000 calculations by hand. So yes, they let women do some things at NASA, Mr. Johnson. And it's not because we wear skirts. It's because we wear glasses.
MARTIN: The film focuses on the stories of three women at the heart of the story - Katherine Johnson, played by Taraji P. Henson - that's who you just heard - Mary Jackson, played by Janelle Monae, and Dorothy Vaughan, played by Oscar winner Octavia Spencer. I spoke with Octavia Spencer about the film over the weekend, and I asked her if it bothered her that it had taken so long for this story to be told.
OCTAVIA SPENCER: Everything happens when it's supposed to. Would I have liked for it to have been told earlier? Absolutely. But the fact that it's being told now at a time when our nation really needs some healing balm - and I think this is a story that anybody can get behind. The time is now for it to be told. It was a bittersweet moment to know that these women went largely unheralded by our society. And it's not just these African-American women. The computers were black and white women at NASA during that short period of time.
MARTIN: Well, let me just play a short clip from the film from your role. Dorothy Vaughan was a leader, but she struggled to get recognition for the work she was actually doing. Let me just play a short clip.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HIDDEN FIGURES")
SPENCER: (As Dorothy Vaughan) What's not fair is having the responsibility of a supervisor but not the title or the pay. And watching you two move on - now, don't get me wrong. Any upward movement is movement for us all. It just isn't movement for me.
MARTIN: Tell me a little bit more about her and how you understood her for this role.
SPENCER: Well, Dorothy Vaughan - all of these women were exemplary in their abilities. They were ordinary women with extraordinary talents. And she was really a brilliant mathematician. When she was younger, her father taught her how to disassemble and reassemble a car. And so she took that and applied it to anything electronic. She was a brilliant math mind. And all of these women were polymaths, which means that they are interchangeable within any math discipline. And (laughter) I don't know about you, but the thought of going from trigonometry to calculus just makes me break out in hives. But...
MARTIN: Oh, no, I do that for fun. But anyway...
SPENCER: (Laughter) Well, not me, I'll tell you. I'll do the crossword, not the math problem. And Dorothy was one of those people that, you know, problem-solving was a part of her daily life. She had an analytical mind. And one of her crowning achievements, aside from advocating for the women who worked in her pool of workers at the - in the West Computing Group, which was the African-American computing group - she fixed the IBM.
They could not get it to work. She would sneak into the lab and work on it until it was able to start generating numbers. And once that happened, she realized she had put their whole pool out of work, so she then decided that they had to learn how to program it. So she taught herself how to program the machine and then taught the other women, both black and white.
MARTIN: You know, the film strikes a very warm, positive note. I mean, there's a lot of buzz about it on social media, a lot of people saying, you know, you've got to take your kids, it's kind of a must-see. But there are those who've criticized the film as being soft on the harsh realities of the time. I mean, the indignities that these women did face and that most African-Americans faced in that time period. And I just wonder, what would you say to that?
SPENCER: Well, here's the cold, hard truth. We all know that that was a tumultuous time in our nation's history. And we all know that we're kind of going through this resurgence of that type of mentality in our society right now. And do you think you can change a heart with vinegar or with honey? I don't think it's sugar-coating. I think it's putting these women and their lives at the forefront and what they were dealing with in their lives on a daily basis.
We know that was happening in society. We know that they were fighting for their first-class citizenship. We know that they didn't have the right to vote. But in spite of all that, they did the impossible. They put all of that aside, put their heads down, did the work and let their work speak for itself. I don't think it's downplaying what was happening in society. It's just not making it the forefront because we already know what was happening.
And I think it's wise to do that because we want families to see this. And I don't think that moms, with all that's going on in our society today, would want to put their kids in front of something that will be disheartening rather than uplifting and they still get the same message.
MARTIN: Well, before we let you go, I did want to ask you about - your opinion about something else that's a bit sticky, which is this whole controversy around the gospel minister Kim Burrell, who sings a song on the soundtrack. And it emerges that she gave a sermon that's since gone viral where she expresses her distaste for the LGBT community or with same-sex marriage and so forth. And a number of people - I mean, this has become a big thing on social media.
Now, you criticized Burrell's remarks, tweeting that we're all God's children, equal in his eyes, and hatred isn't the answer. But I'm just wondering, as an artist, how do you think these issues should be navigated going forward?
SPENCER: I can only live in my truth. And I don't subscribe to what Kim Burrell believes. Those are her beliefs, and I can't ask her to change - that's between her and God. I, as a black woman - and I'm a heavy African-American woman, so I have three strikes. People who are overweight face discrimination. African-Americans face discrimination. Women face discrimination and sexism. So I don't have the luxury of not being tolerant of anyone.
I can only be the best version of myself and understand that the only way that we as a people can heal is to understand that the next person's journey may not be your own, but it doesn't mean that you have to marginalize them in any way. I do believe that we're all God's children. I do believe that everyone has something to contribute. That's what I believe. And that's what this film is about. It's about inclusion. I can't speak for what other artists should do. I can only tell you how I live.
MARTIN: Octavia Spencer is an Oscar-winning actress. She was kind enough to join us from Los Angeles. Her latest film, "Hidden Figures," is out now. Octavia Spencer, thank you so much for speaking with us.
SPENCER: Thank you so much for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to talk about "Hidden Figures" for just a few more minutes. The movie is just out this weekend, but it is already a hit with young women of color who are interested in science, technology and math.
SASHA WILLIAMS: So my name is Sasha Williams. I am 15 years old.
MARTIN: Let's just say Sasha is a fan.
SASHA: That was one of the best movies I've ever seen (laughter). It was a really inspiring movie. It was so interesting to see women who look like me during that time period do something that I am interested in doing in my life.
MARTIN: Sasha lives in Danville, Calif., and she's a member of the Oakland chapter of Black Girls Code. That's a group that supports young women of color who want to learn more about coding. Kimberly Bryant founded the group.
KIMBERLY BRYANT: Our goal is to really have young women of color embrace the tech marketplace and the tech innovation space as both leaders and creators.
MARTIN: Over the next week, Black Girls Code is taking some 1,500 young girls and their families from 11 chapters nationwide to see the movie for free as part of a project they're calling Future Katherine Johnsons. It's sponsored in part by 20th Century Fox, the studio behind the film.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HIDDEN FIGURES")
JANELLE MONAE: (As Mary Jackson) Mr. Zielinski, I'm a negro woman. I'm not going to entertain the impossible.
OLEK KRUPA: (As Karl Zielinski) And I'm a Polish Jew whose parents died in a Nazi prison camp. Now I'm standing beneath a space ship that's going to carry an astronaut to the stars. Let me ask you - if you were a white male, would you wish to be an engineer?
MONAE: (As Mary Jackson) I wouldn't have to. I'd already be one.
MARTIN: But some of the girls couldn't wait for that to see it. Budding coder Kai Morton lives in San Francisco, and she says she was really inspired by Dorothy Vaughan, played by Octavia Spencer.
KAI MORTON: She's one of the main characters, and she kind of started as a computer.
MARTIN: But Kai liked that Dorothy Vaughan taught herself the coding language Fortran.
MORTON: And that's kind of how they kind of survive in NASA instead of losing their jobs when IBM started bringing in the actual computers. So I thought that was amazing to see, like, that these stories are so true and just the words are so powerful and the message behind it.
MARTIN: Kai is 17 years old and applying to colleges now, looking at computer science and gaming development degrees. But she's daunted by what lies ahead.
MORTON: I'm going to a school in the bay area right next to Silicon Valley, but always there's going to be people that look at you weird because they don't really think that you can do what they can because you don't really fit the image of the typical white male geek. And that's kind of harmful.
MARTIN: But she says the movie gave her confidence a boost.
MORTON: Probably was the most amazing thing and, like, the best message about the movie, that there's so many people we don't see in the mainstream media. But when we kind of take a deeper look, we can see how much people like Katherine Johnson can make a difference but be behind closed doors for a long part of their lives and lifespan.
MARTIN: And Sasha Williams agrees.
SASHA: I just hope it inspires anyone to know that they can overcome barriers no matter who's in their way and they can achieve what they're trying to do.
MARTIN: That's Sasha Williams, aged 15, and Kai Morton, aged 17, young coders in training who say they are inspired by the movie "Hidden Figures," out in theaters now.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we're going to spend a few minutes with a woman who's redefined what it means to be a leading lady. Sigourney Weaver starred in the "Alien" movie franchise of the 1980s. Since then, she has cemented her icon status with memorable roles in movies ranging from "Ghostbusters" to "Avatar." She narrated the American version of the BBC's hugely popular "Planet Earth" series. Her voice is so recognizable that it was even a subplot in Pixar's "Finding Dory." And now she's in a new film which also focuses on a family on a quest of sorts, but it is very different. It's adapted from the dark children's fantasy novel by Patrick Ness. It's called "A Monster Calls," and it centers on a thoughtful, creative 12-year-old boy named Conor O'Malley who's negotiating some of the familiar turmoil of adolescence - bullying, an absent dad - while also navigating deep feelings about his mother's cancer, feelings that come to life embodied by a monster of his own imagination.
Sigourney Weaver is the grandmother struggling with her own fear and sadness in a performance that is both powerful and understated. And Sigourney Weaver is with us now from New York. Sigourney Weaver, thank you so much for speaking with us.
SIGOURNEY WEAVER: It's my pleasure.
MARTIN: So first, of course, I wanted to ask what drew you to this particular role?
WEAVER: Well, I loved Juan Antonio Bayona - the director's two movies that I had seen "The Orphanage" and "The Impossible." So it was actually the chance to work with him that I first jumped at. The role was a bit off-putting because she is not a sort of cozy, jolly grandmother. She's quite forbidding, and if you were to make this story into a fairy tale, she would be sort of like the wicked queen. So it was the chance to work with him because I thought this was the perfect marriage of a director and a story.
MARTIN: Well, let's play a scene talking about grandma who is a kind of a severe figure, and there's a scene in which Conor, who's the boy at the center of this, has to stay with her while his mom is undergoing another course of chemotherapy.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A MONSTER CALLS")
WEAVER: (As Grandma) When you go to the hospital, your father may not notice how tired your mom is getting. OK? So we have to make sure that he doesn't overstay his welcome, not that that's historically been a problem. No eggs. You've already had eggs twice this week. If you get hungry, there's spinach in the fridge which you can steam.
LEWIS MACDOUGALL: (As Conor) Yeah, sure.
WEAVER: (As Grandma) Don't touch anything.
MARTIN: Tell us a little bit more about how you thought about her. And I'll just say for myself one of the things that I really admired about your performance is that it would have been easy to kind of overdo it in either direction, you know, make her a real nightmare or just to try to soften her edges. But you also really allow yourself to show the pain that she's feeling as a mother whose daughter is very ill. So talk to me a little bit, if you would, about how you thought about it.
WEAVER: Well, I guess I first looked at it - I'm very close to my daughter. And I thought to be in a situation like this when you didn't have good communication with your daughter would already be so heartbreaking. And my character is - first of all, it's rather rare when you play an older character in a movie in a supporting role to even get an arc. But in this case, the grandmother is quite forbidding in the beginning with all kinds of rules and not very empathetic to her grandson. And by the end, that armor that defines her for the first part of the story has been literally torn away practically. And you just see she's a woman who loves her daughter and is losing her and who loves her grandson and is going to make it work.
MARTIN: Conor's mother is struggling with an illness and over the course of the film, you see the toll that it takes. I think I'm thinking of the point at which it becomes really clear...
WEAVER: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...That the situation is as dire. And, you know, we live in a very compartmentalized world now. A lot of people - unless you've had somebody in your own life who's been very sick, a lot of people don't know what that's like, right?
WEAVER: Yeah.
MARTIN: They don't know what it's like to be up close and have to hold somebody who's really sick and struggling, and I think that your character shows what it's like to be right there.
WEAVER: Well, that really means a lot because we had the time to do some research on our roles, and I remember Felicity Jones who plays my daughter - we went to a couple of hospices in England in the North to find out exactly what care was needed at each stage of any illness and where, you know, I wanted to know what could I do, you know, when you feel so helpless? What small things could I do that a very ill person would appreciate? And, you know, I took care of my aging parents. That was something I learned a lot from, but this was very specific. And we - Felicity and I and Bayona certainly, too - wanted to be as respectful as we could be to the specifics of the story.
MARTIN: Who do you think this movie is for? It doesn't feel like your typical holiday family fare, but who do you think it's for?
WEAVER: Well, in a way, I feel this is such an old-fashioned sort of classic movie the way our stories used to be in literature, Dickens and I guess I feel like to watch this boy conjure up this other life and this companion monster teacher to go on these journeys with, all the elements are there for - to me what is a sort of classic tale. And it's really a mix of genres as I think any great story is, so I hope that families will go. I think so many families are touched by illness and loss, and we kind of overprotect our children often, you know, we sanitize. And in this case, I think that the story is written with great respect for the point of view of the child and how hard it is and how frightened they can get if they don't have information.
MARTIN: Can I ask you while I have you about another movie?
WEAVER: OK.
MARTIN: Very different. Earlier this summer, your voice appeared in "Finding Dory." It's a surprisingly big role that runs throughout the film with all the fish and the - all the aquatic animals talking about you. How did you wind up playing yourself in it? Did you know you were going to be such a big part of the movie?
WEAVER: Well, I think not even Andrew Stanton knew I was going to be a big part of the movie. I think - I worked with Andrew on "Wall-E," and I'm a great fan. And I think when he was working on the movie, I was like a temp idea. I mean, I remember Andrew called and said, you know, I just want you to do a couple of lines, and I don't even know if it'll be in the movie.
So we met eventually, I did a couple of lines, and I don't think that he or I had any idea that they would use it so much and that it would become kind of a running gag. And, frankly, as someone who is involved with conservation, I was so flattered when the fish - when Dory said my friend, Sigourney. I was so touched by that because, even though I eat one occasionally, I do consider myself a friend of the fish.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
WEAVER: I hope I am. I think it's such a marvelous movie. I was delighted to be a part of it.
MARTIN: Sigourney Weaver is an Oscar-nominated actor. Her latest film "A Monster Calls" opens this Friday. She was kind enough to speak to us from New York. Sigourney Weaver, thank you so much for speaking with us.
WEAVER: Thank you so much for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This week, thousands of Americans are getting ready to visit Washington, D.C., to attend the inauguration or protests or other events. But we want to introduce you to a woman from Fort Worth, Texas, who's planning a special visit to the nation's capitol for a different reason.
OPAL LEE: I kept telling family and friends that wanted to do it, and I think they thought, well, she's delusional.
MARTIN: That's Opal Lee. She is on a quest to make June 19 a federal holiday. If you know your American history, then you know that June 19 is known as Juneteenth. It marks the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and brought news that slavery had been abolished some two and a half years earlier. Oh, and let me just mention Opal Lee is 91 years old.
LEE: I just thought if a little, old lady in tennis shoes was out there walking, somebody would take notice.
MARTIN: It started out as a simple walk around her church in Fort Worth.
LEE: But I got together some people here. We had a rally, and so after the rally, the people walked with me, and we've been going ever since.
MARTIN: Now she's made her Juneteenth walk throughout the country from Texas to Colorado to Illinois. Her last stop is the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Even though, some 45 states recognize Juneteenth in some way or another, she says the holiday is so important it should be recognized as a federal holiday.
LEE: Slaves didn't free themselves. There were abolitionists and people of all persuasions that worked untiringly to have slavery abolished.
MARTIN: Opal Lee has been trying to get President Obama to make Juneteenth a national holiday before he leaves office. But as that date draws near, she says, she hasn't gotten any sign that the president's onboard. But she's not discouraged.
LEE: I have no idea, but I'll be trying.
MARTIN: And she says she will keep pushing to make Juneteenth a national holiday when Donald Trump becomes president.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
North Korea says it is preparing to test launch an intercontinental ballistic missile. Outside arms control experts believe it could test one capable of reaching the continental U.S. in 2017. In South Korea, they have lived with the possibility of an attack by the North for a long time. Twice a year, the country runs air raid drills. NPR's Elise Hu took part in one in Seoul.
(SOUNDBITE OF SIREN)
ELISE HU, BYLINE: These citywide sirens go off at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon twice a year. They're supposed to bring bustling Seoul to a halt. Jeong Eun-cheon is a spokesman for Seoul's Yongsan ward located near the city center.
JEONG EUN-CHEON: (Through interpreter) It's a simulation of what will happen at a time of war.
HU: South Korea is still technically stuck in a war with North Korea and has been for more than 70 years. With Pyongyang's ever more frequent missile launches and nuclear tests, Seoul, with its population of 10 million, says it's got to be ready.
JEONG: (Through interpreter) These drills are something every South Korean knows.
HU: Cars are expected to slow down and pull over, and most of them do. Pedestrians are expected to take cover, but it's not clear everyone outside knows they're supposed to pretend an air attack is coming.
There's a look of confusion among some of the folks walking around on the streets as to what exactly is going on with these sirens.
Inside, government workers do know the drill. They're required to take part in these every time. The lights go out at the help windows where people were paying their taxes. Bureaucrats file downstairs into the lowest level of the underground parking garage. Here, we wait for an all-clear.
WILL PARK: I think it will be over soon - like, about 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
HU: Will Park is interning at the district office. He grew up in the States, so this is his first air raid drill ever. We're huddled with his coworkers in the dark.
PARK: I'm just, you know, following the directions and, you know, just following everyone, just moving with the flow.
HU: And just as quickly as it started, the drill is over. The 300-or-so employees of this office take the stairs or elevators to return to work. I ask Jeong from the district office whether this kind of thing is really necessary.
JEONG: (Through interpreter) If we keep doing these drills and war does happen, people be able to deal with it without being too shocked.
HU: The threat is remote but does exist. The North Korean border is a 90-minute drive from Seoul. Kim Jong Un ordered more than 20 missile tests last year alone and, since he's been in power, presided over three nuclear tests, two of them in 2016. Yongsan's Jeong...
JEONG: (Through interpreter) In the event war does break out, we can minimize the damage to human lives through repetitive practice.
HU: Repetitive practice for a situation no one here wants to see. Elise Hu, NPR News, Seoul.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
As Republicans in Congress get to work on their pledge to repeal Obamacare, people are continuing to use the program's insurance exchange to renew or buy policies and a lot of them are nervous. Michael Tomsic of WFAE reports from North Carolina.
MICHAEL TOMSIC, BYLINE: Darlene Hawes lost insurance about a year after her husband died in 2012.
DARLENE HAWES: I was born with heart trouble. And I also had in 2003 open heart surgery, and I had breast cancer surgery so I needed insurance badly.
TOMSIC: She's now 55 and last year bought insurance on the Obamacare exchange with help from a big subsidy. Then the election happened, and she was scared she'd lose it immediately. But an enrollment specialist told her she could still renew with the subsidy for 2017.
HAWES: And I'm like, oh, my lord, did she just say that? (Laughter). It's just like a whole load of burdens just fell off my back because all the years that I haven't been covered since my husband passed away. I don't want to be sad again, you know? I was very sad.
TOMSIC: About 550,000 North Carolinians rely on the Obamacare exchange or marketplace for health insurance. Republicans have vowed for years to junk that and the rest of the law, and Donald Trump campaigned on it. But not much is likely to change in 2017. Republican leaders are trying to repeal it immediately, but also assure the public there will be a smooth transition. Still, the CEO of the exchanges, Kevin Counihan, says he can't promise that coverage will remain through 2017.
KEVIN COUNIHAN: It's not my place to promise anything about a new administration, but what I can tell you is that not only are we moving forward, but our enrollment is higher than expected.
TOMSIC: Indeed, enrollment surged at the end of 2016. And North Carolina has the third-highest enrollment so far among states using healthcare.gov. In some ways, North Carolina is in tough shape. Premiums are up, and Blue Cross Blue Shield is the only insurance company in 95 percent of the state. Blue Cross actuary Brian Tajlili says people who signed up for coverage tend to be older and sicker, and for that reason use more medical care.
BRIAN TAJLILI: There is continuing demand for services and continuing high utilization within this block of business.
TOMSIC: By this block of business, he means the small slice of the overall health insurance market that Obamacare covers. Most people get insurance through work or Medicare. And for those half a million people on the exchange, about 90 percent get federal subsidies that greatly reduce what they pay. Subsidies that are now on the chopping block, but Tajlili says Blue Cross is committed to offering plans through the year.
TAJLILI: 2017 will be another pivotal year for us as we look at the individual market.
TOMSIC: One of Blue Cross' new customers will be Sara Kelly Jones. Through the door to the back patio out Letty's restaurant in Charlotte, where Jones works, she says Obamacare isn't perfect, but before the law health insurance was a financial vice that kept tightening.
SARA KELLY JONES: It was going up $100 to $120, $150 a month. It got to the point where it was going to be at least $200 more a month than my mortgage.
TOMSIC: But under Obamacare, Jones qualifies for a subsidy. Her premium is up this year, but she can still afford it with that help. Jones says the political debate ignores people like her.
JONES: I'm terrified. If there had been any plan outlined that wasn't just some vague, we're going to replace it with something awesome, but they have no plan. What on earth are you going to do with all these people, myself included, that are counting on this?
TOMSIC: About 20 million people got insurance through Obamacare. Republicans haven't settled yet on a plan to replace it. For NPR News, I'm Michael Tomsic in Charlotte.
CORNISH: This story is part of a partnership with Kaiser Health News. Tomorrow, we talk to a woman who hopes Trump will make health insurance less expensive.
(SOUNDBITE OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST SONG, "LUCK OF LUCIEN")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
This week, we look at whether a lesson learned from virtual reality can apply to the real world. It's All Tech Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: Every day, you can find reports of mass shootings, terrorist attacks, the refugee crisis and other tragedies. Charities say the flood of dismal news blunts their efforts to raise money for victims of these events. As NPR's Laura Sydell reports, some groups are hoping realistic VR simulations will make people more empathetic.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: At a recent New York City fundraiser for the International Rescue Committee, attendees could leave aside the mingling and have a more direct connection to the people they were there to help. A few seats were set up where the guests could sit down and put on a VR headset.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: There you go. Comfortable?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Wonderful.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: OK, I'm going to...
SYDELL: Once they're wearing the headset, the guest is immersed in the world of a refugee camp in Lebanon looking into the eyes of a mother.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: I didn't choose to let the children live such a life. But now everything is different.
SYDELL: A few moments earlier, Cheryl Hensen, a Refugee Committee donor also tried the experience for the first time. She says she was in a family's tent watching children play.
CHERYL HENSEN: It's a very effective way to feel like you are there in the room because you have a real sense of these are real people. There's the food, there's the clothes, there's the talk.
SYDELL: The sense of really being there is why some fans of VR have dubbed it the empathy machine. Hensen's reaction was fairly typical of others who've tried the Lebanon experience, says Cathe Neukum, executive producer for the Rescue Committee.
CATHE NEUKUM: We can't bring donors or people to the field, but we bring the field to donors and our constituents and our supporters. And that's what's so great about VR. That's what makes it, I think, such an important tool for charities.
SYDELL: Other charities are trying VR, including Amnesty International and the Clinton Foundation. Gordon Meyer is with YouVisit, which created the VR experience for the International Rescue Committee.
GORDON MEYER: And the goal, ultimately, is that when you take the headset off, you have the inspiration to act in real life.
SYDELL: No one knows for sure whether VR is a more powerful tool for getting people to act charitably, but it is a subject of serious study. Jeremy Bailenson, the director of Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, has been studying VR since its earliest days. He says there's increasing evidence that VR can be more effective than other media in evoking empathy.
But it has to be done right.
JEREMY BAILENSON: What we know how to do well is to create these experience that really leverage what's called embodied cognition, which is moving through a space, looking around, using your eyes, using your body to interact with the scene. And that's what makes VR special.
SYDELL: Right now his lab is studying whether VR makes people more empathetic to homeless people than other forms of media do. One group gets a video or some literature and the other group has the VR experience.
BAILENSON: This experience you start out in your home and you find out that you've lost your job. You struggle to make rent and you use your body to pick items in your home to sell to try to make your rent so you don't get evicted.
SYDELL: Of course, you do get evicted. And you find yourself living in your car. Your car gets towed, and you find yourself trying to sleep on a bus. On the bus, you must guard your backpack from thieves all night long. Vignesh Ramachandran participated in the study. He's a journalist in real life and says he's read a lot about homelessness.
But something about the experience of protecting his stuff on the bus got to him.
VIGNESH RAMACHANDRAN: I just remember thinking, like, oh, my gosh, like, I can't imagine just, like, having to constantly be looking out for your safety just when you're trying to get a good night's sleep. That part was, like, striking to me.
SYDELL: After the VR experience, the participants are asked to sign a petition for the homeless. And the study will look at whether they or the people who read material and saw a video are more likely to sign. But using VR to promote empathy has its skeptics. Among them, Yale psychology professor and author of "Against Empathy," Paul Bloom.
He thinks if these kinds of VR experiences become common, they will be no more effective than any other media.
PAUL BLOOM: Empathy, feeling the suffering of other people, is fatiguing. It leads to burnout. It leads to withdrawal. The best therapist, the best doctors, the best philanthropists are people who don't feel the suffering of others. People - it's just people who care about others, want to help but do it joyously.
SYDELL: Bloom says he may be old-school, but he thinks if you really want to get into the head of another human being and understand them, try reading a good novel. Laura Sydell, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
There's another twist in the debate over the value of routine mammograms. A new study finds one-third of the lumps detected by mammograms may be nothing to worry about. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein has details.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: For years, women have heard that mammograms save lives by catching tumors early before they become life threatening. But Karsten Jorgensen of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark wanted to find out is that really true?
KARSTEN JORGENSEN: We wanted to look at whether breast screening led to fewer advanced stage cancers because screening is really based on the premise that you detect cancer earlier so you should have less advanced cancers over time.
STEIN: So Jorgensen's team analyzed what happened in Denmark over about a decade as routine mammograms were phased in around the country to screen for breast cancer.
JORGENSEN: We didn't see any reduction in the frequency of late stage tumors in the screened areas compared to the unscreened areas. But we did see a huge increase in the occurrence of early staged cancers.
STEIN: Jorgensen says that suggests mammograms are often just picking up lumps that never would end up causing any problems. In fact, he calculates that around one-third of the abnormalities that get flagged by mammograms are really nothing to worry about.
JORGENSEN: That means that these essentially healthy women get a breast cancer diagnosis that they otherwise would never have gotten.
STEIN: Jorgensen says that has some really profound implications.
JORGENSEN: It's really a life changing event to get a cancer diagnosis. And it leads to some treatment, of course, surgery, radiotherapy, sometimes chemotherapy that we know have harms and sometimes serious harms.
STEIN: Some other experts agree that the power of mammograms probably has been overestimated. Otis Brawley is the chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society.
OTIS BRAWLEY: I think there's a tendency in the United States to think that screening is better than it actually is. And I think that it's important that we learn the limitations of screening so that we can apply that tool as best we possibly can to save as many lives as possible.
STEIN: The problem, Brawley says, is that doctors can't yet tell which tumors they really need to treat and which they might be able to just keep an eye on. So for now Brawley says it's important all women continue to follow mammography guidelines and get treated if they get diagnosed.
BRAWLEY: One of my nightmares is people will read this paper, which is about where we're moving science to, and assume that science is already there. And there are some women who might read this and elect not to get treated.
STEIN: Others argue that the paper should encourage women to really think twice about whether they need a mammogram in the first place. Fran Visco heads the National Breast Cancer Coalition, an advocacy group.
FRAN VISCO: Women should understand all of these issues and make their own decision if they want to have a mammogram. They shouldn't blindly follow slogans of early detections save lives, once a year for a lifetime. They should really think very carefully before getting a mammogram.
STEIN: But others dismiss the findings, saying the new study is flawed and they say there's clear evidence mammograms save lives. Debra Monticciolo is with the American College of Radiology.
DEBRA MONTICCIOLO: It's giving women the wrong idea that, you know, half of all cancers are maybe just are nothing to worry about. And nothing could be further from the truth.
STEIN: So one thing's clear. The debate over mammography is far from over. Rob Stein, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
From head to toe, a first lady's look is heavily scrutinized. Melania Trump is used to that sort of attention. She was on the cover of Vogue in her Dior wedding dress. She's modeled for Harper's Bazaar and Sports Illustrated's swimsuit calendar. She also sold her own line of costume jewelry and watches on QVC.
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MELANIA TRUMP: They are really special unique pieces designed from my own ideas, as well from my own jewelry box.
MCEVERS: Soon the whole world will be taking note. As NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports, what any first lady wears says a lot.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: The first lady can make a fashion statement like no one else. For that matter, she can make a difference during the campaign. Take the time Michelle Obama appeared on "The Tonight Show" wearing a mustard yellow sweater and printed silk shirt. When Jay Leno asked her what she was wearing, she responded J. Crew.
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MICHELLE OBAMA: We ladies, we know J. Crew.
(CHEERS)
BLAIR: The message came through. Ikram Goldman was Mrs. Obama's fashion consultant at the time.
IKRAM GOLDMAN: The idea of her being inclusive was very important. And I think it was important to other people who were looking at her to feel like they can have access to that as well.
BLAIR: Obama also championed young American designers. And when the first lady of the United States wears something you made, it's life-changing. Jason Wu's career took off when she wore his one-shouldered white silk chiffon gown to President Obama's inaugural ball in 2009. Goldman helped select the gown, but kept it a secret until that night. She says when Jason Wu saw it on TV, he called her.
GOLDMAN: He was crying. He was shocked. He was happy. He was - he couldn't believe it.
BLAIR: While Michelle Obama was embraced by the fashion industry, Melania Trump comes from - it. Trump was a model and often wears European designers - Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana - most of which she's reportedly bought off the rack.
ROBIN GIVHAN: It speaks to a bank account. It speaks to a particular kind of social life.
BLAIR: Robin Givhan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic for The Washington Post. She describes Melania Trump's look as body conscious and expensive.
GIVHAN: There is polish to it, a glamour to it, but not in a particularly personal or individual way.
BLAIR: But already her choices are making an impact.
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TRUMP: Thank you very much. You have all been very kind to Donald and me.
BLAIR: For her speech at the Republican National Convention this summer, Mrs. Trump wore an ivory cotton and silk dress with sleeves that billowed at the elbows. The dress, by Serbian-born designer Roksanda Ilincic, goes for a little more than $2,000. It reportedly sold out in the days following Trump's speech. Meantime, Washington, D.C. is getting ready for a very different style of first lady.
INGA GUEN: She would look tres chic, tres, tres, tres chic in this. And then we have another Oscar de la Renta.
BLAIR: For 22 years, Inga Guen again has owned a dressy consignment shop in Washington. She describes Melania Trump's style as daring with a slightly eccentric European sensibility. She says she's already had three new clients come into her shop who've been hired by the new administration.
GUEN: I have no idea how they heard about me, but I dressed them. And they were so, so very happy to have met Melania Trump.
BLAIR: There's been some seam-splitting in the fashion industry over whether or not to work with Melania Trump. Some designers have said absolutely not. Others say it would be an honor to dress any first lady. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF DESMOND AND THE TUTUS SONG, "KISS YOU ON THE CHEEK - KING OF TOWN REMIX")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In Venezuela, food has become so scarce it's now on the black market. One person tells the Associated Press it's a better business than drugs. And the food traffickers are the very people sworn to protect Venezuela - the nation's military. The president gave the military complete control of the food supply after people began protesting in the streets over food rationing. I spoke with Joshua Goodman. He was part of the AP team that investigated this.
JOSHUA GOODMAN: Basically, you go to some markets in different parts of Venezuela, and you can find goods that you can't find at the state-run supermarkets where people would prefer to shop because it's a lot cheaper.
Now, these goods are only getting into the country because the military is importing them. And usually when you see the food sold at these makeshift markets, there's usually military people standing by with weapons watching over it all, if not actually selling the food directly.
CORNISH: How does this affect the price of food in the country?
GOODMAN: Right now there are some things that are incredibly cheap in Venezuela but incredibly scarce supply. And if you're one of the lucky people to get the food at the government-set price, you're doing quite well. But you know, a lot of people can't afford to spend an entire day in line at a state supermarket only to find that the shelves have already been emptied by the time they get through the door.
So a lot of people do have to go through to the black market to find food. And you know, it's a very unfortunate situation, but something like 80 percent of the country right now says that they have lost weight because of what they sort of joke as the President Maduro diet - the forced sort of austerity upon the country.
CORNISH: So you found lots of examples of essentially how the military is getting rich off of controlling the food supply even when people are trying to bring food into the country, right?
GOODMAN: Right. We documented the case of a South American businessman. He admitted to us that he had paid millions of dollars in bribes over the years to bring food into the country. And he really didn't care, you know, who he was paying because the prices that he was able to sell to the government were so sky-high, something like more than double the international price for a shipment of corn, for example. And
you know, that made it very easy for him to pay kickbacks to government officials. And of course, that worked its way all across and all down the food chain. And this businessman specifically pinpointed to the food minister right now, who's a military general, as having received or people close to him having received the money that he was paying.
CORNISH: Now, what's happened to people who have tried to bring evidence of this corruption to the president?
GOODMAN: You know, Venezuela right now is a very opaque place. We don't have a lot of information about the internal deliberations of the government. There are some people in the military who clearly are upset with this situation.
However, there are some serious entrenched interests within the military who are politically important to President Maduro. I mean he is a man who is hanging by a thread in many cases. You know, he does not have the popularity as his predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez. And the military for him has become an invaluable crutch in the face of, you know, mass street protests and sinking popularity and hyperinflation almost.
CORNISH: So this is a way to keep them paid, frankly. Is that what's going on?
GOODMAN: It's a way to keep them fed, you could even argue, because, you know, a lot of this food I'm sure is going to the families of the military to feed their own families and friends. And yeah, it puts money in their pocket at a time when there really isn't much money in the country right now.
CORNISH: What has shocked you most about this situation?
GOODMAN: I think what has shocked me the most is the degree to which the military has really, you know, sullied its own reputation. They were seen by many as sort of a disciplined force that could actually provide a lot of answers to the serious problems Venezuela is facing. Instead, they seem to be much more self-interested, much more corrupt than I had imagined when we started this project.
CORNISH: And you've talked to a lot of officials in your story. For average Venezuelans, what are people saying about this?
GOODMAN: They're outraged. I mean they know fully well that while they're not eating, people are getting rich. And I think this is an issue that touches the stomachs, literally, of every Venezuelan. A lot of Venezuelans who would be sort of sympathetic to the government are very upset over this issue. And when they find out that people are actually profiting from it, that will just, you know - it's a potentially explosive situation for the government.
CORNISH: Joshua Goodman is the Associated Press's news director for the Andes. Thank you for speaking with us.
GOODMAN: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYCHO SONG, "DIVISION")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The Senate has quite a week ahead. Republican leaders have scheduled confirmation hearings for nine of President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet choices. Democrats say Republicans are trying to jam the nominees through the process without proper vetting.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Many of Trump's nominees are wealthy businesspeople with complex financial dealings, and several of them haven't yet completed or even submitted all of the financial disclosure and ethics paperwork required. Joining us now in the studio is NPR's Brian Naylor. Hey there, Brian.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: So what is required? What are the rules regarding financial disclosure?
NAYLOR: It's complicated because each committee that's going to be holding hearings has its own set of rules about the information they require, and each has its own way of making that information public.
So for instance, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold its confirmation hearing for Secretary of State Nominee Rex Tillerson on Wednesday. Towson's records are complete regarding his FBI background check, the Office of Government Ethics paperwork, his financial disclosure form. Democrats also want Tillerson to submit his income tax records for the past few years because of how complex his financial dealings have been. Republicans, however, are not going along with that.
To take another example, tomorrow, the Senate Homeland Security Committee holds a confirmation hearing for retired General John Kelly to head the Department of Homeland Security. Not all of Kelly's records have been submitted so far.
CORNISH: So is this nitpicking or Democrats griping? Or are there real issues at stake here?
NAYLOR: Well, I think it's fair to say there's a little of both. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell certainly thinks it's sour grapes. Here's what he said yesterday on CBS's "Face The Nation."
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MITCH MCCONNELL: We confirmed seven Cabinet appointments the day President Obama was sworn in. We didn't like most of them either (laughter), but he won the election. So all of these little procedural complaints are related to their frustration at having not only lost the White House but having lost the Senate. I understand that, but we need to sort of grow up here and get past that.
NAYLOR: Now, McConnell also said today after meeting with Trump at Trump Tower that everyone will be properly vetted as they have been in the past. Democrats have been pointing out that when the roles were reversed and McConnell was the minority leader, he sent a letter to then majority Democrats, saying financial disclosures must be complete prior to the confirmation hearing for Obama's nominees. Here's Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor this afternoon reading from that letter.
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CHUCK SCHUMER: Financial disclosure statements and applicable tax returns for applicable committees are complete and submitted to the committee for review prior to a hearing being noticed.
NAYLOR: So some of this I think is the old axiom, where you stand depends on where you sit. And now Republicans are sitting in the majority.
CORNISH: But why this week? Why the rush to have all these confirmation hearings at once?
NAYLOR: Well, I think there are a couple of reasons. One point that McConnell makes is that President-elect Trump needs to have his national security team in place on Inauguration Day. Another is that the rush gives Democrats less time to prepare for and possibly delay some of the hearings, and by scheduling so many of them at once, including five on Wednesday when, by the way, Trump is scheduled to have a long-awaited news conference, there will be less attention focused on any of them.
But the head of the Office of Government Ethics sent a letter over the weekend to Senate Democrats saying, you know, in the past, most of these Cabinet nominees have been pre-cleared by his office before their nominations were even made public and that they're feeling a little bit of undue pressure now on their staff people.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Brian Naylor. Brian, thank you.
NAYLOR: Thank you, Audie.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When someone is nominated to a Cabinet position, they are asked a lot of questions, and one is whether they've ever been rejected for a federal appointment. Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump's pick to be attorney general, said no at first. But that was incorrect. Sessions was rejected for a federal judgeship 30 years ago. He later amended his answer.
NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg covered those high-profile hearings back then, and she has this report.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Who is the real Jeff Sessions? At tomorrow's hearing, there will be two contradictory portraits painted and two accounts of those 1986 hearings. Oddly enough, both will be true. That's because there were two sets of hearings in 1986, one that went so badly that Sessions appeared to be finished and a second a month later called at the insistence of Sessions' chief Senate supporter.
At the first round of hearings in March 1986, Sessions made a number of damaging admissions. A month later in April, he changed his testimony. In March, for instance, he agreed that he'd referred to a white civil rights lawyer as a, quote, "disgrace to his race."
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JEFF SESSIONS: Trying to recollect on it the best I can recall was, and I say, well, he's not that popular around town. I've heard him referred to as a disgrace to his race.
TOTENBERG: But a month later, he had a different story.
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SESSIONS: I am absolutely convinced that I did not call Mr. Blackshear a disgrace to his race, and I did not acknowledge it in any form.
TOTENBERG: In March of '86, Sessions conceded that he had referred to the NAACP, the National Council of Churches and the ACLU as communist-inspired and un-American. He admitted that he was, as he put it, sometimes loose with my tongue.
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SESSIONS: That's probably something I shouldn't have said, but I really didn't mean any harm.
TOTENBERG: At his second hearing, though, Sessions said this.
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SESSIONS: I know what I believe about these organizations. These organizations are essential organizations in a pluralistic society. I welcome their role. They are quintessentially American organizations. They are not un-American organizations.
TOTENBERG: Joseph Biden, then a senator on the committee, pressed the point.
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JOE BIDEN: Are you telling us that you, Jeff Sessions, at no time has concluded that the National Council of Churches has engaged in un-American activities?
SESSIONS: My opinion is they have not. They may have taken positions that I consider to be adverse to the security interests of the United States.
BIDEN: Does that make them un-American (inaudible)?
SESSIONS: No, Sir, it does not.
BIDEN: No, does that make the positions un-American?
SESSIONS: No.
BIDEN: So you can have a position adverse to security interests of the United States and not be un-American. Is that what you're saying?
SESSIONS: Well, I - if you hold it in good faith, you're not an un-American person or an un-American organization - no, Sir.
TOTENBERG: Sessions tried to explain the reason for some of his changed answers by saying that he'd been taken by surprise in March. But under examination by Senator Biden, he conceded he'd been informed well in advance about all the controversial areas of questioning. Still, Sessions said, the first round of hearings had left the wrong impression.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SESSIONS: I am not the Jeff Sessions my detractors have tried to create. I am not a racist. I am not insensitive to blacks. I've supported civil rights activity in my state. I have done my job with integrity, equality and fairness for all.
TOTENBERG: It's a rare thing for the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote down a judicial nomination. Indeed back in 1986, it was only the second time in nearly a half century that the committee had vetoed a federal district court nominee. Two moderate Republicans joined the committee's Democrats to kill the nomination, and it was subsequently formally withdrawn.
But that was 30 years ago. Sessions' chances for confirmation now are a lot better. After the 1986 rejection, he remained the chief federal prosecutor in Alabama for five more years, during which he asserts that he went after the Ku Klux Klan and supported civil rights groups.
Soon after, he was elected state attorney general, and two years later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate where he was re-elected three times. In the Senate, he is personally well-liked by his colleagues, and for much of 2016, he was the only senator to have endorsed Donald Trump. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF BILLIE HOLIDAY SONG, "EASY LIVIN'")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
For writer and historian Nat Hentoff, it was all about freedom in the jazz he loved and the First Amendment he fiercely defended. Hentoff had a hand in more than 30 books, nonfiction and fiction, on jazz, censorship, the Bill of Rights and education He wrote for publications including the Village Voice, The New Yorker and The Washington Post. Nat Hentoff died Saturday at the age of 91. NPR's Tom Cole has this appreciation.
TOM COLE, BYLINE: A young Nat Hentoff was walking down the street in his hometown, Boston, when he heard a sound coming from a record store.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARTIE SHAW SONG, "NIGHTMARE")
NAT HENTOFF: So I hear this sound, and I rush into the store. What? What? What was that?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARTIE SHAW SONG, "NIGHTMARE")
COLE: It was clarinetist Artie Shaw's theme song, "Nightmare," as Hentoff told NPR in 2010.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
HENTOFF: The only other music that had really hit me that hard was when I was even younger in an Orthodox synagogue and I heard the cantor. And they used to improvise very passionately. Years later, I found out that Artie had based "Nightmare" on one of the melodies that the cantors sang.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARTIE SHAW SONG, "NIGHTMARE")
COLE: And so began Nat Hentoff's lifelong devotion to jazz and the musicians who made it. He wrote for Downbeat and co-founded another jazz magazine. He penned album liner notes and produced recordings.
Through all of that, he came to understand who the musicians were, where they came from and what they were trying to say in their music. He saw the connection between the freedom of expression in jazz and the basic civil rights and responsibilities we all have as citizens of the United States. Here he is on WHYY's FRESH AIR in 1991.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
HENTOFF: If there is a basic, fundamental engine that makes this peculiar experiment, constitutional democracy - I'm quoting Jefferson - work, it's that we all have a right to free speech no matter how offensive.
COLE: Hentoff's adherence to those principles got him in trouble with critics on the right and the left. He was unwaveringly consistent. He was opposed to the death penalty and abortion. He relished his role as a provocative outsider, and he loved the music that helped open his ears, eyes and mind. Nat Hentoff died at home in Manhattan listening to Billie Holiday. Tom Cole, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOD BLESS THE CHILD")
BILLIE HOLIDAY: (Singing) Them that's got shall get. Them that's not shall lose, so the Bible said, and it still is news. Mama may have. Papa may have. But God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own. Yes, the strong get smart while the week ones fade.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
After big losses in statehouses, Congress and the White House, the Democratic Party is looking for a new leader. We've been talking to several candidates for chair of the Democratic National Committee here on NPR. Now we're going to hear from one who's closely tied to the Obama administration, Tom Perez.
He spoke to us in a personal capacity, not as his main job, the Secretary of Labor under President Obama. He told me he wants to lead the DNC by focusing on party infrastructure and grassroots organizing.
TOM PEREZ: Our message of opportunity and inclusion is I think a very powerful message that does indeed speak to Americans, but we've got to do a better job of listening.
CORNISH: But it's not just that. Is the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, actually in a position to do any of this? And I want to play a clip from Harry Reid. He spoke to Nevada Public Radio. Obviously he did actually fairly well for that state in terms of helping Democrats win even in this very tough election cycle. Here's how he described the DNC.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
HARRY REID: One of the failures of the Democratic Party has been the DNC. The Democratic National Committee has been worthless. They do nothing to help state parties. That should be the main goal they have. I've developed everything in Nevada on my own. Their help was relatively meaningless.
CORNISH: Relatively meaningless, worthless - I mean this is the, you know, former majority leader. He was doing all this while he was running the Senate, and he's saying that the DNC was useless on that front.
PEREZ: Well, the Democratic National Committee - we have to up our game. And the reason I'm running is because we have to make sure that we are providing help and partnership with state parties. Organizing has to be a 12-month endeavor. You can't show up at a church every 4 October and say, vote for me, and call that persuasion. And that's what we've done. We've gotten away from the basics as a party.
And what I want to do if I have the good fortune of being elected chair is build a party infrastructure in partnership with our state partners so that we have organizers in place in urban, suburban and rural communities across America so that we are a force on important issues, whether it's voting rights, whether it's cyber security. And we need to have a director of cybersecurity at the DNC, which we currently don't have.
CORNISH: Looking back at the hacking scandal, as we've been talking about the last couple of days, beyond what intelligence agencies say is Russia's involvement is the content of the emails themselves.
And obviously with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then the chairman, found making disparaging comments about Bernie Sanders, about his supporters, Donna Brazile, the now interim chair, having passed debate questions to the Clinton campaign during the primary, going forward, if you were chair, how would you overcome the divide, the suspicions that people have within the party that the DNC took sides against them?
PEREZ: Well, we have to have transparency. We have to have inclusion. And we have to have a leader who will listen. So for instance, one of the things that I would want to do is to set up a structure so that we will have a debate calendar in place prior to when we know who the candidates are so that we can eliminate any sort of perception that - or reality that the thumb was being placed on the scale of justice to help one candidate or another. I think we have to do things like that.
And we have to earn the trust of every stakeholder in the party. And I think we can do that because the reality, Audie, is that we are fighting much bigger forces. Donald Trump's vision of America, his nativist vision of America, his fear mongering - that's what we have to fight.
CORNISH: When you look forward through at least the next four years, is it a situation of obstruction or cooperation, and what are the kind of red lines that can't be crossed?
PEREZ: Well, we need to take the fight to Donald Trump. If they're talking about deporting children, we're going to take the fight to Donald Trump. If Donald Trump wants to raise the minimum wage to $15, yes, I will work with Donald Trump.
But you know what? If they are going to try to have a deportation task force and they're going to try to continue to deny climate change, you're damn right we need to fight. And we will continue that fight because this is a battle for the heart and soul of who we are as Americans.
CORNISH: Tom Perez is running to be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee. He's also the current secretary of labor in the Obama administration. Thank you for coming into the studio to speak with us.
PEREZ: Great to be with you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It is year three of the college football playoffs. Tonight's championship game in Tampa is a rematch of last year's title game between Clemson and Alabama, when Alabama earned its eleventy-billionth (ph) national title in a 45-40 win. Ratings for this year's two semifinal games were higher than last year. Before these playoffs, for decades we let polls or the dreaded Bowl Championship Series aka the BCS decide who is the national champion.
Now, it seems like all is finally right in the college football world. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports was the co-author of the book "Death To The BCS" so you got to think if he's happy, then maybe college football really did get something right. He's with us from Tampa. Hey there.
DAN WETZEL: Hey, thanks for having me on.
MCEVERS: Yeah. So after three years, I mean, has this college football playoff been everything you'd hoped for?
WETZEL: Well, I think like almost every other fan, coach, player, it is a vast, vast improvement over the old system. Playoffs are a great way and an American tradition on how we crown champions from the NFL to Little League to "Dancing With The Stars" to everything else.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
WETZEL: It has been a very, very good step forward for college football, which often begrudgingly moves to the future.
MCEVERS: This is college sports though, right? So, I mean, it would be weird if we didn't complain about something. I mean, what...
WETZEL: Of course.
MCEVERS: ...Do you think the playoffs could do better in the future?
WETZEL: You still have this kind of clunky system where we're still involving bowl games, which are independent third party businesses that are still running college football. The NCAA is technically not crowning the champion tonight, even though this is an NCAA sport, which is a little bizarre but that's a little bit of the cronyism and the tradition that they've been unable to weed themselves fully from.
There's certainly a lot of interest in expanding it. A lot of teams feel that they have a better chance of winning the championship in any year. This year, we had two semifinals which were blowout games. There's nobody sitting there saying, hey, these aren't the two best teams playing for the championship tonight.
MCEVERS: You have been a proponent of expanding it from four teams to eight teams. Why?
WETZEL: I would expand the playoff, but I would also reform some of the other parts of college football. The sport will be better when these - maybe not the championship game a la the Super Bowl is - could be played on a neutral site as it is tonight in Tampa. But when the quarterfinals and semifinals are being played on campus in the college towns in the great stadiums of college football, anybody who's ever been to a college football game knows the game is only part of the fun. It's the grand venues and the on-campus excitement and the pageantry and the beauty of the backdrops that make college football so great.
MCEVERS: I mean, players have said that, you know, a longer season, more games, an NFL-length season would be hard on them, right?
WETZEL: Absolutely, and I think that has to be a major concern as you go forward in how many games are they playing. Right now, there's a round of games that are done through the conference championship games which are pretty much obsolete events. And I think if you get rid of those, you could expand a playoff. But to just tack on games and expect young people who aren't making the millions of dollars that they make in the NFL to just continue to play and play and play wouldn't be fair to the student athletes, and I think that has to be a major concern going forward.
MCEVERS: Dan Wetzel, national columnist at Yahoo Sports, thanks.
WETZEL: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
(SOUNDBITE OF TOPS SONG, "WAY TO BE LOVED")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Now let's note an anniversary.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
To do that, imagine a world where no one is bent over a little glowing screen.
CORNISH: Or where confronted with a question at a dinner party, no one Googles the answer right at the table.
MCEVERS: Or where you can go on a hike and not see a person taking a selfie.
CORNISH: That was the world that existed 10 years ago, before this man introduced, as he said, three new things.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STEVE JOBS: A widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device.
MCEVERS: That, of course, is the late Steve Jobs, who was then the head of Apple.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOBS: These are not three separate devices.
(APPLAUSE)
JOBS: This is one device...
(APPLAUSE)
JOBS: ...And we are calling it iPhone.
MCEVERS: IPhone, unveiled on January 9, 2007.
CORNISH: Steven Levy was in that audience. He's now editor of the tech publication Backchannel. He says back then, there were cell phones, even smartphones, but not like the iPhone.
STEVEN LEVY: Smartphones, at the time, weren't really all that smart.
MCEVERS: He says they couldn't smoothly browse the web, play music easily or edit photos very well.
LEVY: It was a challenge to really get things done besides making phone calls on these other phones that called themselves smart.
MCEVERS: After Jobs' famous speech, Levy went backstage to talk to the Apple CEO.
LEVY: I said, why did you do a phone? And he said, well, we did a lot of market research and, you know, talked to all the analysts and buying people and decided we can make a lot of money. And then he laughed (laughter) and he said, no, totally that's not us. And, of course, that's not the way Apple operates at all.
They do what they think is the right thing to do and assume people will follow.
MCEVERS: And people did follow. Other companies followed, too. Today it would be hard to find a smartphone that doesn't have a touch screen. Steven Levy got his first iPhone shortly after hearing Jobs' talk. He's upgraded since. He still likes the iPhone but says there's a downside to the technology.
LEVY: We are now cyborgs. We can't exist without these things. We're very dependent on them. It's like a limb. And it's a little odd to be out there where you're a very strong person with your mobile smart device but you're weaker without it.
CORNISH: Steven Levy of Backchannel. The iPhone was introduced 10 years ago today.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We're going to get the latest now on the investigation into the shooting at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport on Friday. Authorities say 26-year-old Esteban Santiago had flown to Fort Lauderdale from Anchorage, Alaska. Then they say he removed a semi-automatic handgun from his checked luggage, loaded it in a bathroom and began shooting people in the airport's baggage claim area. Eleven people were shot, and five people were killed.
Today, Santiago had his first appearance in federal court. NPR's Greg Allen was there, and he joins us now. Greg, what happened in court today?
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Well, there was a heavier than normal security presence. Esteban Santiago was led out, escorted out, shackled and in a red jumpsuit. Magistrate Judge Alicia Valle questioned him about his finances and job history to see if he qualified for a court-appointed attorney.
He told her that he worked last November most recently for a security company in Anchorage, Alaska, a company called Signal 88. That's around the time he went to an FBI office, telling them that he felt the government was forcing him to watch ISIS videos. He only has about $5 or $10 in the bank. She gave him an attorney, and he told her he did understand the seriousness of the crimes he's charged with.
MCEVERS: What are the crimes he is charged with?
ALLEN: Well, there's three counts so far, but there could be more. We could see an indictment coming later. The three crimes are an act of violence to commit serious bodily harm in an airport, deadly use of firearms and also using firearms in a violent crime.
For the first two charges there, the maximum penalty is death - and so very serious charges here - could also be life imprisonment. So far there's no signs there is anything related to international terrorism, but the FBI at least over the weekend said they have not ruled that out yet.
MCEVERS: A lot of what we're learning about Esteban Santiago indicates there were concerns about his mental health. What do we know about him?
ALLEN: Well, you know, he grew up in Puerto Rico, served in the National Guard there and then later in Alaska. In all, he served nine years with the Guard, including one tour in Iraq where he received a battle medal for being involved in a combat duty over there. Last August, he was discharged from the Alaska National Guard for poor performance. At the time, he was questioned by Army investigators who noted his strange behavior.
And then the next time he pops up on our radar is in November when he went to the FBI office and told them about the ISIS videos he felt that the CIA was forcing him to watch. They referred him to local police, who put him in a mental health facility for four days where he was held before being released. A month later, then consulted with the FBI, the police returned his gun to him.
MCEVERS: Why? I mean why was he able to get his gun back?
ALLEN: Well, federal laws prohibit anyone who's adjudicated to be mentally ill from owning a gun, but they hadn't reached that stage with Santiago. The FBI said they had - did not determine that he was a threat to anyone at that time. And after the four days of mental health assessment, clearly that assessment remained the same.
But that has led to calls to re-examine some of these laws about the mentally ill and their ability to own a gun. Here is Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, whose office responded to the shootings. He was on Miami WPLG TV yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCOTT ISRAEL: People who are suffering from mental illness should not be allowed, in my opinion, to purchase or have firearms at any time.
ALLEN: Over the weekend at the Fort Lauderdale airport, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was there. The airport is in her district. She said she'll be asking members of Congress to review - do a comprehensive review of the nation's laws after this shooting.
They should look at the mental health laws, she said - also look at the idea of transporting guns in checked bags, whether that's something that needs more regulation. And she also wants to improve safety in unsecured parts of the airport, places like baggage claim.
MCEVERS: What's next for Santiago?
ALLEN: Well, there'll be a detention hearing next week, which will decide whether he can be released on bond or not - very unlikely. And then his arraignment - formal arraignment will be on January 23.
MCEVERS: NPR's Greg Allen in Miami, thank you.
ALLEN: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF TWIN SISTER SONG, "DANIEL")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump announced today plans to name his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a senior adviser in the White House. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, were key players during the presidential campaign, and he's one of the president-elect's most trusted confidants. He's also CEO of his own family's multibillion-dollar real estate business. And by formally joining the Trump administration, Kushner brings yet another set of potential conflicts of interest to the White House.
NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now. And Scott, we know Trump was already planning to hold a news conference later this week to discuss plans to distance himself from his own family's Trump Organization. So what sort of wrinkle could this Kushner appointment add?
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Audie, this could be a very big wrinkle. We've talked about how the Trump Organization's sprawling business interests, including in foreign countries, could complicate the incoming president's decision-making. Now, the Kushner companies which Jared Kushner took over after his father went to prison for tax evasion, has its own spider web of financial threats.
Just to give you one example, The New York Times ran a lengthy story over the weekend about how Kushner has been negotiating with China's Anbang company to help bankroll the renovation of his firm's signature Manhattan skyscraper. Now, Anbang has close ties to the Chinese government. Its chairman is married to the granddaughter of Deng Xiaoping, and it carries some red flags for the U.S. government. Just to cite one - after Anbang bought the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, President Obama stopped staying there during his official visits.
Now, Jared Kushner thinks he can navigate these potential conflicts. He's hired Jamie Gorelick, the former deputy attorney general from the Clinton administration, to help him. And Gorelick tells NPR that Kushner plans to play no active role in his company's operations. He's going to sell off some of his ownership in that company, and he's planning to steer clear of White House decisions that involve those assets he doesn't sell.
JAMIE GORELICK: He is being treated and will be treated as any other individual who goes into public service. We, on his behalf, have consulted with the Office of Government Ethics, and we believe we have a very good path for bringing him into compliance with those rules.
CORNISH: There's also a rule against government officials hiring family members, and he's the president-elect's son-in-law. Can you talk about how those rules would or would not apply here?
HORSLEY: Yeah, the anti-nepotism statute says you can't put family members to work in a government agency, but there appears to be a loophole for the West Wing because the White House is not considered a government agency. At least that's the argument that Kushner and his team will be making.
Now, it's not a slam dunk, but that argument was tested a little bit back in the 1990s when former President Clinton tapped his wife, Hillary, to lead the health care task force. That was challenged in court at the time, and at least one federal judge agreed the West Wing is exempt from the anti-nepotism statute. Now, I might add, the choice of Jared Kushner to be a senior adviser is not subject to Senate confirmation.
CORNISH: Before I let you go, help us understand why Trump wants Kushner in the White House with him.
HORSLEY: Well, he is, as you said in the intro, a very trusted confidant to the president-elect. It's kind of funny because on the surface, these two could hardly be more different. Kushner, who turns 36 tomorrow, generally avoids the limelight, although his face has been on a lot of magazine covers since the election. He comes from a family of Democrats. He's an Orthodox Jew. In fact, at one point, Donald Trump suggested Kushner might play a role in Middle East peace negotiations.
For all their differences, though, Kushner is intensely loyal to his father-in-law. He stood by Trump during some of the very darkest moments on the campaign trail, and both of these men are fiercely devoted to their families.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks so much.
HORSLEY: My pleasure, Audie.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There's an old debate about pornography. Is it a moral scourge or just a form of self-expression? One Virginia state lawmaker says porn should be talked about in another way - as a public health hazard. NPR's Sarah McCammon has more from Virginia.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Bob Marshall has served in the Virginia General Assembly for 25 years. And since that time, he says the availability of pornography has changed dramatically.
BOB MARSHALL: If you wanted to get sexually explicit material, you probably had to go to a store, you know, maybe in a not a nice part of town. Maybe it is. And you had to do this kind of surreptitiously. You had to go out and get it.
MCCAMMON: So today, Marshall is worried about the impact on young people growing up with easy access to online porn. He points to the rise of teens sexting, exchanging nude images on their phones.
MARSHALL: When they don't have enough sense that this is a problem, the adults have to step in and say this has gone on way too long for, you know, this to be this ubiquitous.
MCCAMMON: Marshall is a Republican with a history of socially conservative beliefs, including opposition to same-sex marriage. This year, he's also proposed a so-called bathroom bill in Virginia similar to legislation at the center of a debate over transgender rights in neighboring North Carolina.
Marshall's anti-porn bill is getting pushback from the adult film industry and free speech advocates like the ACLU of Virginia. Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastanaga says defining and regulating pornography is tricky.
CLAIRE GUTHRIE GASTANAGA: We're just really skeptical of any proposals that move us down the road of engaging the government in content-based discrimination about speech and literature.
MCCAMMON: Marshall's proposal doesn't include any new restrictions on porn. He says the goal is to start a discussion that could lead to additional regulation in the future. But Gastanaga worries it could threaten free speech. The idea has some precedent. The 2016 GOP platform describes pornography as a public health crisis, and the heavily Republican legislature in Utah passed a similar bill last year.
Support for the idea of porn as a public health issue isn't just coming from social conservatives. Jennifer Johnson is a sociologist at Virginia Commonwealth University who describes herself as a progressive and a feminist. She studies the effect of porn on young people.
JENNIFER JOHNSON: It's having real impact in ways that I don't think we can fully see and fully understand at this moment.
MCCAMMON: Johnson says pornography is better described as a public health concern rather than a hazard. She says more research is needed to understand how porn affects young people's developing brains and their view of sexuality and relationships. She's troubled by research suggesting kids are seeing explicit and sometimes violent images at younger ages.
JOHNSON: Where do they go from there?
MCCAMMON: Johnson also worries about what she describes as misogynistic depictions of women. One Democratic State Senator, Barbara Favola, shares that concern.
BARBARA FAVOLA: No, I mean we don't like pornography. We feel that it, you know, it's very demeaning to women.
MCCAMMON: Favola also questions the free speech implications of the legislature labeling porn a public health hazard. But she says she looks forward to more discussion of the issue after the Virginia General Assembly convenes on Wednesday. Sarah McCammon, NPR News, Virginia Beach.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Omar Saif Ghobash is a Muslim. His two sons are Muslim. He says he worries they're being taught a hateful version of Islam, not an inclusive one. So he sat down and wrote to them, and the collection of writing is now a book called "Letters To A Young Muslim," his argument against radicalism. He says it started in the United Arab Emirates, where his family is from, one day when one of his sons came home from school.
OMAR SAIF GHOBASH: One particular day I asked him what he'd learned, and he told me, well, I was told that I should hate the Jews.
MCEVERS: Ghobash says that made him want to punch his son's teacher.
GHOBASH: For me personally, I think the kind of litmus test for our tolerance and acceptance of the modern world is how we deal with these kinds of statements. And so it's extremely important for me to say actually, this is where we need to stop and we need to think on what basis do we make these kinds of sweeping judgments. What are the consequences for ourselves morally for making those kind of sweeping judgments? And in any case, we need to actually extract this whole idea of hatred. And actually, I would like for us to begin to imagine teaching our children something else. So that's the day I wanted to go and punch the teacher.
MCEVERS: You talk about your son, you know, going through different phases of questioning what it means to be a Muslim. And it sounds like you yourself went through these phases too, as you said, when you were young.
GHOBASH: Yeah.
MCEVERS: And you write about how your own relatives went to fight in Afghanistan in the 1980s and how you cheered them on.
GHOBASH: Well, yes. I mean, when I was 12, you know, being a warrior, it was like almost being like a superhero.
MCEVERS: How have you come to think about that now?
GHOBASH: Well, I think what's happening, for example, with ISIS, we can demonize all of these people and say, you know, they're absolute evil. But by demonizing them and saying they're absolute evil, it becomes much more difficult to understand what is actually going on. I actually think there are many of them who are just incredibly foolishly idealistic. I have no sympathy for them, but I can say that I understand where it's coming from.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
GHOBASH: It's a very simplistic reductive reading of our Islamic history. I mean, it gives purpose when it's so difficult these days to find purpose.
MCEVERS: Ghobash has been thinking about Islamic extremism all his life. His father was assassinated when he was 6 years old by a 19-year-old Palestinian man. The man was hired to kill the Syrian foreign minister at the airport in Abu Dhabi, but he shot Ghobash's father instead. The killer had grown up in a Palestinian refugee camp. Ghobash says he came to understand in some ways why the man did what he did.
GHOBASH: As the years passed, I realized that actually this poor young man had absolutely no opportunities. And in a sense, you know, I feel that my father's killer was himself a victim of the way we do politics in the Arab world.
MCEVERS: Which is to sort of answer grievances about, you know, feeling marginalized with violence.
GHOBASH: Well, that's one thing, giving yourself meaning through violence. But the other thing is what we're creating today with the huge number of refugees from Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, what is going to happen? How many of them are going to find that they've got, you know, worthwhile lives to lead?
MCEVERS: And how many of them where will turn to violence as a way to respond?
GHOBASH: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
MCEVERS: Do you worry about your son becoming radicalized, still hearing things from teachers that that you don't agree with?
GHOBASH: Yeah, there's a lot of worry actually. And I - you know, because it is - the radical message is actually very, very seductive. And we don't have a real understanding of how we can repent from, you know, past sins and be able to come back to a middle ground where you're actually allowed to build a life of full participation in the economy and society. There's almost a kind of an exploitation of those who sin. And a very quick pathway to ultimate repentance by going and sacrificing yourself or, really, committing suicide and taking a lot of people with you. A lot of people don't like to talk about these issues within the community because we fear that this will lead to Islamophobia.
MCEVERS: Exactly. I was going to say, I mean, do you also worry, I mean, I'm trying to imagine certain people here in the United States hearing what you're saying and saying, see, we told you they all believe in jihad. Everybody believes in violence.
GHOBASH: No, that...
MCEVERS: You know, I mean, there's, you know, there's obviously a lot of conversation about this here in this country right now...
GHOBASH: Of course.
MCEVERS: ...And it can sometimes tend toward Islamophobia.
GHOBASH: Absolutely. However, it doesn't mean that we should hide behind this fear of Islamophobia and not discuss the issues of extremism within our own societies. And there are some very, very brave people who are standing up and saying there is extremism within our own societies. We do have a problem. We do need to face it. And there is no reason for us to be politically correct amongst ourselves because we all know what's going on.
And, you know, when ISIS first appeared on the scene, there were some very, very loud voices that posed the question, what have we created? In the sense that we've allowed these people who seemed harmless - aggressive, but foolish - to propagate a certain kind of view which was unhappy, frustrated, focused on the war stories, focused on jihad as a way of, you know, spending your life, and we didn't really pay attention to them. But it seems that these people actually managed to create a certain momentum, and so we need to separate out the Islamophobia. It exists and we have a problem with it, but what we can't do is hide behind that and not deal with the real issues that are going on within the faith.
MCEVERS: Omar Saif Ghobash is the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Russia. He also sponsors an Arabic literary translation prize and co-founded the international prize for Arabic fiction. Thank you so much for your time today.
GHOBASH: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF TUNE-YARDS SONG, "POWA")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Storms in California have toppled one of the most photographed trees in history. The giant sequoia known as the Pioneer Cabin Tree fell over after lashing winds and rain rolled through the Sierra Nevada. John Sepulvado of member station KQED in San Francisco reports.
JOHN SEPULVADO, BYLINE: In the 1800s and early 20th century, marketing for American tourists basically went like this - find something grand, show it to people, then watch the tourists flock. While Niagara had roaring falls and Florida had crystal clear springs, California had its giant sequoias.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: And other ages produced the giant redwoods, oldest living thing. They have watched the centuries pass and generations of men from the Stone Age to the automobile. One is so huge, it spans a road with ample clearance for a car.
SEPULVADO: Of course, redwoods don't naturally have tunnels in them. That's what makes the pioneer cabin tree so unique. The tree was 33 feet in diameter. And in the 1880s, the owner of the Redwood Grove hired two guys to start sawing into it.
TONY TEALDI: The tree already had a sizable hole, but he made it look like a cabin.
SEPULVADO: Which is how it got the name Pioneer Cabin Tree, says Tony Tealdi. He's the supervising ranger of California State Parks, and he says a Yosemite redwood was tunneled first - that tree is called Wawona.
TEALDI: And so the private owner at that time wanted to compete with the Wawona tree - with Yosemite - and getting visitors to his tree.
SEPULVADO: There are pictures of Model T's driving through the Pine Cabin Tree. And long before selfie sticks, families took pictures huddled in the tunnel. Yet, the hole weakened the tree, and the storm - combined with a shallow root system - proved to be too much.
TEALDI: A lot of people are very sad and upset. It's been around since the mid-1880s, so generations of families have seen this tree.
SEPULVADO: Tealdi notes that today we would never hollow such a majestic tree, but the Pine Cabin Tree raised awareness for the redwoods. Meaning, in a way, the larger forest was able to be seen through that one ancient tree. For NPR News, I'm John Sepulvado in San Francisco.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALEXANDER SONG, "MILLION YEARS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There have been a lot of tears inside a courtroom in Charleston, S.C. these past few days. Family and friends of the nine people who were shot to death inside the Emanuel AME Church have been testifying about how much they miss their loved ones. They're witnesses for the prosecution during the sentencing phase of Dylann Roof's trial. The convicted killer, who is representing himself, has said very little so far and now the testimony is over. South Carolina Public Radio's Alexandra Olgin has been following the case and joins us now from outside the courthouse. Hi there.
ALEXANDRA OLGIN, BYLINE: Hello.
MCEVERS: So what has it been like inside the courtroom hearing this testimony?
OLGIN: It's been very hard to listen to. It's been gut-wrenching. There were nine people that were killed, but the impact has clearly reached far beyond those nine into the church and into the community and the city of Charleston. We heard kids cry about the loss of their parents, mother cry by the loss of her son and siblings who said that the loss of their brothers and sisters have left them empty. There were tissues on the ends of each of the wooden benches in the courtroom and at points they were depleted. At multiple points during this part of the trial, the sentencing phase, prosecutors played audio and video of the now-deceased victims. Some of them were preaching because multiple of the victims were actually in the ministry.
MCEVERS: And as we said, Dylann Roof has been representing himself, and he has objected to some of this testimony. What is the basis for his objections?
OLGIN: He objected to the amount of witnesses, as well as the extent and depth of their testimony. Originally, the prosecution had said they were going to call about 38 witnesses. That has since been narrowed down and they only called 25, but they were - in the beginning, the witnesses were going for a very, very long period of time, multiple hours. And Dylann Roof objected, saying that, you know, it needs to be cut shorter. And his attorneys, who have been sidelined, have been kind of frustrated.
At one point his lead attorney, David Bruck, stood up visibly frustrated and said Roof is not capable of protecting his own rights and objecting during the testimony. And he said, you know, this is a sentencing hearing, not a memorial service. And he pleaded with the judge, you have to do something to stop this. And he said the testimony had become sort of a runaway freight train.
MCEVERS: What was the response to those objections?
OLGIN: The lead federal prosecutor said that, you know, Roof chose to kill nine people and, you know, these victims are particularly good people, and the relatives are entitled to talk about their losses. The judge said he did everything he could to persuade Dylann Roof to not self-represent. There were two competency hearings. The judge said Roof clearly understands what he's doing, and if he's not choosing to object, that's his prerogative. So the judge said that his lawyers could not help him with these objections, and there was no way to sanitize these proceedings. He said it's emotional in its nature.
MCEVERS: So what happens next?
OLGIN: Closing arguments are set for tomorrow. This is the prosecutor's last chance. They are seeking the death penalty for Dylann Roof. They will talk to the jury. And then Dylann Roof, who's representing himself, is expected to give his own closing arguments. During opening statements, he only talked to the jury for just a couple minutes. He basically explained that he's representing himself because he didn't want to introduce any mental health evidence. And we heard earlier from Roof's writings that he doesn't believe in psychology. And he didn't do much to defend himself during the sentencing phase of the trial, so this is kind of his last chance to defend himself.
MCEVERS: So he didn't say much in his opening statements, but is there a worry that, you know, these closing arguments might be a chance for Roof to grandstand or make speeches?
OLGIN: It's really hard to tell because he hasn't said anything, and he hasn't given any indication of what he's going to say. So we really don't know what's going to happen during closing arguments.
MCEVERS: Alexandra Olgin is a reporter with South Carolina Public Radio. She joined us from outside the federal courthouse in Charleston. Thank you very much.
OLGIN: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MINIATURE TIGERS SONG, "GOLDSKULL")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
At last night's Golden Globes, Damien Chazelle and his movie "La La Land" made it big. The film won a total of seven awards, including Best Actor and Actress in a Musical or Comedy. Chazelle won for Best Director and Best Screenplay.
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DAMIEN CHAZELLE: I wanted to thank a few people just in particular - my producers Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz and Marc Platt for not blanching at, I think, what must have seemed like an utterly insane proposition that I made to you guys for six years, for fighting to get this made, to get this in front of screens.
CORNISH: It's perhaps fitting that Chazelle had to fight to get this movie made. After all, "La La Land" is ultimately about struggle, packaged in a neon-bright musical.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANOTHER DAY OF SUN")
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) When they let you down, you'll get up off the ground as morning rolls around and it's another day of sun.
CORNISH: Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling play the two lovers at the heart of the film, each balancing their showbiz dreams with reality. Gosling's Sebastian, a traditional Jazz pianist, has to join a band with more pop sensibilities to make ends meet. And Emma Stone's Mia is an aspiring actress who still hasn't found her big break after six years and countless auditions.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA LA LAND")
EMMA STONE: (As Mia) Because maybe I'm not good enough.
RYAN GOSLING: (As Sebastian) Yes, you are.
STONE: (As Mia) No. No, maybe I'm not.
GOSLING: (As Sebastian) Yes, you are.
STONE: (As Mia) Maybe I'm not.
GOSLING: (As Sebastian) You are.
STONE: (As Mia) Maybe I'm not.
GOSLING: (As Sebastian) You are.
STONE: (As Mia) Maybe I'm one of those people that has always wanted to do it but it's like a pipe dream for me, you know? And then you - you said it. You change your dreams and then you grow up.
CORNISH: I spoke with Damien Chazelle back in December. I asked him whether he'd ever had that moment himself and thought he should change his dreams and grow up.
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CHAZELLE: It's a line that, you know, floated through my mind a lot when I was, you know, first moving to LA. It's funny how those first, I'd say, five years or so in Los Angeles where, you know, I remember being very excited the first time I got any kind of amount of money at all to do, like, a writing-for-hire rewrite job on, like, a script. You know, just the idea of having any kind of entryway into making movies was very exciting to me.
But it sort of felt the entire time like that's as far as I was going to get. And what I was really doing was spending most of my time writing scripts of movies that I dreamed of one day making. You know, I wanted in this movie hopefully to say something about that state of mind, you know, of being in a city like LA, the sort of dream factory city, living in your head a lot, living in your dreams a lot and having to reconcile those dreams with the sometimes not-so-pleasant realities of, you know, the life you're actually living.
CORNISH: It's interesting to hear you say that 'cause there's a key moment in the film where the couple has an argument. And she essentially asked her boyfriend, do you like the music you're playing? Are you really, you know, are you doing what you really wanted to do? And it sounds like you had that moment.
CHAZELLE: Oh, yeah. And I've wanted to make movies since I can remember. I've never wanted to do anything else. So my whole life has kind of been defined, for me, by this desire and this dream. And so, you know, as a kid, I had kind of ideas of what sort of movies I would make. And, you know, as a kid, kind of anything seems possible, you know, since it's all kind of far off.
So you just sort of enjoy the dream. And then it becomes somewhat a little more difficult to handle when you have to start compromising, when you have to start doing things that adults do, when you have to start paying the bills, when you have to start dealing with people's responses to your art. When you're an adult, it's hard to kind of sustain that.
Yeah, that was something I think especially with Ryan's character in the movie that was personal to me, for sure.
CORNISH: Before he moved to Los Angeles, Damien Chazelle played in competitive Jazz bands in high school. As a screenwriter, he never let go of his love of Jazz.
(SOUNDBITE OF JUSTIN HURWITZ SONG, "HERMAN'S HABIT")
CORNISH: "La La Land" has the verve of a Jazz Age musical, but it also questions any one person trying to be the gatekeeper of the tradition. Jazz is dying, Ryan Gosling's Sebastian declares at one point. And it's up to him to save it. Not so fast, says John Legend. He plays a successful bandleader in the film who asked, how are you going to save Jazz if no one's listening?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA LA LAND")
JOHN LEGEND: (As Keith) Jazz is dying because of people like you. You're playing to 90-year-olds at The Lighthouse. Where are the kids? Where are the young people? You're so obsessed with Kenny Clarke and Thelonious Monk. These guys were revolutionaries. How are you going to be a revolutionary if you're such a traditionalist? You're holding onto the past, but Jazz is about the future.
CORNISH: Damien Chazelle, which person have you been in that conversation?
CHAZELLE: (Laughter) More often than not, I feel like I'm Ryan. You know, I'm Sebastian sitting there somewhat uncomfortably, taking it all in, listening to John. And yet understanding that in a certain very fundamental way, John is right. I sort of jokingly think of that scene as, like, it's like, you know, the two angels on my shoulder (laughter) kind of arguing about what it means to, you know, not just be a Jazz musician.
That's what they're talking about specifically there, but the, you know, just being an artist. At what point does preservation of what you love about, you know, older art forms become encasing something in amber? And at what point does trying to modernize something start to corrupt it?
CORNISH: It's fascinating 'cause this does feel like a Jazz musical. (Laughter) Like, it definitely has that sensibility even though it is so modern LA in its look.
CHAZELLE: I mean, again, the thing with Jazz is that Jazz is and in some ways always will remain a modern music. That's why, you know, there's a moment in the movie where Ryan's character, I think, makes an argument earlier that Jazz is dying, which I don't entirely agree with, actually. I don't think Jazz is dying in any way.
But I think Ryan is talking about a specific kind of Jazz, a specific, again, somewhat in his mind encased in amber type of Jazz that was played in the Jazz clubs or on the big band stages in the '30s, '40s, '50s, maybe into the '60s.
(SOUNDBITE OF JUSTIN HURWITZ SONG, "CITY OF STARS")
CHAZELLE: And that's a sort of preference or viewpoint of a lot of, you know, of a whole sector of people. And then John Legend's character comes from a completely other side of the equation.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "START A FIRE")
LEGEND: (Singing) Oh, I just know I feel so good tonight.
CHAZELLE: I guess I, you know, I hoped with this movie, both with the Jazz within it but also just with the entire approach to the movie, that it would have a little bit of old and new in it. That it would sort of at the end of the day almost make the case for what John's character is saying, not - maybe not literally but just that idea that sometimes it's OK to adapt to modernity a little bit. I think in some way...
CORNISH: (Laughter).
CHAZELLE: ...That's what the characters learn a bit, that it's - you have to preserve what you believe in. You can't compromise too much. But sometimes it's not compromise. Sometimes it's actually, you know, finding a way to push something forward, whether it's a musical or a - or an idea of Jazz you might have.
CORNISH: Well, Damien Chazelle, thank you so much for talking with us about this film. It was really fun.
CHAZELLE: Thank you.
CORNISH: Damien Chazelle, I spoke with him about "La La Land" back in December. And at last night's Golden Globes, the movie won seven awards, including Best Director and Best Screenplay.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A far-right politician is leading the polls in the Netherlands, which holds a general election in March. Geert Wilders promises to ban Muslim immigrants. A new Dutch political party founded by immigrants plans to fight his agenda. Lauren Frayer reports from Amsterdam.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Sylvana Simons got her start at the Dutch version of MTV. She went on to anchor the evening news and did "Dancing With The Stars."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DANCING WITH THE STARS")
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: (Speaking Dutch).
FRAYER: Simons is black. And she's spoken out against the Dutch Christmas tradition of Black Pete, in which Santa's helper's often played by a white person in blackface. That prompted someone to make a spoof music video about her.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OH, SYLVANA")
ROB VAN DAAL: (Singing) Oh, Sylvana. Oh, Sylvana.
FRAYER: Oh, Sylvana, why don't you pack your bags and leave this country? - the video says. Then someone Photoshopped pictures of her face onto old photos of lynching victims from the American South. Simons filed a police complaint, quit her media job and went into politics, as she told reporters in a rare interview in early December.
SYLVANA SIMONS: I have made this conscious decision to enter politics because I feel that we are not just fighting racist people one by one. What we need is a change of the system.
FRAYER: At first, Simons joined a new Dutch political party called Denk - or Think. Its candidates include a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf, people of Turkish and Moroccan descent and black people like Simons. All of them say they felt left out of Dutch politics, especially now that the far-right, anti-Muslim leader Geert Wilders is surging in the polls. Sociologist Sandew Hira says that while Wilders seeks votes by stirring up fear of immigrants, Denk seeks votes from the victims whom Holland has failed to truly integrate.
SANDEW HIRA: People of color are not recognized as proper Dutch. And there is where the anger is from people who are seen as second-class citizens, while they were born here. And that is a generation of Denk.
FRAYER: Denk wants to establish a national racism register to track hate speech, build a slavery museum in the Netherlands and ban Black Pete. The party was founded two years ago by two Turkish Dutchmen who had dropped out of the Labor Party.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking in Dutch).
FRAYER: I ran into some Denk voters on the sidelines of a youth soccer game. One of the dads, Bulent Ozturk, points out his son on the blue team.
BULENT OZTURK: If you look, the orange team are only Dutch and the blue team foreign - Turkish and Moroccan kids, mainly.
FRAYER: You're talking about your son, who is the third generation.
OZTURK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
FRAYER: But you still call him a foreigner.
OZTURK: We are foreigners, yeah.
FRAYER: Ozturk still doesn't feel like he belongs in Dutch society nearly 50 years after his parents came to work here in the 1960s.
OZTURK: They came to do jobs that Dutch people wouldn't like to do or that they couldn't find people to do. So they were very welcome. But I don't feel at home here anymore.
FRAYER: So he says he plans to vote for Denk in the election this March. But the party has had some problems. Simons recently split with Denk. The party almost always refuses media interviews and puts out YouTube videos instead. Critics say those are similar tactics to the far right, putting the focus on identity politics and victimhood. Alexander Pechtold is parliamentary leader of the left-wing D66 party.
ALEXANDER PECHTOLD: It's almost the extremist opposite of what Wilders is doing. It's not inclusive. It's not looking for coalitions who want to really solve problems. No.
FRAYER: Denk has also been accused of being a mouthpiece of Turkey because two of its founders are Dutch Turks. But that accusation itself reveals how some Dutch see immigrants as loyal to another country. About a million of Holland's 17 million citizens are immigrants, their children or their grandchildren, a potentially powerful group of voters at the polls this March. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Frayer in Amsterdam.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
A new novel called "Lucky Boy" centers around two women and two different pictures of immigration. In one story, an 18-year-old named Soli enters the U.S. from Mexico without papers. In the other, an Indian-American woman named Kavya tries to have a child with her husband in Silicon Valley. These stories converge around a baby, the lucky boy of the book's title. Our colleague Ari Shapiro spoke with the novelist, Shanthi Sekaran.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: You're a first-generation, Indian-American immigrant.
SHANTHI SEKARAN: Yes.
SHAPIRO: And so there are clear parallels with one of your main characters, Kavya. Why did you decide to dig into this other sort of immigration story, Soli, who comes from Mexico?
SEKARAN: Growing up, my mother was a pediatrician. And the majority of her patients were immigrants. And I knew from sort of hanging around her office and doing her filing and stuff that there were immigrants whose lives were different from mine. You know, I'd see kids come in who I didn't see at school, who I didn't see in my soccer games. So I knew always that there are different immigrant stories out there. And what I wanted to do with this novel was to recognize that disparity and look at the stories behind it and look at the ramifications of the differences.
SHAPIRO: There are so many little details. And I wonder whether they are things that came up in your research or that just came out of your writerly mind. When Soli first arrives in California, she is afraid of the tiniest things bringing out the police. And so there's this moment where you describe her standing at the crosswalk, sort of paralyzed, waiting for the walk signal, certain that if she steps off the curb, the police car will come screaming around the corner, lights and sirens blaring.
SEKARAN: Yeah. I began to gain some inkling of an understanding of what it's like to live without papers and to just have this nagging fear. It's sort of an undercurrent that informs your life. And I learned that from talking to people, from talking, actually, to a psychologist who works with undocumented immigrants and from reading a lot. And then the rest is me, as a fiction writer, trying to imagine and trying to plug this information into my character.
SHAPIRO: Even somebody who is in the country legally, like your other main character, Kavya, has a bit of something lurking over her shoulder. There's a moment in the book where she drives past a farm with the name Harjeet Bhupinder (ph) Orchards. Will you read from this section of the book?
SEKARAN: Sure.
(Reading) Not much surprised Kavya after 20 years in Berkeley. But the name on that sign caught her eye - not that Indians didn't own land. Indians had a hand in most industries, farming included. It's just that they rarely announced it on a sign. Immigrants were supposed to own things quietly. Proclaiming themselves invited the wrong kind of attention, from the evil eye to more immediate retribution. The surest sign of an immigrant business was an American flag on the door. But perhaps this Harjeet Bhupinder felt secure enough not to worry about that. Maybe with this announced identity came the belief - the very American belief - that success and happiness weren't always temptations of fate.
SHAPIRO: So here you have a well-established immigrant whose husband works in Silicon Valley. And she has documentation. And yet, even for her, there's this fear of attracting the evil eye or worse.
SEKARAN: Yeah. I think that the state of immigration is inherently an unstable one. And I think that children of immigrants born in the United States inherit some of that uncertainty even if we live comfortable lives, even if we have a safety net. There's still this idea that something could go wrong. Something could be taken away from us.
SHAPIRO: Ultimately, the book boils down to a conflict between two women with a claim on the same child. And what struck me and everyone I talked to who had read this book was how sympathetic both of those arguments are and how difficult it is to side with one or the other.
SEKARAN: Yeah. When I was first compelled to start exploring this story, it was because I had heard about an undocumented Guatemalan woman whose son was adopted away from her. And I was horrified on behalf of the Guatemalan woman. But I also wanted to know what was going through the minds of these people who had adopted her son away from her. I mean, I assumed that they thought of themselves as good people. So I knew there had to be some complexity in there, something that allowed them to think that taking another woman's son was OK. And it had something to do with love. And it had something to do with a real need to be a parent.
SHAPIRO: Did you ever get in touch with the parents who adopted that Guatemalan boy?
SEKARAN: No Encarnacion Bail, the Guatemalan woman - I actually did speak with her lawyer. That was great. That was a real boon to my research.
SHAPIRO: Did you know, when you started writing this book, how it would end?
SEKARAN: No. In fact, the ending has changed a couple times.
SHAPIRO: Really? Really?
SEKARAN: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: And how do you feel, now that it's set in stone?
SEKARAN: I feel content with it. You know, I don't want to give anything away about the ending. But it's not anti-climactic. And so much of real life is anticlimactic that I really had to access my adventurous side.
SHAPIRO: There really is almost a genre shift at the end.
SEKARAN: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: It kind of becomes a heart pounder.
SEKARAN: I hope so. A lot has been happening with the heart, from what people are saying with this book. It's being wrenched and pounded and - but I think there's also some humor and renewal and not just things done to the heart.
SHAPIRO: Shanthi Sekaran, thank you so much for talking with us about your new book.
SEKARAN: Thank you so much for having me.
CORNISH: That's our co-host Ari Shapiro, speaking with Shanthi Sekaran sacred about her novel "Lucky Boy." It's out now.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Many people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchanges have seen the prices go up. In Pennsylvania, rates went up 30 percent on average for 2017. Now, most people who use the exchanges qualify for government subsidies. But for those who don't, the increases can take a large bite out of their budgets. Ben Allen of member station WITF spoke with one Pennsylvania family that hopes President-elect Donald Trump's promise to repeal Obamacare will save them money.
BEN ALLEN, BYLINE: Abra and Matt Schultz recently built a house in Pottsville. It's a typical middle-class neighborhood in rural Schuylkill County. And Matt works as a carpenter foreman for a construction company. They're right in Trump's wheelhouse, Republicans in a Republican county.
ABRA SCHULTZ: Don't touch my paperwork. Don't even try to touch it.
ALLEN: There's a thick notebook in front of Abra in her kitchen, a file folder with health-insurance options and notes as high as a stack of pancakes.
SCHULTZ: I get so stressed out about it. Like, I literally - I'll not pick one until the very last minute that I have - like, that deadline day...
ALLEN: Abra's husband, Matt, makes good money. But he usually gets laid off in the winter when construction slows down. He and his wife buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchange. But they're in a really tough spot. They make too much money to get a subsidy to help them pay for coverage but not enough to easily afford paying full price. They bought insurance for 2015 on healthcare.gov and paid $530 a month for a plan they liked. It went up some in 2016. But the options for this year...
SCHULTZ: So, basically, we have - let's see - one for $881, one for $938, one for $984 with - like, deductibles are, like - look at it. Like, these are insane.
ALLEN: That's just for her and her husband, who, she points out, are relatively healthy and usually need very little medical care.
SCHULTZ: The one that we would be stuck with would be the silver. This is $881.50, and our deductible would be $7,000.
ALLEN: Add the cost of a separate insurance plan for their two kids, and they're expecting to pay about $14,000 in health-care premiums this year. That added up to a vote for Trump.
SCHULTZ: His plan is to work with the insurance companies to hopefully, you know, get it down where it should be.
ALLEN: What Trump said about Obamacare on campaign stops, like one in King of Prussia, resonated with her.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: Obamacare has to be replaced. And we will do it. And we will do it very, very quickly. It is a catastrophe.
ALLEN: Schultz says, so what if she's in limbo while Republicans try to deliver on their repeal-and-replace plan? Larry Levitt with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation understands her frustration.
LARRY LEVITT: These are people who are playing by the rules and doing the right thing. And they feel like they're getting the shaft.
ALLEN: But, he says, there's a tradeoff.
LEVITT: Before the ACA, to get insurance on your own, you had to fill out a medical questionnaire. And an insurer would only take you if you were reasonably healthy.
ALLEN: And inexpensive plans often didn't offer many benefits. Levitt says any replacement lawmakers consider will have its own upsides and downsides.
LEVITT: If this were easy, it already would've happened.
ALLEN: Abra Schultz says she understands the larger picture. But she's counting on Trump to make it more affordable for her family.
SCHULTZ: He just wants to fix what needs to be fixed, which I think is wonderful news.
ALLEN: Schultz settled on a plan that costs $938 a month. But it's a real strain on her family's budget. So, she says, if lawmakers drop the penalty for people who don't get covered, she might take a risk and drop the insurance. For NPR News, I'm Ben Allen in Harrisburg.
CORNISH: This story is part of a reporting partnership with NPR, WITF and Kaiser Health News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Jamaica's health care system is facing a crisis. Some of the island's most highly trained nurses are leaving to take jobs in North America and Europe. The shortage has become so severe that some Jamaican hospitals have postponed complex surgeries. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports.
JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: James Moss-Solomon, the chairman of the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, says the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom are, in his words, poaching Jamaica's most highly trained nurses. And he says these nurses who are being lured abroad were working on wards where it's very hard to replace them.
JAMES MOSS-SOLOMON: Operating theater, intensive care unit, accident and emergency, where nurses are specialized. And this is what the problem is.
BEAUBIEN: Moss-Solomon says the exodus is crippling hospitals across Jamaica. Last week, his hospital was forced to cancel some elective surgeries because they didn't have the staff to handle the procedures. The starting salary for a nurse in Jamaica is less than $8,000 a year. With some specialized training and working overtime, she - and it is almost entirely women - could possibly make up to $20,000 a year on the island. Foreign staffing agencies are offering more than twice that to come to the U.S. or take a job in London.
The head of the Nurses Association of Jamaica, Janet Coore-Farr, says last year, about 200 specialist nurses left the country. Jamaica has roughly 4,500 registered nurses, and about a thousand of them are specialized. Coore-Farr says this hemorrhaging of nursing staff has continued into 2017.
JANET COORE-FARR: We have in one hospital, which is a 500-bed unit, 10 nurses left. And more are leaving. And these nurses are trained in accident and emergency.
BEAUBIEN: Coore-Farr says as more and more nurses leave, the workload gets even heavier for those who stay behind. She says many nurses in Jamaica are now regularly expected to work double shifts, which might make some of them think about taking a job in Phoenix or Toronto.
COORE-FARR: There's no retention strategy for the nurses who are here. And we feel, quite frankly, that nobody cares. So what? If they go, no big thing. But it is - it's a serious problem.
BEAUBIEN: The minister of health, however, says he does recognize what a huge problem the island is facing with the loss of nurses. In the short term, Jamaica is bringing in 25 nurses next month from Cuba to help staff some of their wards. And they have plans to try to recruit nurses from India and the Philippines in what's become a crazy global race to snap up health care professionals. Jason Beaubien, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Ahead of the president's farewell speech tonight, we decided to look in the stacks of CDs where we keep our archives to find some of the earliest times we heard the name Barack Obama on NPR.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
As you'll hear, we found tape of Obama when he was in his late 20s and early 30s, like in this interview on Morning Edition in 1990. Back then, Obama was at Harvard Law School.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
BOB EDWARDS, BYLINE: The Harvard Law Review has a new president who may initiate significant changes in the publication. Barack Obama is the organization's first black president, and he has some definite ideas he wants to try.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Law reviews are notoriously bad bedtime reading, so making the writing more accessible, making it more interesting is a primary goal.
MCEVERS: At the time, Obama was 29 years old. He had worked for a few years as a community organizer in Chicago before going to Harvard.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
EDWARDS: Presidents of Harvard Law Review generally go on to serve as a clerk to a judge on a federal appeals court, then to a justice of the Supreme Court.
OBAMA: Right.
EDWARDS: That in your plans?
OBAMA: Well, you know, probably not, actually. I'm very interested in helping to rebuild inner city communities in the country. I'm very interested in figuring out ways to foster dialogue between the private sector and the public sector, between blacks and whites. Because of all those things, I think I'm more interested to go either back into community organizing or to go into government service or politics at some stage.
CORNISH: By the summer of 1992, Obama had gotten involved in politics.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JOHN HOCKENBERRY, BYLINE: On the line with me from Chicago is Barack Obama, who's the state director of Illinois Project Vote. Mr. Obama, good afternoon.
OBAMA: Good afternoon. How are you?
MCEVERS: That's from NPR's Talk of the Nation ahead of the 1992 presidential election. Obama was 30 years old and working on voter registration.
CORNISH: Even in the '90s, Obama was talking about getting people involved in politics and said voting alone wasn't enough.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
OBAMA: At some point, you're going to have to have leadership. You're going to have to have organizations. You're going to have to have political leaders giving people some sense that the debates about the issues are real, that they touch their lives, that they have some means of accessing the debate so that by the time an election comes about and voting comes about, people are already plugged in. They already feel invested.
MCEVERS: Another theme in these old recordings? Obama talking about race, like in this commentary for ALL THINGS CONSIDERED in 1994.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
OBAMA: It's time for all of us - and now I'm talking about the larger American community - to acknowledge that we've never even come close to providing equal opportunity to the majority of black children.
CORNISH: Obama was criticizing the book "The Bell Curve," co-authored by Charles Murray. That book was controversial for the way it linked race, genetics and IQ. And Obama called it dubious science.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
OBAMA: Mr. Murray has apparently decided that white America is ready for a return to good old-fashioned racism so long as it's artfully packaged and can admit for exceptions like Colin Powell. It's easy to see the basis for Mr. Murray's calculations. After watching their incomes stagnate or decline over the past decade, the majority of Americans are in an ugly mood and deeply resent any advantages, real or perceived, that minorities may enjoy.
MCEVERS: Obama argued the country needed to invest in public schools and good paying jobs, and provide what he called real opportunity for black children.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
OBAMA: That we fail to make this investment is just plain stupid. It's not the result of an intellectual deficit. It's the result of a moral deficit.
NOAH ADAMS, BYLINE: Barack Obama. He's a civil rights lawyer and writer. He lives in Chicago.
CORNISH: That was from ALL THINGS CONSIDERED on October 28, 1994.
MCEVERS: After that, we heard from Obama more and more as he became a national figure. Exactly 14 years after that commentary aired, he was campaigning in Pennsylvania.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: If we are - if we see this kind of dedication on Election Day, there is no way that we're not going to bring change to America.
MCEVERS: He was one week away from being elected America's first black president.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE FISHERMAN THREE AND BEN FRIES SONG, "THE REIGN OF NIGHT IS FINALLY OVER")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
As Barack Obama prepares to say farewell as president tonight, one of the most fragile pieces of his legacy is the Affordable Care Act. Fierce opposition to the health law built up steadily over the last eight years. As NPR's Don Gonyea reports, it was stoked very early in the Obama presidency by something that was at first dismissed by the White House as an early form of fake news.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Remember the death panels? In 2009, when the health care law was still being written, it was Sarah Palin who coined that phrase. In a Facebook post, she imagined her elderly parents or her child with Down syndrome standing, quote, "in front of Obama's death panel and being denied care." Conservative op ed pages were on board, talk radio, too. Here's Rush Limbaugh.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Sarah Palin has rocked them with that one because she's dead right.
GONYEA: That same summer, Tea Party activists crowded into town hall meetings and shouted down Democratic lawmakers considering supporting the Affordable Care Act.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I have a question.
GONYEA: All the while, Republicans echoed Palin's dire warnings at their own events. Here's Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK GRASSLEY: We should not have - we should not have a - we should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma. Thank you all very much for coming.
GONYEA: As the summer wore on, the president stayed above the fray until the White House realized it was losing control of the story. Anita Dunn was the White House communications director at the time.
ANITA DUNN: At the beginning of the summer of 2009, the White House did not take the attacks as seriously as perhaps we should have simply because they did seem so crazy.
GONYEA: But the president would eventually have to respond. He went on the road. First, a mid-August town hall in Portsmouth, N.H.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Because the way politics works sometimes is that people who want to keep things the way they are will try to scare the heck out of folks. And they'll create boogeymen out there that just aren't real.
GONYEA: And this in Grand Junction, Colo.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: So the notion that somehow I ran for public office or members of Congress are in this so that they can go around pulling the plug on grandma - I mean, when you start making arguments like that, that's simply dishonest.
GONYEA: Obama signed the Affordable Care Act the following spring. Meanwhile, the false claims of death panels would be named the lie of the year by the fact-checking organization PolitiFact. But Anita Dunn says that early disinformation campaign still had a lasting negative effect.
DUNN: One of the hallmarks of the Affordable Care Act has always been that people don't actually know what is in the bill or really realize the benefits they've gotten. And a huge part of that is simply because of the way it was defined early by the opposition.
GONYEA: She says the White House learned from the experience. Rapid response became more of a priority. But there's another lesson from those early Obamacare battles that Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress says the administration and Democrats have been slow to learn - how to talk to non-college white voters, who were once such a key piece of the Democratic base and who are often driven by this core belief.
RUY TEIXEIRA: That the government's up to no good.
GONYEA: The idea of death panels fit right into that narrative, but you can apply it to other issues as well.
TEIXEIRA: You've got to convince them you take their concerns seriously. You're on their side and the other people are not, and here's exactly why.
GONYEA: That was a major weakness for Democrats in the 2016 election. Non-college white voters rallied around Trump and the message that he - and not the Democrats - is on their side. All along, Democrats considered that claim kind of a fake news story of its own. But they still need to figure out how to counter it. Don Gonyea, NPR News, Washington.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Last month, we brought you the story of what seemed to be a hot artist dominating the charts.
(SOUNDBITE OF PERFORMANCE OF MOZART'S "EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK")
CORNISH: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In 2016, the Universal Music Group released a 200-CD box set of the composer's works. Multiply that by the 6,000-odd sets sold as of early December, and you had 1 and a quarter million CDs. And that, we said, put Mozart atop the Billboard chart.
Well, David Bakula says that's not right, and he should know. He's the senior vice president of Nielsen music. They collect the data that Billboard uses to make its best-seller list. And he joins us now. Welcome to the program, David.
DAVID BAKULA: Thanks so much, Audie.
CORNISH: OK, so we and many other people were super wrong about this (laughter).
BAKULA: Yeah.
CORNISH: What was the real best-selling album of 2016?
BAKULA: Well, there - yeah, there was a little bit of confusion there I think. And certainly we don't multiply the number of disks by the sale. So when you do look at the total consumption for the year in terms of albums, you had Drake's "Views" record being the top record of the year.
In terms of sales, it was bested by Adele, Adele's "25" record, which actually came out at the end of 2015 but obviously continued to sell very well throughout the year. But when we talk about all of the songs that were purchased individually, all of the streams that happened, Drake was the biggest of the year.
CORNISH: Yeah, help us understand that. Does the word sales mean anything anymore? Like, is that physical CDs? Is that digital sales?
BAKULA: Sure. It means less and less I think every year, and we are finding that audio on demand streaming is becoming a very big piece of the industry. If you look at the revenue that's coming in, obviously the album is still the main driver of revenue on a per-transaction basis.
We had over 250 billion audio streams last year. And even if you do multiply that by a very small per-play rate, you still get a massive amount of money to the point where audio on demand streaming is actually making up 38 percent of the total consumption now.
CORNISH: Yeah, but in the meantime, you have traditional album sales down 16 percent - right? - like digital singles...
BAKULA: Yep.
CORNISH: ...Sales down 25 percent. So we're just...
BAKULA: Right.
CORNISH: ...Not buying music anymore...
BAKULA: Well...
CORNISH: ...Buying it to hold on to, anyway.
BAKULA: Certainly digital is going through this transformation much more quickly than physical is. The technologically advanced consumer is realizing the value that is in streaming and is shifting over from sales to just access much more quickly than it is in physical.
Physical has some things holding it up. I mean obviously you do have a consumer that maybe hasn't switched over to digital yet, but you also have a consumer that is in love with vinyl. You know, that consumer is getting to be a significant piece of the physical business. This year, it was about 11 percent of the total physical business.
CORNISH: So your DJs, superfans...
BAKULA: Yes.
CORNISH: ...Completists - they will still...
BAKULA: Audiophiles.
CORNISH: ...Go get the vinyl.
BAKULA: Yeah, they love the vinyl.
CORNISH: So we're not looking at an industry that is in freefall basically.
BAKULA: No, certainly not. I think people that look at the traditional metrics of album sales are really only looking at a small fraction of the total industry. But if you bring streaming into that, you bring all the consumption in, you see an industry that's very healthy.
CORNISH: You mentioned Adele, also Drake. The rapper had a good year - right? - with his album "Views."
BAKULA: Fantastic year, yeah.
CORNISH: And then I remember Chance the Rapper did pretty well, too, almost exclusively on streaming.
BAKULA: Yeah, it was exclusively on streaming. And that's I think one of the really interesting things. And the Grammys - you know, the Grammy board is recognizing Chance for what he has done this year as well. You've got - streaming is the only component to the charts that Chance the Rapper had this year, and he stayed on the top 200 chart for 33 straight weeks and counting. He's still on the charts.
And yeah, to get over 500,000 equivalent albums just out of streaming, you've - he's had so much streaming this year that it's the same equivalency as selling over 500,000 albums.
CORNISH: So at the end of the day, where does that leave our friend Mozart?
BAKULA: (Laughter) I'm afraid Mozart didn't quite make it this year. He's not going to be anywhere near the top of the charts again because we don't count it by disc. He's going to show up with about 250 sales this year.
CORNISH: All right.
BAKULA: (Laughter).
CORNISH: I think he's done all right. I think legacy's fine.
BAKULA: Mozart's estate is doing just fine, sure.
CORNISH: David Bakula is senior vice president of Nielsen music. Thank you so much for speaking with us.
BAKULA: Thanks so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE ENGLISH CONCERT PERFORMANCE OF MOZART'S "EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In a first, a village near Alaska's western coast is asking the U.S. government to declare a disaster based on the slow-moving impacts of climate change. The village is Newtok. It sits on thawing permafrost. As Rachel Waldholz of Alaska Public Media reports, Newtok residents say their community will disappear within three years.
RACHEL WALDHOLZ, BYLINE: Approaching Newtok by boat, one thing is clear. The river is eating this village alive. Whole chunks of the riverbank are crumbling away. And several homes sit uncomfortably close to the edge. This audio was recorded last summer. Since then, the village has lost more land. Romy Cadiente is the village-relocation coordinator. On a recent trip to Anchorage to meet with state officials, he told me it's time to go.
ROMY CADIENTE: We just need to get out of there, Rachel. We really do for the safety of the 450 people there.
WALDHOLZ: Engineers estimate Newtok is losing 70 feet of land per year. As river water seeps in, and the land sinks, this Alaska-native village expects to lose its drinking-water source this year and the school and airport by 2020. The community is ready to move. The major problem, Cadiente says, is money.
CADIENTE: Price tag on this village move is astronomical. And what we have right now is nowhere near.
WALDHOLZ: Relocating could cost more than $100 million. And after years of searching for funding, Cadiente says, Newtok has run out of options. So it's trying something new. The village wants a disaster declaration, which would unlock federal money. It's a novel approach. Disasters are usually declared after a specific catastrophic event. But Newtok is applying for damage that's mounted over the last 10 years.
ROB VERCHICK: Well, my first reaction is it's exciting.
WALDHOLZ: Rob Verchick teaches disaster law at Loyola University in New Orleans. He says this is likely a long shot. But...
VERCHICK: I think this needs to be done. And I think that it is going to lead to a very important conversation that we need to be having.
WALDHOLZ: Verchick says FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has pushed communities to plan for climate change. But the federal government itself doesn't have policies to deal with issues like relocation. Communities have to get creative. Mike Walleri, Newtok's attorney, argues nothing in the law prevents the president from declaring a disaster for a multi-year event.
MIKE WALLERI: You know, disasters are not planned (laughter). You know, they don't come in one size fits all.
WALDHOLZ: If there's no money to relocate the whole village together, residents could scatter, even moving to Anchorage 500 miles away. Village council Vice President George Carl has lived in Newtok for pretty much his whole life. He says it's not just houses at stake. It's community, culture, the Yupik language.
GEORGE CARL: Being born an Eskimo from that village - you know, that's my life, you know? And place me to another village or city - it's not for me, you know?
WALDHOLZ: The ultimate decision on whether to declare a disaster lies with the president. Newtok's leaders hope to get an answer before Obama leaves office next week. For NPR News, I'm Rachel Waldholz in Anchorage.
CORNISH: That story comes to us from Alaska's Energy Desk, a public media collaboration focused on energy and the environment.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The four top U.S. intelligence officials were on Capitol Hill today to talk about the role Russia played in the presidential election. They fielded senators' questions about their conclusion that Russia hacked into sensitive networks to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.
NPR's Tom Gjelten followed today's hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee and joins us now. Hi there, Tom.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So the Intelligence Committee released its report on the hacking on Friday. What new information about Russia's actions came out at this hearing?
GJELTEN: What caught my attention was an intriguing line of questions from some Democrats about whether there is now an investigation of the Trump campaign's own contacts, if there are any or were any, with Russian intelligence. And what's interesting about that is that those members have already seen the classified intelligence here. They may know the answer to that question, but they can't talk about it in the open.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said the American people deserve to know whether there is an investigation of that connection, that possible connection. He asked FBI Director James Comey about that. And then Independent Senator Angus King of Maine followed up.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANGUS KING: Mr. Comey, did you answer Senator Wyden's question that there is an investigation underway as to connections between either of the political campaigns and the Russians?
JAMES COMEY: I didn't say one way or another.
KING: You didn't say that there...
COMEY: That was my intention, at least.
KING: You didn't say one way or another whether even there's an investigation underway.
COMEY: Correct. I don't - especially in a public forum, we never confirm or deny a pending investigation.
KING: The irony of...
COMEY: I'm not saying...
KING: The irony of your making that statement here I cannot avoid. But I'll move on.
COMEY: Well, we sometimes...
MCEVERS: That's a clear reference to Comey's letter to Congress saying the Bureau had reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, right?
GJELTEN: That's right, Kelly. In fact, Comey came back and said they do talk about closed investigations but not pending investigations. But Angus King had clearly scored a point there. But the bottom line here is there may in fact be an investigation of the Trump campaign's contacts with Russian intelligence. But it's all in the classified domain, at least for now.
MCEVERS: What did intelligence officials say about Russian preference for Trump over Clinton?
GJELTEN: They said this conclusion was largely based on the amount of material that the Russians had leaked about the Democrats, the Democratic National Committee. The Republicans came back and said, well, maybe the Republicans just had better cyber security, which the intelligence officials didn't really get into.
They said they couldn't say whether the Russians had prioritized targeting the Democrats, but they did double down on this idea that the Russians preferred Trump over Clinton. Asked why, the director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said they've seen that Russians prefer dealing with Western leaders who've had business dealings in Russia.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAMES CLAPPER: The Russians just believed or came to the conclusion that because the president-elect is a businessman, that he would be easier to make deals with and - than the Democrats.
GJELTEN: And Clapper also emphasized how much more aggressive this effort was than previous ones.
MCEVERS: President-elect Trump at one point questioned the intelligence behind these conclusions. Quickly, did any of the Republicans show that type of skepticism today?
GJELTEN: No, they didn't. Marco Rubio came back and said, well, it looks to me like the Russians were actually successful in sowing confusion about this and questioning the legitimacy of this process, the legitimacy of the election. If that was their intent, Marco Rubio said, they seem to have succeeded.
MCEVERS: NPR's Tom Gjelten, thank you very much.
GJELTEN: You bet.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri is on the intelligence panel. He was at today's hearing. He joins me now. Welcome to the program.
ROY BLUNT: Hey, Audie. Nice to be with you.
CORNISH: Now, as we heard earlier, intelligence officials said that there were attempts to hack Republican organizations, but as many pointed out, Republicans have pointed out, Democrats' security became a problem. So does the fact that Democrats had, as you've described, weak security negate the concern of Russian interference? I mean should it be taken less seriously to your mind because Democrats bore the worst of it?
BLUNT: Well, I think it's pretty hard, actually, to come up with motivations or even in an unclassified setting to explain what we think the Russian motivations are. I think interestingly also, Director Clapper mentioned that there were probably two dozen other previous elections that we think around the world the Russians have interfered in.
So I don't know why we weren't doing a better job of alerting people to the possibility here of interference. I think interference is totally unacceptable. But at the same time pretty predictable. We should do everything we can to not tolerate that kind of interference in the election system or the federal personnel system or the daily financial structure system of the country.
And this is another time that calls attention to how short our efforts appear to be in really protecting all of these critical infrastructure systems in ways that people would hope they would be protected but...
CORNISH: As we heard...
BLUNT: ...Draws attention to it, and maybe that gets us back to where we're going to talk about data breach standards and other things that I've been trying to get done for years in the Congress now.
CORNISH: And to that point, we heard in today's hearings Senator Marco Rubio and others talking about the danger of more hacks. Would you support additional action by Congress like a cyber bill strengthening defenses in the U.S.? I know one example is, for instance, having Secret Service cyber protection for campaign operations, not just for candidates.
BLUNT: Well, I think cyber security generally is a problem and a problem that could on any given day go well beyond politics. You know, our critical infrastructure isn't as secure as it should be. We daily lose money through the financial system to hackers around the world.
We believe, you know, and have for a long time publicly believed that China got into the federal - the data system with thousands of information about thousands of federal employees, even got into the highest level of background checking. And that's a very...
CORNISH: Right.
BLUNT: ...In-depth structure where unlike the voter registration system that there appears to be some effort to have tried to tap into, there's really not much there that's not publicly available and...
CORNISH: So more congressional action to you makes sense, or...
BLUNT: It does. It does and has for a long time. And Senator Carper and I have had a data breach standard that we'd like to set for protecting financial information. We continue to run up against obstacles in getting that bipartisan piece of legislation done.
CORNISH: Now...
BLUNT: So maybe the one thing the Russians have accomplished here is once again growing a broader sense of concern about why we don't protect these systems better. But you know, remember the - largely the leaked information after, say, mid-August was the John Podesta personal email structure where I think his password for access to his information was password1.
CORNISH: Right. That's been discredited because Google doesn't allow the word password to be used as a password. But in the meantime...
BLUNT: Well, it had two different letters used differently in it.
CORNISH: Right.
BLUNT: And I think...
CORNISH: Senator, unfortunately...
BLUNT: ...It may have been discredited, widely reported that was his - what his password was.
CORNISH: Right. We are at the end of our time, and I am sorry to cut you off. That's Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri. Thank you for speaking with us.
BLUNT: Hey, Audie, great to talk to you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
President Obama says farewell tonight. He's preparing to deliver his last primetime speech to the American people before leaving the White House in 10 days, and he's doing it in the same place where he celebrated his election in 2008, his adopted hometown of Chicago.
NPR's Scott Horsley is there. He joins us now on the line. And Scott, tell us a little bit more about where this speech is going to take place tonight.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Audie, the president is addressing the country from McCormick Place. That's the giant convention center here in Chicago, and it's the same place he celebrated his successful re-election to the White House four years ago.
Now, I remember the night before that 2012 election when Obama held the last of his own campaign rallies in Des Moines, Iowa. And they made a poster for that rally that said, finish where we started, which was a nod to the Iowa caucuses four years earlier that had launched Obama's unlikely run of the presidency.
There's sort of a similar geographic nostalgia at work here tonight. That's why Obama wanted to give this speech in Chicago rather than Washington, as most outgoing presidents do. This is where he cut his teeth all those years ago as a community organizer.
And he said over the weekend, the thread running throughout his career is the notion that when ordinary people get involved, get engaged, they can change things for the better. I think you're going to hear echoes of that message tonight.
CORNISH: And are you sensing any excitement? What's the atmosphere in the city?
HORSLEY: I think there's a lot of excitement, Audie. Thousands of people here in Chicago lined up to get tickets to this speech, and a lot of people are coming in from out of town as well. I flew in this morning from D.C., and there were a lot of people on the airplane wearing their vintage Obama T-shirts. And when we landed, a lot of passengers broke into a fired-up, ready-to-go cheer.
One passenger on the plane who was not wearing a T-shirt was White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, who's been at Obama's side from the get go. I asked McDonough why he wasn't flying on Air Force One, and he said he needed five seats because he was bringing his whole family along. So there is something of the air of a family reunion here.
But for a lot of Obama admirers, this moment is also bittersweet because, as you say, this is the president's farewell address. He is leaving the White House in a week and a half, and he's going to be replaced by someone with a very different vision and a very different agenda for the United States.
CORNISH: Right. All last year, you had the president warning about Trump's election, that it could jeopardize much of what Obama had accomplished as president. Now, since Trump has won, I think the president has been speaking in less dire tones, but do you expect him to essentially defend or talk a lot about his legacy tonight?
HORSLEY: Well, this is a president who is undoubtedly proud of what has been achieved over the last eight years, as he always says, by the hard work of the American people - rebounding from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, adding millions of jobs, extending health care coverage to some 20 million people, foreign policy initiatives like the Iran nuclear deal. But now the country has chosen a new administration that could reverse much of that.
You know, on the morning after the election, Obama said America's path doesn't always follow a straight line. It zigs. It zags. So we've had eight years of zigging. We're about to see a pretty big zag. Aides say the president's speech tonight will be forward-looking. I expect he'll take the long view, as he so often does, and to say whatever our political divisions, this is still the United States of America, a country where people can work together to forge a more perfect union. And he'll offer some thoughts about how we might go about that.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks so much.
HORSLEY: You're welcome, Audie.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHILDISH GAMBINO SONG, "REDBONE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Bombs exploded in the Afghan capital of Kabul earlier today. It was the first attack in the city in months. The blasts killed at least 30 people and injured dozens more. NPR's Nishant Dahiya reports.
NISHANT DAHIYA, BYLINE: Two bombs - the first exploded close to a parked minibus, the second when the police arrived to help the victims, according to an Interior Ministry spokesperson. A female lawmaker from Western Herat province was among those injured. The Taliban have claimed responsibility. Today's violence comes after a period of relative calm in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The rest of the country - not so lucky.
BARNETT RUBIN: The Taliban have been active in the south and east. What's perhaps more remarkable is that they have extended their reach into northern Afghanistan.
DAHIYA: That's Barnett Rubin, director of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Program at New York University. He says the Taliban's continuing offensive should come as no surprise to anyone. The U.S. Institute of Peace's Colin Cookman says the winter months have tamped the fighting. But...
COLIN COOKMAN: Earlier that same day, there was actually a bombing in the Helmand capital of Lashkar Gah. So that's still very much ongoing. Although I think not at quite the peak level that we saw earlier in the summer.
DAHIYA: And another bombing in Kandahar wounded the United Arab Emirates' ambassador Afghanistan. Seven others died in that attack. Beyond the war itself, the country faces other problems - endemic corruption, returning refugees that are straining infrastructure and resources. NYU's Rubin reminds that despite progress over the past decade and a half, Afghanistan remains...
RUBIN: One of the poorest countries in the world with one of the weakest states in the world that withdrawal of the military forces and a lot of the foreign civilians has led to tremendous recession and loss of jobs.
DAHIYA: Last year, President Obama decided to keep some 8,500 U.S. troops there. He also expanded the use of airstrikes to help Afghan forces now leading the fight against the Taliban. It remains unclear if President-elect Trump will continue that strategy. Nishant Dahiya, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF LILY AND MADELEINE SONG, "COME TO ME")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Tonight, Barack Obama will give a farewell address and make his final case as president for Obamacare. At the same time, Republicans in Congress want to dismantle the law. But the question is timing. This week, some Republicans have raised concerns about repealing the law without a plan to replace it.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Donald Trump told The New York Times today he wants a vote to repeal the law as soon as next week and said the law will be replaced, quote, "very quickly or simultaneously." Here's what House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Capitol Hill.
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PAUL RYAN: We're going to use every tool at our disposal through legislation, through regulation to bring replace concurrent along with repeal so that we can save people from this mess.
CORNISH: Earlier, I sat down with Sylvia Burwell. She's the outgoing secretary of health and human services. She's been tasked with defending and implementing the Affordable Care Act to the end. And I asked her whether Ryan's choice of the word concurrent was meaningful to her.
SYLVIA BURWELL: It is a meaningful term. If you're going to take something away, you have to know what you're doing going forward. If you go ahead, we need to face the hard questions and the choices that we need to make as a nation. And doing those together will get us to that place.
CORNISH: Is it possible to do it piecemeal? For instance, we have heard lawmakers say, going forward, we want to find a way to hold on to this rule that says that insurers can't use pre-existing conditions against people. Can you do that - hold onto the aspects of it that you like?
BURWELL: You know, the system is a bit like the game of Jenga. There are pieces. And when you remove one piece, you could bring the entire tower down in terms of the way that game is played. And so it's important to understand the relationship between pre-existing conditions and the ability to pay for those. And so once you've determined that you want to really make sure that people with pre-existing conditions have access and can afford health care, there are other things you're going to have to do.
CORNISH: You know, you've had this past election and then, frankly, two past congressional elections that showed people have a poor impression of Obamacare, right? They supported lawmakers who said, we're going there to repeal it. Were you disappointed? Are you disappointed that many people who have gotten coverage through the Affordable Care Act have essentially voted against it?
BURWELL: You know, I think this is where we need to move from the rhetoric to the reality. When one looks at the polling and the information and actually asks individuals, if you use the word Affordable Care Act or Obamacare and ask their opinion, it's very different than if you ask them, do you want to go back to places where you don't have out-of-pocket limits, where pre-existing conditions can keep you out? Until up to 26, your kid can be on your policy. When you actually ask about the substance of what the Affordable Care Act has provided - and that's to people who are already insured, as well as those people who have gained insurance - you get a very, very different response.
CORNISH: So after these years, what do you consider a failure of the program? I mean, it feels like two completely different worlds, one where you have Democrats who say this is great. It doesn't seem to have that many problems, or the problems weren't as bad as they were before - and then Republicans who say there are serious problems here that need to be addressed going forward. And, meanwhile, you have insurers that, you know, in some markets, are fleeing left and right and complaining about uncertainty. It doesn't feel as stable and good, I think, as the administration describes it.
BURWELL: So I think, though, you need to - one needs to focus on, what are the big-picture issues? We have the lowest uninsured rate in the nation's history. Twenty million more Americans have insurance that did not have insurance before the Affordable Care Act. For many people, they consider it just a basic part of their health care that they can't be locked out of because of pre-existing conditions.
There are many fundamental things that have improved as part of the Affordable Care Act. There are places where we need to improve and we want to improve. And we look for partners to improve. That's one of the things - as we look at what's happened. One's ability to legislate improvements to the act hasn't occurred over the past six years. And so, hopefully, now we're at a place where that conversation can occur and will occur.
CORNISH: How would you like to see that conversation go forward?
BURWELL: We have articulated - the president and other Democrats have articulated what they believe are improvements that we need to have to our existing plan. And I think what we need to see is - what is the plan? As the president said earlier this week, if there's a plan that can do better on access, affordability and quality, he will support it. But right now it's been six years, and we have not yet seen a plan.
CORNISH: There are people who are hearing the conversation about repeal, seeing a president who is eager to sign one and maybe are worried about their access to care right now. What do you say to them?
BURWELL: You know, I separate the conversation into two pieces. Right now we're in the middle of open enrollment, the period when people can come in and sign up. They can shop, try and find a plan.
CORNISH: But why would I enroll if I hear every day that it's going...
BURWELL: Because there's a difference.
CORNISH: ...To be repealed?
BURWELL: It creates a difficult place for us to be in. But for '17 - that means coverage for people who are signing up right now for this calendar year - I think everyone - the insurance companies, Republicans on the Hill - we have heard from everyone that coverage will not be interrupted for the year of '17. But what is important is what's going to happen in 2018. And that's the conversation that's occurring right now.
CORNISH: Sylvia Burwell is the secretary of health and human services. Thank you for coming in to speak with ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
BURWELL: Thank you so much for having me.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Senators put questions to President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Justice Department today. They weren't the only ones who made themselves heard on Capitol Hill.
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.
CORNISH: Protesters repeatedly disrupted a hearing for Senator Jeff Sessions, shouting opposition to his record on civil rights and immigration. Sessions has worked in the Senate for the past 20 years. Now he's in line to become U.S. attorney general.
NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson has been following the hearing. Carrie, welcome to the studio.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hey, Audie.
CORNISH: So this same committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, rejected Jeff Sessions for a federal judgeship 30 years ago. And at that hearing, there were a lot of concerns raised about racially insensitive remarks that Sessions had made. So how did the attorney general nominee address that controversy today?
JOHNSON: Well, today Sessions said that experience was very painful. He said his statements back then were misconstrued, and he said he was turned into a caricature.
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JEFF SESSIONS: I deeply understand the history of civil rights in our country and the horrendous impact that relentless and systemic discrimination and the denial of voting rights has had on our African-American brothers and sisters.
JOHNSON: But Audie, today Senator Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, made a case that Jeff Sessions inflated his support for civil rights cases and overstated his accomplishments. Sessions also said he supports laws that requires voters to show IDs, and he didn't really engage with other questions at the hearing about scant evidence of voter fraud which President-elect Donald Trump talks about a lot.
CORNISH: Now, Democrats on the committee also tried to get Sessions to declare independence from this incoming administration, right? How did that go over?
JOHNSON: Senator Sessions says he knows he'll have a very different job if he becomes the attorney general. His job will become one of his - an independent investigator and enforcer of laws. Here's what he said.
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SESSIONS: He or she must be willing to tell the president or other top officials if - no, if he or they overreach. He or she cannot be a mere rubber stamp.
JOHNSON: Now, Democrats tried to get Sessions to agree to appoint special prosecutors if he determines Trump or a member of the Trump family have traded on nonpublic information or Trump somehow runs afoul of conflict of interest laws. But they did not get that commitment from Senator Jeff Sessions today.
CORNISH: Now, I understand there was one big pledge when it came to politics and law enforcement.
JOHNSON: Yeah, it was a pretty dramatic moment pretty early on in the day. The attorney general nominee said he'd step aside from any investigation involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Sessions said he didn't think he was one of the Trump allies who was chanting lock her up on the campaign trail, but he says he heard that kind of talk.
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SESSIONS: I do believe that that could place my objectivity in question. I've given that thought. I believe the proper thing for me to do would be to recuse myself from any questions involving those kind of investigations that involve Secretary Clinton that were raised during the campaign.
JOHNSON: Now, Audie, to be clear, Sessions has committed himself to removing himself or recusing himself from any investigation of Hillary Clinton's email or the Clinton Foundation. He would not pledge to name a special prosecutor to look into any possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign over those recent hacks, though.
CORNISH: We mentioned protesters earlier. I know more than a dozen got removed from the hearing. How unusual is that?
JOHNSON: Well, there are always protesters on Capitol Hill, but the volume and the intensity seemed a little stronger today probably because Sessions is the first Trump nominee to get a hearing. And the Justice Department oversees so many controversial issues.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, that top Democrat on the committee, also raised the point that there are deep concerns and anxieties throughout the country now and some real fear about what the Trump administration might bring. And that's the context in which the Senate is considering Senator Sessions' record to become the top law enforcement officer in the country.
CORNISH: And did Senator Sessions try to alleviate any other concerns?
JOHNSON: Well, he did rule out a return to waterboarding of detainees. He said that he does not support a possible ban on Muslims from entering the country. There's going to be a lot more to come Wednesday when a series of outside witnesses is going to testify.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Carrie Johnson. Carrie, thank you.
JOHNSON: You're welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When Donald Trump becomes president, he'll bring his son-in-law Jared Kushner to the White House as a key adviser. Like Trump, Kushner had - has a multibillion-dollar family business that got its start in real estate. Kushner Companies has properties throughout the country but mostly in New York and New Jersey. Its flagship building is 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
Susanne Craig of The New York Times has written about Kushner's business dealings and the possible conflicts of interest that they raise. I asked her about a deal Kushner made with the Chinese company Anbang to finance that Fifth Avenue building.
SUSANNE CRAIG: It's a building that the Kushners bought just before the height of the real estate market, and there's just a lot of debt piled on it. And it's - since then, they've had to find a number of investors to make the debt payments. They've had to bring a lot of people in.
And about six months ago, right around the time that Donald Trump got the Republican nomination, they began negotiations with this company called Anbang. And it's an interesting company. It's a - it's got a fairly murky shareholder structure in fact that it's opaque. And the chairman of Anbang - his wife has ties to the Chinese government, as do other relatives. And the Kushners have been negotiating for six months to bring them in to be a partner in this building that they own in Midtown.
MCEVERS: And so how does this deal, if it goes through, pose a potential conflict of interest?
CRAIG: Well, it's interesting. It's a company that's coming in. And I guess it probably wouldn't have raised any eyebrows other than Jared Kushner is now going to be a senior adviser to the president. And he's going to be advising him on foreign affairs and on policy and trade issues regarding China. And at the same time, he's got a business partnership with this company. So it raises a very, very huge possibility of a conflict.
MCEVERS: It was interesting. I mean one of the details in your story was that when there was this controversy over Trump calling the president of Taiwan, Chinese problems with that were relayed through Kushner, actually - relayed to Trump through Kushner, not through other channels.
CRAIG: They were. And a lot of calls from foreign governments and ambassadors are being relayed through Jared Kushner. His incredibly influential voice has the president's ear, and as a result, all of these foreign entities that now touch the Kushner companies are of interest.
They've since announced that Jared's going to be divesting of a number of his interests. But interestingly, he won't be selling them to outside parties. They're going to be sold to family members. And in the case of this building in Midtown, 666 Fifth Avenue - it's going to be sold to a trust that his mother will control.
MCEVERS: What do ethics experts think about that? I mean what do they say about the fact that he is divesting but to family members?
CRAIG: Well, I think they make one point at the outset, which - at least they're going through the hoops of bringing them in as an employee and not as sort of an unofficial adviser.
MCEVERS: At the White House.
CRAIG: Yeah, and that does sort of open him up to different levels of scrutiny. But at the same time, I think there's big concerns about the fact that these aren't being divested to third, unrelated parties.
They're going into a trust, and the beneficiaries will be his siblings and his mom. So it's still very much sort of, I would say, an all-in-the-family-type situation where there's still the potential for conflict. And we'll definitely be watching.
MCEVERS: What are some of the other holdings and interests that could be a conflict that you will be watching?
CRAIG: It's interesting to me because real estate, whether it's Donald Trump and his investments or the Kushners - real estate in New York is just, you know, famous for the foreign money that's cursing through it. You've got Chinese investors, Russian investors. Sometimes it's the investors, and then it's the people behind the investor.
So sometimes we have to go several layers back to sort of understand the influences that may be brought to bear. When government's involved, you want to understand the potential for conflict in the people that may have his ear that's not obvious that we can understand, then, the decisions that they're making with taxpayer money.
MCEVERS: Well, Susanne Craig of The New York Times, thank you very much.
CRAIG: Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Fox News is again in the spotlight because of sexual harassment allegations. Newly published reports show its parent company paid a sum in the high six figures in a settlement with a former reporter. The reporter Juliet Huddy, alleged that Fox News star Bill O'Reilly harassed her repeatedly. And she said the network's new co-president asked her out, then retaliated against her when she declined. NPR's David Folkenflik reports.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: The Fox News Channel, Bill O'Reilly and Fox News co-president Jack Abernethy have all denied the claims. The settlement was first reported by the legal blog LawNewz and by The New York Times. It has separately been confirmed by NPR with someone with knowledge of the arrangement. Fox News reporter Juliet Huddy had appeared frequently on Bill O'Reilly's show.
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BILL O'REILLY: Now, Huddy said something very interesting to me as she came on the set just a few minutes ago.
JULIET HUDDY: (Laughter).
O'REILLY: You said I should have let Ron Paul have it.
HUDDY: Just slapped him down.
O'REILLY: Really?
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FOLKENFLIK: On the air, the two seemingly had a strong rapport. This episode was from 2011.
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O'REILLY: You're now in the big chair here. What would you have said to Ron Paul?
HUDDY: Nobody would ever sit in that chair, Bill.
O'REILLY: OK.
HUDDY: It's all yours.
O'REILLY: All right.
FOLKENFLIK: But that year, Huddy alleged that Bill O'Reilly started to make unwanted sexual advances. In the documents reviewed by The New York Times, Huddy alleged she received unwelcomed kisses after a visit to his home, that he greeted her at a hotel room dressed only in boxers and that O'Reilly repeatedly made phone calls that were intense, sexual, unwanted, calls during which she believed he was pleasuring himself, not the first time such accusations had been lodged against Bill O'Reilly.
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LESTER HOLT: Why was it important to go forward, in your mind?
FOLKENFLIK: Lester Holt interviewed former "O'Reilly Factor" producer Andrea Mackris on NBC's "Today" show.
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ANDREA MACKRIS: When this inappropriate conversation had happened the last time, he said it was going to be in person. And I was - I felt extremely threatened for many reasons.
FOLKENFLIK: Mackris reportedly received more than $8 million in 2004 to settle her lawsuit. Huddy was paid in late summer 2015 at the same time former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson was paid $20 million to settle allegations of harassment by then Fox News chief Roger Ailes. Other women came forward. Ailes denied all those accusations.
Huddy alleged that Fox executive Jack Abernethy retaliated against her when she refused to have a relationship with him. 21st Century Fox rejects her allegations and named Abernethy co-president, extending his contract several months ago. Abernethy had been promoted to help replace Roger Ailes, who had known Juliet Huddy since birth. David Folkenflik, NPR News, New York.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A Charleston, S.C., jury unanimously agreed this afternoon to sentence Dylann Roof to death. The same jury found him guilty last month of federal hate crimes for the shooting rampage that killed nine worshippers at a church bible study. South Carolina Public Radio's Alexandra Olgin has been in the courthouse, and she's with us now. Alexandra, what was it like when the death sentence was read aloud?
ALEXANDRA OLGIN, BYLINE: The courtroom was really full. There were a lot of victims' relatives and family and friends. It was so full; some were standing in the back. Some people were crying and embracing. It's been a very emotional and long trial.
Roof immediately asked the judge after the verdict was read to appoint him a new lawyer so he could file motion for a new trial. The judge said he was not inclined to do that because Roof knowingly sidelined his attorneys. But he'd be willing to hear him out.
MCEVERS: I mean Dylann Roof has been acting as his own attorney in this phase of the trial. And he did, I understand, address the jury for a few minutes today to deliver a closing argument. What did he say?
OLGIN: He spoke for just about 5 minutes. He said he felt like at the time he had to do it, and he still feels like that now. He said the prosecution and anyone else who hates him are the ones who have been misled and they don't really understand what hate is. And he reminded jurors that it only took one of them to disagree to give him a life sentence.
Now, that obviously didn't happen. They all agreed unanimously, and it only took them about three hours to come back the death penalty verdict. At the end of his closing arguments, he just turned his head to the judge and basically said, that's all I have.
MCEVERS: And what was the government's argument for the death penalty?
OLGIN: They laid out a series of factors. They said it was premeditated. Dylann Roof planned this attack for months. He scouted out the church. He intended to kill multiple people and incite violence. In his own words, he wrote in his writings that he wanted to start a race war. He targeted these black parishioners because of the color of their skin.
Prosecutors also said that Dylann Roof looked at Adolf Hitler as a saint, or he thought he would be a saint. And in his jailhouse writings, you know, the government said Roof showed no remorse. And finally, prosecutors said jurors should look at the impact on victims' families. They spent a lot of time going through very emotional testimony, hearing from family and friends about how much this has affected their lives.
MCEVERS: After this court proceeding, a family member of one of the victims spoke to the media. What did he have to say?
OLGIN: Melvin Graham's sister Cynthia was killed in the attack. Graham said he supported the death penalty in this case. He said, you know, how can you justify saving one life, referring to Roof, when he took nine in such a brutal fashion with no remorse?
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MELVIN GRAHAM: He just took them away from us because he wanted to. He decided the day, the hour and the moment that my sister was going to die. And now someone's going to do the same for him.
OLGIN: Graham says that every time he hears about a mass shooting, it's really upsetting for him, and he just wants the killings to stop.
MCEVERS: This death sentence today is the end of a very emotional federal trial. What happens next?
OLGIN: The judge on Wednesday will formally sentence Dylann Roof, but he's bound by the jury's recommendation. And Dylann Roof still does have a pending state trial.
MCEVERS: That's South Carolina Public Radio's Alexandra Olgin. Thank you very much.
OLGIN: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Now to Chicago. It's President Obama's adopted hometown and the stage for many big moments in his career.
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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Hello, Chicago.
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CORNISH: He claimed victory there in 2008, again in 2012. And in Chicago tonight, he'll give a farewell address. NPR's Cheryl Corley asked Chicagoans what Barack Obama's presidency meant for them and the city they share.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: Pride - that's a word many Chicagoans use when talking about Barack Obama. You can hear it in their voices. Kim Chisholm stood with thousands of others in the bitter cold this weekend to get a ticket to Obama's speech.
KIM CHISHOLM: I'm so excited. History in the making. I never made it to the White House, but I will see him here in Chicago.
CORLEY: Chicago officials will tell you there are pluses and minuses to having such close ties to the Obama administration. Yesterday, the city won a federal grant, nearly a billion dollars to upgrade a major portion of the city's elevated commuter rail line.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Argyle is next.
CORLEY: Mayor Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's first White House chief of staff, worked to make sure the funding came through before the administration changed hands.
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RAHM EMANUEL: This will, over the next four years, create 6,000 jobs in the city of Chicago.
CORLEY: Illinois senior U.S. Senator Dick Durbin says the city's been able to make significant infrastructure improvements with the help of federal funds, including high-speed rail and O'Hare airport upgrades.
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DICK DURBIN: Time and again, the Obama administration has not forgotten where he came from, has not forgotten the city of Chicago.
CORLEY: In part because the administration included a bevy of Chicagoans as Cabinet members and advisers, like former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, advisers Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.
Tonight's speech and talk about an Obama legacy in Chicago is much more personal for some. Jacky Grimshaw worked in Chicago government under Harold Washington, the city's first black mayor, and was Obama's next-door neighbor for years. She says the country's first black president faced the same sort of opposition that Harold Washington did, and both prevailed.
JACKY GRIMSHAW: And he put through the stimulus package that allowed communities across the country to, you know, deal with infrastructure projects that needed to get done.
CORLEY: Some community organizers take a more nuanced stance. Jitu Brown says while the president conducts himself with grace, he disagrees with many of his administration's education policies.
JITU BROWN: And I think the disappointment is in, you know, a president who started as a community organizer. I would've really hoped there would've been space to really listen to the voices of the people directly impacted.
CORLEY: At Valois Restaurant not far from the president's Chicago home, customers can order a variety of Obama specials on the menu.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Unintelligible) Bacon and sausage omelet.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: How do you like your eggs?
CORLEY: In this city where President-elect Trump only got 12 percent of the vote, admiration for President Obama is strong. Kimberly Barnes Staples was eating breakfast with her husband.
KIMBERLY BARNES STAPLES: For Chicago specifically, he gave us a national profile. He showcased who we are as Chicagoans. He made us proud.
CORLEY: And Devi Austin, a retiree, says she personally benefited from policies President Obama advanced.
DEVI AUSTIN: Because of the laws that he put in place for people who had just bought homes and was underwater, I got forgiven - forgiven, not modified - forgiven $60,000. I will miss President Obama.
CORLEY: While some Chicagoans express disappointment that the president didn't provide more help to deal with gun violence and gangs, others give him a pass, saying that's a problem for the mayor, not the president. So tonight, as President Obama says farewell, Patty McNamara, a museum consultant, says she'll be watching wistfully.
PATTY MCNAMARA: It's kind of bittersweet. You know, it's going to be a tough transition, I'm afraid.
CORLEY: There will be a tangible Obama legacy for Chicagoans, though. His presidential library and foundation will be built on Chicago's South Side. That means that even if the Obamas don't return to live here, the president will remain engaged in the city that gave him his political start. Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump's choice to head the Department of Homeland Security has had a friendly reception from senators today during his confirmation hearing. Retired Marine General John Kelly would be the first non-civilian to head the sprawling department. NPR's Brian Naylor has been watching the hearing and joins us now. And Brian, what more did we learn about Kelly today?
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: Audie, I think we learned that senators really like the guy. He has appeared before them before as head of U.S. Southern Command. He served three tours in Iraq in the Marines. And so there's a certain familiarity with him and a certain respect for his service. It was very positive, only a few really tough questions. I think mostly he said what senators wanted to hear. For instance, this was in his opening statement.
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JOHN KELLY: I've never had a problem speaking truth to power, and I firmly believe that those in power deserve full candor and my honest assessment and recommendations. I also value people that work for me speaking truth to power.
NAYLOR: Senator Claire McCaskill, the top Democrat on the panel, said that was music to her ears, the idea of speaking truth to power, especially to President-elect Trump, who many Democrats are concerned doesn't often hear truth to power spoken to him. Republicans, though, also heard what they wanted. Senator John McCain, who introduced Kelly, called him an excellent choice, superbly qualified.
And then he tossed him a few - I wouldn't say softballs, but let's say slow pitches to Kelly. He asked him if he was opposed to waterboarding, which President-elect Trump has in the past expressed support for. But General Kelly said that it was a line that he felt that the United States shouldn't cross. He then asked Kelly about building a wall along the southwest border, and here's how Kelly responded.
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KELLY: A physical barrier in and of itself - certainly as a military person that understands defense and defenses - a physical barrier in and of itself will not do the job. It has to be really a layered defense. If you were to build a wall from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, you'd still have to back that wall up with patrolling by human beings, by sensors, by observation devices.
NAYLOR: So as you can see, that there's a little bit of a kind of a nuanced position on the idea of whether it's just - a physical barrier is needed. He's saying it's not.
CORNISH: Right. You're bringing up the wall. You mentioned waterboarding. Do we have a sense about where Kelly is in terms of how in-sync he is with the president-elect?
NAYLOR: Well, I think that for the most part he is. But he also stressed that the problems that bring migrants into the U.S. are complex. Here's what he has said about why there are people who have been crossing the border and will continue to cross the border whether there's a wall or not.
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KELLY: I'm confident that most of the people that are coming up here from certainly Central America are coming here for two reasons. One - three, probably. One - the first is it is very unsafe. They're the most - some of the most dangerous countries on the planet. And that's unfortunate. Not a lot - because of that, not only because of that, but a lot of social issues or lack of economic development.
NAYLOR: But also, when he was pressed about immigration policy, he stressed that he has not been involved in the discussion so far with the incoming administration.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Brian Naylor. Thank you.
NAYLOR: Thanks, Audie.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The German auto giant Volkswagen says it is in talks with the U.S. government to settle a criminal investigation over its emissions cheating scheme. Under the agreement, the company says it would pay $4.3 billion in fines and plead guilty to criminal wrongdoing. This is on top of another agreement Volkswagen made last summer. That was one of the largest product settlements in history.
This latest news comes as car makers gather in Detroit for the big auto show. NPR's Sonari Glinton is there, and he joins us now. Hi, Sonari.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly. How're you doing?
MCEVERS: Good (laughter). So Volkswagen is in talks with the government to settle this criminal investigation. What more can you tell us about the agreement?
GLINTON: Well, Volkswagen confirmed today that it negotiated a deal of $4.3 billion. That's a draft settlement. We haven't heard word from the Department of Justice. And that's to resolve its diesel emissions trouble. And in addition, they're also going to plead guilty to criminal misconduct. And it's - and they say that they're going to be facing oversight for about three years from an independent monitor.
MCEVERS: Sonari, you've covered this Volkswagen emissions scandal over the last 16 months now. Can you remind us just what Volkswagen did to cheat regulators?
GLINTON: So what Volkswagen did was installed software that was meant to fake out the emissions tests. So it only - so the cars were only clean while they were, you know, up on blocks, running through the emissions tests.
And then the company lied about it to regulators when they asked them repeatedly about problems with the diesel emissions. And it's become a huge deal. The company is already in a - the company says it's spent $19.2 billion so far if you add on this $4.3 billion mitigating this scandal.
MCEVERS: So what does this settlement now mean for Volkswagen and for the larger car business?
GLINTON: Well, one of the things that we realize is that there have been a lot of scandals recently in the car business - Ford, Toyota, General Motors, Takata (laughter) and on and on. And so what happens is that if General Motors learned from Toyota's problems, then Volkswagen definitely learned from all of those problems.
And that 16 months that we talked about from beginning a scandal to nearly a settlement - you know, it seems like a long time, but that is really quick in the automotive world, and it is definitely quick in the legal world to sort of wrap up the largest product case in history...
MCEVERS: Wow.
GLINTON: ...In 16 months. That's amazing.
MCEVERS: So what are people at the Detroit Auto Show saying about this?
GLINTON: Well, the people at the Detroit Auto Show I mean are really talking about Donald Trump and Mexico. But when we talk about Volkswagen, it's interesting because I remember the heat about this story. It was very hot. And now it's like the - sort of the air has been left out because how many times can Volkswagen admit to it? And they've done it, you know, really quickly. They've gone through this really quickly.
And ironically, out of all of this - right? - is even in the biggest scandal in the company's history, this year, Volkswagen sales worldwide are up. So ironically speaking, in what is - has to be one of the craziest things that happened in the industry, that's going to make Volkswagen - this year is going to make Volkswagen likely to be the largest company - car company by sales in the world. And that's amazing given what's happened to them.
MCEVERS: Wow. That's NPR's Sonari Glinton on Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal and the new settlement. He joined us from the floor of the Detroit Auto Show. Thank you very much.
GLINTON: You're welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In Italy, art and artifacts are everywhere - in museums, in the excavation sites and often unguarded churches - and that invites art thieves. But thanks to an elite police unit, Italy is at the forefront in combating the trafficking of stolen art. Here's NPR's Sylvia Poggioli.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Italian).
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: The fifth grade class of a Roman elementary school is visiting a special museum exhibit - 200 stolen artworks that were recovered by the police unit for protection of Italy's cultural heritage. Lieutenant Sebastiano Antoci tells the kids how their investigations work.
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SEBASTIANO ANTOCI: (Through interpreter) We tail suspects. We use wire taps so we can listen to bad guys' phone calls. We check their bank accounts. And when we're out in the field, we look like everyone else. We don't wear uniforms.
POGGIOLI: In 1969, Italy created the first police unit to combat art crime. It now numbers 280 agents who also safeguard artworks in regions struck by floods or earthquakes. And they combat antiquities trafficking fueled by conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Lieutenant Antoci shows the schoolchildren a magnificent piece originating from the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, which has been under ISIS control. The marble sculpture dating from the first or second century A.D. depicts a man and his two sons.
ANTOCI: (Through interpreter) The terrorists smuggled it out of Syria and put it on the illicit market. We tracked it down to an Italian businessman who bought it a few months ago.
POGGIOLI: So what's needed to become a good art sleuth?
FABRIZIO PARULLI: First of all, you need to be a good investigator.
POGGIOLI: General Fabrizio Parullo is the commander of this unique police force. His agents start as police officers and then get specialized training.
PARULLI: I have in my unit also people that has background as a archeologist, as a historian of art. So people that knows very well about these art worlds.
POGGIOLI: The investigative work is done in a large barracks in Rome's Trastevere neighborhood. Sitting at a computer screen, Lieutenant Francesco Ficarella demonstrates the jewel in the crown of the cultural heritage protection squad, a database known as Leonardo.
FRANCESCO FICARELLA: (Through interpreter) It's a crucial instrument, not only for our national police forces, but also for those abroad. It's the biggest artworks database in the world.
POGGIOLI: Leonardo contains close to 6 million registered artworks. More than a million are listed as stolen, missing, illegally excavated or smuggled. The squad's recovery record is high. In 2014, it managed to recover close to 140,000 works with an estimated value of $500 million. Until the return to the owners, they're stored on the ground floor - racks of paintings, wooden crucifixes, marble busts and bronze statues, all carefully labeled. These recovered pieces serve as evidence in criminal cases that are still open.
Yet there's one item that has eluded the art squad for almost three decades. The six-foot-square canvas of the Nativity by the baroque master Caravaggio was stolen in Sicily in 1969, the same year this special unit was created. Lieutenant Calogero Gliozzo says its whereabouts were known until the early 1980s.
CALOGERO GLIOZZO: (Through interpreter) We know the names of the robbers, and we know the mafia family that was hiding it. But then there was a mafia war, and we lost track of the painting.
POGGIOLI: One Mafia turncoat told police he'd heard the canvas had been destroyed by rats in a farm where was hidden. But here at the police squad, the art detectives are convinced the masterpiece still exists and that one day they will succeed in recovering this number one artwork on their most wanted list. Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When Noel Anaya was just a year old, he and his siblings were placed in the California foster care system. He has spent his life in foster care. He just turned 21, and in California, that's the age when young people exit the system and lose its support. It's made official at a court hearing. Anaya, along with Youth Radio, got rare permission to record the proceedings.
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BEN EBERT: Are you guys ready? Or do you need more time?
NOEL ANAYA: We're ready.
EBERT: You're ready? OK.
ANAYA: We're ready. It's...
EBERT: Come on in.
ANAYA: Let's rock and roll.
MCEVERS: In court, Anaya read a letter he wrote about his experience in the foster care system. Here's his story.
ANAYA: Walking into court for my very last time as a foster youth, I feel like I'm getting a divorce from a system that I've been in a relationship with almost my entire life. It's bittersweet because I'm losing guaranteed money for food and housing as well as access to my social workers and lawyer.
But on the other hand, I'm relieved to finally get away from a system that ultimately failed me on its biggest promise - that one day it would find me a family who would love me.
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SHAWNA SCHWARZ: Good afternoon. Let's go on the record. This is line six, the matter of Noel Anaya.
ANAYA: Noel.
SCHWARZ: Noel Anaya. Thank you.
ANAYA: You guys have been saying it wrong for 21 years.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHWARZ: You know what, everybody pronounces it differently.
ANAYA: Forgiven.
SCHWARZ: So thank you, though. I'm glad to know it's Noel.
ANAYA: Little things, like when my judge, Shawna Schwarz, mispronounces my name, serve as a constant reminder that, hey, I'm just a number. I often come away feeling powerless and anonymous in the foster care system.
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SCHWARZ: Well, I'm reviewing my notes, and it looks like the first time I got involved in your case was back in 2003. You've been in the system a long time.
ANAYA: I don't have any pictures of my five siblings and me together as babies - not a single one, which makes Throwback Thursdays a little challenging. My biological parents weren't ready to be parents. My father was abusive. Eventually, Child Protective Services got involved, and my siblings and I went into the foster care system.
We were separated and shuffled between foster homes, group homes and shelters and, for at least one of my siblings, incarceration. That's why it was really important to me to make a statement in court, going on the record about how the foster care system failed my siblings and me.
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SCHWARZ: I have to say. You have been pretty much one of our more successful young adults. Is there any advice you'd give us?
ANAYA: To whom it may concern, this is the year that I divorce you. Your gray hands can no longer hurt me. Your gray hands can no longer overpower me. Your gray hands can never tell me that you love me because it's too late.
I use gray hands to describe the foster care system because it never felt warm or human. It's institutional, opposite the sort of unconditional love I imagine that parents try to show their kids.
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ANAYA: Your gray hands just taught me how to survive in a world. We never learned how to love ourselves unconditionally. I've been with multiple foster families. I've been with multiple shelters. How does a person like me not end up with a family?
In an ideal world, being a foster kid is supposed to be temporary. When it's stable and appropriate, the preference is to reunite kids with their parents or family members. Adoption is the next best option. I used to dream of it - having a mom, a dad, siblings to play with, a dog. But when I hit 12, I realized that I was getting old, that adoption would probably never happen for me.
In the system, I constantly had new social workers, lawyers and case managers, which left me vulnerable. It wasn't until I got older that I realized one of the main causes for the turnover was because of low wages and overflowing caseloads. My own lawyer says he's currently juggling 130 other clients.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANAYA: At 21, you happily kick us off to the curb and say, good luck. I wish you well. I wish you the best, but you can't come back because we can't take you in. I've seen too many of my people give up on the educational system.
I had hoped to finish college by the time I aged out of foster care, but I'm still in my junior year. I'm committed to getting my bachelor's, despite the odds being terrible.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANAYA: I hope that you hear my words, and I hope that you listen to my signal of distress. I thank you for giving me closure. Thank you.
SCHWARZ: All right, well, thank you very much for being willing to share your feelings and your beliefs with us. So you know, I know you have some - sounds like some mixed feelings about the foster care system, but, Noel, I have no doubt that you are going to be successful in whatever you choose to do. Well, let me say the magic words. I will adopt the findings and the orders on the...
ANAYA: As the judge reads her final orders closing out my case, I promise myself that I'll leave all the rage I feel about the foster care system inside the courtroom, that I won't carry that hate and frustration with me for the rest of my life.
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SCHWARZ: ...That the dependency case will be dismissed. There will be no further reviews. All right, thanks. Let's go off the record.
ANAYA: There's one more thing I need before I leave the courtroom - for the judge to bring the gavel down on this chapter of my life.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANAYA: Is that it? No hammer? Or no...
SCHWARZ: Yeah. You want me to do the gavel?
ANAYA: One time, please.
SCHWARZ: All right, I'll do the gavel. Hold on.
ANAYA: All right.
SCHWARZ: You know, we never do that in real life.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It's not real life, no.
(SOUNDBITE OF GAVEL STRIKE)
ANAYA: I felt goosebumps when the gavel slapped down on my judge's desk, happy because I'm no longer cared for by a system that was never that good at actually caring for me. And I'm anxious, too, about what my life might be like next.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCHWARZ: Take care.
ANAYA: You, too. I'm glad I was able to come.
SCHWARZ: All right, you, too.
ANAYA: For NPR News, I'm Noel Anaya.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY SONG, "OUR LAST DAYS AS CHILDREN")
MCEVERS: That story was produced by Youth Radio.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY SONG, "OUR LAST DAYS AS CHILDREN")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Since being elected president, Donald Trump has weighed in daily on topics from jobs to Obamacare to foreign policy, but usually he's done it using 140 characters or less via Twitter. Today, Trump held his first formal press conference as president-elect, and it was chock full of news. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson was there, even got to ask a question. She joins us now from New York. Hey there, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: So I want to talk first about the reports that Trump and President Obama were briefed by the intelligence community on unverified allegations. They concern Trump and some of his staffers and whether they colluded with the Russian government and that Russia had developed compromising information about him before the election. Trump denied these claims.
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DONALD TRUMP: It's all fake news. It's phony stuff. It didn't happen. And it was gotten by opponents of ours, as you know because you reported it and so did many of the other people. It was a group of opponents that got together, sick people, and they put that crap together.
CORNISH: Even before today, we knew this was the response from the campaign, right, Mara?
LIASSON: So no surprise, right? But he did acknowledge today that he had been briefed about this. He didn't respond to a question asking whether he'd done anything in Russia that might have given Russia the material to blackmail him, but he also did make some news.
For the very first time, he acknowledged that the Russians did hack the DNC. And then when he was asked about the second conclusion of the intelligence community, which is that Russia hacked in order to help Trump, he said this.
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TRUMP: If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks? That's called an asset, not a liability.
LIASSON: So more praise for Vladimir Putin from Donald Trump. He said he respects Putin for calling the reports fake. He also said when he's president, the Russians will respect the U.S. more. He said Putin shouldn't have hacked, but he won't be hacking the U.S. anymore.
He was asked whether he would keep the sanctions in place that President Obama has put to punish the Russians. He wouldn't answer that question directly. I actually asked him about that. He only said he didn't think Obama went too far with the sanctions.
CORNISH: Another long-running issue he addressed - Trump detailed his plan to avoid conflicts of interest when in office. He's turning over his business to his adult sons. Tell us more about what he had to say there.
LIASSON: Well, he won't be divesting. He won't be creating a blind trust. He will be having an ethics adviser to work with his sons on domestic deals. He said there will be no new foreign deals. He said also he has no business deals or loans with Russia at all. When asked why not release his tax returns to prove that, he refused again. He said the only people who care about his tax returns are the press.
CORNISH: Of course there is this movement afoot to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Did Trump weigh in on that?
LIASSON: He certainly did. And this has been a big question for the Republicans on the Hill - how to repeal and replace Obamacare, whether to do it at the same time or not. Today Trump said he wants to repeal and replace the health care law simultaneously.
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TRUMP: But will most likely be on the same day or the same week but probably the same day, could be the same hour.
LIASSON: Could be the same hour - he said as soon as his Health and Human Services secretary is confirmed, they'll file a plan to replace Obamacare. He didn't give any specifics about it or say what elements he wants kept. He just said it would be less expensive and far better - sounds very easy. But Republicans have really been struggling with this.
CORNISH: Now, this is the first time he's done a press conference since about July. How different was this Trump than the one that people used to see in those kind of free-wheeling press conferences during the campaign?
LIASSON: Not different at all. It was a pretty chaotic press conference. It had a circus-like atmosphere. He was attacking the press, attacking his old opponents. He called BuzzFeed, the news organization that printed that unverified account, a failing pile of garbage. He refused to call on a CNN reporter who's also reported on this dossier, calling CNN fake news. He had a cheering section of staff standing there.
So this was the same Trump we saw during the campaign, and it doesn't seem like there will be a much different style for a President Trump. He's someone who keeps score, and he leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
CORNISH: That's NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Thanks so much.
LIASSON: Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Here's something we haven't been able to report in at least five years. The snowpack in California's Sierra Nevada is well above average. Most reservoirs in the state are at or near capacity. That's thanks to a series of powerful winter storms that are helping ease drought concerns. But NPR's Kirk Siegler reports there is reason to still be cautious.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: You can think of California's drought like a budget deficit. When you have historically dry years like 2013 and 2014 when basically no revenue was coming in, it's going to take you a long time to climb your way out of the hole. And these huge storms over the past week or so have kind of been like a big infusion of cash. It's welcome cash, by the way.
DEMETRI POLYZOS: It is certainly chipping away.
SIEGLER: Demetri Polyzos is a water supply engineer with Southern California's Metropolitan Water. It's the largest municipal water supplier in the country.
POLYZOS: We didn't go into this drought overnight. We're certainly not going to get out of it overnight. So - but it's definitely helping put a dent in the drought.
SIEGLER: About a third of California's water supply comes from the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, and today across those mountains, state officials recorded the average water content at 158 percent above normal. Just two years ago, a similar reading found it at 5 percent of normal.
So this is a big deal. Like in much of the West, California's cities and its multibillion-dollar farming industry depend on snow-fed reservoirs to get through the hot summer. The state's climatologist, Michael Anderson, is cautiously optimistic that most of California is moving out of drought. But he says some of these storms brought more rain than they did snow. Plus, it came all at once.
MICHAEL ANDERSON: In the bigger picture, we definitely made ground in some of our deficits. And that's fantastic, but we didn't get it everywhere.
SIEGLER: And when it comes to that budget deficit, there's one more thing we've got to mention, especially here in drier southern California. Drought experts will tell you that when we get big storms like these, the system wasn't designed to store all of it.
And you can see this everywhere, even right behind our studios at NPR West. Here is this old creek bed that I'm standing next to. It's now a concrete storm channel, and it's designed to safely push all this rainwater straight out to the ocean, not to reservoirs or into the aquifer. Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Culver City. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In this story, we say that the water content in California’s snowpack is now 158 percent above normal. In fact, it is 158 percent of normal.]
(SOUNDBITE OF THE JAM SONG, "ONLY STARTED")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In our series Finding America, we're hearing voices from communities across the country. Today we go to Tucson, Ariz., 70 miles from Mexico. That's a region with a complicated history. Lots of people have called it home.
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GABRIEL OTERO: Should have brought my to-go cup. Not thinking.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR ENGINE AND BEEPING)
CORNISH: That's Gabriel Otero. His family has lived in Tucson for five generations. He's both Chicano and a member of the indigenous tribe, the Pascua Yaqui. Otero is taking us to the Catholic Mission San Xavier del Bac. It was founded more than 300 years ago, when this area belonged to Spain. Later it became part of Mexico and finally the U.S. Today it's a place where you can see the blending of Tucson's heritage. Indigenous people, Latinos and people of European ancestry all worship there. And for Gabriel Otero, it's a sacred place.
OTERO: When life gets really hectic, and I haven't made enough time to sit down and pray, I go there to at least spend 30 minutes and be in prayer. And that's all I'm thinking about - is to pray.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Unintelligible).
OTERO: It's adobe painted white, and it has beautiful balconies. And that wood - who knows how old that wood is. You know, I've seen lots of missions, and this one probably has, like, the most traffic and most people come. And it's still alive. A lot of missions - they don't even have services in there, you know. So this one's still going very strong since it's been built, so that's amazing.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Unintelligible).
OTERO: I have a little corner inside the church where I like to sit. All around, you got the stations of the cross molded in - little cactus garden. But - yeah, you can just, like, feel the heat of the room. To me, that just kind of reminds us of, like, all the people's prayers 'cause each candle lit is offering a prayer. And my grandma's was in the hospital, so I've got to pray for her.
This is the first church - Catholic church - here in Tucson, but it is still, like, a very indigenous church, you know. They have, like, fireworks and stuff, and the - some of the Yaquis will play the music and stuff. It works. Like, there's people that accept, and, like, yeah, we're here. We're here together. That's the beauty of Tucson and the Southwest - is just - it's a mix. It always has - always has been.
You know, and the Yaquis have been here. Spaniards have been here. Tohono O'odham have been here. And then you've got your - your cowboys have been here (laughter).
Oh, congratulations.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: My little girl.
OTERO: You just did it right now?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Yeah, this morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Unintelligible).
OTERO: Sure, sure.
The people are leaving mass right now. And when we're coming in, they just got done with the baptismal, which is a very big part of, you know, our faiths, being Catholics. And I see the little kids here - oh, he's wearing a Yaqui cross right there. Oh, how cute. And they - the children come dressed in white, representing purity. More on the native side - they celebrate it differently, too. They have a whole tradition. They'll get the dancers and all that.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Hi, there, bro.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: Good to see you. Good to see you. All right. Have a good one. Are you going to be out there (unintelligible), too? Or are you...
OTERO: We are a community of praying. We're a community of support. I got - I'll get, like, third cousins coming to visit me if I sprained my ankle (laughter), you know, because that's just part of our faith. Someone's ill, we visit them. Someone's hungry, we feed them. That's just our culture. It's native, Hispanic, Mexican, Chicano. Our culture is very colorful, you know, and if you come here, you'll feel that. And you're going to love it.
CORNISH: That's Gabriel Otero in Tucson, Ariz. His story was produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre. It comes to us from Localore: Finding America, a national production of AIR, the Association of Independents in Radio. You can find more stories at NPR and at Finding America.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In his Q&A with reporters, Trump said he would nominate a Supreme Court justice two weeks after taking office and that he would seek to repeal and replace Obamacare shortly after the Senate confirms his choice for secretary of Health and Human Services.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Trump said he would not release his tax documents. He spent much of the rest of his time explaining how he would distance himself from his business empire once he becomes president. He will continue to own the Trump Organization, but he'll turn over its management, hey says, to his two adult sons. The head of the Office of Government Ethics says that plan falls short of what's needed. NPR's Jackie Northam reports.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: President-elect Trump has been under enormous pressure to separate himself from a business he spent decades building. He repeated several times during today's press conference that once he's president, he isn't bound by any conflicts of interest laws but said he would step back from his company anyway and hand the keys over to his children.
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DONALD TRUMP: Don and Eric are going to be running the company. They are going to be running it in a very professional manner. They're not going to discuss it with me. Again, I don't have to do this.
NORTHAM: Trump will resign from all positions overseeing hundreds of business interests, everything from resorts to golf courses. All pending deals will be terminated, and there will be no new foreign deals while Trump is president. He alluded that aspect was already underway.
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TRUMP: Was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai - number of deals, and I turned it down.
NORTHAM: New domestic deals are still allowed, but they will have to be vetted by an ethics adviser, one which will be appointed by Trump. Walter Shaub, the head of the nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics, says the plan announced by Trump today doesn't meet the standards that many of his own Cabinet nominees are meeting or that every president in the past four decades has met. Shaub says Trump needs to divest himself from his business completely.
WALTER SHAUB: Stepping back from running his positions is meaningless from a conflicts of interest perspective. Nothing short of divestiture will resolve these conflicts.
NORTHAM: Sheri Dillon, a Trump lawyer, said selling all of Trump's assets would exacerbate possible conflicts of interest rather than eliminate them.
SHERI DILLON: The Trump brand is key to the value of the Trump Organization's assets. If President-elect Trump sold his brand, he would be entitled to royalties for the use of it.
NORTHAM: Dillon said selling the president-elect's assets without the Trump brand name would greatly diminish the value and create a fire sale. But ethics experts say as long as the Trump family is profiting from the Trump Organization, questions about conflicts of interest will persist. Jackie Northam, NPR News, Washington.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The confirmation hearing for Rex Tillerson was one of many during this busy week on Capitol Hill. The Senate Judiciary Committee also heard more testimony today on the nomination of Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general. Joining us to discuss how Trump's nominees are being received is NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis. Hey, there, Sue.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Audie.
CORNISH: So there was actually an exceptional moment today with this particular hearing because New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker essentially testified against his colleague Jeff Sessions, right? And it's the first time a sitting senator testified against another sitting senator for a cabinet position. What was Booker's case against sessions?
DAVIS: Booker's opposition was largely based on Sessions' past voting record. You know, these two senators have only served together for three years in the Senate. Booker's a first term senator, but he argued he couldn't really support Sessions 'cause he cited his pass votes against things like the Violence Against Women Act and Sessions' votes against voting rights laws. He also said that Sessions just has a much more conservative world view on things like immigration and how to overhaul the criminal justice system, which is a particular issue for Booker. Here's what Booker had to say.
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CORY BOOKER: The next attorney general must bring hope and healing to this country. And this demands a more courageous empathy than Senator Sessions' record demonstrates. It demands an understanding that patriotism is love of country, and love of country demands that we love all of our citizens, even the most marginalized.
DAVIS: You know, Booker was not alone today in his testimony. He was joined by two other lawmakers, including Georgia Democratic Congressman John Lewis, a leader of the civil rights movement. He was also joined by Louisiana Democratic Cedric Richmond, who is the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. They also oppose Sessions' nominations based largely on the same argument that they just don't believe that he will work vigorously to protect civil rights.
CORNISH: But as you mentioned, Sessions has been in the Senate for some time, so he had his defenders on the panel, right?
DAVIS: Absolutely, and this particular panel was all African-American men. Three testified against him, and three testified on his behalf. And the ones that testified on his behalf were people that had actually worked with Sessions in some official legal capacity in his career. Two did legal work with him in Alabama, and a third, a man named William Smith, was a former lawyer on the Judiciary Committee. And their argument was essentially that those testifying against Sessions just don't know him and that those have worked with him feel very, very differently about the man. Here is how Smith put it.
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WILLIAM SMITH: After 20 years of knowing Senator Sessions, I have not seen the slightest evidence of racism because it does not exist. I know a racist when I see one, and I've seen more than one, but Jeff Sessions is not one.
DAVIS: Smith had the final word at the hearing today. It concluded the two-day hearing process for Sessions' nomination. We still don't know when the committee or the Senate is going to vote on his nomination. But the bottom line here, Audie, is there is no reason to believe that Jeff Sessions will not be the next attorney general.
CORNISH: There is so much conversation about how many hearings were happening in a day. And now I know Democrats have managed to delay at least four of the hearings - right? - but what's the strategy here? I mean, how long will the confirmation process take?
DAVIS: You know, Democrats are using all of these hearings to highlight how Trump, in many cases, has nominated cabinet officials who have taken positions in their own lives that contradict things that Trump campaigned on - that he campaigned that he would do as president. Democrats, in particular, are giving scrutiny to his nominees that have vast financial assets because of the conflicts of interest they might have. They've delayed hearings for nominees, including Betsy DeVos for education, Wilbur Ross for commerce and Andy Puzder for labor secretary.
You know, as a result, Trump is looking at a much slower Senate process than past presidents have had. President Obama, on his first day in office, had seven nominees - five by the end of the week. Trump is much less likely to have those same numbers, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said this week that he is prioritizing his national security team. He'd like to have those ready on day one. That includes Jay Mattis (ph) - James Mattis for defense secretary and Mike Pompeo for CIA director.
CORNISH: That's NPR congressional correspondent, Sue Davis. Sue, thank you.
DAVIS: Thanks, Audie.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
At the Supreme Court today - arguments in a case about public school special education that advocates say is the most important in three decades. The justices are weighing whether federal law requires public schools to provide more than the bare minimum in special services for children with disabilities. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: In the 1970s, Congress found that most children with disabilities were treated as nonpersons in the public schools - either totally excluded or left to sit idle in classrooms until they were old enough to drop out. In 1975, Congress passed a federal law, since then strengthened multiple times. It requires school districts to provide an individually designed public education for each disabled child. In exchange, the federal government provides some of the funds for these services.
The question before the court today was what level of services the schools must provide. Must it be the bare minimum, or is it something more? On the steps of the Supreme Court, Stanford law professor Jeffrey Fisher, representing an autistic boy from Colorado and his parents, argued for something significantly more.
JEFFREY FISHER: The school district here is saying so long as we give barely more than a de minimis benefit, just we teach you a little bit of something, that is enough. We think that's a recipe for second-class citizenship.
TOTENBERG: But Francisco Negron of the National School Boards Association said that if the court tightens the standard, it could cost some school districts lots of money. And as he observed...
FRANCISCO NEGRON: Congress promised basically 40 percent funding years ago, and it's only historically been funded at 15 percent.
TOTENBERG: Inside the courtroom, Lawyer Fisher argued that the standard specified by Congress in its most recent amendments requires sufficient services so that each disabled child can keep up with his peers. Chief Justice Roberts balked, noting that in this very case, the student's disability was so severe that he could not keep up, even with the help of an aid.
Lawyer Fisher replied that when the school refused to provide more specialized services, the parents sent the boy to a private school for autistic children. When he made marked progress there, the parents returned to the school district, asking some of the same expertise be provided in the public school. And when the school refused, that's when the parents sued the school district for the annual $70,000 private school tuition.
Justice Kennedy focused in on what could be reasonable for a school district to pay. Lawyer Fisher said most services do not cost all that much, but he conceded that there are some extreme cases, like a child with a ventilator, where the costs are $30,000 or $40,000. Nonetheless, Fisher contended, costs cannot trump what the law requires.
Representing the school board, lawyer Neal Katyal maintained that Congress has not established a specific standard for compliance with the law, rather that it has established procedures for designing individual plans for each child. But, interjected Justice Kagan, when there's a dispute, if the standard that has to be met is so low, so easy to meet, then the question is whether the student is receiving a free appropriate education.
Chief Justice Roberts - you're reading the law as requiring some benefit, and the other side is reading it as saying some benefit, and it makes a difference. After all, Roberts observed, a school district could provide five minutes a day special instruction, and that's some benefit. But, he added, the law says significant, meaningful, whatever. It's more than simply de minimis.
Justice Alito called all this a blizzard of words meaning nothing, but by the end of the argument, there appeared to be a majority of justices willing to put more bite into the guarantee of a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We're going to talk more about that unverified dossier alleging that Trump and his team colluded with the Russian government and that Russia had compromising information about Trump. These of course are allegations that Trump denies.
Like many news organizations, the national security blog Lawfare has had this dossier for weeks but has not published it mainly because the allegations have not been proven. In a post, the blog's editor in chief, Benjamin Wittes, is advising everyone to take a deep breath as reporters work to verify the contents of the dossier.
But he writes, the very fact that information about this dossier reportedly made it into intelligence briefings means top officials are taking it seriously. I asked him to explain that.
BENJAMIN WITTES: Well, so there's a huge amount of garbage that comes through the intelligence community on a daily basis. And part of the intelligence community's job is to filter that garbage and to find in it the things that the president and, in this case, the president-elect needs to know.
And the fact that a two-page digest of this material appeared as an annex to the Russian hacking report that the president and the president-elect were briefed on last week suggests that at least for some reason, the senior intelligence leadership decided that it was important for them to know about this material. And that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true.
MCEVERS: Right.
WITTES: But it does mean that it was deemed significant enough that they couldn't not tell their clients about it.
MCEVERS: I want to step back for a minute and just consider this question. If some of the allegations in this dossier are proven to be true - if - it could mean that Russia has some compromising information on Donald Trump. What are the national security implications of that?
WITTES: Well, I mean the national security implications of a adversary foreign power having serious compromising information that is nonpublic on a president of the United States are vast for the simple reason that the president knows that this information exists and is therefore fearful that the information will emerge. That will influence his maneuverability with respect to dealing with that foreign power.
Now, the consequences of information that may be compromising but that there is widespread public knowledge about may be less vast. You know, imagine, for example, this information were shown to be true through some investigation. And so we all sort of knew that this information was out there and the Russians had it. Then I think the consequences of its disclosure would be a lot less. And that would actually - the publicity around it would itself arguably ameliorate...
MCEVERS: Right.
WITTES: ...That aspect of the problem.
MCEVERS: Is this dossier fake news as Trump says, or is it a potentially serious document? Or do we just not know yet?
WITTES: We just don't know. I think the fact that the intelligence community briefed the president and the president-elect on this material is not fake news. It appears to be true, and the media, by the way, I think deserves a lot of credit for the responsible way in which it handled this material, which is to say, a lot of news organizations had this, devoted significant resources to trying to verify it. And no major media outlet ran with these allegations prior to yesterday when a major news event involving this document took place. That is, it emerged that the president and the president-elect had been briefed by the intelligence community on it.
Now, that said, nobody knows except I suppose people in Russian intelligence and, to some extent, the Trump people, whether the allegations in this are true or made up whole cloth or have elements of truth but are not completely true. And so my view is there's a lot of reasons to think this is a non-trivial event, and there is no substantiation for any of the most serious materials alleged in this document.
MCEVERS: Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Thank you very much.
WITTES: Thanks for having me.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Three of President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet picks were on Capitol Hill today for confirmation hearings. For Rex Tillerson, it's been an all-day affair with Russia as the dominant theme. Tillerson is the newly retired ExxonMobil CEO who's been tapped for secretary of state. Senators are pressing him about his past business dealings with Russia and what he thinks about Russia's meddling in U.S. elections. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: As ExxonMobil's CEO, Tillerson managed to navigate a difficult business environment in Russia, doing deals with companies close to Vladimir Putin. So it was no surprise senators were going to press him on that. The ranking Democrat, Ben Cardin, set the tone.
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BEN CARDIN: Recent news accounts indicate Russia may well have information about Mr. Trump, and they could use that to compromise our presidency. It cannot be business as usual.
KELEMEN: Tillerson tried to reassure the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he's clear-eyed about Russia. He sees the value of U.S. sanctions, some of which got in the way of ExxonMobil's dealings in Moscow when he ran the energy giant. He says if confirmed as secretary of state, he will have a, quote, "frank and open dialogue with Russia."
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REX TILLERSON: We need to move Russia from being an adversary always to a partner at times. And on other issues, we're going to be adversaries.
KELEMEN: Tillerson says he understands that NATO allies are alarmed by Russia's actions in Ukraine, but he argues it was a lack of American leadership that left open the door to a resurgent Russia. That raised the question, what would he have done differently after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula?
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TILLERSON: I would have recommended that the Ukraine take all of its military assets it had available, put them on that eastern border, provide those assets with defensive weapons that are necessary just to defend themselves, announce that the U.S. is going to provide them intelligence and that there will - either NATO or U.S. will provide air surveillance over that border to monitor any movements.
KELEMEN: He says Kremlin leaders would have gotten the message. Florida Republican Marco Rubio tried to get Tillerson to go further and call Vladimir Putin a war criminal for Russia's bombardment of the Syrian city of Aleppo.
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MARCO RUBIO: It should not be hard to say that Vladimir Putin's military has conducted war crimes in Aleppo because it is never acceptable, you would agree, for a military to specifically target civilians, which is what's happened there through the Russian military. And you know, I find it discouraging - your inability to cite that which I think is globally accepted.
KELEMEN: Tillerson says he will deal with the facts, and at the moment, he doesn't have information to make that determination. The plain-talking Texan seemed unflappable sitting silently each time environmental activists were dragged out of the hearing room.
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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Oil is dead, and people will not stop. Senators, be brave. Stop this man.
KELEMEN: Tillerson wasn't making any promises that the U.S. would continue to abide by the Paris climate change agreement. But he says Trump has asked him for his views on that.
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TILLERSON: The increase in the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are having an effect. Our ability to predict that effect is very limited.
KELEMEN: Rex Tillerson spent his entire career at Exxon and is trained as an engineer. He says he will follow the facts where they lead. He had few facts on hand, though, when Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine pressed him on suspected financial ties between the Trump Organization and Russian officials.
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TILLERSON: I have no knowledge.
TIM KAINE: And if I asked you the same question, and I substituted Turkey, China, Pakistan or Japan for Russia in that question, would your answer be the same?
TILLERSON: I have no knowledge.
KAINE: So I gather from your answer that you'll then have no way of knowing how actions proposed by a President Trump regarding those countries or others would affect his personal or family financial interests.
TILLERSON: I have no knowledge.
KELEMEN: And he downplayed Kaine's suggestion that as America's top diplomat, he could have to negotiate with leaders who know more about Trump's financial exposures than he does. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From the very beginning of his press conference this morning, Donald Trump was on the attack. He criticized U.S. intelligence agencies and went after a couple of media organizations. He said those outlets were purveyors of fake news for covering intelligence files containing unverified allegations about his behavior in Russia. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik attended that press conference at Trump Tower in Manhattan. He joins us now from our studios in New York. And, David, what specifically drew the ire of the president-elect?
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Well, the coverage of this dossier, which contains all kinds of allegations about his - salacious allegations, I might say, about his behavior in Russia - in part, allegations about what his associates did in contact with Russian figures. Those were posted in full by BuzzFeed. NPR decided not to post that publicly. Most major news organizations did not decide to do that, but BuzzFeed did, saying, we wanted to share that with our readers. And he said this was outrageous for BuzzFeed to do. It made him very angry.
In addition, he went after CNN. Jim Acosta, their reporter there, attempt to ask questions. He said, no, you're not going to do anything. That's a terrible news organization. And he did that because CNN reported that fact of the dossier and what was contained in the dossier, while not reporting on the unverified allegations contained therein. Trump erased any distinction between reporting about the dossier and posting the full item itself.
CORNISH: BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith basically said that this information is circulating at the highest levels of the U.S. government already. And he thought that it was a good idea to get it out there and let readers decide for themselves. How well has that argument been received?
FOLKENFLIK: I think it's caused incredible divisions among journalists. There is the belief in the digital age, when anyone can post anything, when we've seen what hackers with links to Russians have been able to get posted and what WikiLeaks has posted, that you might as well have a responsible news organization post things and say, as BuzzFeed did, this is what's verified. This is what's not verified. Here's some things that have credibility. Here are things we just don't know about.
And yet you see a lot of journalists saying that's not the right standard. That's setting it too low. I talked, for example, among others, to two former executive editors of The New York Times. Bill Keller says, look, the right to publish is also the right to decide not to. Simply the act of publishing confers credibility on allegations which have not been proven, which have not been vetted. Conversely, Jill Abramson, Bill Keller's successor at The New York Times, said this stuff's going to get out. I think BuzzFeed rightly contextualized it. And I think readers are smart enough, when presented things in the right context, to be able to draw appropriate conclusions and then pursue more information.
CORNISH: What does today's event and Trump's performance tell us about the relationship he'll have with the media going forward?
FOLKENFLIK: I think he's relying on the rule of thumb that he's going to like the media and invite the media in and offer the media a certain degree of transparency and the chance to hold him accountable by virtue of how positive he perceives their coverage to be. And that may be how many politicians would like to do things, but that's not really the standard by which we tend to want to judge our public officials and how they govern.
You saw from the opening moments of this press conference, Sean Spicer, the incoming press secretary for the president-elect, was very clear that this was about the news media's wronging president-elect Trump and that he called what the news reports had been fake news. And they're using that term to denigrate any coverage they don't like. And I think, going forward, you're going to see a very combative White House if today is to be any indication.
CORNISH: That's NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik from New York. David, thank you.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Today, a judge in South Carolina formally sentenced Dylann Roof to death for the Charleston church shootings. In 2015, Roof went into a predominantly black church and murdered nine black worshipers as they prayed with their eyes closed.
The killings happened just a few months after a white police officer in North Charleston was recorded on a cellphone video shooting and killing a black man from behind. Now, those incidents have left an indelible mark on a place with a long history of racial oppression, as South Carolina Public Radio's Alexandra Olgin reports.
ALEXANDRA OLGIN, BYLINE: In federal court today, dozens of family members and friends of the nine victims spent hours talking to Dylann Roof about how his killings have affected them. Many of those speaking repeated their forgiveness, and others expressed anger. The whole time, the defendant stared blankly ahead, not making eye contact and saying little, as he has most of the trial. Outside the courthouse, church bells rang.
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OLGIN: It has been a year and a half since the racially motivated shootings. Roof wrote he chose Charleston because of its history as the capital of slave trade. He picked the Emanuel AME Church because of its connection to the past.
The church was burned to the ground in 1822 after one of its founders was caught planning a slave rebellion. Roof said he hoped the shootings would start a race war. That didn't happen. In fact, the city came together.
LOUIS SMITH: After this original tragedy, we had a come-to-Jesus moment, if you will, on the bridge.
OLGIN: Sixty-four-year-old Louis Smith (ph) is referring to the bridge that connects Charleston to neighboring Mount Pleasant.
SMITH: I think we had about 14,000, 15,000 people out on the bridge holding hands. I think six months later, all that has been forgotten.
OLGIN: It's been a difficult time for Charleston. Smith says he's tired of the "Kumbaya" moments without more meaningful change for black people like him.
SMITH: And it seems like every time we get together for, oh, I love you; you love me; let's get together and kiss each other - and then after that, we still see some of the major problems. There's a racial divide here.
OLGIN: Smith says the divide still exists in housing, education, policing and in everyday life. Now that Roof's federal trial is over, Smith says the death sentence provides some closure.
Seventy-four-year-old James Brown is a black man from Charleston. He says he's less focused on the killer's punishment and more concerned about the victims and their families. He was moved by people who traveled to the city to show sympathy for the families and the victims.
JAMES BROWN: The races have come closer, genuinely closer. So what he intended to happen did not happen. In fact, it was just the reverse, and I'm happy of that.
OLGIN: Many of the victims' relatives told Roof in court today that his mission to agitate race relations not only failed, but his actions had the opposite effect. For NPR News, I'm Alexandra Olgin in Charleston, S.C.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Eighty-six percent of American police officers say their job is getting harder since the high-profile incidents involving police and African-Americans and the protests that have followed. That statistic comes from a national survey of police officers that was just released by the Pew Research Center.
The report offers a wide-ranging look at what cops are thinking these days, and our law enforcement correspondent Martin Kaste is with us now to talk about it. Hi, Martin.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So Pew calls this report "Behind The Badge." What's the focus here?
KASTE: Well, as you and I have both experienced in our reporting, it's really hard sometimes to get police to talk on the record...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
KASTE: ...About how they perceive the political environment. Department policies prohibit them usually from saying things. So this is really useful. What Pew has done here is they commissioned online interviews, and almost 8,000 officers - sheriff's deputies and police officers - responded. And this is really the best look we've had at what they're thinking in a long time.
MCEVERS: They asked the officers a lot of questions. I mean what jumps out at you?
KASTE: Well, I think the headline number here is that 93 percent of them now say that they're more concerned about their safety. And that's understandable in part because the survey was done over the summer. Right in the middle of the survey period, the - we had the horrible incidents in Dallas and Baton Rouge...
MCEVERS: Right.
KASTE: ...Where officers were ambushed and killed. So that's understandable.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
KASTE: But there's also kind of this broader sense of alienation by the officers. Most of them say the public doesn't get the risks that they face. And this number - 67 percent of them - say that the deaths of blacks in police encounters of the last couple of years have been isolated incidents, and that's something the public sees differently. Most of the public thinks those incidents are a sign of broader problems. So really what we have here is a disconnect between the cops, who think this is cases of bad apples, where the public...
MCEVERS: Right.
KASTE: ...Thinks there is a deeper problem.
MCEVERS: So two-thirds of cops see these incidents as isolated incidents. Is that across the board?
KASTE: No, and that's where things get interesting. If you kind of drill down here, you find that police are not monolithic on this. If you look at them by race, the black cops are more likely to see these incidents as part of - or signs of a broader problem. Fifty-seven percent of the black officers said that.
By comparison, very few of the white officers - only about 27 percent - saw it that way. So there's a real difference there when it comes to race.
MCEVERS: In the cops who responded to this survey, what were their impressions of groups like Black Lives Matter?
KASTE: Well, you see a lot of suspicion. The officers told Pew that they see these protests as motivated by long-standing bias against the police and not a genuine desire to hold officers accountable. And I will say that I've seen that or I've heard that from officers, especially off the record. There's a sense that they're very resentful of the protest movement.
MCEVERS: Do any other numbers in the report stick out for you?
KASTE: Well, there's a lot here to unpack, a lot that's very interesting. Anybody who's interested in what police are thinking should definitely go online and read this at the...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
KASTE: ...Pew website. What I found interesting was that younger officers seem more likely to use force...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
KASTE: ...Compared to older officers, also that the rank-and-file cops is something we've heard, but now we've seen the numbers that they are more pro-gun than the general public. But that also kind of breaks down a little bit into different sections because while most officers would oppose a ban on assault weapons, say, the vast majority of them - 88 percent - do favor background checks, even on private gun sales. So they match up with the public there.
And one thing really caught my attention on illegal immigration. It's been kind of the conventional wisdom that police don't want to get involved in enforcing immigration laws, but the survey here says that 52 percent of cops do think they should play a role in identifying people who are in the country illegally. And that's kind of an important piece of information to know if the Trump administration follows through with their desire to have local police help with immigration enforcement.
MCEVERS: Martin Kaste, our law enforcement correspondent, thank you.
KASTE: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Donald Trump, who has repeatedly called the media dishonest, held a wide-ranging news conference today, the first since being elected president. It was also the first time we heard Trump himself acknowledge Russia's meddling in the U.S. election.
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DONALD TRUMP: As far as hacking, I think it was Russia, but I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Trump did leave the door open for a better relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
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TRUMP: If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks? That's called an asset, not a liability.
MCEVERS: In addition, Trump said he never acted in a way that would have left him vulnerable to blackmail by Russia. We'll have more on that in a moment.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
For more now, we're joined by law professor Kathleen Clark of Washington University in St. Louis. She studies ethics for government officials. Thanks for coming in.
KATHLEEN CLARK: Thank you for having me.
CORNISH: Obviously Trump's attorneys, his organization has put a lot of effort into what they presented this morning. What's your reaction to what you saw?
CLARK: I think what we saw this morning was essentially an exercise in smoke and mirrors to give the appearance of doing something about the ethics problems, the Emoluments Clause problems. But I don't think he's actually addressed the problems that he has.
CORNISH: Handing it over to the kids, creating a wall which includes, like, this kind of in-house ethics adviser on the business side, a chief compliance counsel - it doesn't sound like you think those things make a difference.
CLARK: I think it would be a mistake to characterize it as a wall. It's more like a screen with the wind and financing going through the screen. There's no indication that other parties to transactions won't be able to inform Mr. Trump either through the media or directly of what kind of funds they have provided the Trump Organization.
CORNISH: Now, again Trump said he would not be releasing his tax returns. And one thing that they would show, which is still unclear, is what his liabilities are, right?
CLARK: Yes. In my mind, that is the single most important question. How much does the president-elect owe? To whom does he owe it? We do not know the answers to those questions. Those questions were not addressed in the press conference today.
CORNISH: So when he says, I don't owe Russia anything; I don't have any loans with them...
CLARK: President...
CORNISH: We don't have a way of verifying that.
CLARK: Of verifying that - President-elect Trump has been known to say things that are not accurate.
CORNISH: We also heard a word we've heard a lot over the last couple months, which is the Emoluments Clause, which is a provision in the Constitution which does try and address the idea of foreign governments giving gifts to American officials.
CLARK: Yes, a gift is one example of an emolument. Emolument can also be a payment of some sort. And we heard very little today about what the Trump organization is going to do to deal with the Emoluments Clause problem that President-elect Trump faces. Essentially, he cannot accept any payments from foreign governments. That's what's necessary to deal with the Emoluments Clause.
Instead, my understanding is that hotel transactions that come from foreign governments - it will donate those profits to the Treasury. But the Emoluments Clause isn't just about profits. It's about any compensation, any payment. So to try to isolate it to profits is problematic, A, because it's too narrow. But in addition, who's going to define the profits? Profits is a concept that's very susceptible to manipulation.
CORNISH: At the end of the day, there is this issue of who will hold Trump accountable if there are conflicts of interest, how that's done. It's not clear to me how going forward this will be policed in any way. Is it your sense this is something that will mostly be done in the court of public opinion?
CLARK: It's the court of public opinion and Congress. Congress has responsibility under the Emoluments Clause.
CORNISH: The Republican-led Congress.
CLARK: That's correct. But as we saw last week, even the Republican-controlled House of Representatives could be responsive to the public when it attempted to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics. The public rose up, and the House Republicans backed down. If the public rises up and demands a president who will be conflict-free, then Congress will listen. But it'll depend on public action.
CORNISH: That's Kathleen Clark, law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Thank you for coming in to speak to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
CLARK: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
At his news conference today, President-elect Trump could not avoid questions about the intelligence briefing he got last week about Russia. It contains details about allegations that Trump's campaign colluded with the Russian government and that Russian intelligence officials have potentially embarrassing information about Trump. He says this is all nonsense.
Joining us now is NPR's Tom Gjelten. And Tom, we should first point out the president-elect, Trump, is now saying he thinks Russia did hack the Democratic Party during the presidential campaign. He hasn't said that before, right?
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: No, he hadn't. Now he has, but he was about the last guy in Washington to acknowledge it. Yesterday, we had the four top intelligence officials in the country briefing the Senate Intelligence Committee on this hacking operation, and not a single Republican questioned their finding that Russia was in fact responsible.
MCEVERS: It appears he hasn't entirely made peace with those intelligence agencies, right?
GJELTEN: Actually, he has a new beef with them. We've reported that those intelligence officials told Trump last week about this dossier that's been circulating alleging that Russian operatives shared information with Trump campaign officials and also that they have personal information on him that could compromise him as president.
For his part, Trump today talked only about what he has heard about these allegations outside that briefing, so I guess there's some question about what he was told when. Also, none of those allegations have been substantiated or...
MCEVERS: Right.
GJELTEN: ...Corroborated. And of course Trump is angry that the news of this briefing came out. At this press conference today, he suggested that his own intelligence agencies or the U.S. intelligence agencies may have been responsible for this leak. Listen to this.
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DONALD TRUMP: I think it was disgraceful - disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out. I think it's a disgrace. And I say that, and that's something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do.
GJELTEN: So we have the president-elect of the United States, Kelly, comparing what he faces right now with what people in Nazi Germany faced. Now, as for the allegations themselves, among them - that there is video evidence of him engaged in scandalous behavior at a Moscow hotel, Trump said he always assumes there are cameras in those places, and he tells his people to keep that in mind.
MCEVERS: Given that Trump now does acknowledge that Russia was responsible for the campaign hacking, did he talk about what he thinks should be done in response?
GJELTEN: Well, interestingly, he seems to be OK with the sanctions that President Obama announced, but he doesn't seem all that angry about this himself. In fact, even now, he almost seems appreciative of what the Russians contributed by leaking internal emails from the Clinton campaign operation.
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TRUMP: Hacking's bad, and it shouldn't be done. But look at the things that were hacked. Look at what was learned from that hacking - that Hillary Clinton got the questions to the debate and didn't report it. That's a horrible thing.
MCEVERS: U.S. intelligence officials have not only blamed this hack on Russia. They've said the Russians deliberately intended to help the Trump campaign and hurt Hillary Clinton. Does Trump now accept that part of it?
GJELTEN: Not really. He said The Russians tried to hack the Republican National Committee but couldn't break in because the RNC had better computer defenses. That goes beyond what the intelligence agencies found. They did say the Russians got more information from the Democrats than from the Republicans. But whether it's because the RNC had better cybersecurity or because the Russians weren't targeting the RNC they couldn't say.
One other point Mr. Trump emphasized over and over today - that the Russians aren't the only ones responsible for hacking. China was apparently behind a big hack of the Office of Personnel Management. Mr. Trump says he's ordered a major report on hacking to be delivered to him in 90 days.
But he engaged in a little bit of hyperbole there, saying, we're run by people who don't know what they're doing; we have no defense against hacking. I'm wondering what all the cybersecurity folks in the U.S. government think about that.
MCEVERS: NPR's Tom Gjelten, thank you very much.
GJELTEN: You bet.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
On Capitol Hill today, lawmakers debated the record of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions. Law enforcement and civil liberties groups disagreed over whether Sessions is qualified to lead the Justice Department. In a moment, we'll hear from Democratic Senator Cory Booker, who testified against Sessions' nomination. First, NPR's Carrie Johnson has this report on today's hearing.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: More than 50 years ago, civil rights hero John Lewis risked his life marching for the right to vote on a bridge in Selma, Ala.
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JOHN LEWIS: We've come a distance. We've made progress, but we're not there yet. There are forces that want to take us back to another place. We don't want to go back. We want to go forward.
JOHNSON: Lewis told the Senate Judiciary Committee he worries when he hears Jeff Sessions talk about a return to law and order. His fear - if Sessions becomes the attorney general, will he bring back the kind of law and order Lewis protested in the 1960s? David Cole, legal director for the ACLU, advised lawmakers to consider Sessions' record.
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DAVID COLE: When the Supreme Court gutted the single most effective provision of the Voting Rights Act - the most important statute in getting African-Americans the right to vote in this country - Senator Sessions called that a good day for the South.
JOHNSON: But William Smith, who worked for Sessions on Capitol Hill, attested to his old boss's character.
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WILLIAM SMITH: After 20 years of knowing Senator Sessions, I have not seen the slightest evidence of racism because it does not exist. I know a racist when I see one, and I've seen more than one, but Jeff Sessions is not one.
JOHNSON: Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey testified he has, quote, "no hesitation that Sessions is ready to run the Justice Department." And former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson said Sessions is committed to enforcing the law and protecting public safety.
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LARRY THOMPSON: Of all our important civil rights, the rights to be safe and secure in one's home and neighborhood is perhaps the most important.
JOHNSON: But Democrats raised questions about the nominee's past statements, selecting witnesses to make a political point. One survivor of sexual assault testified she worries that victims may not want to come forward after, she says, Sessions minimized Donald Trump's remarks in 2005 on a hot mic about grabbing women. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Cory Booker, Democratic senator from New Jersey, also spoke at today's hearing. He testified against Sessions' nomination. It was the first time a sitting senator has testified against a fellow senator for a cabinet position. Senator Booker, welcome to the program.
CORY BOOKER: Thank you for having me on.
CORNISH: You know, at times over the past two days, it sounded like we're hearing about two completely different people - one who's committed to protecting civil rights and upholding the law and then one who, in your words, has demonstrated a hostility toward civil rights and justice for all and has worked to frustrate attempts to advance those ideals. What do you think accounts for these conflicting portraits of Jeff Sessions?
BOOKER: Well, first of all, he is a nice person. I've enjoyed a collegial relationship with him. He even sponsored a piece of legislation to award civil rights leaders from the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. What this is not - for me, it's not about politics. This is about just what the facts are.
Jeff has been openly hostile to things that the Justice Department is doing right now. They're making a tremendous difference in our country, in line with the cause of civil rights and voting rights. The Justice Department has been party to - after the Shelby decision - in getting rid of the pre-clearance aspect of the Voting Rights Act. The Justice Department has been very active in trying to find cases like they have found in North Carolina where voting rules were finally crafted to disadvantage African-Americans. The Justice Department was party to that. He criticized that action.
The Justice Department, at the time, that there is - literally protests - thousands of people taking to the street about fairness and policing. And times that the head of the FBI is talking about the - existed in controversial - incontrovertible existence of racial bias in policing, Jeff Sessions has taken on the Justice Department - criticized them for finding pattern in practice in places like Ferguson and taking action.
CORNISH: Well, let me jump in here because I don't want you to end up testifying again, but...
BOOKER: No problem.
CORNISH: ...I do have a question. After this election - I mean, voters essentially elected Donald Trump and, by extension, his choices - right? - like with Jeff Sessions - maybe because they also wanted to rein in the Justice Department actions against police departments, right? They wanted a crackdown on immigration. Mike Pence at one point said, look, there's too much talk of institutional racism and institutional bias. What's your response to these voters who went for this president, but precisely because they want to rein in some of the actions that they see the Justice Department taking?
BOOKER: I think that - and I know a lot of folks who voted for Donald Trump. They did not want to put somebody in a position who literally, when he was attorney general, used his office to stop gay and lesbian people from having a meeting in a public place. This is somebody that has - that is out of line with even my Republican colleagues. Even the chairman of the Judiciary Committee has been working with me on criminal justice reform. Republican governors are bragging about the Heritage Foundation even endorses efforts in criminal justice reform.
And Jeff Sessions is a way outlier and somebody that's hostile to a lot of things that are now considered even in the mainstream for the Republican Party. I cannot remain silent with someone like this - that is a threat to the protections of the weak, the vulnerable, the poor, the minority in this country. This guy is way out of the pale and a real threat to the advancements that are being made in civil rights - often Republicans, Democrats doing things on criminal justice together.
CORNISH: Now, he's said - he has definitely tried to defend himself against these kinds of accusations. He said, I understand demands for justice and fairness made by the LGBT community. And he said that he would ensure the statutes protecting their civil rights and their safety are fully enforced. He also said that he understood it would be his responsibility to challenge discriminatory state laws. He says, you cannot allow improper erosion of the right of Americans to vote. Why is this not enough for you?
BOOKER: Because we don't have to speculate on someone who's had such the long career that he has. We have seen what he's done as an attorney general. We've seen what he's done as U.S. attorney. We've seen what he's - what he's done as a senator. There are very limited resources in the Justice Department. They have to pick and choose their fights. The ones that he picked and choosed when he was leading a Justice Department in the state of Alabama were clearly not in line with an aggressive pursuit of civil rights, voting rights and the rights of gays and lesbians.
What he's done as a senator has consistently voting - voted against the interests of those folks, voted against things that are now law, like the Matthew Shepard Act. So this is not - if somebody tells you who they are, shows you who they are, has a 40-year career of being extreme and out of line even with many Republicans now, you have to believe what they're going to be when they become the highest law enforcement officer in this land. And that's why we all, not just me breaking tradition - all of us must speak out because the real challenge, I think, right now is that there's too much silence and not enough alarm about what is going to happen to the - if we don't stop this.
CORNISH: Now, the way you're speaking - people have commented that it sounds a little bit like campaigning. And I want you to respond to this statement from Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who says, I'm very disappointed that Senator Booker has chosen to start his 2020 presidential campaign by testifying against Senator Sessions. He says this hearing simply offers a platform for his presidential aspirations. Can I get your response?
BOOKER: You know, from the earliest days of my career, when I moved into housing projects in Newark to fight for low-income tenants, I've been a consistent person, battling my entire career to fight to protect disadvantaged communities. I know a lot of people want to try to cast aspersions on those efforts, but this is very much in line with where I've been in my career and my three years in the Senate, fighting every day to advance criminal justice reform. So this is an extraordinary candidate. He is out of line with even the Republican Party. It's going to necessitate extraordinary measures to try to stop what I believe, unfortunately, could very well happen to the American people under his leadership.
CORNISH: That's Cory Booker, a Democrat and Senator from New Jersey. Thank you so much.
BOOKER: Thank you very much.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state spent all day on Capitol Hill. At a time of strained U.S.-Russia relations, Rex Tillerson was asked some tough questions from senators in both parties during his confirmation hearing. Tillerson, until recently, was CEO of ExxonMobil. He had extensive business dealings with Russia, ones that some senators say would pose a conflict of interest if he's confirmed.
Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and she is with us now. Welcome to the program.
JEANNE SHAHEEN: Thank you. Nice to be with you.
MCEVERS: Thanks. You raised concern that Tillerson might be too soft on Russia given his business history, and today, Tillerson said he saw the value of U.S. sanctions on Russia even if they got in the way of ExxonMobil's business deals. He says if confirmed as secretary of state, he'll have a, quote, "frank and open dialogue with Russia." Do you now believe he can be tough on Russia when it's in the U.S.'s interest?
SHAHEEN: Well, I was a little concerned about his evasiveness on whether to pursue additional sanctions on Russia for their attacks in our election process. Yesterday, I, along with a number of other - my colleagues, including Senator McCain and Senator Cardin, introduced additional sanctions legislation on Russia for their interference in our elections. And he really was hesitant on that.
So I think we still have to see what his position is going to be. I was encouraged that he committed to continuing State Department programs that promote gender equity around the world. So you know, there were some answers that I was concerned about and some things that I was reassured by.
MCEVERS: Tillerson said he plans to sever ties completely with ExxonMobil if he's confirmed. He has promised to seek counsel if something comes up during his time of secretary of state that might present a conflict or even appear to present one. Do you think that that puts questions about conflicts of interest to rest for him?
SHAHEEN: Well, again, I actually asked him about this and about why he felt like that was important, and he said it was to address the conflicts of interests. And I am reassured by that. He still has some ties to sever that he's waiting until he actually gets confirmed.
But for me, it stands in stark contrast to what we've heard from President-elect Trump, which is that he's not going to divest of his vast business holdings. And so I think hopefully he will pay more attention to Mr. Tillerson.
MCEVERS: You also asked Tillerson about the president-elect's original proposal to ban Muslims from the United States. He says he does not support targeting any particular group when it comes to immigration. Was that a satisfactory answer to you?
SHAHEEN: It was. I appreciated his willingness to state his opposition to that Muslim immigration ban and to talk about the importance of working with moderate Muslim countries who had rejected radical Islam. I think that's important. And I think it does distinguish his position from what we heard from President-elect Trump during the campaign. And hopefully the president-elect will listen to Rex Tillerson if he's confirmed about this issue.
MCEVERS: Based on what you heard today from this nominee and your fellow senators, how would you characterize his chances of becoming secretary of state?
SHAHEEN: You know, I think, as you pointed out, he got very tough questions both from Democrats and Republicans. I think, as I said, there were some areas that I had concerns about. I was disappointed that he didn't seem willing to answer some questions about positions that he had taken when he was CEO at Exxon. I found that disappointing, but I also appreciated his commitment to our democratic values, to America's leadership in the world, to our former...
MCEVERS: Thank you very much.
SHAHEEN: ...International partnerships.
MCEVERS: Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, thank you very much.
SHAHEEN: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Here's another issue adding to the tension between the U.S. and Russia. For a while now, both American and Russian planes have been launching missions against targets in Syria, and there have been some serious close calls and near-collisions. American pilots say the skies over Syria are an international incident waiting to happen. Michael Phillips reported on this for The Wall Street Journal. He told me about one incident involving American F-15s refueling in the air and a Russian fighter.
MICHAEL PHILLIPS: The Russian plane came within probably about a mile and a half, which doesn't sound close unless you're going 450 miles an hour.
MCEVERS: (Laughter) Right.
PHILLIPS: And then that's actually really close.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
PHILLIPS: The U.S. plane actually snapped pictures of the Russians. It was a Su-35 Flanker advanced fighter plane. And, you know, nothing, in the end, happened, but he shadowed the U.S. planes as they were - as they were refueling.
MCEVERS: I mean, the militaries of both these countries signed an agreement in 2015 that was supposed to stop these midair crashes from happening. Why do they keep having these close calls?
PHILLIPS: You know, from the U.S. point of view, the Russians simply aren't following the rules of the road religiously. And they don't know if it's because they sometimes don't see the Americans. I mean, the Americans do fly some stealth fighters up there - F-22s. Maybe they're just flexing a little bit of muscle and saying, hey, we're going to - we can fly here as well as you can. Watch this.
MCEVERS: You wrote about one incident, though, with the U.S. bombing of Syrian troops in Deir ez-Zor. Can you tell us about that one?
PHILLIPS: Yeah, there is a hotline that the U.S. and Russians have agreed to. There's a Russian colonel in Syria and a U.S. colonel in Kuttar, and they can call each other up at any moment. And when the U.S. started to accidentally - I mean, it was the intention was not to bomb Syrian troops, but they were there accidentally doing so or in inadvertently doing so - the Russians called on that hotline. The colonel who called - the Russian colonel - asked for a particular U.S. colonel that he knew, and that guy didn't happen to be in the office at the time. And instead of saying, well, somebody has to stop this bombing, the Russian colonel hung up and didn't call back for nearly another half-hour.
MCEVERS: So according to the Americans - I mean, the implication here is that had this Russian colonel reached his counterpart, that bombing could have been stopped?
PHILLIPS: The American view would be that if he had said, oh, well, you know, Colonel X isn't there. Well, is anybody else there that I could talk to?
MCEVERS: Right.
PHILLIPS: That - maybe that would have, you know, made a bad situation less bad. I don't know if it would have prevented all the deaths that occurred.
MCEVERS: Tell us about the female air controller - the American.
PHILLIPS: Well, the Russians generally do not answer radio calls from U.S. air controllers in this whole theater of operation. The one exception is sometimes they will answer women. And so there was a case in September - I know of two cases - but one in September in which a female air surveillance officer got on the radio when she spotted an unidentified plane, which would have been a Russian plane, approaching allied aircraft. And she said, you're operating in the vicinity of coalition aircraft. And there's a lot of static on the line, and then a Russian accent came through. You have to pardon my Russian accent here. The voice said, you have a nice voice, lady. Good evening.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
PHILLIPS: And that's...
MCEVERS: And that was it?
PHILLIPS: That was it, and that was the end of the communication. I was fortunate enough to be able to actually hear this recording of the conversation.
MCEVERS: Were you able to get a Russian response on this?
PHILLIPS: Today they did send us a statement after the story came out in The Wall Street Journal.
MCEVERS: OK.
PHILLIPS: Their message seems to be that the U.S. is not cooperating. The Russians are trying to cooperate. The Russian pilots are being professional, and the Americans are not. And there's a suggestion that this is what they called a Russophobic farewell performance by the Obama administration, as opposed to a genuine critique of what's going on in the skies over Syria.
MCEVERS: Michael Phillips, reporter for The Wall Street Journal, thank you very much.
PHILLIPS: Pleasure. Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump made an important cabinet nomination today for Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He's David Shulkin, the VA's current undersecretary for health. NPR's Quil Lawrence reports.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: After two years of attacking the VA's current leadership, Trump nominated a man who's been part of it. David Shulkin told NPR last fall that VA has been making great strides.
DAVID SHULKIN: But we have a lot more to do, and that's why it is my number one priority to focus on access to health care. We're putting in the same-day services for veterans in every one of our medical centers. We'll have same-day services in primary care and mental health. And that's going to assure that there aren't veterans in those areas that are waiting for health care.
LAWRENCE: Shulkin is a physician. In fact, he's been seeing VA patients while in office. He's not a veteran, unlike every previous VA secretary. Vets groups may be willing to overlook that, says Louis Celli with the American Legion.
LOUIS CELLI: He's already well-integrated into the Department of Veterans Affairs, so he knows where the bones are buried.
LAWRENCE: Tapping a respected insider at VA may suggest Trump understands just how hard it will be to fix, says Paul Rieckhoff with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
PAUL RIECKHOFF: In many ways, the Trump administration is like the dog that caught the car. They've been blasting VA for two years. Now they've got to run it. So Dr. Shulkin can definitely help them do that, and he has an obligation also to stand up to Trump.
LAWRENCE: For example, Shulkin oversaw increased use of private care outside VA with mixed results. It's not clear where he stands on Trump's plan to expand privatization, an idea unpopular with veterans. Quil Lawrence, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Here in California, rivers are flooding after all the rain we've been getting in the past few days, and more rain is on its way. California has, of course, been in a drought for five years. And cities and farms could benefit from all this water if they could find a way to store it. There's a new idea that an alliance of farmers, water experts and environmentalists are trying out - storing the water underground. NPR's Dan Charles reports.
DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: Six years ago, farmer Don Cameron did something that seemed kind of crazy. It was wintertime. Nothing was growing. And even though his crops didn't need any water, Cameron went out to a nearby river which was running high because it had been raining a lot, and he opened an irrigation gate. Water rushed down a canal and flooded hundreds of acres of vineyards.
DON CAMERON: We started in February, and we flooded grapes continuously for the most part until May.
CHARLES: Cameron was doing this because for years, he and his neighbors southwest of Fresno have been using wells, pumping water out of the ground to irrigate their crops, and that groundwater was running low.
CAMERON: We farmed out here for 35 years and have seen over time that the groundwater table had been declining. And I became really concerned about it.
CHARLES: So his idea was pretty simple - flood his fields and let gravity do the rest. Water would seep down into the ground, all the way to the aquifer. And in fact, it worked. These days, Cameron's crazy experiment is the hottest idea in California water management, especially this week, with rivers flooding all over the state.
CAMERON: This is going to be the future for California. If we don't store the water during flood periods, you know, we're not going to make it through the droughts.
CHARLES: Helen Dahlke, who's a water specialist at the University of California, Davis, is working with half a dozen farmers this year who are ready to flood their fields.
HELEN DAHLKE: We have test sites set up on almonds, pistachios, alfalfa just to test how these crops actually tolerate that water that we put on in the winter.
CHARLES: There are two big reasons for these experiments. The first is California's aquifers are depleted. It got really bad during the recent drought when farmers couldn't get much water from the state's surface reservoirs. They pumped so much groundwater that many wells ran dry. The water table in some areas dropped by 10, 20, even a hundred feet. Aquifers are especially depleted in the southern part of California's Central Valley, south of Fresno.
Flooding the fields could help a lot, but there's a second reason to put water underground. And it has to do with climate change. California's always counted on snow piling up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains as a kind of giant water reservoir. It releases water gradually as it melts, but California now is getting less snow in winter and more rain. And wintertime rain just runs away into the ocean.
DAHLKE: So we really have to find new ways of storing and capturing rainfall in the winter when it's available.
CHARLES: There's no better place to store water than underground. In theory, California's aquifers could hold more than twice as much water as all of its dams and manmade lakes. And Peter Gleick, a water expert and co-founder of the Pacific Institute, says there is enough water runoff available after winter storms to recharge those groundwater aquifers. The hard part will be getting the state's farmers and irrigation managers to go along with the plan because it will require flooding hundreds of thousands of acres, maybe millions of acres.
PETER GLEICK: I'm cautiously optimistic that we could do this, but it's going to require a different way of thinking. It's going to require a lot of farmers and owners of ag. land to be willing to flood land when the water's available.
CHARLES: And Gleick says even if this does happen, it won't do enough by itself to protect the groundwater. There also will have to be strict limits on how much farmers can pump from aquifers. They'll have to be managed so the water is there when farmers really need it, when the rains don't fall. Dan Charles, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Now on to another one of Trump's Cabinet picks, Betsy DeVos for secretary of education. Her confirmation hearings begin next week, but activists aren't waiting. They're pressing her on the issue of sexual assault. They want her to continue the current administration's strict enforcement of how schools should handle it. DeVos hasn't addressed the issue yet. NPR's Tovia Smith reports.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: When the Obama administration started using Title IX, which bars gender discrimination, to crack down on campus sexual assault, schools whose old MO was to sweep cases under the rug quickly change their ways. Victims started getting more support and offenders more than a slap on the wrist.
But some Republicans are blasting the Education Department for regulatory overreach. They want to give schools more leeway to make their own policies, and that's got sexual assault survivors worried.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Dear Betsy...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Dear Betsy...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Dear Betsy...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: Dear Betsy...
SMITH: Through the social media campaign launched by End Rape on Campus and Know Your IX, survivors are posting personal pleas imploring DeVos to protect the Title IX rules that protected them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAYA WEINSTEIN: I was raped by another student. After...
SMITH: George Washington University graduate Maya Weinstein posted a video describing the, quote, "injustice" she experienced until she filed a complaint against her school for violating Title IX.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WEINSTEIN: Title IX backed me up and supported and validated my feelings that what the university had done to me was wrong.
SMITH: Others tweeted that Title IX protection saved them from having to run into their rapist in their dorm every day and enabled them to stay in school. Survivors say it's brought them security, justice and, as Ariane Litalien said in her video, recovery.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ARIANE LITALIEN: As a survivor myself, I've seen firsthand how participating in a Title IX complaint really validated my feelings. And it literally helped me out of depression.
SMITH: But not long after the Dear Betsy hashtag launched, critics of Title IX also jumped in and started posting that enforcement has gone too far and, echoing the GOP platform, that current rules make it too easy to punish students on flimsy evidence.
In one tweet, a recent graduate, Austin Henshaw, urged DeVos to stop the, quote, "evisceration of due process for the accused." While DeVos herself has not publicly addressed the issue, a longtime colleague and supporter, Ed Patru, says she will be sensitive and fair.
ED PATRU: Look. No one is going to take the issue of sexual assault as seriously as Betsy DeVos. And I think anybody who suggests otherwise just doesn't know what they're talking about.
SMITH: As for specifics, Patru says DeVos will speak for herself at her confirmation hearing next week. Organizers say their Dear Betsy tweets will continue until then. Tovia Smith, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF WILD NOTHING SONG, "CHINATOWN")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The allegations around Russia's role in the U.S. election have brought a Russian word into the American political vocabulary - kompromat. It translates as compromising material, and it is straight from the old Soviet playbook. It's a tool that Russia's spy agencies have used for a long time.
With us now to talk about kompromat is Greg Myre. He's the international editor of npr.org, and he used to work in Moscow. Welcome.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So let's just make it clear here that no one has verified the details in this dossier regarding President-elect Trump, but this case has raised the issue of kompromat. Talk about that.
MYRE: Right. So we're talking about this file that was compiled by a former British intelligence officer. And we're not going into the details because U.S. intelligence community says they can't verify any of this, nor can news organizations. But it has raised the issue of kompromat against, something that was widely used during Soviet days and continues to this day.
And it's gathering compromising material so that you can blackmail somebody. Often diplomats serving in Moscow were big targets. Visiting businessmen were big targets. And often it wasn't where you wanted to necessarily expose the information, but you wanted to keep that person under your control, let them know you had the information and that they needed to cooperate with you. And that was the main purpose of it.
MCEVERS: And a lot of times it was sexual in nature, no?
MYRE: Absolutely. In fact that was probably the most explosive or widely attempted thing during the Soviet days. The KGB might hire a prostitute to lure a diplomat or a foreign businessman into a compromising situation and then tell them they had this and they were going to use it against them if they did not cooperate.
MCEVERS: Russian President Vladimir Putin has been linked to a high-profile case of kompromat back in 1999. Tell us about that.
MYRE: Sure. There was this extraordinary scene on television one night. Yury Skuratov, who was the top Russian prosecutor, appeared naked with two naked women on TV, and it created this huge sensation. And a couple weeks later, Putin, who was the head of the FSB, the security service at the time, said, yes, indeed, that is Yury Skuratov. And Skuratov lost his job, not to mention his dignity.
And this resolved a really big problem for President Boris Yeltsin at the time, who had been trying to get rid of Skuratov because he was allegedly investigating corruption inside the Kremlin. So Putin really elevated his profile in this episode.
MCEVERS: By eliminating a rival presumably. I mean did that help him become, you know, head of Russia later that year?
MYRE: You know, it was always impossible to tell what was going on inside of Boris Yeltsin's head. And I think it would be a stretch to say this is why he became prime minister. But it certainly made Putin a more prominent figure at that time, and it eliminated a serious problem for Yeltsin.
And a few months later, he did become prime minister, and a few months after that, he did replace Yeltsin as president. So it was certainly part of the rise of Vladimir Putin.
MCEVERS: Do other countries do this? I mean is it just Russia?
MYRE: Oh, absolutely other countries do it. But it was - certainly had a huge significance and importance in Russia throughout the Soviet era. One thing I think to think about is you didn't have politics in the Soviet era. So if you wanted to get rid of a political rival, there really wasn't ways to do it at the ballot box.
MCEVERS: Right.
MYRE: But certainly you could look at the United States and see this throughout the history. For example, when J. Edgar Hoover was head of the FBI, he certainly collected compromising information on many prominent officials, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
MCEVERS: Right. Greg Myre is the international editor of npr.org. He was based in Moscow from 1996 to 1999. Thanks a lot.
MYRE: My pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF LOCAL NATIVES SONG, "WARNING SIGN")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A mystery now of the reproductive kind. In most animals, females keep having babies until the end of life. There are only three known exceptions - humans, short-finned pilot whales and killer whales. We have some clues in the case of why killer whales experience menopause, as NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Female killer whales start having babies when they're around 15 years old, and these whales can live a long time.
DARREN CROFT: They certainly get to 80 years old - possibly 90 years old - but the incredible thing is that they stopped reproducing in the 30s to 40s.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: That's Darren Croft, who studies animal behavior at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. He says menopause seems to make no sense. As far as evolution is concerned, the whole point of life is to churn out as many little babies as possible.
CROFT: So it seems unusual that a female should give up the opportunity to have the direct offspring to transfer her genes directly part way through life. And certainly most mammals - most species - don't do that.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Killer whales do, and luckily scientists in the Pacific Northwest have been recording the births and deaths of these whales since the 1970s.
CROFT: This data spans over four decades.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Now, killer whales live in family groups. An older female lives with both her sons and her daughters. And the researchers noticed something interesting. If an older female whale has a baby at the same time that her daughter is having babies, the calf of the older mother is almost twice as likely to die.
CROFT: It's the calves of the older mothers that have higher risk of mortality.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: But when older moms have babies by themselves, they do just fine.
CROFT: So it's not the older mothers are bad mothers - that they're not able to raise their calves as well as younger mothers. It's that when they enter into this competition with their daughters, they lose out, and their calves are more likely to die.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: So what are they competing for? Probably fish. Whales societies are complicated, but the bottom line is as a female gets older, her genetic relationship with her group grows stronger. That means she probably becomes ever more willing to share fish, leaving less for herself and her babies. Croft says it's this urge to help out your relatives later in life...
CROFT: ...Combined with competition between the generations that is really key to unlocking this mystery of menopause.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The findings appear in the journal Current Biology. And needless to say, they'll leave people wondering if something similar was going on in human ancestors. Croft knows not everyone will see a connection.
CROFT: There is going to be mixed feelings about it because there are competing hypotheses...
GREENFIELDBOYCE: ...Including the so-called grandmother hypothesis. That's the more warm and fuzzy idea that grandmotherly, post-menopausal women succeed by helping their children and doting on their grandchildren. Kristen Hawkes at the University of Utah is one of the anthropologists who proposed that after watching grandmothers in hunter-gathering cultures. She thinks the whales are super cool, though hard to study...
KRISTEN HAWKES: ...'Cause they're doing all kinds of stuff where you can't see it. And even to get demographic data on them is just so tricky because they're all underwater, and they're long-lived.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: She's not ready to buy the idea that conflict between mothers and daughters may have helped produce menopause. She thinks we need to know a lot more about these whales. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
More than half of all the states have legalized marijuana, also known as cannabis, for medical use, and eight states have legalized it for recreational use. Well, now a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine examines what we know about the health effects of marijuana. NPR's Patti Neighmond reports.
PATTI NEIGHMOND, BYLINE: Researchers looked at more than 10,000 scientific studies. Marie McCormick with Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health headed the research which is timely not only because marijuana is more widely available and used. It's also stronger than ever and comes in lots of new and different forms.
MARIE MCCORMICK: There's vaping, which is same as it is for nicotine. There's dabbing, which is taking a concentrated form, heating it up and inhaling the vapor. There is also edibles - the classic marijuana brownie but also chewy bears and things of that sort.
NEIGHMOND: The report explores 11 different health conditions. It finds cannabis can be beneficial when it comes to chronic pain or nausea related to chemotherapy.
MCCORMICK: Some people with chronic pain, muscle spasms for multiple sclerosis or nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy obtained some relief of their symptoms from using cannabis-based products or cannabis.
NEIGHMOND: But there are potential harms. Marijuana may increase the risk of developing schizophrenia, although McCormick says it could be that people with the disorder are more likely to smoke it. The drug may also increase the risk for certain social anxiety disorders. For pregnant women, marijuana, like cigarettes, can increase the risk of having a low-birth-weight baby.
MCCORMICK: It's generally thought that smoking cannabis limits the growth of the infant, limits the effectiveness of the transfer of nutrients across the placenta.
NEIGHMOND: Smoking marijuana regularly is associated with more bouts of bronchitis and other respiratory problems. People already diagnosed with heart disease may have an increased risk of heart attack.
But for healthy individuals, there seems to be no increased risk of stroke or cancer, including tobacco-related lung and head cancers. And while marijuana does not seem to increase the use of other drugs or tobacco products, it may increase the risk of dependency, particularly among younger users.
MCCORMICK: The adolescent brain is very sensitive to these kinds of substances. And so they continue to use it and may use it in increasing amounts and are at risk for developing problematic cannabis use.
NEIGHMOND: Which can impair functioning, both academically and socially. Erik Altieri directs the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, which wants to see marijuana legalized for adult use nationwide. He says lots of research finds little harm in marijuana use. And a hidden benefit of legalization - he says it could actually reduce marijuana use among teenagers under 18.
ERIK ALTIERI: That's because we are taking marijuana off of the street corner, out of the hands of drug dealers who have nothing but incentive to sell to everyone and anyone, putting it behind the counter of a regulated business that has to check for ID, that has to answer to the government and has oversight.
NEIGHMOND: And in states that have legalized recreational marijuana, Altieri says there has not been an increase in use among underage teens in part because it may be harder to get and in part because the cool factor is lessened.
ALTIERI: By legalizing it and normalizing it, it's become just another everyday thing that adults partake in. It doesn't have that same draw to it that it used to.
NEIGHMOND: Even so, researchers say a lot more information about potential harms of marijuana needs to be studied and understood. Patty Neighmond, NPR News.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Writers and publishers are grappling with how to approach free speech in a Trump presidency. Some free speech advocates see the president-elect's hostility toward the media and his tweets personally attacking his critics as evidence that he is, at best, insensitive to the First Amendment.
At the same time, the publishing world is debating the decision by Simon & Schuster to publish a book by social media provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, whom some accuse of hate speech. NPR's Lynn Neary reports.
LYNN NEARY, BYLINE: PEN America, an organization dedicated to defending the right to free speech all over the world, is starting to pay more attention to what's happening on the home front. This coming Sunday, PEN is co-sponsoring a protest which will bring a host of well-known writers to the steps of the New York Public Library to protest threats to free expression.
SUZANNE NOSSEL: We need to be, as citizens, ready to come out, stand together for basic rights that, you know, six months ago we might have been able to take for granted but that we no longer can.
NEARY: Suzanne Nossel is the executive director of PEN America. Nossel sees these threats coming from several directions - the president-elect's attacks on the press and his critics, the proliferation of fake news and the pattern of trolling on social media.
NOSSEL: People feel more free to speak their mind even if it crosses what would have been considered boundaries of hatred or racism or misogyny. And so I think it then becomes incumbent on others to speak more loudly.
NEARY: But the job of advocating for free speech has become ever more complicated in the age of social media, which Nossel says can be both an incredible tool for free expression and a threat to it.
NOSSEL: It has a dampening effect on the depth of discourse, can lead to this kind of online mobbing and trolling where someone who says something controversial is then targeted, ridiculed. So this is not about the government silencing speech, but it's about speech silencing other speech.
NEARY: Perhaps no one has crossed the line on social media more boldly than Milo Yiannopoulos, who was kicked off Twitter after he spearheaded a nasty campaign against black actress Leslie Jones. Yiannopoulos likes to describe himself as a free speech fundamentalist.
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MILO YIANNOPOULOS: What the left wants to do is it wants to enable its extremists on its own side, the sexists and misandrists of the feminism, the black supremacists of Black Lives Matter. They want to enable the extremists on their own side and silence extremists on the other. Well, I don't like the extremists on either side.
NEARY: Yiannopoulos, an editor at the ultra-conservative Breitbart News, seems to take delight in infuriating people with remarks that are viewed as racist, misogynistic and anti-immigrant. So it's not surprising that Simon & Schuster's decision to publish his book drew strong criticism and calls for a boycott of the company. Dennis Johnson is the head of Melville House, a small independent publisher.
DENNIS JOHNSON: Nobody in the protest is saying you have no right to be published. You have no right, Simon & Schuster, to publish this guy, and this guy - you have no right to be published. Nobody's saying that. What they're saying is, we're shocked and we're outraged that you would stoop so low to make a buck as to publish this purveyor of vile hate speech.
NEARY: Johnson is highly critical of a statement issued by the National Coalition Against Censorship on behalf of a number of industry groups representing publishers, authors and booksellers. The NCAC said anyone has a right to call for a boycott of Simon & Schuster but that such a protest will have a chilling effect on publishing. Joan Bertin, executive director of the NCAC, says similar protests have already led to censorship.
JOAN BERTIN: We know of instances in which books that contain certain kinds of content have been shelved, deferred, redacted, edited deeply to remove content that people might object to.
NEARY: Both the NCAC and PEN America say the best response to hate speech is not more censorship.
BERTIN: Trying to suppress hateful speech doesn't make it go away. I mean I think, you know, the whole idea of free speech requires us to be active participants. And when we hear ideas that we think are bad and harmful, it requires us to say why, not just say shut up.
NEARY: But publisher Dennis Johnson says another equally important right is at stake here - the right to protest.
JOHNSON: This is not about censoring right-wing voices. This is about combating hate speech and its entry into the mainstream.
NEARY: Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
FBI Director James Comey is facing an extraordinary investigation. Watchdogs at the Justice Department announced they will review public statements that he made before the November election. Hillary Clinton has said Comey's disparaging remarks about her email practices contributed to our loss. Now authorities say they'll look at whether Comey broke longstanding policies designed to keep the FBI out of politics.
With us to talk about the investigation is NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. And Carrie, what exactly is the inspector general examining, and why now?
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Inspector General Michael Horowitz says he got calls and letters from Congress and members of the public all expressing concern about the way the FBI and Justice Department handled the Hillary Clinton email case. Now, Clinton was never charged with a crime, but the FBI director talked to the public or lawmakers three times before the election.
In July, he gave a press conference, calling her extremely careless but declining to prosecute. And then, Robert, in October and November of last year, he sent two different letters to Congress with updates on the case. DOJ veterans from both political parties say that was not kosher because under Justice policies, you're not supposed to be talking about open investigations or taking steps that could influence an election.
SIEGEL: But is the inspector general investigation broader than what Comey said?
JOHNSON: Yeah, absolutely it is. The inspector general says he's not going to second guess the outcome of the Clinton email case - no charges for either Clinton or her aides. But the IG will look at improper leaks - any improper leaks at Justice or the FBI about the matter, will look at whether those investigators followed policy in the course of the investigation. And they're also going to look at whether the FBI deputy director or the congressional liaison at the Justice Department should have recused themselves from the case altogether.
SIEGEL: And I understand there's also a social media aspect to this investigation?
JOHNSON: Yeah, Robert. Who says Twitter's not relevant anymore? The inspector general's going to be looking at whether the FBI blasting out on Twitter some old documents on Bill Clinton's controversial last-minute pardons, something the FBI did in November right before the election, was done for any improper reasons or how that may have happened in the first place.
SIEGEL: Carrie, what's the FBI saying about this?
JOHNSON: Well, James Comey, the director, said he's grateful to watchdogs for taking on this investigation. He's pledged his full cooperation in the past. He told friends he stands by his actions and had no good choices in the case.
Now, a former press secretary for Hillary Clinton, Brian Fallon, has called this new investigation entirely appropriate and very necessary. He says this case cries out for an independent eye.
SIEGEL: So what happens next?
JOHNSON: Well, there's no timetable for this inspector general review, and there's a lot to investigate. The FBI director, James Comey, is likely going to be interviewed by investigators, and he said today, Robert, that he wants the public to see as much of the results of this investigation as possible in the interest of transparency.
SIEGEL: Assuming that Jeff Sessions is confirmed as attorney general, would he have the authority to simply reverse this?
JOHNSON: It's possible but very unlikely. It would be politically tone-deaf to do that. And Jeff Sessions in his confirmation hearings earlier this week, Robert, said he was concerned. And it would be very unusual to be making derogatory remarks about someone who has not been charged with a crime, which is exactly what the IG is going to be looking at here with respect to James Comey.
SIEGEL: OK, thanks, Carrie. That's NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
An armored brigade from Colorado has arrived in Poland. It's part of the biggest U.S. military deployment in Europe since the end of the Cold War. The Obama administration says the soldiers and their tanks are a deterrent against Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. The Kremlin calls the American deployment a threat to Russian security. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from western Poland.
SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE: Andrezej Kozlik seems oblivious to the cold as he waits at this sleepy Polish border crossing. The retired metal worker is here to welcome a U.S. military convoy that's arriving from a port in Germany.
ANDREZEJ KOZLIK: (Speaking Polish).
NELSON: He says he's happy the Americans will be based here to help deter aggression, although like many Poles, he's reluctant to say who the soldiers will protect his country from. A former tank man during his years in what was then Communist Poland's army, Kozlik says he hopes to see an American tank up close.
But the only vehicles that show up today are Humvees and armored trucks. Officials say the 87 tanks in the brigade will be arriving in the coming weeks on trains and other heavy transport.
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NELSON: In the nearby town of Zagan, officials and residents holding small American flags celebrate at what will be a continuous rotational presence of U.S. and NATO armored brigades in Eastern Europe. The ramp-up is partly an attempt by President Obama to calm the nerves of NATO's newer members after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Polish Major General Jaroslaw Mika, whose soldiers will be training with the Americans, tells me he's thrilled they are here.
JAROSLAW MIKA: Let me say it's very important to be together, to build our common relationship and to provide more security not only for Europe, for Poland, for all of the world countries.
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NELSON: U.S. Colonel Christopher Norrie, who was feted by Polish trumpets, called the joint mission a cornerstone to preserving freedom across Europe.
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COLONEL CHRISTOPHER NORRIE: To arrive at this point so swiftly is proof that when we work as a team, no challenge is too large to overcome. No distance is too far to cross when the need arises.
NELSON: RAND senior political scientist Mike Mazarr says it remains to be seen whether President-elect Donald Trump, who is critical of NATO, will order the U.S. troops home.
MIKE MAZARR: Where there is an opportunity to sort of leave that where it's at and go to Russia and say, look; we've had a lot of misunderstandings lately. We recognize that some of what the United States and NATO have done may be perceived by you as provocative. Let's find a way to work this out that might lead to some kind of an agreement where in a year, we're pulling some of those troops back, but we're doing it in concert with Russian withdrawals.
NELSON: It's not just the Russians who are opposed to this deployment. Frauke Petry, a leader of the populous Alternative for Germany party, argues the arrival of the American troops needlessly antagonizes Vladimir Putin.
FRAUKE PETRY: NATO sort of surrounding Russia is not going to help. It's going to deepen the conflict. But I'm hopeful that Trump and Putin are going to end the situation.
NELSON: For now, the U.S. armored brigade will be sending units to the Baltic states - Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary - to train with local troops there. Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR News in Zagan, Poland.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Retired Marine General James Mattis was at his confirmation hearing today before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Under questioning, Mattis showed that he and President-elect Donald Trump don't see eye to eye on certain things, like Russia. Here's what Trump said earlier this week.
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DONALD TRUMP: If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability because we have a horrible relationship with Russia.
MCEVERS: Today, his pick for defense secretary was much more skeptical about Russia.
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JAMES MATTIS: We also have to recognize reality and what Russia is up to. And there's a decreasing number of areas where we can engage cooperatively and an increasing number of areas where we're going to have to confront Russia.
MCEVERS: NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman is with us to talk about this. Hello.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So clearly there are some differences here. What else did Mattis say?
BOWMAN: Well, Kelly, Mattis is a student of history. And he said you can go back to just before the end of World War II, and there have been many attempts to engage positively with Russia. There have been few successes, he said. And he said Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to break NATO, and he said the U.S. must use all its measures - diplomatic, economic and military - to, quote, "defend ourselves."
MCEVERS: He says Putin is trying to break NATO, and that's also an area where Trump and Mattis seem to disagree. I mean the president-elect has said NATO is obsolete and has played down the alliance.
BOWMAN: That's right. Mattis said he's always needed allies in a fight, and he said NATO is the most important alliance there is.
MCEVERS: Wow.
BOWMAN: And of course the U.S. is sending more military equipment, troops as well as tanks to NATO allies because of concerns about Russia.
MCEVERS: Did any of the senators get into this disconnect between the incoming president and his nominee for defense secretary?
BOWMAN: You know, they did in a roundabout way. They talked about, you know, the lack of experience that President-elect Trump has. Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Democrat, said Trump has little knowledge of defense policy. Mattis, you know, trying to be diplomatic, said, listen; Trump is very open. He has a lot of really good questions - so clearly indicating, you know, he hopes to be able to talk with Trump about some of these issues. There's a certain comfort level clearly.
MCEVERS: Where do Trump and Mattis agree?
BOWMAN: Well, clearly rebuilding the military. Mattis said Trump is heading in the right direction as far as increasing the number of planes and ships and soldiers and Marines. Both men have raised concerns on Iran, talking about the countries - what they see as aggressive nature in the Persian Gulf, their export of terrorism, they say, and supporting President Assad in Syria.
And of course Trump has been critical of the American-led effort against the Islamic State. Mattis agreed today, and he said - this is very interesting, Kelly - that fight should be energized. He didn't exactly say what he was talking about, but there are speculation there could be more bombing, more airstrikes, maybe even sending more special operators over to Syria and Iraq.
MCEVERS: In the past, Mattis has also been opposed to women serving in ground combat jobs. The Obama administration of course opened up all those jobs to women. Did that issue come up today?
BOWMAN: It came up repeatedly, Kelly. And Mattis was pressed on this issue by several senators. Let's listen to this back and forth with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat.
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KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: Do you plan on rolling back the opening of infantry positions to women based on your previous statements?
MATTIS: Senator, I've never come into any job with an agenda, a pre-formed agenda.
GILLIBRAND: Do you plan to oppose women serving in these combat roles?
MATTIS: I have no plan to oppose women in any aspect of our military.
BOWMAN: And Mattis went on to say that the important thing here is that both men and women should have to meet the same physical standards before they go into combat jobs. And he said that should not change.
And he indicated, Kelly, that men and women working closely together - the possibility of some romantic entanglements is something that officers will have to be trained to address, something he said their fathers did not have to deal with.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Thanks a lot, Tom.
BOWMAN: You're welcome, Kelly.
MCEVERS: And one footnote - Congress got closer today to waiving the law that bars Mattis from becoming defense secretary. That law says former service members can't do the job if they'd been on active duty within the last seven years. Mattis has been retired for almost four.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services will sit for his confirmation hearing next week. Tom Price is a Georgia congressman and an orthopedic surgeon. He's also an active investor, or he has been. In paperwork made public today, Price says he's planning to sell off many of his individual stock holdings if he's confirmed as a member of Trump's cabinet.
NPR's Scott Horsley joins us to talk about Price's plan to avoid conflicts of interest. And Scott, Price actually has to meet more stringent conflict of interest rules than the president himself, right?
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: That's right. The president is exempt from those conflict of interest rules, but Cabinet secretaries do have to comply. And the secretary of Health and Human Services is under a particularly powerful microscope, Robert. Remember; health care is a huge industry in the United States, more than a sixth of the whole economy. It's heavily regulated by the federal government.
And we're in a moment right now where those regulations could change in a big way - not only the possible repeal the Affordable Care Act but changes to Medicaid, maybe changes to Medicare. So if he's confirmed as health secretary, Tom Price would have the power to write regulations that can make or cost people a lot of money.
Just take a look at what happened yesterday when President-elect Trump merely suggested during his news conference that the government should drive a harder bargain when it comes to pharmaceutical prices. The Nasdaq biotech index dropped 3 percent in a single day. So Price could be a market mover, and consequently, there's a lot of focus on the steps he's taking to avoid conflicts of interest.
SIEGEL: So what steps is Price taking to avoid conflicts of interest?
HORSLEY: Well, he plans to resign his position as managing partner of his own firm, which is called Chattahoochee Associates. He'll continue to hold a financial stake in that partnership, though, along with a stake in a couple of partnerships that own property and rent space to health care tenants. Now, he's promised to recuse himself from any government decisions that directly affect those businesses unless he gets a waiver.
Price has also agreed to sell within 90 days all of his stock holdings in a dozen different categories, some obvious like pharmaceutical or health insurance companies, some categories not so obvious, like railroads and utilities. And Price provided an A-to-Z list of companies he plans to sell shares in from Aetna and Amazon to Xerox and Zimmer Biomet.
SIEGEL: Literally an A-to-Z.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: Very well done. Price's financial filings show that he's been a fairly active investor in the stock market. How would you describe the reaction to his trading?
HORSLEY: Well, it has raised some eyebrows. The Wall Street Journal reported late last month that over the last four years, Price made hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stock trades in health-related companies while he was sitting on some congressional committees that have a lot of sway over the health care industry.
He traded stock in about 40 different companies, including, according to The Wall Street Journal, 70 trades on a single day last year. One of his biggest investments was last summer when he bought at least $50,000 worth of stock in an Australian biotech company. And since that time, the shares in that company have more than doubled in price.
So as I say, that's attracted some scrutiny. Maybe did the congressman know something about that company that the public didn't? A Democratic lawmaker has asked the FCC to investigate, although a Trump transition spokesman dismissed that request as just political grousing.
SIEGEL: Should we assume that Price is going to be asked about this at his confirmation hearing next week?
HORSLEY: Yeah, it could be a source of some questions. Congress did pass a law a few years ago barring lawmakers from trading inside information that they get as a result of their work as lawmakers. The law also requires them to disclose any trades in a timely manner, and that's how we know about this activity by Price. But as he's finding out, the rules are stricter for those who serve in the executive branch.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks.
HORSLEY: My pleasure.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Dr. Ben Carson was questioned today about how he would lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Carson is a retired neurosurgeon with little experience in housing or development. NPR's Pam Fessler reports on Carson's confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: It was clear that both Democratic and Republican lawmakers find Carson's life story inspiring. He grew up poor in Detroit, the son of a single mother with a third grade education, and became a highly recognized brain surgeon. But Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown noted that Carson has attributed much of his access to his own ambition and hard work and has argued that government aid can hold people back.
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SHERROD BROWN: For those who cannot overcome the odds on their own, should we not help them?
FESSLER: Carson said he thinks there definitely is a role for government aid but that safety net programs should help people become self-sufficient.
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BEN CARSON: What has happened too often is that people who seemingly mean well have promoted things that do not encourage the development of innate talent in people. And hence we have generation after generation of people living in dependent situations.
FESSLER: Carson said if he is confirmed, he'll try to address the problems faced by low-income families in a more holistic way, a little like a doctor. He wants to focus on the health impacts of living in substandard housing, especially when it comes to lead paint and to try to make sure that those getting housing aid have access to good education and jobs. New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez wondered how Carson would do all that given his past support for deep cuts in government spending.
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BOB MENENDEZ: Do you agree that the government should continue to provide rental assistance to the more than 4.5 million low income households across this country?
CARSON: I think the rental assistance program is essential. And what I have said, if you've been reading my writings, is that when it comes to entitlement programs, it is cruel and unusual punishment to withdraw those programs before you provide an alternative route.
FESSLER: Although Carson did not spell out what that alternative route might be, he did say a better economy with good jobs would help and that if confirmed, he'll go on a listening tour around the country to hear from local officials and residents about how they would make HUD more efficient. Carson was also asked about his opposition to the Obama administration's efforts to enforce the 1968 Fair Housing Act. He said he has no problem with the law's intent, which is to reduce neighborhood segregation.
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CARSON: I do have a problem with people on high dictating it when they don't know anything about what's going on in the area.
FESSLER: He said local officials are in a better position to figure out how to achieve fair housing, although he did promise to make sure the law is enforced. Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren had another concern. She noted that the incoming president has significant business interests in real estate and housing, where HUD also has extensive dealings. The agency has an annual budget of more than $46 billion.
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ELIZABETH WARREN: Can you assure me that not a single taxpayer dollar that you give out will financially benefit the president-elect or his family?
CARSON: I can assure you that the things that I do are driven by a sense of morals and values, and therefore, I will absolutely not play favorites for anyone.
WARREN: Dr. Carson, let me stop right there. I'm actually...
FESSLER: Warren tried several times without success to get a more direct answer, but Carson did promise later in the hearing that he would report back to the committee if he comes across any potential conflicts of interest involving the president or his family. Pam Fessler, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It's been nearly a thousand days since the water source for Flint, Mich., was switched from Lake Huron. Taking water from the Flint River started a chain of events that poisoned the city's tap water with lead. Yesterday, officials met again with city residents to tell them things are getting better. But as Michigan Radio's Steve Carmody reports, many are skeptical.
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KAREN WEAVER: We are going to go ahead and get started. We want to be on time.
STEVE CARMODY, BYLINE: Flint Mayor Karen Weaver tried to wrangle several hundred residents into their seats last night to listen to experts review the latest data on the city's beleaguered drinking water. For nearly three hours, scientists, doctors and government officials walked the audience through some highly technical data. Mark Durno, the EPA's onsite coordinator, tried to explain the essential findings.
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MARK DURNO: Lead levels have substantially reduced. Orthophosphate is doing its job recoating the pipes. Chlorine levels have improved and stabilized throughout the system for effective disinfection.
CARMODY: All in all, better but still really bad. The federal action level for lead in water is 15 parts per billion. Flint's lead level was at 20 parts per billion last spring. It's now down to 12 parts. The only safe level is zero. As speakers focused on water improvements, the hall filled with the subtle sound of plastic water bottles being crushed and crinkled. It was the way some expressed their distrust. Nayyirah Shariff says for Flint residents, the water bottles are a symbol of their oppression.
NAYYIRAH SHARIFF: I mean I was offended by even defining this as a town hall. Like, this is not a town hall format where the public is unable to speak. And the design of the entire process is about power and control. And our water - it still isn't safe to drink.
CARMODY: To be clear, no one's saying Flint's water crisis is over. Officials insist city residents should continue to use special lead filters. A big part of the problem is that thousands of damaged pipes need to be replaced, a task that could take at least another three years to complete, and that's only if the city gets tens of millions of dollars in additional aid.
Rigel Dawson is the pastor of Flint's North Central Church of Christ. He says after years of relying on bottled water, there's a growing apathy among members of his congregation who are starting to cook and bathe again in unfiltered Flint tap water.
RIGEL DAWSON: Even drink it, you know, because they just feel like it's not worth it, you know? I can't live like that, and you've got to die of something, you know? People have even said that.
CARMODY: And Dawson says they're losing hope.
DAWSON: I don't really know how to promote hope (laughter), you know, in a hopeless situation other than doing what I obviously do as a pastor, which is preach God's word and keep people motivated and encouraged with their faith in God's ability to turn some things around.
CARMODY: Hope - or the lack of it aside - it will likely be at least another thousand days before Flint's drinking water will be safe enough to drink unfiltered from the tap. For NPR News, I'm Steve Carmody in Flint.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump has picked a conservative Kansas congressman to be his CIA director. Today Representative Mike Pompeo had his job interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee. It came of course amid high tensions between intelligence officials and Trump. Yesterday, Trump compared U.S. spy agencies to Nazis and claimed they leaked unverified allegations against him. NPR's David Welna has the story.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: With a Harvard Law degree after graduating at the top of his class at West Point, Mike Pompeo is a big man with a long list of impressive credentials. He was an Army tank officer during the Cold War. He headed two companies in Kansas, and he's been a prominent member of the House Intelligence Committee.
But this 52-year-old engineer by training has also been a strong Republican partisan. Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr asked him if he could set politics aside and provide clear-eyed assessments to the president. Pompeo did not hesitate.
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MIKE POMPEO: You have my commitment that every day, I will not only speak truth to power but that I will demand that the men and women who I have come to know well over these past few years who live their lives doing just that will be willing, able and follow my instructions to do that each and every day.
WELNA: Mark Warner, the panel's top Democrat, then began to break the news to Pompeo that there would be yet another probe of Russian meddling in the presidential election.
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MARK WARNER: Chairman Burr and I have committed to conduct a review of the intelligence supporting the Intelligence Committee's assessment that Russia, at the direction...
WELNA: Three words after Warner mentioned Russia, the lights in the hearing room went dark, and the live TV feed went dead. The panel regrouped in another hearing room where Warner picked up where he left off.
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WARNER: To ensure that I don't - we don't end up with a light turnout again, I won't re-do my second half of my statement.
WELNA: But Warner did ask Pompeo directly if he accepted the intelligence community's report last week accusing Russia of meddling in the U.S. presidential election.
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POMPEO: Senator Warner, I do. I've had one briefing. I attended the hearing - or the meeting which the president-elect was briefed. Everything I've seen suggests to me that the report has an analytical product that is sound.
WELNA: Indeed Pompeo seemed almost at pains to make clear he does not share Trump's more benign view of Russia.
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POMPEO: It's pretty clear about what took place here, about Russian involvement in efforts to hack information and to have an impact on American democracy. I'm very clear-eyed about what that intelligence report says.
WELNA: On another hot-button issue, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein thanked Pompeo for a privately delivered apology. Pompeo in the past has strongly defended the CIA's use of waterboarding and other harsh techniques, but Feinstein today got him to publicly reject them.
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DIANNE FEINSTEIN: If you were ordered by the president to restart the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation techniques that fall outside of the Army Field Manual, would you comply?
POMPEO: Senator, absolutely not. Moreover, I can't imagine that I would be asked that by the president-elect or or then-president.
WELNA: Trump has staunchly advocated using what many consider torture for interrogations. On another matter, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden pointed to an article Pompeo wrote calling on the government to get back into the business of collecting Americans' electronic metadata.
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RON WYDEN: I'm curious what kind of information about finances and lifestyles would you not enter into your idea of this giant database.
WELNA: Pompeo assured Wyden that while the CIA would not engage in unlawful activity...
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POMPEO: If someone's out there on their Facebook page talking about an attack or plotting an attack against America, I think you would find the director of the CIA and the intelligence community grossly negligent if they didn't pursue that information.
WELNA: Pompeo is expected to easily win Senate confirmation as the next CIA director. David Welna, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Lawsuits filed by families of victims of the September 11 terror attacks will move forward this year. And it's pretty rare for individuals to sue a country for an act of terrorism. Noel King from our Planet Money podcast has the story of one of the first people to try.
NOEL KING, BYLINE: One April morning 22 years ago, Steve Flatow was backing his car out of his driveway in New Jersey. He turned on the radio and heard news of a bus bombing in the Gaza Strip, and he had this crazy, terrible thought that his daughter Alisa was on that bus.
STEVE FLATOW: I just felt it in my bones.
KING: Alisa was a college student spending the semester in Israel. And the day before, she'd called Steve to tell him she was taking a bus trip to Gaza, and he knew.
FLATOW: I didn't hear the explosion. I didn't hear the sound that metal makes when it's ripped from the side of a bus. I did not hear cries of pain. I just knew it.
KING: His intuition was right. Alisa had been on that bus. She'd been killed by shrapnel, and he was left to grieve.
FLATOW: People don't know what to do. First of all, they don't know what to say, so they don't want to be near you. People just don't know how to react to the death of a child.
KING: The group that blew up the bus was called Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The State Department thought they got funding from the government of Iran. And Steve decided that he was going to sue Iran for as much as he could.
FLATOW: I saw it as a way to possibly put the Iranians out of the terrorism business. The goal was to make their lives so miserable that they would say, we're done.
KING: There is a law that says people can't sue countries - the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Steve knew that. But right around this time, Congress changed the law, said terror victims could sue countries - those countries the U.S. designates as state sponsors of terror. Iran was one, but Steve would have to prove Iran was involved. He hired a legal team, and they got in touch with Patrick Clawson, an American economist with a unique skill.
How do you say good morning in Farsi?
(LAUGHTER)
PATRICK CLAWSON: (Speaking Farsi).
KING: He speaks and reads fluent Farsi, reads a lot of Iranian newspapers. And back then, Iran published its national budget in the paper. One day, Clawson was reading it and came across a line item for support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
CLAWSON: What idiot is going to put down in their budget, as approved by the parliament, that they're providing financial support for a terrorist group.
KING: They just wrote it in there?
CLAWSON: Yeah, it's in the budget law.
KING: It was proof. In 1998, Steve took Iran to court. Iran didn't send a representative to the trial. And after two days of testimony, the judge found Iran guilty and handed down a verdict of $250 million in damages.
FLATOW: I just slammed my hand on the table. And I looked up at the ceiling, and I said, yes, Alisa.
KING: But getting the money was another story. Steve's lawyers knew there were Iranian assets in the U.S. - a big embassy building in D.C., an ambassador's residence. They tried to seize those properties.
FLATOW: That's when all hell broke loose.
KING: Because the White House didn't want Steve to get Iranian property for two big reasons. First, the U.S. has its own embassies and ambassadors' houses overseas. What if citizens of other countries like Iran decided to sue back? Second, frozen assets are bargaining chips. They're leverage. To get POWs home from Vietnam, the U.S. unfroze Vietnamese assets - to get the Iran hostages back in '81, unfroze Iranian assets.
So Stephen his team would try to seize a property, and the White House would drag them into court to stop it. Then one day in the year 2000, a man called Steve's legal team. He said he was a retired U.S. military officer, and he gave them a tip. Iran used to buy weapons from the U.S. That stopped after the hostage crisis, but Iran had already made a down payment of about $400 million.
FLATOW: The money's been sitting in this account since 1979.
KING: It was true. The money was there. And the Clinton administration changed tack and negotiated with Congress to create the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act. The government offered Steve $25 million - not his full judgment. But by now other families had sued Iran. They were owed, too. Steve says the government assured him the money would come from that Iranian account, and he decided enough was enough.
That was 15 years ago. Steve got on with his life. And then in the summer of 2015, Steve heard President Obama announce...
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: A comprehensive long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
KING: A day after Iran implemented the nuclear deal, Iran freed four Americans who'd been held in Iranian prisons, and the U.S. sent $400 million to Iran. It was, the Obama administration said, 400 million from an Iranian weapons account - the account Steve Flatow says he was told his settlement came from. And he realized something.
Whose money did you get?
FLATOW: At the end of the day, American taxpayer money.
KING: Not Iranian money.
FLATOW: Fifteen years later, you wake up. You see the money going back to Iran. You feel like a schnorrer. You feel like a beggar - that you've taken money out of the American taxpayer. We didn't want American taxpayer money. We wanted Iranian money.
KING: But remember Steve's goal to get Iran out of the terror business? His case became a kind of template. In the years since his suit, U.S. citizens have won billions of dollars in judgments against Iran. Some economists and lawyers and even diplomats say that's hit Iran where it hurts.
And now these forthcoming lawsuits against Saudi Arabia - they're different than Steve's case. Saudi Arabia is a U.S. ally with hundreds of billions of dollars of assets here. And the U.S. has hundreds of billions of dollars of assets there. It's likely going to be and to get a lot more complicated. Noel King, NPR News.
POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION:An earlier version of this transcript included a typographical error. Iran did not make a down payment for weapons of about $400 billion. The down payment was about $400 million. The figure is correct in the audio.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
As Republicans in Congress move to repeal the Affordable Care Act, we are going to dig into public opinion on health care. NPR, along with the polling firm Ipsos, decided to try to gauge voters understanding of the U.S. health care system broadly, as well as Obamacare in particular. NPR health correspondent Alison Kodjak reports that the public's knowledge about the law was mixed, and people's opinions were very much determined by their politics.
ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: The poll shows Americans are pretty knowledgeable about the U.S. health care system overall. The majority know that this country generally spends more on health care than others, but people aren't necessarily healthier. Cliff Young is president of Ipsos, which conducted the poll for NPR.
CLIFF YOUNG: Overall, they have a pretty good command of the facts, though there's a little bit of confusion in certain places.
KODJAK: The majority of those polled know that Obamacare requires insurers to cover people with preexisting conditions and to pay for preventive medical care. At the same time, half of those in the survey didn't know that the ACA reduced the number of people who are uninsured to a record low. Michael Delli Carpini says that is a key communications failure of the Obama administration. He's the dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania.
MICHAEL DELLI CARPINI: I don't think they did as good a job as they could have taking the two or three things that were most central and most important and repeating endlessly the success that they've had.
KODJAK: Carpini says people may have voted for members of Congress or a president based on bad information, like death panels. They never actually existed, but the idea of bureaucrats who could cut off health care to the sick and dying was one of the most vivid parts of the ACA debate. It took hold and hangs on. About a third of those polled said the law limits care at the end of life, and half said they don't know if it does.
DELLI CARPINI: Once people get misinformation, if they believe it momentarily, even - even if the correct information gets to them, and they even accept the correct information at some level, they're going to be influenced by that misinformation right from the start. And they as easily are likely to forget the true information as they are the misinformation.
KODJAK: False information was just one challenge. Bill Pierce, who works on health care communications at APCO Worldwide, says the law got off to a rocky start the day people started trying to buy health insurance on the government's website.
BILL PIERCE: They essentially started with one foot in a bucket when the website failed.
KODJAK: So the idea of failure was firmly planted long before officials could point to any positive results.
PIERCE: By the time the insurance rate - the uninsured rate started to fall so much, a lot of minds were already set.
KODJAK: Whatever the facts, the poll shows that people's opinions come down to ideology. Republicans overwhelmingly say that people are responsible for securing their own health care, while Democrats say that the government should ensure everyone has access. Cliff Young of Ipsos...
YOUNG: It really comes down to ideology - really does. The linchpin is really - should there be a more active or less active government? What's the role of government? And we see the real distinctions there.
KODJAK: The same divide shows up in those who want to see the law repealed and those who want it to stay. But a message for lawmakers working to repeal Obamacare this week - even a majority of Republicans in the poll want to see the Affordable Care Act replaced if it's repealed. Alison Kodjak, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Donald Trump said this yesterday about repealing and replacing Obamacare. As soon as his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services is confirmed, he said his administration will submit a plan to replace the law. He said it will be repeal and replace. It'll be done, in Trump's words, essentially simultaneously.
Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa isn't waiting. King is a staunch conservative, and as soon as Congress convened, he proposed a repeal bill. I asked him why.
STEVE KING: It's my opinion that if we repealed Obamacare and did nothing, we're still far better off. Almost everybody I know would be happier if Obamacare had never been passed and we hadn't made any changes in health care.
But what we've missed is the last seven years or so of an opportunity to make the prudent changes so that our system, our health insurance and our health care delivery system could have been improved during that period of time.
SIEGEL: Donald Trump's adviser Kellyanne Conway recently told an interviewer, we don't want anyone who currently has insurance to not have insurance. Would that be for you the test of a new law or the test of what happens after Obamacare is repealed - no one who's gotten health insurance through Obamacare losing it under its repeal and replacement?
KING: I think that's a fine and shining ideal, but it wouldn't be my standard. We have about 20 million people that they say would be pushed off of Obamacare if we just repealed it and did nothing. I look at the numbers on the 20 million. It's about 10.8 million that were pushed onto Medicaid, and so I don't really look at Medicaid as a health insurance policy that you own.
I would argue there is no constitutional - you have no right to a health insurance policy. Whatever our hearts tell us, we can provide those things, but there's not a right to them. The roughly 9.2 million people that are insured under Obamacare that would presumably lose their insurance if it were repealed - they're living under a subsidized premium, and that subsidized premium is paid for almost a hundred percent by the taxpayers.
So we can do some things like a full deductibility of everybody's health insurance premium. That picks up some of them in that 9.2 million group. Under Obamacare, they always envisioned that 4 percent of the population would be uninsured even if it were fully implemented. So I wouldn't want to be bogged down on that, but I would want to do the best thing we can for the maximum number of American people.
SIEGEL: But you mentioned the approximately 10 million who are covered by the expansion of Medicaid, I guess around 90,000 of them in your state of Iowa. Should they just be considered out of luck? That is, would you simply repeal the Medicaid expansion outright?
KING: No, I would block grant Medicaid to the states and let each state make their decisions on that. The best decisions are made as close to the people as possible. That's why we have a federalist system.
SIEGEL: Should insurance companies be required to offer insurance to people regardless of a prior condition? Should that provision of Obamacare survive, whatever the Congress does?
KING: When I was in state government, I managed the high-risk pool. We used state tax dollars to buy down expensive premiums so we could provide guaranteed issue to those who had preexisting conditions. I think that's a far better solution. It keeps the federal government out of the insurance business and the regulation of the insurance business.
If we guarantee people that we will - that there will be a policy issued to them regardless of them not taking the responsibility to buy insurance before they were sick, that's the equivalent of waiting for your house is on fire and then buying property and casualty insurance. And that defeats the insurance concept of it, and it defeats the personal responsibility requirements necessary to have an efficient health care system.
SIEGEL: Do you sense that there's a majority in the House, that the overwhelming majority of the Republican caucus is with you on what should replace Obamacare? Or are there still arguments to be had and debates to be had about what happens after Obamacare?
KING: Let me go out on a limb here, Robert. I think most of the Republicans agree with me, but there's probably a majority of them that don't have the political will because they're afraid of the criticism that will come. And as I listen to their dialogue, they're afraid of the criticism.
They're - when I say let's repeal Obamacare and be done with that, and let's march down through these changes one at a time, not one big bill but one at a time - and I don't want to have a Republican bill that we have to pass to find out what's in it. I think at this point, they need to have more will. But I think if you take them down to where their heart of hearts is and their logical brain is, the majority of them will agree with me.
SIEGEL: Congressman Steve King of Iowa, thanks for talking with us about your thoughts on repealing and replacing Obamacare.
KING: Thank you, Robert. I appreciate it.
(SOUNDBITE OF TOPS SONG, "SUPERSTITION FUTURE")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says millions of Americans feel threatened by aggressive debt collectors. It also says collection companies are putting personal information at risk. That's according to a new report today, and it's being released while the CFPB crafts new rules for the debt collection industry. NPR's Chris Arnold reports.
CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: The CFPB gets complaints about all kinds of things - shady mortgage brokers, banks charging fees when they shouldn't be charging fees. But director Richard Cordray says then there is debt collection.
RICHARD CORDRAY: It is the most common issue that people complain about, and it's been a real active area of work for the Consumer Bureau.
ARNOLD: A bar owner in Marysville, Calif., called the Bureau to complain that she was getting 30 to 40 calls a day from a collector over a credit card debt. Other people complain collectors harassed them about bills that they don't actually owe. So Cordray says the CFPB decided to do a nationwide survey to hear from thousands of Americans.
CORDRAY: It's really the best and most comprehensive study to date of how people are actually experiencing life in debt collection, and it's not a pretty story.
ARNOLD: More than half the people claimed that debt collectors called them with bad information. Either they didn't owe the dad or the amount was wrong. One in four Americans said that they felt threatened by the calls from collectors. One of those people was a single mom in Detroit named Danesha Conley (ph). She says she lost her job and couldn't pay her car loan. And then she says collectors called her claiming to be police officers.
DANESHA CONLEY: I had one that was telling me that she was a detective, and they were coming to my house. And I was going to go to jail for car-napping.
ARNOLD: Conley says she actually got really scared that she was going to get arrested in front of her kids.
CONLEY: No debt collectors should threaten me with jail time.
ARNOLD: To crack down on abuses, CFPB in recent years has brought enforcement actions. Some collectors have been hit with a hundred million dollars in penalties, and consumers have won $300 million in restitution. And now the bureau's coming up with new regulations for debt collectors.
CORDRAY: One of the problems with the existing law is that it's 40 years old. It hasn't been updated for new technology. And it's a good opportunity for the industry itself to find improvements and for us to overhaul some of the things that are really hurting people around the country.
ARNOLD: One modern problem is identity theft. Cordray says debt collectors buy and sell databases that are full of Americans' names and Social Security numbers.
CORDRAY: They're treasure troves of personal information that can be bought for almost nothing. And for all we know, criminals are buying this and then misusing that information for identity theft and other purposes.
ARNOLD: For its part, the debt collection trade group ACA International has written to the Consumer Bureau. It's urging that the rules be precise and not overly broad and burdensome. Chris Arnold, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
How many tacos is too many tacos? That is a question that our next guest can answer. He is the food critic for The San Antonio Express-News, and he says he will eat a taco every day in 2017 and write about the experience. And this is not the first time he has done something so insane. He is with us now from member station KSTX in San Antonio. Welcome to you, Mike Sutter.
MIKE SUTTER: Well, thank you so much. I have to go back and correct a little bit of a misperception because it won't just be eating one taco a day. When I go to a taqueria, I'm going to work the menu a little bit harder than that. When I did this series in Austin in 2015, I ate 1,600 tacos, and we just call that, in this business, research.
MCEVERS: I guess my main question is not whether or not you can do this - right? - 'cause you've done it before, but why?
SUTTER: Why eat tacos? I don't know if I should be offended by that question.
MCEVERS: I think it's important to explore the question. Like, you know...
SUTTER: Yeah, we'll go - I mean, if we want to take it from a health perspective, then we'll look at the year that I did this before. I lost 10 pounds.
MCEVERS: What?
SUTTER: And I know that sounds completely counterintuitive, but a good reason to eat tacos every day is it's pure protein. It's wrapped in a light layer of carbohydrates. It's farm fresh. I mean, we talk about the farm-to-table movement, but taquerias have been doing that since time immemorial.
MCEVERS: I'm sold. Like, that's enough. You didn't even have to sell all that stuff to make me think this is a good idea.
SUTTER: (Laughter).
MCEVERS: Ok. So, like, what tacos are you planning to eat today?
SUTTER: I'm going to be eating barbecue in a little bit, and then I'm going to eat at two taquerias on the same road after that.
MCEVERS: What kinds of tacos are we talking about?
SUTTER: Well, breakfast tacos are generally available all day, but I'm not just going to stick with that, although one of my favorites is just a basic potato and egg taco and a good flour tortilla. Had that yesterday at a taqueria that you that you might have called fast food. And if fast food were like that, it wouldn't have such a bad name. This is a taco that for a $1.47 was stuffed as full as a trucker's billfold.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
SUTTER: And it was these wonderful, dirty potatoes and freshly scrambled eggs. And you've really just had to wrap it with both hands to get it up into your mouth.
MCEVERS: Are there enough taquerias in San Antonio to give you enough material for an entire year?
SUTTER: Well, and there's a broader discussion to be had about that because tacos were part of the fabric of life here long before popular food culture and media discovered tacos.
MCEVERS: Sure.
SUTTER: Taquerias aren't measured by months or by years. They're measured by decades.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
SUTTER: And they've been in those buildings. There's history in the bricks. And the hard part in San Antonio is going to be narrowing the list to 365.
MCEVERS: Really?
SUTTER: In this great wagon wheel that is the interstate system around San Antonio, you could pick a spoke and do an entire month without leaving that spoke.
MCEVERS: What, for you, makes a good taco? Like, what puts it up there in the category of, you know, top 10?
SUTTER: Well, I think first the tortilla's the make-or-break point. You know, if you're not starting with handmade flour, or corn you're already doing it wrong. But having said that, I'm not a dilettante. We're talking about a commodity that costs around $2. I mean, are we given a hard time to the guy that's charging you $15 for a hamburger and not baking his own buns?
MCEVERS: (Laughter) Right.
SUTTER: The second thing that I look for in a taco is what I call faithfulness to the form. If you're going to do a breakfast taco, cook the eggs to order. Let's not just dip them out from a steam pan. If you're going to do a bean and cheese, let's have it in the right ratio so it melts together. I mean, it's all fine and good if you like fried chicken and queso and lettuce and ranch dressing and bacon jam.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
SUTTER: But folding all that stuff into a tortilla doesn't make it a taco. It makes it an excellent snack wrap. Let's not call it a taco, and I think everybody's going to get along a little bit better.
MCEVERS: You're a white dude, right?
SUTTER: Yeah, I've been told.
MCEVERS: You know, you're in a pretty Latino city writing about tacos.
SUTTER: Right.
MCEVERS: Is that an issue? Is that a thing?
SUTTER: I think that's a completely legitimate thing to say, and I've heard that said to me. And it was rough in the beginning. I wasn't getting treated poorly by the people selling tacos. They're in business to be in business.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
SUTTER: I was getting a little bit of pushback from the customers. And I started figuring out how to order in Spanish. The most important thing I learned to say in Spanish was (speaking Spanish). And just right up front...
MCEVERS: Sorry, my Spanish is not good (laughter).
SUTTER: My Spanish is terrible. And then they meet me halfway, and we do the order half in English, half in Spanish. And I don't think I have to be born in the blood to appreciate the form. I think if you approach it with respect, it doesn't matter what your background is.
MCEVERS: Mike Sutter is food critic for The San Antonio Express-News, talking about his 365 Days of Taco project. Thank you very much.
SUTTER: You're welcome, and follow along with us at expressnews.com/tacos.
MCEVERS: Cool.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Washington, D.C., is not a place that welcomes surprises, but this afternoon, President Obama had a big surprise for his vice president.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction to my brother, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.
SIEGEL: At the White House ceremony, Obama said that he's awarding this medal, which is the nation's highest civilian honor, with an additional level of veneration. He told Biden, it was for your faith in your fellow Americans, for your love of country and a lifetime of service that will endure through the generations. Through tears, Biden thanked Obama for his faith in him as a partner.
VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Mr. President, you have - you have more than kept your commitment to me by saying that you wanted me to help govern. President's line - often - other people don't hear it that often, but when someone said, can you get Joe to do such-and-such, he says, I don't do his schedule. He doesn't do mine. Every single thing you've asked me to do, Mr. President, you have trusted me to do, and that is a - that's a remarkable.
SIEGEL: Vice President Joe Biden this afternoon at the White House, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
BIDEN: And I want to thank you all so very, very, very much - all of you. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We have news today of a major change in U.S.-Cuba policy. The Obama administration is ending the practice of granting automatic residency to Cubans who flee their country and make it to U.S. shores. The rule has come under increased scrutiny since President Obama began normalizing relations with Cuba in 2014. NPR's Carrie Kahn covers Cuba and joins us now from Mexico City. Hi there.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Hi.
MCEVERS: So how does this change what the U.S. does with Cubans who come here?
KAHN: Well, since to since 1995, Cubans who make it onto U.S. soil - actually touch dry land - have been given immediate parole into the country, and within a year, they get residency privileges. It's a priority immigration policy that no other migrant or refugee from any other country enjoys, just Cubans.
So now Cubans arriving by land without a visa will be treated as any other migrant and put in what they call expedited removal procedures and sent home. But also like other migrants, if they have a credible fear, they can declare that at the border, and they'll be given a hearing before an immigration judge.
In a statement today, President Obama said by taking this step, we are treating Cuban migrants the same way we treat migrants from all other countries.
MCEVERS: I mean this used - this was called the wet foot, dry foot policy, right? If you got one dry foot onto land, then you were granted...
KAHN: You were in.
MCEVERS: ...These privileges - right.
KAHN: Right.
MCEVERS: So what has been the reaction today to this change among Cubans?
KAHN: Well, this was just announced, so reaction is coming in just quickly. But let me just read you two comments. One - the first one is from Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont, a Democrat. He's a long supporter of warmer ties with Cuba, and he of course said this is a welcome step in reforming an illogical and discriminatory policy that contrasts starkly with the treatment of deserving refugees from other countries.
And then on the other - opposite end, Bob Menendez, a Cuban-American congressman from New Jersey, a staunch opponent of the Castro regime, is very unhappy with the change. He said, quote, "to be sure, today's announcement will only serve to tighten the noose the Castro regime continues to have around the neck of its own people."
MCEVERS: How important has this policy been for Cubans?
KAHN: It's been very important. For Cubans on the island, it's been a lifeline for many escaping political persecution. It's also been a safety valve for the regime, we have to say, for getting rid of dissidents on the island.
But despite that, the regime has long hated this policy, saying it's an enticement to drain Cuba of its professionals, especially doctors. And they've long wanted it to end. And there has been a long - a lot of speculation since relations began warming between the U.S. and Cuba that this policy would end, and that's fueled quite an exodus out of Cuba in the last two years.
Tens of thousands have come to the Mexico border, taking this exhaustive trip through South America, Central America and Mexico. And I've talked to many of them along the route, and they've said that a big motivation is that they feared what actually happened today - an end to this special privilege.
MCEVERS: This comes just a week before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. I mean he has said that he could take a tougher line on Cuba. Could he reverse this?
KAHN: It's unclear, but I'll just say the secretary of state nominee, Rex Tillerson, told senators yesterday at his confirmation hearing that President-elect Trump has asked everyone to review all of the Obama administration's executive actions on Cuba. So presumably that could include this, too.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Carrie Kahn. Thank you very much.
KAHN: You're welcome.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Now a story about some of the oldest stories in the world and the people who tell versions of them today. The Assyrian Empire dominated the Middle East thousands of years ago. Millions of Assyrians are alive today trace their roots back to that time. It's become hard for them to hang on to their traditions. War and turmoil in countries like Iraq threaten their heritage. NPR's Alice Fordham met an Assyrian man in Britain who's trying to save the stories and the culture.
ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: When I meet Nineb Lamassu at Cambridge University where he's a researcher, it's a very English tranquil summer day, but he transports us to his Middle Eastern homeland as he plays me something from the archive of his research.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing in foreign language).
FORDHAM: This is traditional poetry of the Assyrian ethnic minority, and the story of Lamassu's whose love for it begins when he was a little boy living in Kirkuk in northern Iraq.
NINEB LAMASSU: Kirkuk is actually - was an example of coexistence and a beautiful example of the Iraqi multi-ethnic multi-religious mosaic.
FORDHAM: But in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, it could be dangerous to be from a minority or politically active. His father was both, and so they ran away to Iran to a refugee camp with other Syrians. Most were from remote areas and they kept kids entertained the old fashioned way with long poems. There was one particular guy, Lamassu says he was just amazing.
LAMASSU: So we - as kids, we would go around the tents, try to find his flip-flops outside the tent. And we would know that he is in this particular tent tonight and, you know, performing his stories and, you know, doing his art. And we would beg to be allowed in so we could hear him.
FORDHAM: It affected him the rest of his life.
LAMASSU: In a cold winter night in a refugee camp, freezing - literally freezing in a tent, but kept warm by the animated performance.
FORDHAM: When he grew up, Lamassu became an academic researcher and traveled among the Assyrian diaspora recording the epics as told by men he calls bards...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing in foreign language).
FORDHAM: ...Including the storyteller from the refugee camp. Lamassu tracked him down living in New Zealand.
LAMASSU: It almost felt I was back in the refugee camp right in that tent on that cold winter night with him, he had not changed.
FORDHAM: Lamassu tells me there's a bard living nearby in London, so of course I want to meet him. It feels a little odd to be looking for an Assyrian bard to sing me an ancient poem in a busy suburb of London where most people are actually originally from India, but inside a totally ordinary gray-terraced house, there he is.
KHOSHABA JABER: My name is Khoshaba Jaber.
FORDHAM: Khoshaba Jaber.
Khoshaba Jaber was also born in northern Iraq in 1952 in a little village, and his dad used to sing him the epic poems.
JABER: You remember when you are child, your father or one old man in the village coming to tell you stories or legend. And we when he was singing, you hear him. And when you hear him, you - it becoming in your memories.
FORDHAM: But when he was just 8, his father was killed in a tribal dispute. After that, it fell to the little boy to sing the poems.
JABER: It is beginning like that (singing in foreign language).
FORDHAM: I'm going to tell you a little about the story because it's wild, and contained within this contemporary poem are echoes of ancient stories from Greek myths to Assyrian epics to the Bible. The hero of the tale is named Qatinu, he's the product of virgin birth - just like Jesus. He becomes a shepherd and goes to a magical garden to take on a female monster who's been terrorizing people.
JABER: He went to that monster - big monster woman - monster to the garden. And when he went there, and he went in that tree - was big tree - and he was hiding himself.
FORDHAM: His story continues - Qatinu defeats the monster and then goes on a quest for a plant that grants eternal youth, a theme that also crops up in the ancient epic of Gilgamesh.
JABER: He know which stone - is which cliff is that one.
FORDHAM: After about an hour, the story ends with another echo of the Bible - Qatinu dead in a cave with a stone in front and a prophecy of resurrection.
JABER: And the sun will be opened and come in Qatinu, and he will free us from the enemies, but he's still there (laughter).
FORDHAM: Bravo, bravo. (Clapping). It's elements like these that are tantalizing to researchers like Lamassu because they raise questions of how far back these tales go, whether they're even versions of a precursor of some of the ancient texts. And there's another factor that makes Lamassu's work valuable right now. In Iraq, ISIS has destroyed a number of ancient Assyrian sites, calling them idolatrous. He was speaking at a conference recently and the man introducing him...
LAMASSU: He showed ISIS destroying the ancient Assyrian monuments and heritage. And he said, if we cannot keep them and preserve them, maybe we can preserve our other heritage that they cannot destroy.
FORDHAM: And that's what Lamassu is trying to do with the poems, trying to capture at least the memory of an ancient people whose presence in their homeland is gradually fading away. Alice Fordham, NPR News, London.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALABAMA SHAKES SONG, "DON'T WANNA FIGHT")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Donald Trump talks a lot about creating jobs for Americans, so it raised some eyebrows when Trump's son Eric asked to bring six workers from Mexico to tend his vineyard near Charlottesville, Va. The Departments of Labor, State and Homeland Security have to sign off on visas for guest workers. The president of course nominates the heads of those departments. That concerns other Virginia wine makers. From WVTF, Sandy Hausman reports.
SANDY HAUSMAN, BYLINE: At this time of year, grape vines are dormant, but workers at Veritas Winery in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains are busy pruning.
ANDREW HODSON: January the 22 is called St. Vincent's day, and St. Vincent is the patron saint of vines. And according to tradition, one starts pruning on January 22.
HAUSMAN: Owner Andrew Hodson is getting an early start to produce fewer grapes.
HODSON: This paradox that the more fruit a vine produces, the lower is the quality of the fruit.
HAUSMAN: And with a hundred acres, Hodson needs help shaping the vines by hand.
HODSON: To provide the maximum exposure to light and also to provide air through the canopy because if there's no air movement, that predisposes to fungal infections.
HAUSMAN: So the company spent five years training 10 Mexican-Americans who live in nearby Waynesboro. Albino Zurita is the crew's chief.
ALBINO ZURITA: And I try to do the best I can. I try to learn every year something new.
(SOUND OF CORK POPPING, WINE POURING)
HAUSMAN: At Horton Winery 40 miles east of Veritas, it's another story. Winemaker Michael Heny relies on 18 people who come from Mexico on H-2A visas for 10 months a year.
MICHAEL HENY: We're fortunate in having had much of the same crew over the past 20 years and, you know, really their knowledge is amazing. And they can say, well, like, you know the eighth row, the fourth panel down, the third plant, the left side? I'm a little worried about it.
HAUSMAN: The winery covers roundtrip transportation from Mexico, housing, food, weekly trips to Wal-Mart and pay of $10.72 an hour. Horton's does advertise for help, as required by the Labor Department before H-2A visas are issued. But Heny says they haven't had much luck attracting skilled locals.
HENY: Everyone wants to be outside when it's nice in April, but they're less eager to be outside when it's cold in January.
HAUSMAN: If the federal government were to block visas for his Mexican workers, Heny says the vineyard would be in trouble. He hopes the presence of a nearby winery owned by Donald Trump's son Eric won't hurt his company in the competition for visas.
HENY: We hope that it doesn't affect the labor that we really depend on to make a quality product and run this whole business.
HAUSMAN: At Mas Labor, the nation's largest H-2A employment agency, Libby Whitley doubts the White House would act against small wineries that compete with Trump.
LIBBY WHITLEY: I've worked with Trump vineyards for years. They understand their obligations under the law. I have no reason to believe that the scenario that you posit would even remotely enter anybody's mind.
HAUSMAN: But she is worried about the future of guest worker programs in general given the criticism they've drawn from attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions and other allies of President-elect Trump. For NPR News, I'm Sandy Hausman in Charlottesville, Va.
(SOUNDBITE OF SANDY HAUSMAN SONG, "PEOPLE AS DESTINATION")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Since President Obama came into office, the Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriage, and Congress ended the military's don't ask, don't tell policy. Well, now a very different leader is about to be sworn in, and many LGBT people are worried.
As part of our Kitchen Table Conversation series, reporter Stina Sieg with member station KJZZ in Phoenix spoke with three people anxious about what might happen under President-elect Donald Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I'm going to give you a card in case you ever want to get a hold of me.
STINA SIEG, BYLINE: Two middle-aged men and a young woman are sitting around a small, round table. It's the first time they've ever met, but it only takes a few minutes for the conversation to flow easily.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Laughter).
SIEG: They all vividly recall the night they realized Donald Trump would be their next president.
TONY MOYA: It was disbelief, shock, like someone punched you in the stomach.
SIEG: Fifty-two-year-old Tony Moya was watching the election results at home. Fifty-nine-year-old Brendan Mahoney was at a Phoenix hotel where Democrats were holding what was supposed to be a victory celebration for Hillary Clinton.
BRENDAN MAHONEY: Although it wasn't a celebration. And I left early - just said, let's just get out of here; I don't want to do this.
SIEG: And 19-year-old Jenni Vega was surrounded by LGBT and undocumented college students.
JENNI VEGA: And afterwards, it was the flush of crying. And if it wasn't the flush of crying, it was people wondering what their next step was.
SIEG: That's because while Donald Trump has called himself a supporter of the LGBT community, many of his Cabinet picks and his vice president oppose LGBT rights. And Tony Moya, who is gay, Latino and married, says he thinks Trump's opinions can turn on a dime. So even though Trump has said he's, quote, "fine with the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage..."
MOYA: I don't for once believe that. I don't know what's going to happen.
SIEG: And that uncertainty is terrifying for Moya and everyone at the table. They believe Trump has invigorated people who don't want to understand them and might even hate them. Jenni Vega, a Hispanic genderqueer woman who uses the pronoun they, says some days, it can be hard to even go outside.
VEGA: I really have to push forward and, like, love myself, take care of myself, especially now in this, like, era in time where we have this person who's, like, no, like, I don't want you. Like, I don't want you here. Like, I don't want your kind here. I don't want you existing. I don't want you being this.
SIEG: Because Vega presents in a feminine way, people don't immediately know they're genderqueer. Vega worries how others must feel, those more vulnerable - trans folks, the undocumented and the people, Vega says, who simply cannot hide.
Brendan Mahoney worries about them, too, much more than himself. As a white lawyer who's been out since he was 19, he has a certain amount of privilege and years of emotional armor.
MAHONEY: The reality is I know I'm not going to suffer as much harm as other people are that I worry about. There are other people who are going to feel it much worse. I'll survive it.
SIEG: Who do you worry about the most?
MAHONEY: Undocumented the most and Muslims.
SIEG: Mahoney's empathy with other marginalized groups attacked by Trump has caused him to lose a few friends.
MAHONEY: You care more about saving a couple hundred dollars in taxes than you do about the family down the street that's being threatened with deportation. You're not my friend. I've misjudged you.
SIEG: Someone who hasn't had those conversations yet is Tony Moya, who works in a conservative office setting. Right after the election, he heard some people saying this was the most exciting time of their lives, but...
MOYA: It was just too raw for me to say anything, so I conveniently avoided that. I think now if someone were to tell me that, then I would engage with them (laughter).
SIEG: Moya and the others at this table say it's important to be open about who they are now more than ever. For NPR News, I'm Stina Sieg in Phoenix.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE CAVE SINGERS SONG, "BEACH HOUSE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
White nationalists were among the first to embrace Donald Trump's candidacy, and they celebrated after his election. Since then, the so-called alt-right has splintered. As Frank Morris of member station KCUR reports, the movement now looks a lot less potent than it once did.
FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Next week, white nationalists like Jared Taylor will celebrate a moment they've been waiting decades to see.
JARED TAYLOR: January 20 reflects a significant defeat for egalitarian orthodoxy.
MORRIS: Taylor promotes a very different orthodoxy, one in which race is central to innate abilities and national success. He's working to build a United States explicitly for white people. Trump arguably helps this by telling supporters that they're victims of a system that's rigged against them.
TAYLOR: I see Donald Trump as a kind of stepping stone. He is a step in the right direction in terms of understanding America and history and the world in essentially racial terms.
MORRIS: But white nationalist enthusiasm for Trump has fallen off substantially. And to understand that, it helps to go back to the heady days just after the election.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RICHARD SPENCER: It's too much winning. Can someone please just stop winning? I don't want to win anymore, all right (laughter).
MORRIS: That's Richard Spencer, the guy who coined the term alt-right, telling a roomful of fellow radicals that Trump's victory has just sling-shotted white nationalism into the mainstream.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SPENCER: And even if we're not quite in power yet, we should act like it.
MORRIS: But later that day, some of the audience responded to a speech by enthusiastically throwing up Nazi salutes.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SPENCER: Hail Trump. Hail our people. Hail victory.
MORRIS: And that's what got all the media attention.
KEVIN MACDONALD: Right after the election, I think there was euphoria. But as we get into it now, I think that there's more trepidation.
MORRIS: Kevin MacDonald is a retired evolutionary psychology professor at California State Long Beach and another white nationalist mainstay. He says Trump's appointments have also rattled the movement, especially his propensity for tapping rich Wall Street bankers.
MACDONALD: These are globalists in general. They love free trade. They love immigration - big red flags for us.
MORRIS: And MacDonald says he's concerned about the reliance on generals and hawkish policy leading America into another Middle East war.
MACDONALD: A lot of trepidation. But the big silver lining is Jeff Sessions.
MORRIS: Referring to Trump's nominee for attorney general, Macdonald hopes Sessions will clamp down on immigration. White nationalists also like secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson, who's seen as being close to Putin, a darling of the alt-right.
But despite its high hopes for the Trump administration, the radical right has largely gone to war with itself. And Mark Potok with the Southern Poverty Law Center says much of what was once called the alt-right has peeled away.
MARK POTOK: I mean, look; we are talking about a movement which spends literally more time attacking one another than they do their enemies.
MORRIS: No one has taken more fire from his ideological kinsmen lately than Richard Spencer. Like-minded radicals have disavowed the alt-right, even called Spencer an operative bent on the movement's destruction. In the media, he's always tied to those Nazi salutes.
SPENCER: I think it's good to be that person talked about even when it's negative. Our ideas are entering the discourse.
MORRIS: But Marilyn Mayo with the Anti-Defamation League argues that the so-called alt-right is watching its illusion of real world influence wither.
MARILYN MAYO: At some point, they may have felt that they could influence policy in some way. But I think that was really more of a pipe dream for them because they really are a fringe movement, and they're still a fringe movement.
MORRIS: So a movement that sprang from obscurity with Donald Trump's election seems to be dropping back into the shadows even before Trump takes power. For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
And now it's time for a last call on the Commercials for Nicer Living project, version 2017.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
This is an update of a project that Susan Stamberg ran 45 years ago on this program. She asked listeners to write commercials for life's little joys.
MCEVERS: And five of those were turned into commercials for Nicer Living with music and sound effects.
SIEGEL: There were ads for love letters, clouds, waiting, walking and the bio-clock.
MCEVERS: Also known as your built in time piece.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Bio-clock is the result of eons of research and development. By Flora and Fauna Laboratories, bio-clock costs you nothing. You already own it...
MCEVERS: Oh, yeah, that is definitely from 1972.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) Yeah, we wanted to know what things make your life nicer today, in 2017, so we launched a new Commercials for a Nicer Living project. And so far we've gotten more than a thousand ideas.
MCEVERS: Peter Manos in Seattle sent in the most. He wrote ads for peace and quiet, cats, snowmen, belly laughs, Joshua trees...
SIEGEL: And breathing through your nose.
MCEVERS: (Laughter) A simple pleasure that eludes many of us this time of year.
SIEGEL: OK, here's where the last call comes in. You have just a few more days to join our Commercials for Nicer Living, version 2017. The address is npr.org/nicer.
MCEVERS: You only need to write a script - no more than 120 words. We'll pick five to produce like actual radio commercials and share them on air in a couple of weeks.
SIEGEL: The deadline is this Sunday, January 15.
(SOUNDBITE OF BAD WEATHER CALIFORNIA SONG, "STAND IN MY SUNSHINE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Elephants, sharks, pangolins - China has been using these and other animals in food, art and medicine for centuries. Now, there's a fundamental shift underway. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing on China's changing attitude toward wildlife products.
(SOUNDBITE OF IVORY CARVING)
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Little white chips fly off in every direction with each blow of master ivory carver Li Chunke's chisel. Gradually, the folds of a robe, tassels and the hands of an ancient Chinese woman begin to emerge from a rough piece of ivory in front of him. He says nothing looks as smooth, nothing can be carved as intricately or as expressively as ivory.
LI CHUNKE: (Through interpreter) Whether I'm carving animal or human figures, I try to express their feelings. That's what Chinese consider most important.
KUHN: For the past 53 years, Li has worked at the state-owned Beijing Ivory Carving factory. Li says that every piece of ivory there is registered by the government and comes from elephants who died naturally. None, he says, come from black market poachers or smugglers.
CHUNKE: (Through interpreter) We ivory carvers hate elephant poachers. I would never touch a piece of ivory from a poached elephant.
KUHN: For years, China's government has argued that banning ivory would destroy the centuries-old cultural traditions that carvers like Li preserve. But last month, China announced it would phase out its ivory trade by the end of this year. Li and others saw the ban coming. Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping agreed in 2015 that both their countries would do it, and environmental groups and celebrities have campaigned for it for years.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
YAO MING: (Foreign language spoken).
KUHN: When the buying stops, the killing can too, former Houston Rockets center Yao Ming says in an ad for the group WildAid. Steve Blake, WildAid's acting chief representative in China, says that the ads appear to have helped raise awareness. His group does annual surveys asking Chinese whether they know where ivory comes from.
STEVE BLAKE: And would you support a government ban on ivory? And the supporting of the government ban on ivory from our surveys have always been over 95 percent.
KUHN: Last week, China's national airline banned the transport of sharks' fins. In a swipe at corruption, China banned shark's fin soup at official banquets in 2013, and Blake says imports and prices have since plummeted.
BLAKE: There have just been a lot of very encouraging signs in the last couple months of China's will to change this worrying trend of consuming endangered wildlife, and so they should be giving a lot of credit.
KUHN: Lots of details about the ivory ban still need to be ironed out like, for example, what the government is going to do with existing ivory stockpiles - buy it or burn it. Come what may, carver Li Chunke says he's not worried about his own survival.
CHUNKE: (Through interpreter) We've been prepared for this for a long time. We also carve mammoth ivory.
KUHN: That's right, the tusks of elephants' woolly ancestors are still legal to buy and sell in China if you care to go to Siberia and dig them up. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Beijing.
(SOUNDBITE OF JENS LEKMAN SONG, "SIPPING ON THE SWEET NECTAR")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We're expecting hundreds of thousands of visitors to arrive next week for the presidential inauguration. Few are predicting the crowds we saw in 2009 at Barack Obama's record-setting event, but there is a lot of interest this year from Donald Trump's supporters and his critics. Reporter Patrick Madden of member station WAMU takes a look at how Washington, D.C., is getting ready.
PATRICK MADDEN, BYLINE: Along the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route, the viewing stands are going up. Hotels are booked. The city is preparing to welcome Donald Trump to the White House, and so are the demonstrators. Eugene Puryear is an organizer with the anti-war group, the ANSWER Coalition.
EUGENE PURYEAR: And the way I'm telling people is, look; Donald Trump is throwing a party. He's throwing a coronation. And I want to be here to crash it.
MADDEN: Earlier this month, the National Park Service approved the group's permits to protest alongside the parade route. This week, Puryear visited one of the spots at the Navy Memorial plaza.
PURYEAR: So what we're hoping this turns into on inauguration day is that this plaza is totally full with people - tens of thousands of people.
MADDEN: Figuring out how to handle the tens of thousands of expected protesters falls on the shoulders of D.C.'s police department.
CHIEF PETER NEWSHAM: Our No. 1 goal is to facilitate these First Amendment assemblies. That's what Washington, D.C., is all about.
MADDEN: This is interim police Chief Peter Newsham.
NEWSHAM: People are allowed to express their First Amendment rights and whether that be holding a sign or yelling, whatever way that you feel comfortable in doing it, as long as it's not illegal.
MADDEN: D.C.'s police department learned this lesson the hard way. The city's paid out millions of dollars to settle lawsuits for illegal mass arrests during demonstrations in the early 2000s.
Now the police department is considered a model for handling protests, which are frequent in the nation's capital. Officers go through specific training for First Amendment assemblies. Newsham says police will even work behind the scenes with organizers to coordinate how protests will go.
NEWSHAM: The organizers are generally satisfied with their experience when we have these demonstrations. And we don't think, you know, Inauguration Day will be any different.
MADDEN: What might be different this year is the sheer number of protesters coming to D.C., both for the January 20 inauguration and the women's march the next day. Twelve hundred busloads of protesters are expected for the women's march, three times as many as expected for the Inauguration itself. Of course supporters of Donald Trump will be on hand as well, and one of the more memorable events will likely be the DeploraBall.
JEFF GISEA: We Trump supporters appropriated that term and kind of made it a badge of honor and did it in, also, a little bit of a cheeky way.
MADDEN: This is Jeff Gisea, one of the organizers behind this bash for a thousand people that aren't attending one of the official balls.
GISEA: It sold out within a matter of hours. So that tells me there's something in the air. There's something happening. There's a nerve that we're hitting in the public.
MADDEN: The influx of Trump supporters and protesters may be a headache for security officials, but it's big business for D.C.'s local economy. Nowhere is that more evident than Jim Warlick’s presidential memorabilia shop, the White House Gifts store. It's packed with Trump merchandise, hats, key chains, signs and other souvenirs.
JIM WARLICK: We just got an item in today, which is a pen that you press the head of Trump, and he makes these great statements that he made during the campaign. I'll play one for you.
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: (As Donald Trump) I will be the greatest president that God ever created.
WARLICK: Now, that's a humble statement, isn't it?
(LAUGHTER)
MADDEN: And protesters aren't waiting for Inauguration weekend, with some demonstrations kicking off tomorrow. For NPR News, I'm Patrick Madden, in Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There was a lot of news this week, and we're going to talk about as much of it as we can with our regular Friday commentators, E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution and David Brooks of The New York Times. Welcome to both of you.
E J DIONNE, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
DAVID BROOKS, BYLINE: Good to be here.
MCEVERS: So we had the first confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees as well as Trump's first press conference in a long time, but many people would say the most important thing this week was the question of conflicts of interest. Let's hear a clip from that press conference where Trump addressed this. This is his lawyer, Sheri Dillon, talking about Trump's plans to turn over his business to his two sons.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SHERI DILLON: The president-elect will have no role in deciding whether the Trump organization engages in any new deal, and he will only know of a deal if he reads it in the paper or sees it on TV.
MCEVERS: Dillon also said there will be no new foreign deals, that they'd have an ethics adviser at the Trump organization. But Trump is not selling his business, and there will be no blind trust. What do you make of this, E.J.?
DIONNE: I think this gives the idea of the fig leaf a bad name. I think that he is asking for a lot of trouble for himself. Walter Shaub, the director of the Office of Government Ethics, said that this was wholly inadequate to prevent him from conflicts of interest because he's going to know where his businesses are. He's going to know what's going on, and the money still accrues to him. He talked about not taking profits from certain enterprises, but that still means taking revenue from them.
And by the way, for his labors, Mr. Shaub is being called before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee by Representative Jason Chaffetz. And this is very odd. A committee that's supposed to guarantee government ethics is going...
MCEVERS: Right.
DIONNE: ...After the government ethics person for having too tough a line on Donald Trump. This is not a promising development I think.
MCEVERS: David, what do you think - fig leaf or earnest effort here?
BROOKS: Earnest fig leaf.
(LAUGHTER)
BROOKS: You know...
DIONNE: What a centrist you are.
BROOKS: I'm totally distancing myself and giving my business to my sons. No, it's clearly does not fit in the normal role of what - where we consider - when we consider public service, you axe your ties to the private sector and then you go off and serve the country.
Trump doesn't think that way. He is running sort of a family monarchy. His business is not like a normal modern corporation. It's a premodern business organized around the family. And frankly, his administration is sort of a premodern business organized around the family. So he's operating by a different set of rules. I do think he'll probably get into trouble. I have to say. This is about ninth or 10th down my list of concerns about the Trump administration.
MCEVERS: OK.
BROOKS: I think we all know what we're getting with him.
MCEVERS: OK, well, let's talk about some of the confirmation hearings then this week, Trump's pick for Cabinet. I mean many of his nominees differed with him in these hearings on a lot of things - about Russian hacking in the election, how tough to be on Russia in general, whether or not to use waterboarding, the status of our, you know, participation with NATO. What does this tell us about how this administration is going to work, David?
BROOKS: Well, the first thing to be said is those of us who are Trump critics have to admit when he's had a good week, and this is the best week he's had since the election. His nominees, which a lot of us thought were going to get into really contentious hearings, are basically sailing through. And second, he's been telling the world that the media is lying about him, and this week, the media did lie about him. So he was sort of indicating his worldview.
I do think Russia is the crucial issue here, and it's really a contest within the administration between Steve Bannon and maybe Trump who really see Russia as an ally in the populous revolt against the elites and the rest of the administration, which are part of the elites.
And so I don't know how that'll shake out. I suspect the elites will win because at the end of the day, Trump will want to cozy up to the elites for the same reason he wanted the Clintons at his wedding - because he seeks their affirmation.
DIONNE: If this is the best week that Trump has had, God save Trump and the country. First of all, the media did not lie about him. CNN reported that the president and Trump were briefed on the fact that there is talk that the Russians have information on him. That turned out to be absolutely true. Then BuzzFeed put out - published this memo that has had a...
MCEVERS: You're talking about this unsubstantiated dossier.
DIONNE: Correct.
MCEVERS: We should be really, really clear.
DIONNE: Well, I was going to say that, - this unsubstantiated dossier, which, by the way, BuzzFeed said was unsubstantiated, that is floating around out there. We don't know what's true and what's not true in that dossier. And so - and I think that Trump's news conference gave an awful lot of people pause.
I was, you know - the notion that he could sort of shout down a reporter - Jim Acosta from CNN - and not let him ask questions is a real sign of a kind of autocratic tendency in Trump. I don't think anyone who is not a Trump supporter was in any way reassured by that news conference. If anything, I think people are more worried than they were before unless they are utter Trump devotees.
And on your question, there is this vast gulf between what his - many of his nominees are saying on the Hill and what Trump believes. And I think what we're finding is on many issues, it's really not clear what Donald Trump believes. It's not clear that Donald Trump himself is sure what he believes.
MCEVERS: Let's talk about another issue that is of importance this week, and that is Republicans in Congress taking their first steps toward dismantling Obamacare. David, this is something you wrote about in your column today. How are Republicans going to come up with a workable replacement plan? I mean, what will be the same as Obamacare, and what will be different, do you think?
BROOKS: Well, they claim the amount of people covered will be the same, which grants the Democrats the argument that health care is a right. The level of coverage may not be the same, and the method will be different. They're going to try to use refundable tax credits to allow people to shop for insurance like it's a private market. I happen to more or less sympathize with the general approach the Republicans are taking.
I have to say. I do not see any political upsurge of support or call for it. And I think it's going to be politically super tough because a lot of people are going to see this as another burden - shopping for insurance - another burden they're going to have to take, another risk that's going to come into their lives. And unless I see some sort of popular support for that, it's going to be a politically - an extremely tough road even though I may generally sympathize with the overall approach.
MCEVERS: So even though there is some political will - I mean you hear Trump talking about it himself - to pass some sort of replacement, you think it'll be difficult for them to actually do it?
BROOKS: It reminds me a little of the Social Security reform President Bush tried to do several years ago where in theory a good idea and politically tough.
DIONNE: And in this case, I think the fact that they had - they rushed to repeal without having any replacement to offer tells us something important. They don't really have a fundamental replacement plan. And if they want to cover as many people as Obamacare currently covers, they're going to have to come up with a whole lot of money that they do not seem prepared to come up with.
And it's hard actually to think of a much more market-oriented approach than the one Obama came up with because the whole point of all these insurance markets is to keep most people in a private insurance market. So I think the Republicans are in a lot of substantive trouble on this, and their goal is to...
MCEVERS: OK.
DIONNE: ...Blame any problems created on Obamacare in the past. But they still - I'm waiting for that replacement.
MCEVERS: Thank you, E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times. Thanks to both of you.
BROOKS: Thank you.
DIONNE: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Obama is taking some of his final actions before leaving the White House. And yesterday, he made a surprise announcement ending the policy known as wet foot, dry foot. Since 1995, Cubans intercepted at sea were returned to Cuba. Cubans who touched U.S. soil were allowed to stay and become legal residents. Well, now that's all changed.
And NPR's Greg Allen reports from Miami where Cuban-Americans have had mixed reactions to the news.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Spanish).
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: In Miami's Westchester neighborhood, La Carreta is where many Cuban-Americans meet for two of their favorite activities - to drink coffee and talk politics. Juan Vega was happy to talk about Obama's lifting of wet foot, dry foot.
JUAN VEGA: My thoughts are that they should have done it sooner rather than later.
ALLEN: Vega is 71, part of that first generation of Cuban exiles. He says unlike earlier exiles who left Cuba because of political repression, the vast majority of Cuban migrants now are economic refugees no different, he says, from Mexicans or Central Americans.
VEGA: They have no political inclination. They have no political philosophy. They even refuse to talk against the government because all they come here is to get signed up on government policies and government aid to send money to Cuba.
ALLEN: That's a view not shared by Cuban-Americans in Congress. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called Obama's policy change a foolhardy concession to the Castro regime. Senator Marco Rubio said steps must be taken to ensure Cubans who experience political persecution are able to receive asylum here.
In a windy parking lot at La Carreta, Peter Padron said for years, the special status Cubans enjoyed encouraged human smugglers to turn it into a business.
PETER PADRON: Twenty-five-thousand is going to people in Miami, going to people in Cuba, going to Mexicans in the safe house in Mexico.
ALLEN: It's a human smuggling system, Padron says, well known in Miami - $25,000 to get your family member out of Cuba. Padron admits there are disagreements in the community over wet foot, dry foot. Cuban-Americans who arrived in recent years with close family members still on the island see it differently.
Ramon Saul Sanchez with the Democracy Movement in Miami works with many newly arrived Cuban migrants. He says at bottom, political repression by the communist regime is still what forces Cubans to leave their homeland.
RAMON SAUL SANCHEZ: The repression that the people live under - of course it deprives them of the ability to live decently from an economic point of view, and it is then also caused by politics.
ALLEN: In the last two years since Obama announced his plans to normalize relations between the U.S. and Cuba, migration from the island has surged. Worried that their special status could soon be lifted, last year, nearly 55,000 Cubans came here without visas. The U.S. will still issue some 20,000 visas each year to Cubans through an immigration lottery, but this policy change effectively ends what's become a flood of migrants from Cuba.
Saul Sanchez is worried about what happens to Cubans that the U.S. rejects and returns to the island. Cuba's communist regime has long considered any who wanted to leave counter-revolutionary. That, Saul Sanchez says, will be an additional burden for Cubans turned away by the U.S.
SAUL SANCHEZ: They are branded by the government, and that means you don't get to study. You don't get to receive the better jobs and many, many other things that would happen to you once the regime makes you an outcast.
ALLEN: Despite this major policy change, Saul Sanchez predicts Cubans will continue making the trip by boat to the U.S. The Coast Guard today released a statement saying it stands ready to continue to stop illegal immigration. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
With just a week to go in office, the Obama administration is changing a decades-old policy on Sudan. It is easing some sanctions as a way to encourage that African country to resolve conflicts and to help fight terrorism. Human rights groups say the U.S. is sending exactly the wrong message to a foreign government that has been accused of genocide. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Sudan has been under U.S. sanctions since the 1990s for its support of terrorism and human rights abuses. The Bush administration piled on more after accusing President Omar al-Bashir of carrying out a genocide in Darfur in western Sudan.
Now the Obama administration says it will start allowing U.S. energy, agriculture, medical and other companies to do business with Khartoum. The decision grew out of months of negotiations, as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, explained to reporters in New York...
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SAMANTHA POWER: We, behind the scenes, have been engaged with the government of Sudan in a discreet way, laying out the kind of steps that we would need to see in a number of areas in order for them to see sanctions relief.
KELEMEN: Counterterrorism was a big one, and officials say that Sudan has been cooperating on that front. Power says aid groups have also seen, in her words, a sea change when it comes to humanitarian access to places like Darfur as well as other conflict zones in Sudan.
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POWER: We're not seeing, you know, suddenly the dawn of peace in our time in those areas but a very significant improvement over that six months.
KELEMEN: That progress will need to be sustained for the next 180 days for Sudan to see sanctions relief, and she believes activists will make sure the Trump administration follows through. But human rights groups say the Obama administration is sending the wrong signal - that if a country cooperates on terrorism, it will get a pass on other issues. One longtime Sudan watcher, Eric Reeves of Harvard, says U.S. officials tend to overstate Sudan's cooperation on counterterrorism.
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ERIC REEVES: The regime has done nothing really to deserve this, but we've seen increasing repression in Khartoum and elsewhere with many arrests, many, many newspaper seizures unprecedented in the two decades I've been working on Sudan.
KELEMEN: Reeves says he remembers what Obama said before taking office when the then candidate described the genocide in Darfur as a stain on our souls.
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REEVES: Violence in Darfur never stopped and has been accelerating steadily since 2012, all on the Obama administration watch. His claim that he would never averse his eyes from slaughter has proved, sadly, quite hollow.
KELEMEN: Administration officials say the sanctions that were put in place because of Darfur will remain on the books. And they believe that they've given the incoming Trump administration a large carrot and stick, a chance to make the sanctions relief permanent or take it away. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Timothy O'Brien knows more about Donald Trump's business than most reporters. He has actually seen multiple years of Trump's tax returns. He also wrote the biography "TrumpNation: The Art Of Being The Donald." He has been closely watching how Trump plans to deal with his business while he's president.
O'Brien argues Trump could easily prevent conflicts of interest, and one way would be to just sell his business. Tim O'Brien is with us now. Welcome to the show.
TIMOTHY O'BRIEN: It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
MCEVERS: First, let's just explain to people. How did you get to see Trump's tax returns?
O'BRIEN: Because he sued me. That's probably not the best way to try to get to see his tax returns, is it?
MCEVERS: (Laughter) Right, yeah, not like a blueprint for reporters going forward (laughter).
O'BRIEN: No, no. I was at The New York Times at the time when I wrote my book, and he sued me for libel. And that case ultimately got thrown out of court. During the course of that suit, I got his financial and business records along with his tax returns. We deposed him for two days, et cetera, et cetera.
MCEVERS: How many years of tax returns did you see?
O'BRIEN: I saw several, but I can't speak specifically about the returns themselves because they were sealed.
MCEVERS: One thing we do hear about - a lot about Trump's business is that it is a, quote, "vast real estate empire," and you have a problem with that term. Why?
O'BRIEN: I do have a problem with that term because it's neither vast nor an empire. It's actually pretty easy to quickly describe what he has. Overseas, he mainly has a handful of licensing operations that he gets a fee for slapping his name on other people's buildings. And he's got three golf courses, two in Scotland and one in Ireland.
In the U.S., he owns one commercial building outright - 40 Wall Street, and he doesn't even own the land underneath 40 Wall Street. He owns very little of Trump Tower, his signature building, because it's a condominium. And like many of the Trump-named buildings in New York that are condominiums, the condo owners own it once he sells them the units.
He's got some lucrative real estate, a retail space on Fifth Avenue. He's got a bunch of other golf courses. And then he's got 30 percent stakes in two other big buildings owned by Vornado Realty.
MCEVERS: So Trump held a press conference this week, and he and his lawyer laid out plans for how he is going to handle his business as president, you know, announcements such as his two sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, will take control of the Trump organization. They'll be no new international deals. What did you make of it? Do you think that was sufficient?
O'BRIEN: Well, I think the key thing to focus on here is the goal of all this isn't to penalize Donald Trump financially. The goal is to make sure the American public gets clean policymaking that isn't corrupted or influenced by personal deal making, and that applies to politicians of both parties.
In Donald Trump's case, he has this handful of businesses that are carrying significant amounts of debt. For example, he owns - owes over a billion dollars to about 150 institutions across Wall Street. He's going to be regulating all those banks. He plans to push through an aggressive deregulation of the financial services industry. It's going to be impossible for him to pursue those goals without people questioning whether or not he's doing them in the service of his own business needs.
MCEVERS: But their argument at the press conference - Trump and his lawyer, Sheri Dillon - was that you can't sell the businesses I mean because there's no way you could get a fair price because you're dealing with the president the United States.
O'BRIEN: It would not be a complex matter to bundle up those businesses and take them public in a REET, for example, or to sell them. And he certainly would not get wounded in fire sale prices. And there would be a reasonable auction. He would do very well.
MCEVERS: Trump and his team argue that his name is his brand, and his brand is his name, and there's no way he could possibly unwind himself from that. What do you make of that argument?
O'BRIEN: If he sells off the buildings, his name disappears. They can put the branding on hold for four or eight years, however long he's in the White House. He and his family have said they didn't go into public service for the money, and Trump should follow suit.
MCEVERS: I mean Trump is about to become arguably the most powerful person in the world. Why do you think he has been so reluctant to give up his business?
O'BRIEN: Well, I think there's good reasons for that. You know, it started on Avenue Z in Brooklyn with Fred Trump, who was a high school dropout who needed his mother's signature to get his first business deals done. And he built it into a middle-income housing empire worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.
Donald inherited that and took it to Manhattan and turned himself into a globally recognized name. So there's a lot of history and emotion and personal issues tied up in that that are wholly understandable about why he wouldn't want to give it up.
MCEVERS: Tim O'Brien is executive editor of Bloomberg View. He's the author of "TrumpNation: The Art Of Being The Donald." He joined us from New York. Thank you very much.
O'BRIEN: Thanks for having me.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
It's a little more than a year since the city of Chicago released video showing a white police officer shooting a black teenager, Laquan McDonald, 16 times. Protesters poured into the streets after the long-delayed release of the video, and they called for reforms.
Today, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch went to Chicago to discuss the Justice Department's year-long investigation into the city's police department. NPR's Cheryl Corley reports.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: Chicago is the latest city to have its police department come under the close scrutiny of the Justice Department following a controversial fatal encounter between police and a citizen. In 2014, 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by a white police officer, but it took a court order for the city to release the police video. That officer has since been charged with murder.
Today, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the Justice Department had interviewed hundreds of people, looked at use-of-force reports and conducted a wide-ranging investigation looking at the patterns and practices of the city's entire police department.
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LORETTA LYNCH: The Department of Justice has concluded that there is reasonable cause to believe that the Chicago Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
CORLEY: Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta says the problems in the Chicago Police Department stem in large part from a lack of training and effective oversight and no good system to hold the police accountable.
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VANITA GUPTA: This pattern includes, for example, shooting at people who present no immediate threat and Tasing people for not following verbal commands. This conduct doesn't only harm residents. It endangers officers. It results in avoidable deaths and injuries and trauma. And it erodes police community trust, trust that truly is the cornerstone of public safety.
CORLEY: While harshly criticizing the department, the attorney general also applauded some of the changes the city has already made, like adding body cameras for officers and revamping a police oversight body. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, faced with both skyrocketing shootings and police misconduct, agrees that change is needed. He calls the Justice report sobering.
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RAHM EMANUEL: And it's my fervent hope that this report does not lead to another round of finger-pointing or a more acrimonious debate of us versus them because if you look at the report, a lot of the recommendations for change come from police officers.
CORLEY: The Justice Department's finding that Chicago police trampled citizens' rights is no surprise to Flint Taylor, an attorney with the People's Law Office.
FLINT TAYLOR: Well, one thing that I thought was missing from this report that was fundamental and has been fundamental with regard to the Chicago Police Department is this both systemic and individualized racism that fuels the police brutality and violence in this city.
CORLEY: The report does outline how officers have disproportionately used force, however, against African-Americans and Latinos. The Justice Department findings come just a few days before the Trump administration takes over with a nominee for attorney general who's more skeptical of this approach to enforcing police department reforms. But Loretta Lynch says this preliminary agreement will stand.
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LYNCH: That work is carried on regardless of who sits at the top of the Justice Department. But I will say, it is also something that is dependent upon this city continuing to lean in as it has done.
CORLEY: The head of the Fraternal Order of Police says although the union remains hopeful that police perspective will be better understood in any further negotiations, the FOP is concerned about bias in the investigation. But for now, it's clear that the city is on notice that more reforms must come. Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
With Republicans about to control both Congress and the White House, Democratic lawmakers are trying to figure out how to fight back. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders says that means leaving Washington. So this weekend, Democrats will hold rallies across the country to fight Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare.
NPR's Scott Detrow reports that Sanders is headed to Michigan, a state Democrats lost in the presidential race by the slimmest of margins.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: In a demonstration of just how much clout Sanders now carries in Congress, he'll be joined outside Detroit on Sunday by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
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BERNIE SANDERS: The goal is to rally the American people against the disastrous Republican proposal.
DETROW: Since Congress came back earlier this month, Schumer and other Democratic leaders have been doing what they normally do - holding big press conferences, doing a lot of TV interviews.
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CHUCK SCHUMER: I rise to talk about the Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
DETROW: Earlier this week, Senate Democrats talked late into the night for about all the good they say Obamacare's done.
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MARTIN HEINRICH: ...Repeal and replace, and now they're giving us repeal and run.
ELIZABETH WARREN: Repeal and run...
DETROW: The big posters, the personal stories, the catchy slogans - it's the typical minority party playbook.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: ...Better plan since 2010.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Show me the plan.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Show us your plan.
DETROW: But it's a little harder to break through all the noise in an era when President-elect Trump can basically reprogram cable news with a single tweet. Schumer is trying to get Senate Democrats more engaged on social media.
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SCHUMER: I've been on Facebook and Snapchat, but what about Twitter? So tweet me your questions about ACA.
DETROW: But no one else in Washington has been able to dominate it like Trump. This clearly frustrates Sanders. He wants Democrats to reimagine how they get their message out beyond floor speeches and press conferences.
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SANDERS: You also need an outside-the-Beltway strategy. How do you mobilize millions of people and to get them to understand that the Republicans are doing exactly the opposite of what the American people want?
DETROW: That's what this Michigan event is all about. Sanders tapped the massive email list he put together during his primary campaign, blasting out messages about the Michigan rally and similar events across the country. He and Schumer will be trying to make their case in a state where Democrats typically did well with working class voters but faltered badly in 2016.
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SANDERS: There are many parts of the country that I could have gone to, but Michigan is a great state. It's a state where I did well in the Democratic primary, and it is a state where Trump won.
DETROW: Democrats are now out of power at pretty much every level of government. Party leaders are trying to figure out their strategy, but so are grassroots activists. One place many liberals are turning - an online guide called Indivisible. It's basically a manual written by former Democratic congressional staffers that lays out ways that Democrats could use Tea Party tactics to fight Trump. Ezra Levin helped put it together. He says the Tea Party did one thing really well.
EZRA LEVIN: If they were in Texas, they didn't call members of Congress in California. They knew that they were constituents of people who had a voice in Washington, and they focused on their two senators and their representative.
DETROW: That's what this guide recommends for Democrats trying to figure out how to organize. It offers practical tips, like how to effectively call a lawmaker's office or how to best pressure a representative during a town hall. Levin says he wants readers to understand that it's really easy for people to become politically active.
LEVIN: This means getting a handful of your friends together or joining an existing group and just getting out there on a regular basis at district offices, at public events or just making calls.
DETROW: That kind of grassroots spirit is what lifted Bernie Sanders' surprising presidential campaign, and it got Barack Obama all the way to the White House. But when Obama tried to use his campaign apparatus, an email list, to mobilize supporters in legislative fights, he had a mixed record. Now Sanders is trying to do the same thing. Sunday will be the first test of how much momentum he still has. Scott Detrow, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
There is stark news out this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the 46 million people who live in rural America. The CDC's new study shows rural residents are more likely to die from heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries and other potentially preventable conditions than city people or suburbanites. And researchers found the gap in health between rural and urban America is worsening.
To help explain what's going on, we've called on Brock Slabach. He's senior vice president for the National Rural Health Association, which advocates for rural health. Welcome to the program.
BROCK SLABACH: Thank you very much.
SIEGEL: Are the CDC's findings at all surprising to you?
SLABACH: Well, unfortunately they're not. NRHA has been concerned about the gaps between rural and urban life expectancy for quite some time, and this has largely gone unnoticed in the larger discussion about health disparities which have tended to focus solely on the populations and not looking at geographic aspects of this issue.
SIEGEL: Is it true that smoking is more common in rural areas? And if so, does that account for much of the higher incidence of stroke or heart disease or lung disease?
SLABACH: It definitely is a correlated issue that impacts the health status of rural Americans. And, in fact, yes, smoking rates are higher there, just like lack of exercise, and leisure time activities tend to vary quite a bit as well.
SIEGEL: You ran a hospital in rural Mississippi for 20 years. What kinds of issues were you dealing with that you'd say were uniquely rural?
SLABACH: We had large numbers of patients that had chronic - multiple chronic conditions that needed to be addressed in a holistic fashion, and it needed to span the various aspects of services in the health care continuum. And being able to provide those in a rural context is very difficult and often plagued with patients that are poor and unable to pay for the services that they desperately need.
SIEGEL: Well, do these numbers reflect a failure of the Affordable Care Act, which was supposed to bring health care to all Americans regardless of income or geography?
SLABACH: Yes, I think that there is a failure of the Affordable Care Act in being able to address this problem. First we have lack of Medicaid expansion in a host of states around the United States. The marketplace exchanges did not produce numbers of plans in rural areas to provide competition, which ultimately drives down premiums. These exchange products had exorbitant premium increases over the last couple of years. And last but not least, high deductibles and co-insurances that were making it unaffordable for many patients. And then the third area that has been a problem has been deep Medicare cuts over the same period of time that have compounded some of the issues for rural providers.
SIEGEL: Well, as we look ahead to some replacement of the Affordable Care Act, what would you want to see in a new system that would address these urban-rural disparities?
SLABACH: We'd like to see the populations that are historically underserved such as the Medicaid population be expanded. We'd like to see that - to make sure that the exchange products are transferred into a system that guarantees co-insurance and deductibles are kept low for patients to afford. And then we would like to see the reversal of many of the Medicare cuts that have plagued our providers in rural communities. These are physicians, these are practitioners that are working very hard every day and have seen only reductions in their payments, and it's hard to recruit in that environment.
SIEGEL: Brock Slabach, a senior vice president with the National Rural Health Association. Thanks for talking with us.
SLABACH: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE XX SONG, "A VIOLENT NOISE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The Takata Corporation is pleading guilty to criminal wrongdoing over its defective airbags which have been linked to deadly accidents. The company has agreed to pay $1 billion in fines, and three former executives have been indicted. NPR's Sonari Glinton reports.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: Sixteen people have died, and at least a hundred others have been injured in accidents involving Takata airbags. Here's how. Now, when an airbag goes off, it's started by a small explosion, so the idea is that the explosion is just big enough to blow up the giant pillow that protects you in an accident.
The problem with the Takata airbags is that the explosion was too powerful and can spray out these sharp metal pieces into the cabin of the car.
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BARBARA MCQUADE: Takata has admitted to a scheme to defraud its customers by manipulating test data regarding the performance of its airbag inflators.
GLINTON: That's the U.S. attorney for Eastern Michigan, Barbara McQuade, announcing the settlement of the largest automotive recall ever.
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MCQUADE: From at least the year 2000, Takata knew that certain inflators - that's the device that's in the airbag that makes them inflate - were not performing as they were supposed to.
GLINTON: Three former executives face possible jail time, though the case is far from over. Millions of air bags have yet to be replaced.
SEAN KANE: Meaning we're going to continue seeing deaths and injuries from these Takata air airbags as long as I'm doing this work.
GLINTON: Sean Kane is a safety advocate and consultant. He says there's an incentive for companies to cheat, including on safety. And the government just can't keep up.
KANE: And yet, we're seeing unprecedented technologies being introduced in cars at such a rapid rate. In today's world, much of the features on today's cars aren't even subject to regulations. And yet we're putting them into cars faster than people even know how to use them.
GLINTON: Drivers can determine if their car has a defective airbag or is under recall at the government website recalls.gov. Sonari Glinton, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
As Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House, Mexico's economy is in turmoil. Its currency fell after Trump won in November. It keeps sliding when he tweets about border walls and trade restrictions. Meanwhile, Mexico's president has cut gas subsidies, causing prices to rise and people to protest. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Earlier this week, Mexico's president, Enrique Pena Nieto, took to the national airwaves to quash discontent and daily demonstrations over his government's decision to end subsidizing gasoline costs. Looking into the camera, he says the government would have had to make drastic cuts in crucial programs for the poor if it continued the practice and not hiked gas prices.
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PRESIDENT ENRIQUE PENA NIETO: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "Here I ask you," he says, "what would you have done?" The answer for many Mexicans was to hit the streets and demand Pena Nieto resign.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting in Spanish).
KAHN: This protest was peaceful, but many turned violent with crowds overrunning police and looting stores, blocking major highways and gasoline stations. After 10 days of protests, more than 300 stores across the country had been ransacked, and authorities say more than a thousand people were detained.
BEATRIZ PEREZ: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "We are sick and tired of this terrible government," says Beatriz Perez marching down Mexico City's main Reforma boulevard. She launches into a list of Mexico's current woes.
PEREZ: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "Crime, corruption, the failing economy," she says. Add to that the plummeting peso, which seems to take a downturn after every Mexico-related tweet by President-elect Trump. Last week, he threatened to slap a border tax on auto companies exporting cars to the U.S. This week, he's reiterated his pledge to make Mexico pay for a border wall.
BILL ADAMS: It's harder to find silver linings for Mexico this year than it has been in the recent past.
KAHN: Bill Adams, senior international economist at PNC Financial Services Group, says the weak peso is driving up inflation and forcing a rise in interest rates.
ADAMS: And with higher gasoline prices, that is going to reduce consumer spending. The Mexican outlook is for a difficult year.
KAHN: Many economists are forecasting a recession for Mexico this year. At home, critics are placing blame on the president, whose popularity is the lowest of any modern Mexican leader. As Trump's tweets continued and the peso plunged, Pena Nieto shook up his cabinet, putting a longtime confidant in as foreign secretary.
Immediately after the appointment, the new head diplomat declared he had a lot to learn on the job. Professor and political commentator Denise Dresser says now is not the time to appoint someone with such a steep learning curve.
DENISE DRESSER: We see a Mexican government that is basically paralyzed and invisible, or when it comes out with statements, the statements are tardy or hesitant.
KAHN: Dresser says Mexico should be building international coalitions to stand up to Trump in a possible trade war with the U.S. For his part, Pena Nieto told a gathering of diplomats late this week that Mexico will not tolerate any more threats or scare tactics. He got a big applause, but it didn't do much to shore up the peso. Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Mexico City.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It's been a big year or so for Alexander Hamilton. The Broadway musical about him cleaned up at the Tonys. There was a prime-time PBS special with commentary from Barack Obama, an 800-plus-page biography on the best seller list. What more could possibly be learned about Alexander Hamilton?
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A lot, at least...
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
SIEGEL: ...According to Hamilton scholar Joanne Freeman. Next week, Sotheby's will auction a rarely viewed collection of Hamilton effects held by his descendants for more than 200 years. And Freeman, a Yale historian who just edited a book of Hamilton's letters, jumped at the news.
JOANNE FREEMAN: And of course as soon as I heard that there was going to be a cache of Hamilton letters and materials and that some might not have been seen before, I immediately (laughter) contacted Sotheby's and said essentially I have to see those materials.
MCEVERS: And there is a lot to get excited about - new finds, like letters from Hamilton's wife, Eliza, his sister-in-law Angelica and father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, many written right after Hamilton's death, and some that are well known but rarely held.
FREEMAN: There are a lot of sort of old familiar friends. So I would see some of the love letters that Hamilton wrote to Elizabeth, and I would think oh, wow, this is the original of that letter that I've read so many times.
SIEGEL: And it's not all correspondence. The trove includes the commission making Alexander Hamilton George Washington's aide-de-camp and even a lock of Hamilton's hair. Sotheby's estimates the collection will bring in somewhere between $1.4 million and $2.1 million.
MCEVERS: Why sell now after holding onto the documents for more than two centuries?
FREEMAN: I can only assume that given the Hamilton mania that we are in at the moment, if you had a lot of documents like this and you were hoping to really profit off of their sale, now might be the moment to do that.
MCEVERS: The documents are on display to the public before the auction. Joanne Freeman says she hopes archives or museums will bid on some of the documents so the public will have longer to experience them.
FREEMAN: Seeing the actual letter, you know, the thing that's created in the moment that the person sat down and composed it - I am sitting in camp, you know; I am thinking of the woman I'm about to marry, and so let me compose a love letter - you know, that brings you into a moment of history that even reading about it in a book just doesn't.
SIEGEL: In fact, she is so taken with some of the materials that she's thinking of placing a bid of her own next week. But there's one thing Freeman definitely will not raise her paddle for.
FREEMAN: I will not bid on the hair ball (laughter). Yeah, I - as much as it's really intriguing and interesting to see a little piece of the person one writes about, I'm always slightly put off by that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NON-STOP")
LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA: (Singing) Why do you write like you're running out of time? Write day and night like you're running out of time. Every day you fight like you're running out of time. Keep on fighting in the meantime.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Nonstop.
MIRANDA: (Singing) Corruption's such an old song that we can sing along...
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Republican voters have been vocal. They want to see the Affordable Care Act repealed. Well, now that it appears to be happening, some of those voters have a different message to Congress - delay. Chas Sisk of member station WPLN in Nashville explains why many people in Tennessee want to go slow.
CHAS SISK, BYLINE: It seemed like a risk worth taking. Cindi Malone, a real estate agent just outside Nashville, has diabetes. And before the Affordable Care Act, she spent $1,700 a month on health care coverage for her family.
CINDI MALONE: That's a lot of money, a lot of money for anybody.
SISK: Malone had doubts Obamacare would work, but moving to an ACA plan cut their premiums by a thousand bucks a month, so they made the leap three years ago. Those savings didn't last, and this year she faced premiums higher than before the ACA because her income was too much to qualify for a subsidy.
Malone dropped out and bought a plan that wasn't part of the exchange. It's what she could afford even though the plan falls short of ACA standards and comes with a tax penalty up to $3,000. That's what galls her the most.
MALONE: Just because I have insurance and you don't like it, how can you penalize me? That makes no sense to me.
SISK: But the email Malone wrote to her congressman might be the most surprising part. It said if you're going to repeal Obamacare, don't go too fast. Wait. Get it right.
MALONE: And I am for repealing, but it's not as easy as waking up this morning and wiping it out because there are people like me.
SISK: Tennesseans are among the least healthy people in the country with high rates of smoking, obesity and diabetes. That's part of why the state's insurance regulators last year approved the dramatically higher premiums people like Malone face. Regulators let the rates get so high because they were worried providers would pull out of Tennessee altogether.
And Republican Governor Bill Haslam's plan to expand Medicaid, which might have taken pressure off insurers, was voted down by the state legislature. So now it's on Tennessee's members of Congress to find an answer, and at least some of those Republican lawmakers seem to be listening. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander gave a speech to urge caution.
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LAMAR ALEXANDER: Obamacare should be repealed, finally, only when there are concrete, practical reforms in place that give every American access to truly affordable healthcare.
SISK: Alexander's views are important. He's the chairman of the Senate's health committee. That puts him in a position to steer the debate over repeal and replacement. Moving slowly sounds like a good approach to Sherry Cothran. She's a Methodist minister in Nashville.
SHERRY COTHRAN: I just see a lot of at-risk people who feel very abandoned by the system.
SISK: Cothran is part of a group of ministers urging Republicans in Congress to have a plan in place before they repeal the law. She knows other forces are at work. Groups that have tried for years to reverse the Affordable Care Act can now sense victory. But she says a path can be found that preserves coverage for vulnerable Tennesseans.
COTHRAN: We want to see all of our political representatives on both sides of the aisle look at human dignity and look at our moral responsibility to people in general and put that before politics.
SISK: Cothran believes congressional Republicans are saying the right things about replacing Obamacare. The question on many Tennesseans' minds is whether those words will translate into policies that protect them as the ACA is repealed. For NPR News, I'm Chas Sisk in Nashville.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The practice of blackface is as old as entertainment itself white - actors putting black makeup on their faces and acting like buffoons. British broadcaster Sky TV has been accused of a kind of blackface by hiring a white actor to play Michael Jackson. After that, Sky decided not to broadcast the episode, and NPR's Eric Deggans is here with us to talk about the controversy. Hi there, Eric.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Hi.
MCEVERS: So this was supposed to be an episode of the satirical show "Urban Myths." What was it supposed to be about?
DEGGANS: So there's this (laughter) supposed road trip that Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando took right after 9/11 to get out of New York City in a rental car...
MCEVERS: OK.
DEGGANS: ...And this episode was going to dramatize that. And they hired Joseph Fiennes to - a white man - to play Michael Jackson. There was controversy when the casting was announced, but the trailer dropped earlier this week and that's when it really exploded, especially on social media. Now, the actor himself also thought it was a little weird that he got cast, and so he spoke to The Guardian. Let's listen to him.
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JOSEPH FIENNES: I've said it before, I was shocked that they would come to me for the casting. You have to ask them as to why they would want to cast me. I felt this was a wonderful challenge. I read the script, it's very funny.
MCEVERS: And this is Joseph Fiennes of, like, "Shakespeare In Love" Joseph Fiennes, right?
DEGGANS: (Laughter) I know.
MCEVERS: I don't see Michael Jackson here.
DEGGANS: Well, you know, you can judge for yourself. The trailer is out there, and the criticism really took off when Michael's daughter Paris and a Jackson cousin kind of complained on Twitter, and it really kind of exploded. One of the things that Paris tweeted, for example, she said, quote, "I'm so incredibly offended by it as I'm sure plenty of people are as well, and it honestly makes me want to vomit." (Laughter) So...
MCEVERS: Why do you think they chose him to do this? I mean, he says he doesn't really know why, but any sense of, like, why the producers chose him to play this role?
DEGGANS: You know, maybe because they're a British company that did this, they didn't appreciate how Americans feel about Michael Jackson and particularly about race and Michael Jackson. You know, he had a very tangled history involving his ethnicity and his appearance. And also, you know, he died in a way that fans - left fans, you know, bereft, and they're still coping with that in some ways. And, you know, there were a lot of icons in this car (laughter) that they decided to make fun of, so maybe all of that was a problem.
MCEVERS: I mean, you've written a book about race and media, right? I mean, this is a question that comes up a lot - who gets to play whom? Is a white actor playing a black character ever OK?
DEGGANS: Well, you know, white people playing black people has so often been used as a tool of oppression, right? It's not just that they're playing black people, it's that they're playing infantilized black people, or they're playing black people who are overly sexual or morally deficient in some way and they're the other, you know? And it can happen in any ethnicity, we've seen this happen with Asian characters and with Latino characters as well. In a statement, a company spokesman from Sky said, quote, "we set out to take a lighthearted look at reportedly true events and never intended to cause any offense." So it was a satirical show, they tried to be funny, but it's hard to joke about this stuff. And, you know, actors of color don't have a lot of great roles anyway...
MCEVERS: Right.
DEGGANS: ...So it looks weird to hand a plum role to a white guy when conceivably they could have cast a light-skin African-American or a light-skin person of color to play that role.
MCEVERS: I mean, looking at the still from this trailer, I mean, it is weird, right? Because Joseph Fiennes isn't necessarily in blackface...
DEGGANS: Yeah.
MCEVERS: ...I mean, because Michael Jackson was so fair.
DEGGANS: It's kind of like whiteface, right?
MCEVERS: Right, it's - yeah, but so, what's going on?
DEGGANS: Well, Michael had his own tangled history with race throughout his career. His skin lightened and he said he had a skin condition. Other people accused him of having plastic surgery to alter his looks. And to take - have a white actor cast as him seemed a nod to that in a way that was needlessly cruel. And we're talking about celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando, who are not around to defend themselves. So maybe there was just the sense that people felt they were taking a shot at celebrities who couldn't defend themselves because they're not with us anymore.
MCEVERS: NPR's Eric Deggans, thanks.
DEGGANS: Thank you.
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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There is big news this week from the U.S. Justice Department about several major police departments, news that could have reverberations around the country. Federal civil rights lawyers reached an agreement to overhaul the police force in Baltimore. You remember that the death of a young man in police custody there set off days of protests that occasionally turned violent. The very next day, top DOJ officials released a scathing report about the Chicago Police Department describing a pattern of excessive force, even against juveniles, failing to train officers properly, even in techniques that could better protect them, and failing to even minimally investigate complaints.
But also on Friday, the Justice Department praised the Philadelphia Police for making tremendous progress in implementing changes recommended two years ago. You might recall that we have focused on these issues a number of times on this program so we wanted to get an overview of these developments from NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. She's here now to talk about all this. Carrie, welcome. Thanks so much for joining us.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Oh, really happy to be here. Thanks.
MARTIN: So let's start with Baltimore. As we mentioned, the death of Freddie Gray in police custody nearly two years ago put that department's policing strategies in the national spotlight. What's the agreement there? How is the Justice Department hoping to make changes?
JOHNSON: Michel, this is personal. Attorney General Loretta Lynch was sworn into office the same day Freddie Gray was buried. This week, after months of negotiations, DOJ unveiled an agreement to help make changes to policing in Baltimore. Here's what the deal says - cops are going to work harder to de-escalate situations before they go shoot or tase people. They'll stop and search people only when they have a legitimate legal basis to do so. And they say they'll do a better, more thorough job of investigating sexual assault claims. Officials in Baltimore say they've already equipped police there with body cameras and improved training, and there will be an independent monitor in place to make sure they stay on the right path.
MARTIN: So that's Baltimore. What was the Justice Department saying about Chicago?
JOHNSON: Well, for the last 13 months, the Civil Rights Division at Justice has been investigating a pattern of discrimination and excessive force by Chicago police. Authorities say this investigation was so sprawling they put together the biggest ever team of Justice lawyers on the case, and they've been rushing to finish before the Trump team takes office.
MARTIN: So what did the federal investigators find in Chicago?
JOHNSON: Massive problems with training, no accountability for bad cops, hardly any investigations into excessive force at all, and police making racist remarks and other police telling on them. The situation has been so bad that police officials and the review board don't even know how many people police in Chicago have shot. And cops involved in these violent situations essentially read from a script to justify their actions covering up for partners who engaged in wrongdoing.
MARTIN: You know, I have to ask though if there's a message in the timing here.
JOHNSON: Well, they certainly have been racing to finish before Donald Trump is inaugurated. There are some big questions out there about whether the Trump Justice Department is going to follow this approach moving forward.
MARTIN: Well, you know, to that end, Mr. Trump's nominee to lead the Justice Department, Senator Jeff Sessions, had a confirmation hearing this week. What message did he send? Or did he have something to say about policing strategies and these issues?
JOHNSON: Well, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions wants the DOJ to be a partner and a friend to police, not an overseer. Here's what he told senators this week.
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JEFF SESSIONS: Law enforcement, as a whole, has been unfairly maligned and blamed for the unacceptable actions of a few of their bad actors. They believe the political leadership in the country has abandoned them. They felt they have become targets. Morale has suffered.
JOHNSON: Jeff Sessions also told lawmakers, cities during the Obama administration had been pressured into settling some of these cases. He says DOJ needs to be a lot more careful.
MARTIN: So the question becomes what about these agreements that have been reached? What happens to them when the Obama administration leaves office and the Trump administration takes office?
JOHNSON: It's not entirely clear. Sessions was pressed on this by Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, a Democrat from Hawaii, this week. He didn't answer the question clearly, but he did say that eventually these consent decrees will expire and that he didn't commit to not reopening or making changes to consent decrees already in place. Although, obviously if they're overseen by a court, a judge would have to sign off, too. So if they're already in the courts in some fashion, that will require an additional step for the Trump team to undo. If they're not yet, they're, Michel, a lot easier for Trump's folks at Justice to back away.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Carrie Johnson. Carrie, thanks so much.
JOHNSON: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to spend a few more minutes on the Justice Department's report on Chicago. As you just heard, the report describes a pattern of excessive force by the Chicago Police Department, including deadly force, which it describes as unreasonable and unconstitutional. This includes shooting at suspects as they ran away, even when they presented no immediate threat and using excessive force against children. The report also finds that excessive force was concentrated in black and Latino communities with a police officer being 10 times more likely to use force against someone who is black compared to a white suspect.
Several of these findings echo a separate independent review by the Police Accountability Task Force in Chicago. We spoke to the head of that task force, Lori Lightfoot, last weekend. Today, in light of this new report from the Justice Department, we wanted to hear a different perspective, so we called Dean Angelo, Sr. He is head of the Fraternal Order of Police in Chicago, and he is with us now. Mr. Angelo, thank you so much for being with us.
DEAN ANGELO, SR.: Well, you're welcome.
MARTIN: Now, I assume you've had a chance to read the Justice Department report now, which is quite lengthy. Could I just get your initial thoughts?
ANGELO: Well, I - to your question and what I thought or what I felt about the report - initially, I was pretty much, I wouldn't say pleased, but I wasn't surprised with the findings about the department being - or lacking training or lacking equipment and technology and certainly the frustration our members face regarding promotions. Historically, in my 37-year career, promotions and frustration are like soup and sandwich. They go hand-in-hand. It is something that's not been transparent, that's not been accessible. It's a closed type of shop.
So we were pleased that they heard us and that that messaging was something that they brought into the report. And then, I believe that the report pretty much focused on about 0.3 percent of our population. And when you're talking to people that have been in the criminal justice system on the receiving end of an arrest and incarceration, I don't know the credibility carries through as some would consider.
MARTIN: This is an agreement between the United States Department of Justice and the City of Chicago. And, according to the description of the way this process unfolded, you know, they spent a year in the city, interviewed all of the stakeholders, including members of the Union, as I understand it, including supervisors, people all throughout the hierarchy. Does that give you some confidence that the recommendations may actually yield good results?
ANGELO: Well, I look forward to the good results. I concern myself, and our members are concerned with the, you know, the accusations that are, you know, commonplace from Lori Lightfoot's report and now this report where they're abusive and they're physical and they're aggressive to certain populations in our city in the minority populations - Hispanics and African-Americans.
If you look at the crime rates in Chicago, we've got over 90 percent murder rate and the offenders and/or the known offenders, and/or the victims, it's overwhelmingly, you know, in the 90 percentile and above that are African-American and Hispanics. This is where we get most of our hands-on, police-involved, you know, type of heightened contact. We over-deploy manpower to those communities on a regular basis because they lead in murders, guns, gun arrests and narcotic arrests, historically.
MARTIN: Do you feel that the charges of excessive force are unwarranted and unjustified?
ANGELO: No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that there is a sense that police officers in Chicago are targeting people based on ethnicity, and that's not what's going on. When I asked Mr. Lightfoot about her report where she was calling everyone systemically racists, if you look at the African-American police officers or the Hispanic police officers that work in communities that are predominantly African-American or Hispanic, I asked did you remove them from consideration in your data collecting? And the answer was no.
So does that mean that the African-American girls and guys are racist when they stop people of their own ethnicity or the same thing with the Hispanic officers? I don't draw that connection or conclusion. But when I was - when I - my response - the response I got was that, well, some things are just obvious. I mean, that, to me, is a bit biased in nature. It's not that the officers are targeting people of color. What officers in these high-crime areas do is they target criminal behavior and that is what needs to be discussed here. Now, are there...
MARTIN: Now, I hear...
ANGELO: ...Situations...
MARTIN: ...What you're saying.
ANGELO: Go ahead.
MARTIN: Mr. Angelo, the question, though, is do you think the status quo in Chicago between the police - the relationship between the police and the communities is acceptable? Is the status quo acceptable?
ANGELO: No, I - no, I do not. I think that there is a underheard portion - large portion - of our city in these areas that are being just ravaged with violence that is not heard from. And those are the people that we work for and those are the people we put our lives on the line for. We have families in this city that can't go outside and play catch with their children because they're afraid they're going to catch a bullet instead of a baseball. And no one's talked to them.
MARTIN: Are your members prepared, do you think, to accept these findings and to abide by them?
ANGELO: Our members have been dragged through a lot for the last couple of years. I don't think that they expected much different from what they heard. You know, some of the things are positive for them to get better equipment, better training, better vehicles, access to better technology, access to a more fair promotion system. That'll be something that they will, you know, maybe be encouraged by. But the problem with the narrative - and if you look at the Chicago newspaper headlines today - all of that positiveness (ph) that I saw in the initial stages of the broadcast yesterday, the presentation by the DOJ, is overshadowed by the negative again.
MARTIN: Dean Angelo, Sr. is the president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7. He was kind enough to join us from Chicago. Mr. Angelo, thank you so much for speaking with us.
ANGELO: You're welcome. Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This week has been packed with news from Senate confirmation hearings to initial steps taken by Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act to revelations that raise even more questions about the incoming Trump administration's relationship to Russia. We know it was a lot to take in. So we want to recap some of the week's political news with NPR politics editor Domenico Montanaro and NPR's White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Welcome to you both. Thank you both so much for joining us.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Of course.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hi, Michel. Thank you.
MARTIN: So let's start with what we thought would be the headline of the week, the confirmation hearings. Domenico, what was one of the big takeaways from the hearings this week?
MONTANARO: Well, I think after the first day and a half, it became pretty obvious and clear that a lot of these nominees were going to break with Donald Trump when it came to some of his most high-profile positions, some of these most provocative promises that he'd laid out during the campaign. Let's take a listen to Jeff Sessions on one thing. Remember that Muslim ban from Donald Trump that he had promised? Here's what Jeff Sessions had to say.
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JEFF SESSIONS: I have no belief and do not support the idea that Muslims as a religious group should be denied admission to the United States.
MONTANARO: Now, we should point out that Trump himself backed away from the ban during the campaign. You know, he faced a lot of criticism for it from a lot of different corners - Republicans and Democrats. He began calling it banning people from countries, quote, "with a proven history of terrorism." Maybe that's a bit more euphemistic or, shall we say, politically correct.
KEITH: They never said which those countries would be.
MARTIN: Never said which those countries would be.
KEITH: It could be France.
MARTIN: Jeff Sessions, once again being the Alabama senator who is Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general. Well, were there other instances of nominees breaking with the president-elect on things that were talked about during the campaign?
MONTANARO: There were on almost every confirmation hearing. I counted up at least 10 overall, including the story that dominated the week, Russia, Russian hacking. All of his nominees said that they believed the intelligence community that Russia did in fact interfere in the election. That includes his appointees for CIA, attorney general, defense - James Mattis. And Mattis broke with him pretty strongly on NATO. He called it one of the most important military alliances maybe ever. He said he told that to Donald Trump.
They also all broke with him on torture and waterboarding. His CIA director said that he would absolutely not use waterboarding if it was told to do so. Sessions called it illegal. Mattis had already told him that he thinks it was not effective and something that had surprised Trump because Mattis has this Hollywood-style nickname Mad Dog because some of these quotes that he had.
But big picture, you know, you're seeing a lot of these nominees put Trump in a bit of a box. He's running into the potential of some confines of governing. You know, it showed that someone also who runs with the kind of provocative positions that Trump had - if his nominees had expressed those, they probably wouldn't be confirmed to the positions in his own administration.
MARTIN: Interesting.
KEITH: And one thing to...
MARTIN: OK. Go ahead.
KEITH: ...Yeah - one thing thing to just add to that is that Donald Trump became sort of aware that his nominees were saying things that were out of sync with some of the positions he'd taken on the campaign. And both in a tweet and then later talking to some reporters he said, you know, it's totally fine with me. I want them to have their own views. I don't want them to have to have my views.
MARTIN: Interesting. So on Wednesday speaking of - sticking with Jeff Sessions for a minute - the United States senator from New Jersey Cory Booker, Democrat, made history as the first U.S. senator to testify against a fellow senator in a confirmation hearing for a Cabinet post. We'll play a little tape of that.
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CORY BOOKER: If confirmed, Senator Sessions will be required to pursue justice for women, but his record indicates that he won't. He will be expected to defend the equal rights of gay and lesbian and transgender Americans, but his record indicates that he won't. He will be expected to defend voting rights.
MARTIN: Now, the congressman from Atlanta John Lewis, also the civil rights icon, also joined Cory Booker to testify against Sessions talking about the Civil Rights movement. Let's play a little tape of that.
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JOHN LEWIS: It doesn't matter how Senator Sessions may smile, how friendly he may be, how he may speak to you. But we need someone who's going to stand up, speak up and speak out for the people that need help, for people who have been discriminated against.
MARTIN: Now, U.S. representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana who's the incoming chair of the Congressional Black Caucus also testified against Jeff Sessions' confirmation. And I do want to mention that there were three African-Americans who testified on Senator Sessions' behalf, but, Tam, I wanted to go to you first on this. How much weight does this kind of testimony hold right now?
KEITH: These - this testimony came on the second day of hearing - hearings for Sessions. Sessions was not there at the time when these people testified, and they were sort of offsetting the three African-American men who spoke in favor of Sessions - were very complimentary, said he was a good guy. They knew him personally.
And so the reality is - and the reality with basically all of Donald Trump's nominees is that Republicans would have to peel off and not support his candidates. Otherwise, they will be confirmed, and so this allowed Democrats to air what they felt had to be aired. But in terms of the ultimate outcome whether Jeff Sessions becomes the attorney general of the United States - it's unlikely to have much of an effect.
MARTIN: Now, fast forward a bit to today because just this morning, we saw that President-elect Trump attacked John Lewis on Twitter. He was responding in this case to an NBC interview on Friday where John Lewis said he didn't see Trump as a legitimate president. Anybody want to talk about this? So...
KEITH: I'll at least read the tweet here that Donald Trump sent out. And this tweet has elicited a rapid and very negative response from a lot of people. It said - he tweeted, quote, "Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district which is in horrible shape and falling apart, not to mention crime-infested, rather than falsely complaining about the election results and all talk, talk, talk, no action or results. Sad." - exclamation point. Which has a lot of things in it that just aren't true both about his district and about John Lewis.
MONTANARO: Yeah. I mean, his district, as Tam is alluding to, has a higher percentage of people who are college graduates. You have Georgia Tech, Morehouse College, Coca-Cola. This is Atlanta. Like, this isn't some, you know, crime-infested backwater in the way that Donald Trump wants to kind of bill it. It also speaks, again, to anybody who puts out any kind of personal insult to Donald Trump. He is going to slam them back even harder than before. And I wonder what kind of effect that will have on folks who try to speak out, may disagree. I think a lot of people who would disagree with Trump, but would want to still maintain a relationship are going to find that to be a chilling effect.
MARTIN: Except that now his Cabinet nominees - that seems to - they seem to have an exemption.
MONTANARO: Yeah. Well, they're doing that on policy...
MARTIN: Policy.
MONTANARO: ...I suppose. And there are also people that he picked. I mean, had one of his nominees said that they think Donald Trump's an illegitimate president, that might have meant something different. But...
KEITH: Yeah. They're being a little bit more diplomatic about it. They're simply saying - they're being - Democrats with these hearings have been trying to - and some Republicans - push these nominees to draw out the differences between them and the president-elect. And these nominees have been quite diplomatic in the way they've responded as they have disagreed with public positions of the person who's nominating them.
MARTIN: We'll talk a little bit more about the whole John Lewis situation later in our Barbershop roundtable. Let's talk a bit more about some of the confirmation hearings. There were also confirmation hearings for Ben Carson at HUD, General Mattis at defense - you mentioned him - Mike Pompeo at the CIA, Elaine Chao for transportation, General John Kelly for Homeland Security...
MONTANARO: Right (laughter).
MARTIN: Help me out here.
MONTANARO: Tons of stuff. So there were...
MARTIN: So...
MONTANARO: ...There were a couple things that were really interesting. I mean, Elaine Chao for transportation talked about infrastructure and how it was probably unlikely that Donald Trump was going to get the kind of money and the ambitious plan that he has laid out. But Ben Carson really kind of stood out to me, interestingly.
You know, Elizabeth Warren grilled him about whether or not he would rule out grants to Trump properties. He said he would not. He was also asked why a neurosurgeon would want to head up Housing and Urban Development. And he said interestingly that he wants the agency to go beyond people thinking of it as, quote, "putting roofs over the heads of poor people" and, quote, "develop our fellow human beings." So he may want to take somewhat of a more activist role never seen before for a HUD secretary.
MARTIN: Well, look, as if this wasn't busy enough - and it was busy enough - there was also other action on Capitol Hill apart from the confirmation hearings - pretty significant - a potentially significant move on the Affordable Care Act. Domenico, do you want to take it from there?
MONTANARO: Yeah. Look, the Congress passed a budget resolution that creates the framework to begin repeal, but that's not going to happen for a while. The big reason why - Republicans have not agreed on a plan to replace it. They set a date of January 27 in this resolution for the committees to report back with repeal legislation, but everyone acknowledges on the Hill, according to Susan Davis our congressional correspondent there, that this is going to slip 'til at least late February, probably go past that, could consume all of 2017 for Republicans.
KEITH: So with this legislation that has passed, Congress can repeal at least parts of - they can potentially repeal at least parts of the Affordable Care Act with only 51 votes in the Senate. But if they want to replace it, they actually need 60 votes which means they're going to need help from Democrats which means they really need to have a replacement that is broadly acceptable. And at this point, they don't have that yet.
And just with this first step that's been taken, you can see the backlash starting to build with people saying, wait, I actually got my health care through the Affordable Care Act. Are you taking it away? And there are - you're starting to see stories of real people with real health conditions telling their stories and that - as that builds, that makes the job even harder of repealing and replacing.
MARTIN: And, again, there's so much news this week, we can't drill down on, you know, all of it. But then yesterday, we learned that a close aide to Trump had spoken by phone with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. on the very day that the Obama administration announced that sanctions against Russia - that there were sanctions being imposed against Russia for meddling in the campaign. So, Tam, tell us about that.
KEITH: Yeah. So this is General Michael Flynn. He's Trump's pick for national security adviser, and he spoke with the Russian ambassador by phone at the ambassador's request, according to Trump aides, on December 29 which was the day that the Obama administration announced it would impose sanctions and expel 35 Russian diplomats.
There's other reporting, including from The Washington Post and Reuters, that it wasn't just one conversation, but several conversations. But Trump's spokesman Sean Spicer insists that it is doubtful that they discussed the sanctions and says that it was really just about logistics for after the inauguration. The reason that this matters is that it raises questions about whether Flynn was trying to influence the Russian response to the American sanctions and also whether he was sort of conducting foreign policy as a private citizen because President-elect Trump isn't president yet.
MONTANARO: We really still don't know all the details about this. It's a very odd situation where you have the incoming White House press secretary telling reporters on a phone call the morning this becomes revealed that it - that they spoke the day before the sanctions were announced. And then it's revealed later and confirmed to us at NPR that Flynn and the Russian ambassador spoke around the same time as the sanctions were being announced.
And the reason that this all matters is because of the Logan Act which says that no one can conduct foreign policy without the U.S. government's permission, meaning if Flynn were discussing something with the Russian ambassador, saying something like don't worry about these sanctions, we'll deal with it when Trump gets in, that would be a violation of the Logan Act.
KEITH: Though, the Logan Act has never been prosecuted. The real point here is, like, what is the relationship between Donald Trump and his team and Russia? Which it turns out is something that the Senate Intelligence Committee now says it is going to investigate, that they - and this is a reversal for that committee - but they are now planning to investigate whether there was contact between the Russian government and any of the campaigns. And they're saying that they could even subpoena people if they have to.
MARTIN: So Inauguration Day next week - it's going to be smooth sailing after that, right?
KEITH: Well, at least the weather will be nice.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: All right. NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political editor Domenico Montanaro, thank you both so much.
MONTANARO: Thank you, Michel.
KEITH: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The inauguration is next week, of course, when Donald Trump takes the oath of office to serve as the 45th president of the United States. People are coming from all over the country to celebrate that event as well as to protest it. For example, a women's march is planned for a week from today on the National Mall, but protesters aren't waiting for next week. Today, busloads of people came to an historic black church to protest the president-elect's hard-line immigration positions. It was one of many planned protests by immigration rights activists in dozens of cities nationwide. NPR's Brakkton Booker was at Metropolitan AME Church, and he joins us now in our studios in Washington, D.C. Brakkton, thanks so much for joining us.
BRAKKTON BOOKER, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So set the scene for us. What was the rally like today?
BOOKER: Look, there were buses and buses of people that got dropped off in front of Metropolitan AME Church. They came from as far as New York and North Carolina, even closer from Maryland and Virginia. Parents came with their children. You saw people holding signs in English and in Spanish. A lot of the signs said things like, this is the only country we know, and (speaking Spanish), or immigration reform now. Let me give you just a sampling of what it sounded like outside the church.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: The people united.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Will never be defeated.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting in Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting in Spanish).
BOOKER: And the church was at capacity, overflow crowd. They even had a small group that was - that couldn't get in and were protesting around the church.
MARTIN: Well, what were you hearing from some of the people who were there?
BOOKER: Well, I heard a range of things, but most notably the biggest message was we are here to stay. And this was echoed by Julio Lopez. He's a state director of Make the Road Connecticut. And here's what he said.
JULIO LOPEZ: You know, one of the things that we want to convey in our communities is that we are strong and we are united. Like, there has been a lot of rhetoric of hate and a lot of fear in our communities, and we think this is a time to come together. This is a time to make sure we show our faces and to make sure that people understand that we're not going anywhere, that we're going to fight and we're going to continue doing what we need to do to get the dignity and respect we need and deserve.
BOOKER: And that fear he was talking about was the repeal of DACA. This is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It's an executive order that was implemented by President Obama in 2012 that shielded immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. And President-elect Trump has signaled that this is something that he's willing to repeal.
MARTIN: Well, you know, speaking of President-elect Trump, why have these rallies today while President Obama is still in office - why not hold these rallies once President-elect Trump actually takes office?
BOOKER: Well, that was an interesting question I posed to some of the organizers. And they said, yes, this is really setting the tone for the next four years while President-elect Trump is in office. They want to show that, yes, we are a force to be reckoned with and you have to pay attention to us. But moreover, they also want to say that, hey, President Obama, we appreciate what you did with DACA, but you also have a reputation of being a deporter-in-chief. You have deported some 2 million people during your time in office, so while the goal is to actually have comprehensive immigration reform, it didn't come about under President Obama's watch. So they wanted to have the rally today.
MARTIN: Well, that's Brakkton Booker. He's a reporter with NPR's politics team. He was kind enough to join us in our studios in Washington, D.C. Brakkton, thanks so much for joining us.
BOOKER: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now to South Africa where hundreds of fires have broken out in recent days around the Cape of Good Hope. So far, the fires do not appear to have claimed any lives, but the fires have been a threat to something for which the country has become well known - its vineyards and wine industry. As Peter Granitz reports, drought conditions in South Africa are exacerbating the crisis.
PETER GRANITZ, BYLINE: Tourism is big business in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It's where South Africans flock during the hot, Southern-Hemisphere summer months of December and January, fleeing to winelands, the cool air of Table Mountain and the beaches of the Cape Peninsula, which is where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. But hot weather and strong winds have increased the amount of seasonal fires, some caused by human error.
There have been more than 625 different fires in the Cape Town region in the last seven days alone. That's nearly a third of the amount of fires that hit the region last summer, says James Styan with the Western Cape's Ministry of Environmental Affairs.
JAMES STYAN: We do expect another two to three months of these conditions, and we are very concerned about that given the severity of the season to date.
GRANITZ: There has not been any report of fire-related deaths and Styan is not sure how many acres have burned. Neighborhoods on the slopes of Table Mountain have been evacuated because of encroaching fires. And iconic vineyards, such as Vergelegen, have been damaged. Grape vines were first planted there in 1700.
Alexandra McFarlane is the head winemaker at Druk My Niet, a wine label that means pressure me not in Afrikaans. She says fire ripped through the estate earlier this week, destroying a 300-year-old farmhouse, guest cottages and the cellar that held her 2015 vintage ready for bottling. McFarlane estimates about 37 of the 50 acres of vineyards were damaged.
ALEXANDRA MCFARLANE: In terms of the harvest for 2017, it's not looking great. I think there's been a lot of heat and smoke damage and also a lot of fire damage. But - so we can only really hope for the best that we're going to be able to come out of this.
GRANITZ: The South African Weather Service does not predict any much needed rainfall in the next few days in Cape Town. For NPR News, I'm Peter Granitz in Pretoria.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now it's time for a trip to the Barbershop. That's where we gather a group of interesting folks to talk about what's in the news and what's on their minds. So we gave you a wrap-up earlier with two of our reporters of the week in politics. But we wanted to take some time to chew over some of the week's political highlights with some other folks who've been following it closely, too.
So joining us for our shape-up today are Puneet Ahluwalia. He is a businessman. He's active in a local Republican Party in Northern Virginia. He supported Donald Trump during the election. In fact, he's organizing one of the Trump inaugural galas next week, if we have that right, Puneet?
PUNEET AHLUWALIA: Yes. It's (unintelligible)...
MARTIN: OK. Do you have a pretty outfit - sorry - a handsome tux to wear...
AHLUWALIA: I have a handsome tux.
MARTIN: OK.
AHLUWALIA: My wife is (unintelligible).
MARTIN: OK. Very good. Mona Charen's with us. She's a syndicated columnist for the conservative National Review, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Welcome back to you, Mona, as well.
MONA CHAREN: Great to be here.
MARTIN: And Jolene Ivey, of course, one of our regulars, a former Democratic state lawmaker from Maryland. She's now a public relations consultant. Welcome back to you as well.
JOLENE IVEY: Thanks, Michel.
MARTIN: And as you can tell, they're all here with us in our Washington, D.C., studios which is a nice thing to have. So let's get back to President-elect Donald Trump's latest tweet storm, this time directed at civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis. As we mentioned earlier, Donald Trump tweeted that (reading) Congressman Lewis is all talk, talk, talk, no action or results. Sad.
This came after Congressman Lewis stated on "Meet The Press" that he doesn't see the president-elect as, quote, "a legitimate president," unquote, because of the reported Russian interference in the election. But let me just take a minute to point out the timing of all this. Martin Luther King Day is on Monday. Of course, Congressman Lewis worked closely with Dr. King during the Civil Rights movement. His actual birthday is tomorrow, and I do want to mention that, you know, members of the Black Caucus have been very much offended by President-elect Trump's, you know, five-year campaign questioning President Obama's birthplace, so, you know, not sure which all of that is relevant. But, Jolene, I'll start with you. What do you make of all this?
IVEY: I think that Donald Trump just loves to say anything he wants no matter how crazy or untrue it might be and just keep repeating it. And he thinks that that's going to be fine. And for a lot of people, it is, so it seems to be working for him. But it's...
MARTIN: What did he say that's untrue?
IVEY: Well, when he starts disparaging John Lewis who is certainly someone who not - who didn't just do nothing during the Civil Rights movement. I mean, this man was attacked personally. He gave almost the ultimate sacrifice. He almost died for us, and he's been such a great leader all the way in his years in Congress. I've met him personally a number of times. I think that he is awesome, and he has done a whole lot more than Donald Trump's ever done for anything, except for - make money for himself. So I can't believe that he's got the nerve to attack him in that way.
MARTIN: Puneet, thoughts?
AHLUWALIA: I - look, I respect John Lewis and his contribution and dedication to serving American public, but I feel - well, he disparaged the American people, the American people who work for Donald Trump. And, overwhelmingly, he's now the president-elect. So nobody's talking about that. In fact, he - when he makes a positive move, bringing style (ph) Steve Harvey to his Trump Tower and discuss about let's find a solution. And he's - Steve Harvey said he's a genuine guy. He wants to do things, just doesn't want to talk about things. And that's what Trump said - talk, talk, talk. Nobody wants to do anything about it.
MARTIN: Just to clarify for people who aren't aware of what Puneet's talking about - that those tweets about John Lewis came hours after Donald Trump met with a stand-up comedian, the talk show host, you know, written books all this - Steve Harvey - part of what, I guess, he considers his outreach to the black community. That's kind of what he's mentioning here. But speaking of, though, of what Jolene said is not true - and actually John Lewis' district is actually not a disaster as he's sort of described. There were high - there were a very large number of college graduates in its district. It's quite a - it's actually a fairly affluent district. So...
AHLUWALIA: But why is nobody even talking about what the American public said and wanted and elected president Trump and more importantly when he - look at the Cabinet he's brought in, the kind of caliber of people. And now what my dear friend says here is that he only made money. Now, are we penalizing success? Are we penalizing hard work? Is that what we have reached in our country?
MARTIN: OK. Mona wants to jump in here. Let's hear from Mona.
CHAREN: I do want to - I want to jump in because I think this is the way Trump operates. We're familiar with this. It very frequently - subjects where if he had a slightly larger vision and could see that John Lewis has a particular place in American history and that before you get into a tussle with him, you have to acknowledge that. You have say the civil rights hero had his head - his skull cracked, you know, by white supremacists many decades ago. You have to acknowledge that, and then you can say whatever you want, but that should be acknowledged upfront.
Now, having - if I were Trump, I would point out that, first of all, Lewis was off base saying that his election was illegitimate. That is completely off base and further that Lewis - you can fairly criticize him for in the past saying similar things about other Republicans. He said about John McCain in 2008 that his campaign reminded him of George Wallace. So he has a tendency to see this in Republicans even when it's not trump.
MARTIN: While we're talking about the Cabinet hearings, Mona, let me just go to you on this. We had touched on the president-elect's - this is earlier in the program - the press conference on Wednesday in which he kind of sort of addressed questions about his relationship with Russia, but then we saw on the Senate confirmation hearings that a few of Donald Trump's nominees, including defense secretary nominee James Mattis, CIA director nominee Mike Pompeo, don't see eye to eye with the president-elect and have very different views about Russia. I'm just interested in how you see this.
CHAREN: So this is one of the huge tensions that's going to be playing out over the next years, months, years. Who will he listen to? What are the true nature of his - I mean, it is still a bit mysterious why he has this unwillingness to criticize Putin, even though there's plenty of reason. And you cannot just say, as so many people do, well, you know, Obama did the reset and this is no different from that and so on. And Bush, too, wanted to, you know, get along with - it's different because certainly there's less justification for Obama than there was for Bush. We've seen Putin's behavior in the interim. And it wasn't about Bush, and it wasn't about Obama. It was about America. And so...
MARTIN: I'm curious, though, as a person who did not support Donald Trump. As a Republican, as a conservative, you made it clear that you did not support him for reasons that had a great deal to do with philosophy and temperament and so forth. We don't need to revisit. I'm just wondering if you are encouraged or discouraged by the fact that there are people within his Cabinet who hold different views?
CHAREN: Very encouraged.
AHLUWALIA: Very encouraged.
CHAREN: Very encouraged.
MARTIN: Both of you are.
CHAREN: That is - yes. It's a very good sign.
AHLUWALIA: And President-elect Trump has said I'm going to listen to my generals. I'm going to listen to my advisers. And, in fact, he's listening to Vice President Pence - elect in decisions.
MARTIN: Let me move on to a different topic, if I may. We also saw in the press conference this really tense exchange between President-elect Trump and a CNN - and CNN reporter Jim Acosta. Let me just play a short clip of that if I can.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JIM ACOSTA: Can you give us a question?
DONALD TRUMP: Don't be...
ACOSTA: Can you give us a question?
TRUMP: We're not - I am not going to give you a question.
ACOSTA: Can you state...
TRUMP: You are fake news.
ACOSTA: Sir...
MARTIN: You know, Jolene, I'm going to go to you on this because you're a former elected official yourself. You served in the State House for a number of terms. You were a candidate for lieutenant governor, had a lot of political campaigns. What do you make of all that? I mean, there are though - obviously, there are people who are weighing in on both sides. Some people think Jim Acosta was rude. On the other hand, you know, Donald Trump was conflating something that CNN didn't even report and attributing it to them. What - give us your take on that.
IVEY: Well, considering that he had been cheering on Russia for hacking into the emails and just really celebrating a lot of really negative things that impacted our election, I can't get my knickers in a twist too much when the tables are turned on him. So I had a lot of sympathy for the journalists. And if you think about it, if he had just been having press conferences on the - as a normal state of affairs, he wouldn't have had so much pent up energy around this one. It had been like six months since he'd had a press conference. It's just ridiculous, so I think he got what he deserved.
MARTIN: Puneet, thoughts?
AHLUWALIA: Well, I think he put him in his place. If you are fake news, this president is going to get back to you.
MARTIN: Who's covering - who's reporting fake news?
IVEY: CNN is not fake news.
MARTIN: Who is reporting fake news?
AHLUWALIA: They reported which was not true...
MARTIN: First of all, it's an oxymoron. If it's fake, by definition it's not news. So let me just put a stake in that if we could.
AHLUWALIA: But anyway...
MARTIN: But go ahead.
AHLUWALIA: He will basically give you straight talk. And he's looking for a more fair and balanced and straight talk in terms of the news.
MARTIN: What did CNN report that was inaccurate?
AHLUWALIA: Well, CNN reported about that - the...
MARTIN: They did not report these salacious details. That was another news organization.
AHLUWALIA: But they still...
MARTIN: They reported the fact that the president and the president-elect were briefed about this dossier that existed. You don't think that's important?
AHLUWALIA: Well, according to Trump, it is not. It is basically - what he came out and said is that it's not true, and I'm not going to really give you the respect and time to answer your question because you're not reporting correctly.
CHAREN: I think they...
MARTIN: You still haven't told me what he said that was inaccurate - what CNN reported that was inaccurate.
AHLUWALIA: CNN reported the information that was - basically came out from the intelligence agency or some part and which is not true.
MARTIN: A former British intelligence officer who was reporting this for opposition research within the Republican Party, but they did not report these salacious details. That was another news organization. That's just...
AHLUWALIA: But they highlighted the story.
MARTIN: ...That is a fact. That is not fake news. That is news. It is accurate.
CHAREN: Well...
MARTIN: Anyway, Mona you want to jump in on this?
CHAREN: Yeah. I'll jump in. You know, not my usual role to defend Trump, but let's just - I will say two things. First, there was a little bit of doubt about whether what CNN reported was true or not. What CNN reported was that the intelligence services had briefed Trump on this dossier, and then NBC said, no, they hadn't. I think it's still a little murky about - so we don't know.
But CNN did spend a huge amount of time hyping this story and sort of, you know, with a wink and a nod sending people to BuzzFeed to read the details, and Buzzfeed did something incredibly irresponsible. And, furthermore, they did something that is not in the interest of the anti-Trump forces because they now - he - they gave Trump the opportunity to say, see, they're just out to get me. And you don't have to believe anything that comes out of...
MARTIN: But from one other point of view, Mona, if he hadn't opened his press conference with it, I bet you there are millions of people who wouldn't know a thing about it.
CHAREN: I'm not so sure. It was lighting up the boards.
MARTIN: OK.
CHAREN: I'm not so sure.
MARTIN: Well, OK. Different points of view on that, but that's where I'm glad we have the range of views.
CHAREN: OK.
MARTIN: Switching gears a bit now for the couple of - two and a half minutes that we have left - I wanted to mention President Obama's farewell address to the country. We can just play a little bit of that. I think we have time. Here it is.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: It has been the honor of my life to serve you. I won't stop. In fact, I will be right there with you as a citizen for all my remaining days.
MARTIN: So it was reminiscent clearly of the tone that President Obama said throughout his campaign. He described it kind of as a movement. It's interesting that Donald Trump also sees his support as a movement, and in - just in the couple of minutes that we have left, I just wanted to ask can both of them be right? Jolene, do you want to start?
IVEY: The country is pretty split. Although, I will always point out that Hillary Clinton got 2.5 million more votes than Trump did. But, anyway, just to hear President Obama speak - he's eloquent, he's so classy. And then the next day, we had to hear that press conference. So it was really a stark contrast between what we're giving up and what we're getting.
MARTIN: OK. Puneet, can both of them be right? Are both of them leaders of a movement?
AHLUWALIA: Well, they are leaders, and there are - there is a lack of leadership in the Democratic Party, and I think Obama is still going to play a role in that aspect.
MARTIN: Mona?
CHAREN: I think it's worrisome that Barack Obama actually contributed to the bifurcation of our society. I don't think that he made nearly enough effort to be a uniter. And there's, I think, been a backlash against him, and some of that has been reflected in Trump's success. And I think it's really sad, and that's part of Obama's legacy.
MARTIN: Jolene, do you want to answer that very briefly?
IVEY: Please, may I? Because just the thought of anybody saying that Obama was the one who divided us when the Republican leadership started out saying we're going to block everything he tries to do - and they were very successful at that, but they couldn't keep him from doing everything. So thank God for his hard work.
AHLUWALIA: Well, the pendulum did swing the other way, and that's the reason why Trump became president-elect and won thoroughly and strongly.
MARTIN: OK. Well, we will have a lot more time to talk about all of these things, and thank you all so much for being here today to kick it off. Puneet Ahluwalia, Jolene Ivey, Mona Charen - they were all here with us in our studios in Washington, D.C., and we really appreciate it. And it was great to see you all. Thank you all so much.
CHAREN: Thank you, Michel.
IVEY: Thank you.
AHLUWALIA: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to start the program today with news from one of the rallies going on nationwide. Democrats are demonstrating against congressional Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They're holding dozens of rallies around the U.S. Donald Trump takes office on Friday, and Republicans have already started the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act with a vote in Congress last week. Democrats don't have the votes to stop that, so they're looking outside of Washington to pressure Republicans.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BERNIE SANDERS: Tens and tens of thousands of Americans are saying loudly and clearly, Republicans, you are not going to destroy the Affordable Care Act.
MARTIN: That's Bernie Sanders in Warren, Mich. NPR's Scott Detrow was at that rally, and he's with us now. Hi, Scott. Thanks for joining us.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Hey, Michel. Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So it seemed like the idea today was to recapture some of the energy of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. Was that what it was like?
DETROW: Yeah, it really felt like a campaign rally. You had thousands of people cheering and waving signs. He had that energetic campaign music. And that was pretty striking since it's mid-January of a non-election year. So Democrats are holding these rallies all over the country. Nancy Pelosi is doing one in San Francisco. Elizabeth Warren is doing one in Boston. This is one of the more high-profile events, particularly because of the location which I think we're going to talk about in a bit.
But even with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaking at this rally, it was clear that Bernie Sanders was the star. A lot of Bernie Sanders supporters were there, big Bernie cheers going the whole time. And I saw several signs along the lines of don't blame me, I voted for Bernie.
MARTIN: Why did Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, go to Warren, Mich.?
DETROW: Well, this is in Macomb County, Mich., which is a county that really tells the story of Democrats' 2016 problems. It went for Barack Obama narrowly in 2008, narrowly in 2012. But in 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by more than 10 points here. And if you just look at the raw votes, he won the county by 48,000. That's more than four times what his total statewide margin was.
Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer are confident that Democrats can connect with the working-class voters who left the party for Trump. They think they just need to change the messaging that the party's focusing on the right issues, so they went here to try and deliver that message in person.
MARTIN: You know, Republicans across the country ran in 2016 on a promise to roll back the Affordable Care Act, a promise they'd been making for a long time. And they won. You know, Democrats are in the minority in both houses of Congress. They don't have the White House. So what is the strategy that they think will make a difference?
DETROW: Well, the message here was that Republicans, yes, you've talked about this for a long time. But you'll cause yourselves a lot of political harm and you could harm a lot of people if you simply repeal Obamacare. Democrats were very on message today, sticking to the same points. They did concede that Obamacare has a lot of problems, that it does need changes. But their argument is that it's provided health care to millions of people who didn't have it before.
And the aspect of law that they talked the most about and that they had people come onstage to give kind of testimonials about their experience with it was the mandate to insure people with pre-existing conditions. Now, Republicans do say they want to keep that mandate in whatever they put in place instead. They also want to keep another popular part of the plan - allowing adult children to stay on their parents' plans until they're 26 years old.
MARTIN: So remind us of where the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, stands now.
DETROW: Well, the House and Senate took the first major step toward totally repealing it at the end of last week by passing budget resolutions. That sets up a process where House and Senate committees are going to begin working on the detailed language of a repeal and whatever eventual replacement is drafted instead.
Republican leaders have said they want to do this as quickly as possible, but it's likely going to slow down a bit at this point. For one thing, that's because President-elect Trump wants his Health and Human Services secretary in place for the full repeal. That's Tom Price. And he's someone Democrats are planning on really giving a tough confirmation process to when he's up for hearing in Senate votes.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Scott Detrow in Warren, Mich. Scott, thank you.
DETROW: Sure thing.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to hone in on health care for a few more minutes. As we said, Republicans in Congress have taken some initial steps toward repealing the Affordable Care Act. But NPR and the polling firm Ipsos have a new poll out that suggests that the public might not be as enthusiastic as many lawmakers are about an all-out repeal, at least not without something to take its place. The poll also offers interesting insights about what the public does and does not know about the Affordable Healthcare Act.
NPR's health correspondent, Alison Kodjak, is here to tell us more about all of this. Alison, thanks so much for joining us.
ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: Thanks for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: First, Alison, tell us some of the significant findings of this poll.
KODJAK: So the poll showed what I think a lot of people know, which is that the public is largely split on Obamacare. They're - about 45 percent of people hate it and 44 percent say they like it. But within that split there are some interesting results, which is those people who say they want the law repealed, more than half of them want to see it replaced. They don't just want it to go away. So in terms of people who want some sort of health care structures to remain in place, that's the vast majority of people in the country now.
MARTIN: There were some surprising findings, too, at least surprising given the public debate that's taken place over the last year and over the course of this election. Tell us a little bit more about that.
KODJAK: In the context of this sort of everybody seeming to want to repeal this law, more than half of the people in the poll say that the Affordable Care Act has done more good than harm. So people have a positive, you know, view of what this law has done. And - this was interesting to me - 55 percent of the people we polled said they would prefer to see a single-payer health system in this country. You know, that - it did break down on party lines. Seventy percent of those were Democrats. But among independents, 55 percent wanted to see single-payer.
MARTIN: Tell us about what people did and did not know, given how important this policy has been to the Obama administration. One thing that stood out for me is that a majority of those surveyed did know that the Affordable Care Act protects people with pre-existing conditions from being refused coverage and that it requires insurance companies to pay for preventive care, but there was something that they didn't know.
KODJAK: What they don't know is that the Affordable Care Act has extended insurance to millions of millions of people, that the uninsured rate has dropped dramatically since the law passed. And that just seems like the one fact the Obama administration should be getting out there. And people aren't really hearing it.
MARTIN: So as we said, the Republicans in Congress are setting in motion a framework for repealing the Affordable Care Act. Are we seeing any signs that lawmakers are responding to this new information?
KODJAK: It seems they are. And, you know, here's what I have seen. Immediately after the election, when Republicans realized they were going to have the ability to repeal the Affordable Care Act, their plan was to repeal the law immediately when they come back to Washington and replace it some time down the line.
And what we're hearing now since Congress came into session in January - and we're hearing it from President-elect Donald Trump - is we're going to repeal it and replace it simultaneously. So even though they're on their way to repealing it, there's a sense that they're going to potentially slow that down while they come up with this replacement plan that they haven't actually showed the public up till now.
MARTIN: That's NPR health correspondent Alison Kodjak. Alison, thanks so much.
KODJAK: Thanks for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now I wanted to hear from someone who represents people with a stake in this issue that you might not have considered. We are talking about musicians, or rather self-employed musicians. Now, it sounds fun - work when you want, with whom you want, travel, meet all kinds of people. But income can fluctuate wildly. And because many live paycheck to paycheck, many musicians, like other self-employed artists, have gone uninsured.
That changed with President Obama's Affordable Care Act. It allowed more people in the arts to obtain health care. St. Louis-based singer-songwriter Beth Bombara is one of them.
(SOUNDBITE OF BETH BOMBARA SONG)
BETH BOMBARA: (Singing) I don't care if you want me, I won't wait. I've been down this road already. It's too late.
MARTIN: In addition to writing music, Beth wrote a blog post about her story that caught our attention. So we called her up at her home in St. Louis, where unfortunately she's trapped in an ice storm, so - great to talk with us, right? What else you got to do right now (laughter)?
BOMBARA: Yeah, I'm literally - can't do anything else (laughter).
MARTIN: Well, thanks for talking with us. So you're a college graduate. You have a B.A. in music. But for much of your career, you've had to go without health insurance. As briefly as you can, why is that?
BOMBARA: Well, when I graduated college in 2009, you know, I had a music degree and I really wanted to be able to pursue that as a career. And doing so can be very tough to do on a financial basis, day to day. And so you have to do things like, you know, have a couple different part-time jobs or a job that's very flexible that will allow you to do gigs and to tour. And with those kinds of cobbled-together jobs, they usually don't offer benefits. No health insurance. So then you're responsible for providing that for yourself. And when I graduated, that really wasn't financially feasible.
MARTIN: Can you just give us a sense of what the cost of buying a policy on the open market would have been for you?
BOMBARA: It would have been as much as my rent payment every month.
MARTIN: And you did have health insurance through your husband for a time. But then he lost his job, so you were both without insurance. Tell me what happened after the ACA happened. Are you and your husband both able to get insurance now?
BOMBARA: Yes. Yes, we are. He's also a musician. He plays with me. It's given us the freedom to tour more, play more concerts. It's kind of accelerated what we've been able to do because we don't have to worry about how we're going to take care of our health care.
MARTIN: As you know, Congress is taking steps to repeal it - the current health care law enacted by President Obama. Now, Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan say that they want to replace it with a better law, although we don't have the specifics of that at the present moment. I just wanted to ask - what are your thoughts about that?
BOMBARA: Well, it seems like a very dangerous thing to mess with, taking something away when you don't have a workable solution to replace it with. And I really - I feel so strongly - there are so many smart, brilliant people in this country. I refuse to believe that we cannot solve this problem. Sometimes I feel like it's just a matter of maybe they don't want to solve the problem. We have the capacity as a country to figure this out, and we need to do that.
MARTIN: That was St. Louis-based singer-songwriter Beth Bombara. She was kind enough to join us from her home in St. Louis, where she is ice-bound. Beth, thanks so much.
BOMBARA: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF BETH BOMBARA SONG)
BOMBARA: (Singing) I'm a fool for this hunger, going to see how far I can go.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we're going to take a few minutes to speak with a member of President Obama's Cabinet who has been making news up to the very last days of the administration, Attorney General Loretta Lynch. As the nation's highest law enforcement officer, Lynch has made her mark on the Department of Justice despite having just under two years on the job.
Under her tenure, the department has signed agreements to overhaul police practices in Baltimore and Philadelphia and most recently in Chicago. The department has pushed to charge Dylann Roof, the killer of nine people in Charleston, S.C., with a federal hate crime, resulting in the nation's first example of death penalty verdict based on federal hate crime charges. Also worth mentioning, Loretta Lynch is the first African-American woman to hold the position of attorney general.
We reached the attorney general just before her final scheduled speech in office at the historic 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. And I started our conversation by asking her if she believes that the civil rights initiatives she spearheaded will continue after she leaves office.
LORETTA LYNCH: I do. And the reason I do is because I felt that I was very much picking up on work that I had done in my first time in government. I worked on these issues in the 1990s, when I was the U.S. attorney in New York at that time. One of the most gratifying things I found when I returned to government in 2010 was how much our policing practice had expanded.
The amount of cooperation and collaboration that we get from law enforcement and community members on these issues is not only essential. It's been vital. And so I think that while, again, we don't know what the future holds and there are, of course, no guarantees, we're in a situation now where we're very much viewed as value added to this discussion and this debate.
MARTIN: Of course, you know that the person who has been nominated by President-elect Trump to succeed you in this position, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, in his confirmation hearings, which were last week, seemed to take a very different view.
He said specifically - and quoting here - that "law enforcement as a whole has been unfairly maligned and blamed for the unacceptable actions of a few of their bad actors." And he says that they believe the political leadership of the country has abandoned them. They have become targets. Morale has suffered. How would you answer that?
LYNCH: I don't answer it specifically because I think he's speaking from whatever his experience has been. That being said, I still believe that the work that we have done has been positive. One of the things that we've been able to do is work with the transition team for the Department of Justice as they look at all the components of the department. And we, of course, look forward to making sure that the incoming team has the information they need about this practice, so that they can actually see what works and that they can see how beneficial it's been.
MARTIN: Well, talk a little bit, if you would, about the news that was released by the department just on Friday, which was the department's investigation into the Chicago Police Department. What do you want people to draw from this report that - this year-long investigation into the practices of the Chicago Police Department, which have been so much in the news?
LYNCH: We did find a pattern or practice of unconstitutional behavior on the part of the police involving force, including deadly force. And we also found that the root cause of that, or certainly a major cause of what has led the police department to fall into this situation has been a lack of systemic training, a lack of focusing on the correct techniques, a lack of proper equipment, low morale within the department. We talked to community members who came in and told us their stories - stories of pain, stories of loss, but also stories of police officers with whom they connected and had a very positive relationship.
And we also talked to Chicago police officers who said that they wanted more than anything else to know and respect the community that they served. But it is hard to do that when you don't even have the most up-to-date equipment. And when we looked at the force training that they were receiving, not only was it out of date, it was legally incorrect. I think the Chicago report is emblematic really of where our practice is which is we try and look at how can we get the Chicago Police Department to a point where they can, in fact, patrol the city in a way that is constitutional, that is safe, but also reduces crime.
MARTIN: It sounds to me that you've enjoyed this job.
LYNCH: I have. This has been - it has been a privilege and an honor and an absolute joy to serve the people of this great country. A friend of mine said to me once, even on the worst day you have, it'll still be the best thing that you have ever done. And he was absolutely right.
MARTIN: Is there any way in which you think that you failed? I mean, obviously one of the things that's talked about is your unexpected meeting with President Clinton during the campaign season when you both happened to be in Phoenix and the president boarded your plane. There are, you know, other things that have made the news that haven't been as positive. Is there any regret that you have as you leave this office?
LYNCH: Well, I've expressed regret about that incident from the time it occurred. And I think if we look at the way in which we've been trying to make systemic change in this country, I and others in the administration very much regret that criminal justice reform did not pass as a statutory change on the Hill.
But I - what I - one thing that I have been able to have is the vantage point from this office, which is that it's the work of more than one person. It's the work of more than one group of people and the work of more than one administration. And the work that we do spans time. It spans generations. And regardless of whether there's a D or an R in front of your name, we all want the same thing. We want this country which is already great to continue along that path.
MARTIN: That was Attorney General Loretta Lynch. She joined us from Birmingham, Ala., in advance of remarks today at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, thank you so much for speaking with us.
LYNCH: Thank you for having me, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
By now, if you have followed the news at all, then you surely know about the worldwide migration crisis. You've heard the numbers. More than 1.4 million people have crossed the Mediterranean since 2014 alone fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa. You've surely seen bits and pieces of the human story as well - the heartbreaking photo of the drowned Syrian boy, reports of shipwrecks that have killed hundreds of other migrants attempting the crossing. The sheer scale of the story makes it a difficult one to handle.
But Patrick Kingsley migration correspondent for the U.K. news outlet The Guardian decided to try in his new book "The New Odyssey," he takes readers through every step of the journey from homeland to safety in Europe, interviewing refugees, smugglers, aid workers and everybody else he can think of connected to the story. And Patrick Kingsley joins us now from NPR's bureau in New York City. Patrick Kingsley, thank you so much for speaking with us.
PATRICK KINGSLEY: Thanks for having me on the show.
MARTIN: As we mentioned, this is such a huge story, and you take on all aspects of it in the book, but mostly through the story of Hashem Alsouki, a Syrian who fled the civil war with his family. What is it about his story that drew you to him to kind of form the book around him?
KINGSLEY: Well, first of all, Hashem's such a sympathetic man. He's a civil servant. He's 40. He's got three kids, a lovely wife who's a teacher. He just feels like an every man. And it was stories like his that I felt were best able to humanize, to ground the vastness of what was going on.
MARTIN: Why did he decide - to tell people who haven't had a chance to read the book yet - why did he decide to make the crossing?
KINGSLEY: So he was living quite a quiet life before the revolution erupted in Syria in 2011, and then suddenly war overcame his country. And he got sucked into it. His home was destroyed in the fighting, and he was also arrested for several months for political reasons by the government in Syria. And he was tortured for several months, and - I'm sorry to say - electrocuted for days on end. And he then decided to leave with his family for Egypt which is where I met him, and life there was actually very tough as well because Hashem found it very hard to get jobs.
He was kidnapped by a man - came to be a Secret Service officer from the Egyptian regime. And it became very clear that this wasn't a safe place to be. And for that reason, he tried to go with his family by boat in one of these leaking boats that depart from the shores of North Africa towards Italy. And that was the reason I met him because he actually didn't make it onto that boat, and he was arrested with his family, his three young kids.
And had they got on that boat that they hoped would take them to Italy, they would have drowned because that boat went down a few days later killing - we think - between 300 and 500 people. And the staggering thing was that a few months later, Hashem said to me that he wanted to try this journey that had almost killed him the year before again. And that was the point when I asked if I might be able to follow him and chronicle his journey.
MARTIN: I need to - you to find a way to describe what part of that journey is like, and it's going to be difficult to do because there is a level of detail that you provide in the book about the exposure that people have to other people's bodily functions, for example, on these crossings that I'm not sure people are prepared to hear. So can you just give us - can you just find some way to describe what these crossings are actually like?
KINGSLEY: Well, the crossings are one of the most traumatic experiences that you could possibly imagine. Most people are crammed into relatively small fishing trawlers that are only meant to hold a crew of 15 or 20. But, instead, they're crammed with hundreds and hundreds of people at least three hundred and sometimes up to 700, and so no one even has enough floor space on the deck to stretch out and sleep.
There are so many people on the boat that it's very hard to reach the few toilets that there are onboard to put it lightly. And I would ask listeners to use their imaginations about what people have to do instead. And if they need to eat, you hope that the smugglers that you've paid - maybe $2,000 to make this journey - have enough food. But often, they don't. It's not like you're going on a luxury ocean cruise. This is one of the world's worst journeys that you can go on and second only I think to the journey that thousands of migrants make through the desert before they even reach the shores of the Mediterranean. And that's also described in my book.
MARTIN: Now, you combine the human stories here. You tell these stories focusing on Hashem and his family's journey and other journeys of people through the Sahara. But you also talk to - you also sort of describe some of the policy decisions that have led to this. Now, I think many people are of the view that this - there's really nothing that could have been done here to forestall this short of a political solution in Syria. It's your contention that that's just not true, am I right?
KINGSLEY: Well, my findings having interviewed hundreds of refugees is that had countries like the USA been more proactive about setting up resettlement programs, fewer people would have sought to move by irregular means. As I've said in the book, people move whether we like it or not. And the best way to respond to that is to try and manage that flow rather than to pretend that we can stop it entirely.
MARTIN: In the course of reporting the book, you know, you, you know, went to the airport, got on a plane and flew to a place that literally hundreds of people had died trying to make it there just as you did just in the course of an hour. And you were - I noted throughout the book that you were struck by this again and again, and I wonder if that experience of seeing people struggle so mightily to achieve freedom of movement that you were born to, I wonder if that's changed you in some way.
KINGSLEY: It just reminded me of how privileged I've been in my life and how privilege many of us who live in North America or in Europe are compared to people who are actually very similar to us but have drawn the short straw in the lottery where they were born. As you mentioned, I flew from - in one week, for example, Egypt to Turkey to Jordan to government-held Libya to rebel-held Libya to Tunisia and Malta, Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and then to the U.K.
And in that time in which I'd crossed nine or 10 borders, around 1,200 people drowned just trying to cross one. And it's when you realize things like that. And when you are on a border with people who cannot move any further because there is a fence, and you know that you can leave that space as soon as you like within five minutes if you need to. You just realize how the world is very unfair.
MARTIN: What - is it all right if we ask what happened to Hashem?
KINGSLEY: Hashem does survive the sea journey, but the book ends without resolution, I'd say, because his family was still stuck in Egypt waiting for their family reunification application to be processed. And I'm sorry to say that still is the case. They're still waiting nearly two years later.
MARTIN: Patrick Kingsley is migration correspondent for the U.K.-based news outlet The Guardian. His new book is called "The New Odyssey: The Story Of The Twenty-First Century Refugee Crisis." It's out now. Mr. Kingsley, thank you so much for speaking with us.
KINGSLEY: Thank you for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time for our regular segment Words You'll Hear. That's where we try to understand a story that will be in the news in the coming days by drilling down on some of the key words. Today, the words are disparaging, scandalous and amoral. And while we're tempted to bring up certain reality show stars, we won't because we're talking about a Supreme Court case Lee v. Tam. This case has been winding its way through the courts for almost seven years at this point.
The justices will hear the case next week. It's a case brought by a Portland rock band that asked some difficult questions about free speech in the commercial arena. Here to tell us more is Megan Carpenter. She's a professor at Texas A&M University School of Law where she is co-director of the Center for Law and intellectual property, and she was kind enough to join us here in our studios in Washington, D.C. Professor Carpenter, thank you so much for coming.
MEGAN CARPENTER: You're welcome. It's a pleasure to be here.
MARTIN: So just give us the basic facts of the case, if you would.
CARPENTER: Simon Tam applied to register the trademark The Slants for his rock band with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The registration was denied on the basis that the term slants is disparaging to people of Asian-American descent. He very deliberately chose the name The Slants for his band, and the band is very active in social justice issues. They're interested really in re-appropriating the term.
MARTIN: Well, in the same way that, for example, some rap stars use the N-word, and they say that they're re-appropriating it. And I should have mentioned at the outset that there is language in our conversation that will be offensive to some people. So for those who just heard us refer to the name of the rock band and are disturbed by it, I do want to say it is fundamental to understanding this story. So, you know, with that being said, where do these fun words come in - disparaging, scandalous and amoral?
CARPENTER: The Disparagement Provision is what's at issue in this particular Supreme Court case because The Slants was determined by the Trademark Office to be disparaging of Asian-Americans or people of Asian-American descent. Then it was unable - Simon Tam was unable to register it.
MARTIN: What is the specific question that the court will be asked to answer here?
CARPENTER: The court wants to figure out whether or not it's constitutional for the disparagement bar to be in place, whether or not that prevents freedom of speech and free expression.
MARTIN: Now, I think people hearing this case particularly people in the Washington area or who follow football will certainly see some similarities connected to the case of the Washington football team, which has a name which many Native American activists have deemed to be disparaging. Is the case of the Washington football team referenced somehow in this case?
CARPENTER: They are connected in so far as if the Supreme Court decides that it's unconstitutional to prohibit trademark registration for marks that are disparaging, then that would apply both to the Washington football team and to the band The Slants.
MARTIN: Does the fact that Simon Tam is a member of the referenced group have any weight here, particularly given that they deliberately chose the name in order to, I assume in part, call attention to the ways in which Asian-Americans have been disparaged?
CARPENTER: That's a really interesting point and has been of some debate. When we apply trademark law, we really consider not really the intent of the trademark owner, but we consider what consumers think. So with disparagement, we really are looking at not necessarily what the intent is of Simon or of the Washington football team, but how that's perceived. But there can even be many different opinions depending upon who you ask.
MARTIN: That's Megan Carpenter. She's a professor at Texas A&M University School of Law where she is co-director of the Center for Law and Intellectual Property, but she was kind enough to join us in our studios in Washington, D.C. Professor Carpenter, thank you so much for joining us.
CARPENTER: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In the next few minutes, we bring you word of the end of what were once must-see attractions for many people. We'll start with the greatest show on Earth. After 146 years, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus have announced their final shows. NPR's Merrit Kennedy reports it's a response to changing tastes in entertainment and years of attacks by animal rights groups.
MERRIT KENNEDY, BYLINE: It was a big deal when the circus came into town. It's been a mainstay of U.S. entertainment for decades enthralling audiences with flashy shows featuring acrobats, clowns and wild animals. Early last century, the Ringling Brothers Circus, known for masterful juggling, merged with its biggest competitor Barnum and Bailey which specialized in wild animal performances. Together, they formed one circus which they dubbed the greatest show on Earth.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It's been through World Wars, it's been through every kind of economic cycle, and it's been through a lot of change.
KENNEDY: The spectacle is coming to an end in May. The circus parent company's chairman and CEO Kenneth Feld has announced. It has seen declining ticket sales for years combined with the major expense of touring some 400 cast and crew around the country on two mile-long trains. And, recently, they've been putting on shows without some of their biggest performers. After growing criticism from animal rights groups, chief operating officer Juliette Feld tells the Associated Press of the company's 2015 decision to stop featuring elephants in shows has especially hurt numbers.
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JULIETTE FELD: Removing the elephants from the touring units, we saw a very sharp drop in attendance, much greater than we anticipated.
KENNEDY: That decision came after years of pressure and legal action from those animal rights groups which has only increased, says Nicole Paquette, the Humane Society's vice president for wildlife protection.
NICOLE PAQUETTE: Really seen a shift in the passage of laws, and there are now over a hundred and twenty cities and counties that have banned either cruel training devices or specific animals in circuses.
KENNEDY: Paquette calls this a watershed moment for the animal welfare community. The circus suffered from another problem - holding kids' attention against the multiplying forms of entertainment. Ringling Brothers has tried using new technology in its shows and ramping up its social media presence. But Stephen Payne, the company's vice president of corporate communications says it wasn't enough.
STEPHEN PAYNE: Really it's such a more hyper-competitive market for entertainment. We just weren't able to find a particular mix that was successful in bringing audiences back.
KENNEDY: The show isn't over quite yet. Ringling Brothers will continue touring for the next four months until the final performance set to take place in Long Island in May. Merrit Kennedy, NPR News.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now we need to tell you about the passing of another beloved attraction, this one in the town of Gettysburg, Penn., famous for its Civil War battleground and as the site of President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The Hall of Presidents and First Ladies, a wax museum dedicated to presidential Americana, announced last fall that after almost 60 years, it is closing its doors due to dwindling numbers of visitors and putting its 44 life-size wax American presidents on the auction block.
RANDY DICKENSHEETS: Who has $10,000 to open up Abraham Lincoln? Ten thousand? Five thousand dollars?
MARTIN: That's auctioneer Randy Dickensheets. He presided over the museum's going-out-of-business sale yesterday, where hundreds gathered to buy a life-sized politician of their very own. Founded in the late 1950s, the Hall of Presidents and First Ladies used to be a bustling attraction at Gettysburg. But museum owner Max Felty says that visitors have dwindled since its heyday decades ago. This past year's hot presidential election didn't bring any more tourists.
MAX FELTY: That's kind of when we said, we're going to cut it loose now before we have to get another president, invest any more money or do any more things like that.
MARTIN: So he shut it down. And on Saturday, hundreds of collectors, tourists and history buffs from around the country packed into a ballroom to bid. George Faber came from Baltimore to say goodbye to one of his favorite childhood haunts.
GEORGE FABER: In short, you have some kids into "Star Trek," some kids into, you know, superheroes, and I was always into wax museums. And, you know, it's like seeing an old friend go.
MARTIN: Stephanie Hoffman drove from nearby Irwin, Penn., to bid on the statue of her distant relative, President Andrew Jackson.
STEPHANIE HOFFMAN: So now we're going home with a statue of him, and he'll be in the front foyer waving to everybody when they come in the door.
MARTIN: And her husband Craig says...
CRAIG HOFFMAN: We bought his first wife also so he would have company.
MARTIN: Robert Shire drove up from Washington, D.C., intending to make a big purchase to take to the inauguration.
ROBERT SHIRE: I would like to bid on Hillary Clinton. I would love to see her at the inauguration.
MARTIN: So still wondering how much it actually costs to buy your very own personal president? Maybe a little pricey for the casual history buff. The biggest bargain, according to auctioneer Randy Dickensheets, was President James Monroe, who was snatched up for just $1,000. And coming in as the most expensive?
DICKENSHEETS: Going once. Going twice. Eighty-five hundred dollars, sold in the back here to 290.
(APPLAUSE)
MARTIN: That's Abraham Lincoln, who, like many of his waxy colleagues, gave up his old Gettysburg address yesterday for a new home in a private collection.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
OK. Here's a story that's a bit of a happy surprise for us. NPR might be a Lego set - this very building, NPR headquarters, a place from which I'm speaking to you right now. Let's back up because it's not on the toy shelves yet. It's just a digital model - a pretty good one, if I may say so myself.
TYLER WILLIAMS: Right now it's 622 pieces.
MARTIN: That's Tyler Williams. He is a Lego super fan.
WILLIAMS: I have loved Legos truly for as long as I can remember.
MARTIN: And he's also an NPR super fan.
WILLIAMS: I've been a avid listener of NPR and public media for my entire adult life.
MARTIN: And if he has his way, he will combine his two loves into an awesome Lego set allowing brick enthusiasts all over the world to build their very own NPR mother ship. It's not such a far-fetched idea.
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ANDREW CLARK: Well, when I was a kid, I was into "Dr. Who," and I got hooked on the show. And I was also into Lego - of the idea to have a Lego set that combines those two interests, a great experience, a lot of fun.
MARTIN: That's Andrew Clark who won the Lego Ideas Contest in 2015. Now his "Doctor Who" characters and famous time-traveling phone booth are in stores around the world. For a Lego idea to become an actual Lego toy set is not easy. Here's Tyler Williams, our NPR fan.
WILLIAMS: If you reach 10,000 supporters within the given time parameters, the set that you've designed will go into a review process where a board of Lego employees will actually sit down, and they will pick some of those to become actual Lego products.
MARTIN: Now, we promise we didn't put Tyler up to this. It was his idea. He really wanted to do it.
WILLIAMS: I realized that the new NPR headquarters is - it's a pretty remarkable building. It incorporates an existing old warehouse, so I tried to incorporate that existing structure into the Lego, not just in a visual representation, but also in the way that the Legos work.
MARTIN: If Tyler's design wins the competition, the NPR building would join such architectural icons as the Lego Eiffel Tower, the Lego Louvre or even a Lego Burj Khalifa. Quite an intimidating list, but wouldn't it be awesome to have an NPR Lego headquarters and maybe, you know, a Lego mini figure of Michel Martin to go inside? Just, you know, a thought.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Today comes word that the well-known Atlanta area mega church Pastor Bishop Eddie Long passed away from cancer at the age of 63. Over the course of more than three decades in ministry, he built New Birth Missionary Baptist Church just outside of Atlanta into what has been believed to be one of the nation's largest churches with some 30,000 members. He might be best known nationally for conducting the funeral services of Coretta Scott King, widow of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and a civil rights icon in her own right back in 2006 during which he hosted President George W. Bush and former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.
But he also became a controversial figure for his lavish lifestyle and anti-LGBT positions and was later accused of sexual misconduct by several young men whom he had mentored. We wanted to hear more about him, so we've called the Reverend Asa Lee. He is associate dean for community life at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., and has lectured on the history of the black church. Reverend Lee, welcome. Thank you so much for speaking with us.
ASA LEE: Glad to be here today.
MARTIN: Tell us a bit more about Bishop Long. What was he known for?
LEE: Well, Bishop Long's ministry coincided with the rebirth of black Atlanta in the early '90s. And in many respects, Bishop Long was a pioneer in the merging of Baptists and Pentecostal sort of styles of worship into a very charismatic ministry and worship experience. And that, coupled with his strong Biblical preaching in African-American circles, really launched New Birth into a stratospheric ministry globally.
MARTIN: He also, though, as we noted, came under fire for a very lavish lifestyle, you know, extremely expensive, you know, cars and homes and other accoutrements. Could you talk a little bit more about that?
LEE: Yeah. So when we speak about sort of televangelism, this phenomenon of excessive wealth kind of is not unique to any one ethnic expression of televangelists. And Jonathan Walton, who's a professor at Harvard who wrote a book in 2009 called "Watch This!: The Ethics And Aesthetics Of Black Televangelism" - and one of the things that he puts forth is just that Eddie, himself, Bishop Long, himself - in order to establish sort of the idea of God's blessing from a prosperity perspective really use the wealth of his ministry to fund everything from multiple houses to airplanes to cars, etc. And then would use these assets, if you will, to say this is the blessing of God which is classic prosperity gospel ministry.
MARTIN: He among others did attract the attention of congressional investigators at one point. But what also attracted the attention of the authorities were these allegations of sexual misconduct that were brought by four young man whom he had mentored.
Now, these cases were settled outside of the criminal justice system, so there was never any sort of public finding of wrongdoing. But I did want to ask what impact did those allegations have, particularly in light of the fact that he was a noted preacher against same-sex marriage and civil rights for same gender loving individuals? So what impact do you think those allegations had on his public standing, if you will?
LEE: They were absolutely devastating. Bishop Long's ministry was built on what many would describe, and I would describe, as homophobic preaching and teaching, very conservative reading of scripture. And so his positions that he preached for a number of years put him in a position that when these allegations broke, they directly went to his character and spoke to his integrity and credibility as a minister. And so I believe that those allegations were a singular contributor to the demise of the New Birth ministry under Bishop Long.
MARTIN: How will you teach about Bishop Long's ministry going forward?
LEE: Bishop Long's ministry, although, it did a lot of good - let me be very clear when I say that there were a lot of moments of positive ministry moments where lives were changed in terms of social-economic standing - but the way in which that ministry took place was an emphasis on personal piety, holiness and not much the prophetic witness against injustices in the broader society.
And so in the African-American church, Eddie Long is one of those kinds of figures that is worth examining as a tipping point in the way in which the African-American church has centered itself in the community and the message that has been preached, specifically in the African-American community.
MARTIN: That is the Reverend Asa Lee. He's associate dean for community life at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. Reverend Lee, thank you so much for speaking with us.
LEE: Glad to be with you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Today you probably know is the actual birthday of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Although tomorrow is the day the U.S. honors his contributions to the country and the world. And this means it is a busy time in Atlanta, his hometown. Now, Atlanta always hosts a series of events honoring the late civil rights icon from a march to a commemorative church service. And now after months of repairs, the home where King grew up is once again open to visitors. From Georgia Public Broadcasting, Bradley George reports.
BRADLEY GEORGE, BYLINE: Not far from the skyscrapers of downtown Atlanta, the Sweet Auburn neighborhood has been a center of life for the city's African-American community for over a century. It's also where Martin Luther King, Jr. was born and raised. The neighborhood is a living museum to his life and legacy.
A streetcar stops in front of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King and his father were pastors. Next door is the King Center, the final resting place for the civil rights leader and his wife Coretta. And on the next block is where Martin Luther King, Jr. was born and spent the first 12 years of his life. And for tourists, it's been a popular spot for decades.
JUDY FORTE: Because of the holiday weekend, we really do open house and the lines are all along the sidewalk.
GEORGE: Judy Forte is superintendent of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site. The two-story Queen Anne home at 501 Auburn Avenue was built in 1895. The family of King's mother, Alberta, bought the house 11 years later. Martin Luther King, Sr. moved in after marrying Alberta in 1926. The home state in the King family for the next four decades became a museum after King, Jr.'s assassination in 1968. Those visiting in the last few months haven't been able to see inside the house. It closed in August after rangers from the National Park Service made an alarming discovery.
FORTE: We were taking a group of visitors through the birth home, and while they were standing there in the parlor, one of the joists underneath the house sort of broke away and the floor sort of dropped a couple of inches.
GEORGE: No one was injured in that incident, but Forte says the weight of thousands of sightseers over the decades likely took a toll on the 122-year-old wooden floor. The house closed for repairs and work was finished in time for Martin Luther King Day weekend. Forte says visitors need to see where King grew up to understand how he became a force for social change.
FORTE: The birth home is important because it takes you back to him as a child and how important his family environment was and the development of him as a great leader for the Civil Rights movement.
GEORGE: That includes the dinner table at his boyhood home where a 6-year-old King first learned about segregation.
RANGER JENKINS: Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Good morning.
RANGER JENKINS: How's everybody doing?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Good.
RANGER JENKINS: My name's Ranger Jenkins, and I welcome you all to the Martin Luther King National Historic Site.
GEORGE: Park rangers encourage parents to take time to have meaningful conversations with their children. For now, tours include only the first floor of the King home because of the repairs to the second floor. The Park Service hopes to finish it next year, the 50th anniversary of King's death. For NPR News, I'm Bradley George in Atlanta.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY")
STEVIE WONDER: (Singing) Thanks to Martin Luther King. Happy Birthday.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The last person to leave footprints on the moon has died at age 82. Gene Cernan was big, brash and gregarious, and if he hadn't been lucky, he could have missed his chance to walk on the moon. NPR's Russell Lewis has this remembrance.
RUSSELL LEWIS, BYLINE: Gene Cernan challenged himself his whole life. When he entered the military, he chose to be a naval aviator. Landing on an aircraft carrier is perhaps the hardest thing to do in aviation. Cernan did it because it wasn't easy. He said he was constantly pushing himself to do better and be better.
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GENE CERNAN: My dad always used to say, just go and do your best. You're not going to be better than everyone at everything, and he was right, I wasn't. But he was also right one other time, and he said, said someday you're going to surprise yourself. Just do your best, and someday you're going to surprise yourself.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: We have ignition - two, one, zero. We have a liftoff. We have a liftoff and it's lighting up the areas. It's just like daylight here at Kennedy Space Center as the Saturn V is moving off the pad.
LEWIS: Cernan's final trip in space was also the final time NASA sent people to the moon - Apollo 17, which took off on December 7, 1972.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Apollo 17 now 65 miles high.
CERNAN: OK, four minutes and we're go here, Bob.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Roger, Gene, we're going around the room, look go here. You're looking real good, Gene, right down the line.
LEWIS: Four days later, Cernan landed the lunar module on the moon with astronaut Jack Schmidt. Cernan couldn't hide his enthusiasm as he exited the spacecraft.
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CERNAN: I'd like to dedicate the first step of Apollo 17 to all those who made it possible. Oh, my God, unbelievable.
LEWIS: Decades later, Gene Cernan reflected on that moment in this 2015 NPR interview.
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CERNAN: The first steps had been made by others long before I got there, but those were my first steps.
LEWIS: Cernan is one of only three people to travel to the moon twice. Dreaming big and working hard were two things Cernan always did. He grew up in Chicago. Neither of his parents went to college, but he got several degrees in engineering. Despite his technical background, Cernan's time on the moon and in space forever altered his life. Cernan said he began to look and think about things differently.
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CERNAN: And when you leave the Earth, it's not only technologically different, it's philosophically different and it's spiritually different.
LEWIS: Many astronauts had difficulty describing what it was actually like to be in space, not in a technical sense, but in finding the words to share that remarkable experience. There's something else about Cernan, he turned down the opportunity to land on the moon during an earlier mission. On that flight, Cernan would have been the pilot, but he wanted to be commander in charge of the mission.
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CERNAN: I proved to myself - as I said, I'd sort of felt like I'd been an underdog most of my life. I proved to myself that I was good enough, that I could get the job done. That was a big point in my life.
LEWIS: Gene Cernan spent his post-NASA life trying to inspire young people. He once said, dream the impossible and go out and make it happen. I walked on the moon, what can't you do? Russell Lewis, NPR News.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
You get a ticket even though you thought you parked in a legitimate spot. NPR's Arezou Rezvani reports that an online robot might be able to help.
AREZOU REZVANI, BYLINE: It was the first day of school for Dan Lear's kids. In a scramble, this lawyer from Seattle parked where he could and got his three boys to class.
DAN LEAR: There was a fire hydrant, but the curb wasn't painted and the fire hydrant was painted kind of a funny color. And so I thought - maybe it was wishful thinking - but I thought I would be OK to park there.
REZVANI: Sure enough, Lear returned to a ticket.
LEAR: I was bummed. I mean, obviously no one's really happy when they get a ticket. But I went home, I put it on my fridge and I just let it sit there 'cause I just didn't want to deal with it.
REZVANI: So he found something that would. He had heard about DoNotPay, a free online robot that helped drivers in London and New York City appeal parking tickets. It had just expanded into Seattle, and Lear decided to give it a go. He logged on, answered the bot's questions and within minutes, he had a 500-word letter to send to the city.
Verdict?
LEAR: Ultimately, yeah, they let me off.
REZVANI: The mind behind DoNotPay belongs to Joshua Browder, a 20-year-old student at Stanford originally from London.
JOSHUA BROWDER: This is automatic.
REZVANI: It is automatic.
BROWDER: OK, thank God.
REZVANI: Newly licensed, he offered to take me to one city he wants to expand into next, San Francisco. Browder combs the streets, peeks at parking tickets, studies signs.
BROWDER: Oh, there we go. I think there's one.
REZVANI: It's field research he programs into what he calls the world's first robot lawyer.
BROWDER: So there's two signs. The first one says that from 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m., you can't park. And that one is fine and clearly marked. But then there's a sign below it that says no parking up to 6 a.m., but there's no start time.
REZVANI: It's covered up.
BROWDER: It's covered up, and it looks like it's actually been covered up by the local authority.
REZVANI: Browder's bot has so far helped drivers overturn more than 200,000 parking tickets. This month, it will enter several more cities, including the capital of cars and traffic, Los Angeles, where right now about 40 percent of challenged citations are dismissed. Compare that to DoNotPay's success rate of 60 percent, and it's easy to see why drivers would flock to this service.
But cities...
WAYNE GARCIA: Currently we have four part-time field investigators to do the investigations for signs and curbs in the city of Los Angeles.
REZVANI: Wayne Garcia is chief of parking operations for the city of Los Angeles. He says he's anxious to see what will soon come through the mail, given how even a modest uptick in appeals could overload resources. But he admits there could be an upside.
GARCIA: Our staff spend a great deal of time reviewing letters from motorists and trying to decipher what they're actually contesting about.
REZVANI: And that's because most people just don't write like lawyers.
GARCIA: If this process will help the motorists really focus in on why they're contesting their parking citation, it would also help our staff in reviewing the contested parking citation.
BROWDER: I want to level the playing field so that anyone can have the same legal access under the law.
REZVANI: DoNotPay's creator Joshua Browder wants this kind of legal help to go beyond parking tickets. And in some cities, he's already done that with landlord-tenant disputes and unexplained banking charges. Right now he's working on the bot's ability to help refugees apply for asylum.
BROWDER: If one day, like, someone can have the same standard of legal representation as the richest in society, then I think that's a really good aim.
REZVANI: Which Browder says is part of an even larger ambition to one day make justice free. Arezou Rezvani, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump says the Republican replacement for Obamacare will include the goal of, quote, "insurance for everybody" but with a lower price tag than the Affordable Care Act. Trump made that pledge this weekend during an interview with The Washington Post. He also talked to European newspaper reporters and once again raised questions about his commitment to the NATO alliance.
With us to talk about this is NPR's Scott Horsley. Hi, Scott.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So, Scott, in this Washington Post interview, Trump is setting a pretty high bar for the health care plan that Republican lawmakers have promised would replace Obamacare. Is that getting out in front of his fellow Republicans?
HORSLEY: Well, you're right. It is a high bar. He's basically saying to the 20 million people who got coverage under the Affordable Care Act, don't worry; we're still going to cover you after the ACA is repealed. And in fact, we're going to have health insurance for everybody.
Now, that's interesting because up until now, Republicans in Congress have been reluctant to make that kind of pledge. They've often ducked questions about whether their replacement plan will cover as many people as Obamacare does. So Trump is putting a marker down, but it's not at all clear how he would deliver on that promise or even if it's possible.
For example, Trump talks about lower deductibles. It's very hard to have lower deductibles and also have lower premiums and still cover everybody. The president-elect offered no specifics, saying he wants to wait until his nominee for health secretary is confirmed.
And meanwhile, defenders of the Affordable Care Act have held rallies over the weekend, and they're planning a bus tour starting tomorrow to call attention to what they say are the benefits of Obamacare.
MCEVERS: Trump also rattled some European leaders in this interview with European newspaper reporters where he called NATO obsolete. What's he talking about there?
HORSLEY: Yeah, he was speaking with The Times of London and Germany's Bild newspaper. And in that joint interview, he did say the NATO alliance is important to him, but he also reiterated a charge he made during the campaign, saying NATO's not doing enough to fight terrorism. He also complained about NATO members that are not meeting spending targets for their own defense.
Now, some Europeans have bristled at this. French President Francois Hollande said Europe doesn't need advice from what he called outsiders. Trump's NATO comments are also at odds with his own nominee for defense secretary. Nominee James Mattis told Congress last week the NATO alliance is vital to U.S. national security.
MCEVERS: Finally, Trump spent part of this Martin Luther King Day holiday meeting with the son of the late civil rights leader. He had been feuding over the weekend with another civil rights figure, Georgia Congressman John Lewis. Was this meeting today an attempt at damage control?
HORSLEY: You know, Martin Luther King III said he was trying to be a bridge builder in his meeting with the president-elect, although he was not giving a free pass to Donald Trump. Trump's support from African-Americans in the November election was in the single digits. Here's Martin Luther King III.
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MARTIN LUTHER KING III: Certainly he said that he is going to represent Americans. He's said that over and over again. And I think that we will continue to evaluate that. But I think also we have to consistently engage with pressure, public pressure. My father and his team understood that, did that. And I think that Americans are prepared to do that.
HORSLEY: Now, Trump didn't do himself any favors by denigrating Congressman Lewis. After Lewis had challenged the legitimacy of his election, Trump took to Twitter, calling Lewis all talk and no action. Of course Lewis still bears the scars of his action as a leader of the Selma voting rights campaign and one of those who helped lead the march on Washington where King made his I Have a Dream speech.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Scott Horsley. Thanks a lot.
HORSLEY: My pleasure, Kelly.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
in this week leading up to Donald Trump's inauguration, our co-host Ari Shapiro is driving through North Carolina and Virginia on the way to Washington, D.C. And Ari is on the line now. Hi there.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So tell us why you picked this route.
SHAPIRO: We wanted to go through a couple of swing states on this road trip that made different choices in November. So North Carolina went for Donald Trump. Virginia went for Hillary Clinton. Both states were pretty close.
And you know, whether you support the new administration or oppose it, Republicans who are now going to control the House the Senate and the White House have promised some dramatic changes for the United States. And we want to know what people want from those changes, what concerns them about those changes.
And so that's a question that we're asking everybody we meet as we drive through these states. We're asking them, what are your hopes and fears for life under a Trump administration?
MCEVERS: Where are you starting this trip?
SHAPIRO: Well, our first stop is Winston-Salem, N.C. About a quarter million people live here. It used to be a center of the American tobacco industry. And since today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, this is a story about race and feelings in the African-American community about the road ahead.
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SHAPIRO: Paula McCoy Anderson and her husband, Jerry Anderson, have always been community organizers. In the age of Trump, they've decided to focus on their own neighborhood. They opened a food market and community gathering place called The Village.
There are baskets of greens out front for $1.29 a pound. On the counter, there is a big jar of pickles and another of pig's feet. A jazz guitarist and singer are here entertaining the kids.
JERRY ANDERSON: You can look around in here. We've got white folk, black folk. We've all kind of folk up in here. And what we're going to do is we're going to keep on setting an example of collaboration.
SHAPIRO: Paula and Jerry hired ex-offenders to do most of the work on this building, and that kind of reflects the way they are thinking about the next four years.
J. ANDERSON: We're talking about what we - what you can and cannot do. We cannot un-elect Donald Trump.
SHAPIRO: Jerry says better to focus on things you can change, like improving your community.
OK, so I see in the corner you have a cardboard life-size cut-out of President Obama, and it says picture with the president. Is he still going to be there after Friday?
PAULA MCCOY ANDERSON: Yes, absolutely.
J. ANDERSON: Yeah, he'll be there. He'll be there.
P. ANDERSON: He'll be there for a while...
J. ANDERSON: (Inaudible).
P. ANDERSON: ...And as his legacy will be with this country for a while.
SHAPIRO: Nationally, Donald Trump got eight percent of the black vote. Here in Winston-Salem, we spoke with a couple dozen black voters, and not one said they voted for Trump. A lot of people told us, we've been here before - not specifically a Donald Trump presidency, but adversity is familiar. And they expect this administration to be one more kind of adversity.
Trump's Twitter fight with Congressman John Lewis over the weekend confirmed that for them. Lewis is a civil rights hero, and after he said he doesn't view Trump's presidency as legitimate, Trump tweeted that Lewis is all talk, talk, talk, no action or results.
COREY WALKER: John Lewis has done more than just talking, and I think President-elect Trump will do himself a great service by acquainting himself with the history of not only John Lewis but the history of these young people in changing and transforming the world.
SHAPIRO: This is Corey Walker, the dean of Winston-Salem State University, a historically black school. His office is full of posters and photos from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, including an image of a young John Lewis. I ask Dean Walker what he hears from his students.
WALKER: Their expectation is struggle. Their expectations are, what should we do? How should we organize? How should we mobilize?
SHAPIRO: We sit on a bench overlooking a wide lawn at the center of this historic campus, and Walker doesn't express despair or dread about a Trump presidency. It's more resolve.
WALKER: You're on a campus where we've been here since 1892. This is a campus that's not supposed to be here. How do you found a university in late-19th century America at the height of racial violence, at the height of institutionalized white supremacy?
If we ever give up hope, it would be antithical (ph) to the place in which we inhabit. Black colleges are here not because of the state saying we should be here. It's - black colleges are here because they exist, and they refuse to die. And black people refuse to die.
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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Singing, unintelligible).
SHAPIRO: Sunday morning at Emanuel Baptist Church - this is a modern sanctuary with a balcony and colorful stained glass windows. Parishioners sway and clap in the pews. Almost all of them are black. They've come to hear Reverend John Mendez preach. He's been pastor here for 34 years. His sermon connects Jesus to Martin Luther King Jr., to the politics of today.
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JOHN MENDEZ: I am disappointed, but I am not discouraged. And I ain't no ways tired.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: What's up, Man? What's happening?
SHAPIRO: After the service, parishioners tell us some of their fears - losing health care, public education cuts, a Justice Department that won't enforce civil rights. When the church clears out, we sit down on an empty pew with Reverend Mendez and his granddaughter.
MENDEZ: It's sort of like a pendulum that swings from progress to the lack of progress. And having gone through that on several different occasions, I can, you know, realistically say I can believe in the American people.
SHAPIRO: Reverend Mendez takes hope from the activism of young people today, and he reassures those same young people that while there will be tough times, those times will eventually pass. I ask his teenage granddaughter Ashley Montoya whether the election has changed anything for her.
ASHLEY MONTOYA: There has been a lot of racial comments towards me at school and towards my mom as well because she's from Mexico. They say that I'll be sent back to Mexico or that I should go back, and...
SHAPIRO: This is something that just started after the election.
ASHLEY: Yes.
SHAPIRO: So when they say that, what do you do? What do you say?
ASHLEY: Most of the time, I just ignore it 'cause I mean I just don't think they're worth the time.
SHAPIRO: And, Reverend, when your granddaughter comes and tells you this, that's got to be difficult to hear.
MENDEZ: You know, it's not something you just ignore. But I think you've got to equip them to be able to deal with that so that you don't become totally discouraged. That's the advantage of being 67.
SHAPIRO: I ask 15-year-old Ashley what she expects from the next four years of Trump as president. She says, I'm going to hope for the best, give him a chance and see what he can do.
MCEVERS: That's our co-host Ari Shapiro reporting from Winston-Salem, N.C., and he's still with us. Ari, where is this road trip going next?
SHAPIRO: Well, from Winston-Salem, we are driving up into the countryside tomorrow to hear from people in Yadkin County, N.C. That county voted 85 percent for Donald Trump, the highest percentage of any county in North Carolina. And generally, as the week goes on, we're going to hear from people of every political persuasion.
We've got interviews lined up with students, service members, immigrants, small business owners, rural, urban. And as we work our way north to Washington - about 420 miles in total - our final leg of the trip is going to take us back to D.C. with a group of people who are coming to town to watch the inauguration in person.
MCEVERS: Thanks so much, Ari.
SHAPIRO: You're welcome.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: We say Donald Trump received 85 percent of the vote in North Carolina's Yadkin County. That was a preliminary estimate. In fact, Trump received 78.8 percent of the vote in Yadkin County, which was a tie with Graham County for the highest vote percentage in the state.]
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Steven Czifra and Danny Murillo have a few things in common. They both transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, from community college. They also both served time in solitary confinement at the Pelican Bay State Prison in California. Danny says they didn't know each other on the inside, but when they saw each other for the first time at Berkeley, they could just tell.
DANNY MURILLO: You know when somebody's been through the things you've been through.
MCEVERS: The two eventually became friends and started a project called the Underground Scholars Initiative. It's a group of formerly incarcerated people who've gone on to college and to try to help others do the same.
MURILLO: I went to Berkeley two weeks before. And my mindset was that I'm going to go two weeks before and get to know the campus, where my classes are at most importantly. I don't want to be late for the class. I went to my department, ethnic studies - talked to my adviser, asking her that I'm interested in doing work on school-to-prison pipeline. And she referred me...
MCEVERS: School-to-prison pipeline, yeah.
MURILLO: The school - yeah, she - on this phenomena that was being called - this new phenomena, supposedly, but it's been going on for years.
STEVEN CZIFRA: Incarceration comes out of sets of conditions that people grow up in and that certain people don't have those conditions and never experienced incarceration. And certain people do have those conditions, and that's unfair. That's not cool. And we're here. And if we're going to be here and it's going to mean anything, then it has to involve giving back.
MURILLO: And that's how I got involved in the conversation.
MCEVERS: And so you guys came up with the idea for the group. And what was the thinking behind it? You know, you're both there. You're both doing your thing. But you thought, let's make this into something that we can replicate with other people. Was that the idea, Steven?
CZIFRA: Well, there were - in the first meetings, there were probably - you know, in the first half a dozen meetings, there were between 12 and 20 people. And we started meeting weekly right away. Most of the people were not formally incarcerated, and pretty much everybody had a different idea about what we were doing. And so we were like, we're here.
And it's quite miraculous on some levels, and on some levels, it makes sense that we're here. But we want to make this opportunity available to other people because how I got to UC, Berkeley - there was no pipeline. There was no pathway. There was no path. That was - there was no discernible path. I got there, so obviously there is a pathway. And that pathway is actually available to every - any California resident.
MCEVERS: Right.
CZIFRA: But they're not - they're opaque...
MCEVERS: Right.
CZIFRA: ...Unless you fit a certain demographic. And I'm not going to go into all that.
MCEVERS: Yeah, sure.
CZIFRA: But we just want to - we want to pipeline that more.
MCEVERS: Right.
CZIFRA: We want to institutionalize that, shore up those pathways that we've taken and expose them for other people.
MCEVERS: Right. So basically Underground Scholars is a way to show people that pathway. Like, here's what you need to do. Get into this program. Write your application this way. Do these extracurricular activities. You know, know that this funding is available. Know that kind of stuff. Is that how it works?
MURILLO: Yeah, pretty much. And...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
MURILLO: But not just folks that are already in the community college, but we're already talking...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
MURILLO: ...To people in prison.
MCEVERS: Right.
CZIFRA: Equally importantly and - or if not more importantly, our presence, especially our public presence at UC, Berkeley, offers identification for people who haven't imagined themselves in places like UC, Berkeley, or other - Stanford, you name it. They see themselves in - as academics, as scholars.
MCEVERS: Yeah. You know, you guys have done this pretty amazing thing, right? I mean this has, like, affected a lot of people's lives. And if we're talking about dozens of people going to these meetings, it's a pretty - yeah, it's a pretty amazing thing. But you both kind of don't like the whole, like, redemption narrative thing, right? You don't love that version of the story. Is that - am I getting that right?
CZIFRA: I - yeah, I can speak to that.
MCEVERS: Yeah (laughter).
CZIFRA: So yeah, the redemption narrative is just about the worst possible thing you can do to this work. And when it happens, it's just - it just makes me want to scream or sometimes cry because people want to make it out like I'm special or we're special.
And I'm so extraordinarily average, and I got so lucky. And that's how I ended up where I ended up. It had nothing to do with people like, oh, no, take credit. Bull - I can't take credit for almost anything. When I was in community college, I mostly hustled.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
CZIFRA: Right or wrong, I just - there was a system in place. And I knew systems, and I worked the system. And I went to UC, Berkeley, on some level.
MCEVERS: Yeah because what - I mean I think if you take it a step further - right? - is this notion that, like, within an incarcerated population, maybe there's a couple exceptional people who deserve to bubble up to the top. And I think what you guys are saying is, like, open up the pipeline. Make it known, you know, how the system works, and anybody and everybody could do exactly what you've done.
CZIFRA: Literally - I had this big movie idea about what prison was going to be like. And I got on the yard, and I saw all these just really scary looking people covered in tattoos. And within a couple of days, I realized that they're mostly just - they're almost - to a man, they were just people.
MCEVERS: That's Steven Czifra. He and Danny Murillo helped found to the Underground Scholars Initiative which has helped dozens of former prisoners get their undergrad and graduate degrees. Murillo and Czifra have both graduated from Berkeley but still work with Underground Scholars there. And they're expanding the program to other UC campuses.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
This month at Oxford, archaeologists, anthropologists, art historians and other researchers will get together to talk about chickens. To explain why, we talked to Naomi Sykes. She's a senior lecturer at the University of Nottingham and an expert in zooarchaeology. That means she studies how people and animals have interacted throughout human history. And for the last three years, her attention has been squarely focused on one animal in particular: the chicken.
Together with a team of roughly 25 researchers in the U.K., she's working to answer questions about where chickens came from and how they evolved with people. The project has a very serious title.
NAOMI SYKES: Cultural and Scientific Perceptions of Human-Chicken Interactions. But we just call it The Chicken Project (laughter).
MCEVERS: Here are a couple of things that surprised us in their research. First, Sykes says chickens are actually only native to Southeast Asia. They started moving around the rest of the world about 5,000 years ago. And then there's this.
SYKES: When we think about chickens today, we just think about them as food, right? They're the biggest source of protein on the planet, whether that's their meat or whether that's their eggs. But I think the real shocker for us has been there's very little evidence to suggest that people initially started hanging out with chickens for those reasons. It looks as though chickens were never considered to be food at all when they started on this process of hanging out with people.
MCEVERS: When she says hanging out, she means hanging out. When chickens were introduced to new places, Sykes says people considered these strange new animals sacred. In some cases, people were even buried with their chickens. So how did they go from beloved companions to lunch? Sykes says it's because there eventually were just so many of them.
SYKES: As familiarity breeds contempt almost, as the numbers increased, people started thinking, oh, these chickens - they're not so special after all. Let's, like, knock a few on the head and eat them. Oh, they're quite tasty.
MCEVERS: Tasty and now kind of funny. Three years into the project, Sykes says she's heard all the jokes.
SYKES: In fact when we first got the funding for this project, we made international news with people just saying, what a ridiculous project; what a bird-brained idea. We're causing a flap with taxpayers' money.
MCEVERS: Sykes says, you know what? Chickens are funny, so you might as well embrace it.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Today is a federal holiday, but it took a long time for that to be true. The idea to set aside a day celebrating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. was first suggested in 1968, just four days after King was assassinated. But for that idea to become a reality, that was a long and twisting path that took many years.
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UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #1: On Martin Luther King's birthday, moves to make it a national holiday.
UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #2: The need for a national holiday to honor him caused the largest single demonstration from the crowd of about 2,000.
UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #3: We can pass this bill in the House, the real problem is in the United States Senate.
UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #4: Recent polls show support for some form of holiday for the civil rights leader.
MCEVERS: But Martin Luther King Day is officially recognized as a holiday in only 43 of the 50 states.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We're Arizona. I don't want New Yorkers telling me how to vote.
MCEVERS: When Martin Luther King's birthday became a national holiday 12 years ago, only a few businesses recognized it.
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UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #5: New Hampshire has joined the rest of the country in creating a holiday honoring civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
MCEVERS: In this part of the program, we're going to explore why it was such a long slog through Congress and the states.
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MCEVERS: We're calling the segment Timelapse. It's a chance to flip through history and listen to what's in NPR's archives and talk to producers and reporters who covered these events. Let's start with the man who first suggested the holiday. Here's Michigan Congressman John Conyers In 1983.
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JOHN CONYERS: I was just counting up the years 'cause I couldn't believe it. This is the 15th year that I've been doing this.
MCEVERS: It was Conyers who brought up the idea of a holiday for King in 1968. By the time of this interview, the process had finally started.
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CONYERS: We've had a lot of learning going on since 1968 in these 15 years. The celebration and memory of King has continued to become larger and larger each year.
MCEVERS: NPR contributor Cokie Roberts covered the progression of the King holiday bill. Hi there, Cokie.
COKIE ROBERTS, BYLINE: Hi.
MCEVERS: Take us back to when you first started paying attention to this issue.
ROBERTS: Well, John Conyers, who you've just heard from, did bring a bill to the House floor in 1979. And as he said, it basically could go through the House any old time, but the Senate was the problem. Stevie Wonder had a song "Happy Birthday," which did sort of lean on people who weren't supporting it. But the real genius behind getting it done was Indiana Congresswoman Katie Hall, and she decided that the smart thing to do was make it a Monday holiday, and then she could work with all of the retailers about having a three-day weekend in January in between Christmas and Washington's Birthday to have people go shopping.
MCEVERS: We're going to go back here to 1983. We're going to hear South Carolina Democrat Robin Tallon.
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ROBIN TALLON: Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of HR 3706 legislation to make that third Monday in January each year a national holiday in observance of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.
MCEVERS: What do you remember from that day? I mean, what was the mood? Were legislators fearful if they supported this bill?
ROBERTS: No, no, they were excited, but here's what I really think listening to that, there's no such person as Robin Tallon anymore. There aren't any white Democrats in the South in Congress, and what we're really looking at is a very different breakdown of political parties now from what we saw then.
MCEVERS: You also reported on the opposition in the House, and let's listen to that a little bit.
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TALLON: Only four representatives spoke in opposition to the holiday. Their argument - King was not a person of similar significance to the nation as George Washington or Christopher Columbus, and a new federal holiday would cost too much. California Republican William Dannemeyer managed the opposition.
WILLIAM DANNEMEYER: It's been estimated that the cost of this to the taxpayers - federal taxpayers is $225 million in lost productivity in our federal workforce. And my final point is that the administration is opposed to the bill in its present form that is being brought up under the suspension calendar.
ROBERTS: Well, the administration actually ended up being for it, and part of the reason for that - now, we're talking about the year 1983 - the next year was an election year. And President Reagan, though not expecting certainly to win a majority of the African-American vote, was hoping to do better with it than he had in 1980, and saw this as an opportunity to perhaps shore up his support there.
MCEVERS: So the bill eventually passed and then went to the Senate.
ROBERTS: Yes, that had always been the sticking point, but the times had really changed in the United States Senate.
MCEVERS: Here's NPR's Nina Totenberg reporting on what that Senate debate was like.
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NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: The day began with Senator Helms, the leading opponent of the King holiday, sending to each senator hundreds of pages of FBI documents about Dr. King.
MCEVERS: Documents - what documents is she talking about?
ROBERTS: Well, the FBI had wiretapped Martin Luther King, and there was a lot of concern on the part of some members of the Senate that he really had communist sympathies and such things. It was mainly voiced by Senator Jesse Helms, but it was something that he thought would show people that Martin Luther King did not deserve this holiday - it didn't work.
MCEVERS: Let's hear some more from the Senate floor at that time.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
TOTENBERG: New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan furiously hurled the papers to the ground and stormed off.
DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN: I've just come from the Senate floor where I spoke with as much conviction as any time since coming to this place about the obscent (ph) of putting on the desks of United States senators this packet of filth.
MCEVERS: In the end, the Senate did pass the bill. Here's Kansas Republican Bob Dole.
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BOB DOLE: I'm very proud of my party today. I think the Republican Party has indicated to everyone who wants to look at us that, you know, we're in the mainstream. We understand a lot of the concerns people have. It was a very proud moment I know for Senator Mathias, myself and Senator Baker to play a role in this very important legislation. We thank you very much.
ROBERTS: Here we are, I said there was no such thing as a Southern white Democrat anymore. There's no such thing as a northern liberal Republican anymore with the exception perhaps of Susan Collins of Maine. So when he talked about Senator Mathias of Maryland, that person is gone from the United States Senate. And what's so striking in listening to this tape is Bob Dole managing the bill; Howard Baker, the majority leader of the Senate, Republican from Tennessee; George H.W. Bush, the vice president of the United States, comes to the chamber to show the administration's support for the Martin Luther King holiday. Again, that party is gone. It would be very hard to get this holiday passed today.
MCEVERS: Cokie, what do you remember about that day?
ROBERTS: The day the bill passed the Senate, Coretta Scott King was in the gallery, and so it was a very emotional goosebump-provoking day. As a reporter of, course, you're just covering the story, but I would be lying if I didn't say that it did have moments of real tears coming to my eyes, seeing how the country had changed from my days of growing up in the Jim Crow South.
(SOUNDBITE OF NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF "NEW MORNING FOR THE WORLD FOR SPEAKER AND ORCHESTRA")
MCEVERS: Cokie Roberts, thank you so much.
ROBERTS: Good to be with you.
(SOUNDBITE OF NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF "NEW MORNING FOR THE WORLD FOR SPEAKER AND ORCHESTRA")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump criticizes automakers that do business in Mexico. Then both Ford and Chrysler announced plans to bring back jobs to the U.S. Still, Mexico is the largest car producer in Latin America and is increasingly important to the global auto industry. And as NPR's Sonari Glinton reports, Mexico's strengths involve a lot more than just cheap labor.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: Auto executives get really uncomfortable when their world collides with the political. At the auto show in Detroit, executives were prepared to talk about self-driving, fuel economy, design - you know, typical car stuff. Instead, most car executives found themselves defending their investments in Mexico.
JOSEPH HINRICHS: Mexico has a lower cost base and a great trade agreement that allows it to sell into other countries without the kind of costs that we have in the U.S. for duties and tariffs.
GLINTON: That's Joe Hinrichs. He's president of Ford of the Americas, and he's explaining why Mexico is attractive to Ford. Now, his company got a lot of flak from the incoming Trump administration for moving jobs to Mexico. And since then, Ford has halted a plant that was in the initial stages of being built. Now, that's a move that Hinrichs and Ford's other leadership insist was not prompted by President-elect Trump.
HINRICHS: We're the fifth-largest manufacturer in Mexico, the first in the U.S. So we have a heavy amount of our production here in the U.S. for all the right reasons. We're committed to the market here. But Mexico is a balancing act in all that because consumers need a price point that works for them.
GLINTON: I caught up with Paul Eisenstein between the Lincoln and the Cadillac booths. He's the editor and publisher of thedetroitbureau.com. Eisenstein says wages are just one of the issues that make Mexico attractive. He says labor is a relatively small portion of the costs of a car overall.
PAUL EISENSTEIN: Here's where it gets complicated. Small cars right now, particularly passenger cars, are in relatively low demand.
GLINTON: OK, that's in the U.S., not so in Mexico. So there are buyers there, and production costs there are lower as well.
EISENSTEIN: Labor is only a small percentage of the overall picture. The more important issue is the fact that Mexico has more free trade agreements around the world than any other country than Israel. So that means Mexico is a tremendous base to produce cars for all over the world.
GLINTON: More than 40 car companies produce in Mexico, making more than 400 different models. Analysts predict its importance will only continue to grow. Rebecca Lindland is a senior analyst with Kelley Blue Book. She says car-wise, Mexico has kind of done all the right things. She says the United States is not losing because Mexico is winning.
REBECCA LINDLAND: Mexico is set up to ship things for logistics. So you can get product to a lot of different places fairly easily because of free trade agreements that Mexico has in other countries, because of the types of vehicles that are built there. They are in demand all over the world. But you're also servicing all of South America. You're closer in Mexico.
CARLOS GHOSN: We are the largest car manufacturer in Mexico. We're number one in Mexico.
GLINTON: Carlos Ghosn is CEO of Nissan. His company accounts for more than a quarter of the cars sold in Mexico. Ghosn says he's used to dealing with different approaches to trade depending on the government.
GHOSN: Obviously we operate in 160 countries, and every country has its own policy. And from time to time, there are changes in policy. And there are adaptations to be made. We're used to that.
GLINTON: Meanwhile, all this talk of Mexico has sent the Mexican peso into freefall and caused unrest there. And the talk about renegotiating or rebooting NAFTA has our neighbor frightened. Oh, I'm talking about Canada. They've sent representatives to remind the industry of the importance of NAFTA and Mexico to their economy. From the North American International Auto Show, Sonari Glinton, NPR News, Detroit.
(SOUNDBITE OF DARKER MY LOVE SONG, "BACKSEAT")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
October 21, 2016 - it started like a regular day for Kyle York.
KYLE YORK: I can remember driving into our headquarters in Manchester, N.H. and, actually, our largest customer in the world called saying they were experiencing some issues with their application.
MCEVERS: York is used to fielding calls about clients' internet problems. He's the chief strategy officer at Dyn. It is an internet performance company. Basically, it makes sure that when you type in one of its clients' web addresses, that company's site pops up on your screen. Once York got to work that day, he learned many websites were having the same problem.
Soon, it was all over the news.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: A series of cyberattacks today against the internet.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: U.S. interest in cyberspace is monitoring the situation.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Websites from Twitter to Netflix slowed to a crawl or even stopped.
MCEVERS: Those attacks were aimed at Dyn's servers.
YORK: What happened was that the company was basically under siege. Internet of things devices were being taken over in people's homes and pointing a lot of traffic at our infrastructure specifically, which, again, is infrastructure running services for, you know, many major enterprise brands online.
MCEVERS: The hackers had turned millions of web-connected thermostats, cameras, DVRs and other smart devices into attack weapons all pointed at Dyn. It took the company nearly all day to get things under control.
YORK: You know, we see these events every single day. It just so happened that that one was, you know, complex and unprecedented and moving around the world and, you know, it was basically bringing our infrastructure under attack. And in turn, customers that rely on that infrastructure to serve websites and web applications were having performance issues on a global level.
MCEVERS: Do you think people in this country are sufficiently aware that these devices, these internet connected things are vulnerable?
YORK: No, absolutely not.
MCEVERS: No?
(LAUGHTER)
YORK: No, I mean - and you and I are on the internet every day, right? I mean, think about the amount of things in your home that are connected to the internet, you know, the phone in your pocket. I just think that, you know, we as the average consumer - and I'm one of them, I think I just know a little bit more about tech - we sort of take the internet for granted and the fact that we're always interconnected.
I think in this attack, one of the major issues was the vulnerable devices were being hacked because many of them were using admin for username and admin for password out of the box from the manufacturer. So it was pretty easy to hijack them and take them over. So I think making sure you always update your passwords and be vigilant on not using the same password across every single internet property you engage with is just critical.
And then lastly, make sure you update the software on those devices, you know, and pressure your manufacturers to be taking security very seriously because the internet of things, as a commercial market, sort of ran ahead of internet standards and policy and governance.
MCEVERS: Kyle York says he still doesn't know who launched this attack against Dyn. He thinks that's pretty irrelevant anyway. More concerning to him, he says, is that these sorts of attacks are happening more and more every day as web-connected cars and other devices become part of our daily lives.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We're going to talk about the future of the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran. A year ago, the deal, which was made with a coalition of countries from around the world, began being implemented. And today, a report from the nonprofit International Crisis Group says the deal has lived up to most of its promises. But President-elect Donald Trump has called the deal horrible and, quote, "the worst deal ever negotiated." So it's unclear what could happen once he takes office.
With us now is Ali Vaez. He's a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. Welcome.
ALI VAEZ: Thank you. Great to be with you.
MCEVERS: Before we get into the findings in your report, I want you to remind us just what exactly is in the deal.
VAEZ: Look. The core compromise in the deal is very simple. Iran will roll back its nuclear program, and in return, the sanctions that were imposed on Iran because of its nuclear activities will be relaxed.
MCEVERS: Right.
VAEZ: And this is precisely what has happened over the past year.
MCEVERS: So because of that, you say that the Iran deal should be considered a success. How do we know that each thing has been implemented?
VAEZ: On the nuclear side, there is the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has inspectors on the ground every single day and has cutting-edge technology that monitors Iran's nuclear program, almost every aspect of it, every gram of uranium from cradle to grave and has reported six times that Iran has fully committed to its obligations under the deal.
So there is evidence on both sides that the deal is working, but this doesn't mean that there hasn't been problems during the implementation or the deal is secure and sustainable in the long run.
MCEVERS: Right. And some of these roadblocks have gotten a lot of attention. And so is that what leads people to call this a horrible deal?
VAEZ: Yeah, because the deal has remained very controversial, very polarizing both in Tehran and Washington, every single problem has turned into a political storm. For example, Iran twice during the past year surpassed the level of heavy water that it was allowed to have under a deal by very minute amount - 0.1 percent of the 130-ton threshold that was allowed under the deal.
But this turned into a huge political firestorm despite the fact that it was quickly detected and also quickly remedied. Iran shipped out the excess material to Oman, and the IAEA verified this.
MCEVERS: Just quickly for laypeople, what is heavy water?
VAEZ: Heavy water is water that has deuterium instead of hydrogen in its formulation. So it's a bit heavier in terms of weight than natural water, and it's used to cool down reactors that generates plutonium.
MCEVERS: I mean as I said, President-elect Donald Trump has called it the worst deal ever negotiated. Do you think the United States could actually pull out of this deal unilaterally?
VAEZ: Look. The deal is designed in a way that although it's a multilateral agreement, it is a political agreement. It's not a treaty. It was not confirmed by the Senate. It is not binding on any party.
So yes, the U.S. can unilaterally pull out. It can re-impose its own sanctions, and it can even go to the Security Council and contend that Iran has violated the agreement one way or another. And even if other members of the P5+1, the group that negotiated the deal...
MCEVERS: Right.
VAEZ: ...Do not agree, the U.S. can even snap back the U.N. sanctions on Iran.
MCEVERS: What kind of effect would that have if the U.S. did that?
VAEZ: Well, the Iranians will have several options if the U.S. withdraws from the deal. They can play victim and try to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its partners, or they can retaliate either by reviving their nuclear program or by retaliating against U.S. interests in the region.
Let's remember that U.S. forces and Iranian forces are not that far apart in battlegrounds in Iraq and Syria. We will get back to the previous vicious cycle of escalation on both sides, that the U.S. would ratchet up its sanctions against Iran, and in return, the Iranians would ratchet up their nuclear program. And this could spiral out of control.
MCEVERS: That's Ali Vaez, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. Thank you so much.
VAEZ: My pleasure.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The outgoing ambassador to the United Nations has a bit of advice for her successor. Push for reforms at the U.N., but don't disparage the world body too much. Samantha Power says the U.S. needs the U.N. to help deal with threats overseas before, quote, "those threats come home to roost." NPR's Michele Kelemen takes a look back at her tenure.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Before packing up and moving on, Samantha Power had one more thing to do. As ambassador, she's visited the offices of her colleagues from all 189 U.N. member states with whom the U.S. has diplomatic relations. Her final visit this month was to the Pacific island nation of Tonga.
SAMANTHA POWER: This is great - cold, though.
KELEMEN: Tonga's ambassador apologized that the heat wasn't working at his office that day.
POWER: This is not what you're used to.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: No, it's very hot in Tonga.
KELEMEN: Ambassador Power says the goal of her courtesy calls was to show respect and curiosity. She believes that helps the U.S. gain allies in the United Nations. In Tonga's case, she already knew the ambassador pretty well.
POWER: I'm in the U.N. band, U.N. Rocks, and he's my keyboardist.
KELEMEN: Before joining the Obama administration, Power made a name for herself writing about the failures of the U.N. and the U.S. in preventing mass atrocities from Bosnia to Rwanda. She bristles, though, when reporters ask her about her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "A Problem From Hell," or whether she was disappointed with President Obama's response to the war in Syria. She blames Russia for blocking international action.
POWER: Russia, which is carrying out aggression in Ukraine as we speak and using bunker-buster bombs in Syria against civilians who are huddled in their basements, in addition to hacking into our elections, is not a reliable actor on the Security Council. I mean they are throwing out the rulebook.
KELEMEN: Power had many clashes with her Russian counterpart who once accused her of acting like Mother Teresa. She calls Syria an abject failure of the U.N. Security Council to do its job.
POWER: I'm glad Syria is not the only thing that I can look back on over this last time getting to serve in the U.S. government, but it's certainly a very dark mark.
KELEMEN: A high point, she says, is when President Obama sent health workers and soldiers to contain Ebola in West Africa. She says when the U.S. leads, other countries step up to help. That's some of the advice that Power has been giving to the woman chosen to replace her, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Both women have young children, and Power says they've talked about juggling family and work and about the fact that the U.N. ambassador job is also a Cabinet post.
POWER: Governor Haley is the first Republican in some time who as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations will retain the Cabinet rank. So I've talked to her about the dualism of that - being America's top diplomat at the U.N. At the same time, you're injecting your voice into the policy process in Washington.
KELEMEN: Her critics say she was unable to move President Obama when it really mattered on Syria. Her supporters say she tried and will likely write about it in her next book. Cameron Hudson runs a genocide prevention program at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
CAMERON HUDSON: I'll look forward to reading her book that explains how she was fighting the good fight within the administration. I think there's a perception out there that Samantha believes very fervently in what she wrote and that she does not want to be a character in her own book.
KELEMEN: Power says her only immediate plans are to spend more time with her children. She is moving to the Boston area, buying them a dog and picking them up from school every day. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Is after nearly a century and a half, the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus will give its last show this spring. Its parent company, Feld Entertainment, made the announcement over the weekend. NPR commentator Murray Horwitz started his career as a clown in that circus, and he's sad about the closing of his alma mater.
MURRAY HORWITZ, BYLINE: It's hard for me to analyze my unhappiness. How much of it is anger at the death of a great American artistic institution, and how much of it's just the discomfort of an aging clown to whom the world is becoming less and less recognizable?
I gave three of the best years of my life to the Ringling show. Its owner said there's no single reason for the closing, and I know he's right. So many things have changed - transportation, home entertainment, attitudes toward animal performers and, what really hurts, attitudes toward clowns. Believe me. I was never scary.
Maybe we should have seen this coming. When was the last time you heard any form of mass entertainment advertise itself as wholesome? P.T. Barnum and James Bailey first produced a circus together 146 years ago, but the show's origins go back almost to the Civil War. It's hard for us to conceive of what a really big deal it was even 50 years ago when Big Bertha, as the Ringling show was known, came to
town. Suddenly plugged into your community for a couple of days or a couple of weeks was a representation of the whole world - people and animals of all kinds and from all over the world working together to bring you things you thought were impossible. And it was all genuine. It was right there before your very eyes.
What's changed most is that relationship between the performers and the audience. An army general told me one time that the only people he ever saw work harder than show folks are soldiers in combat. We worked our butts off on the Ringling show, and in return, the audience rewarded us with laughter, applause and a visible sense of awe. We guaranteed wonder, and we delivered - to see the look on a kid's face as he watched a trapeze act, to hear the laughs of thousands of people as you took a fall. Believe me. We didn't do it for the money, which was not a lot.
Of course there are wonderful performers today, but nowadays, there seems to be a different transaction between the audience and the artists we celebrate. It's more about being hip and part of an event than it is about being astonished. And now there'll be no more Greatest Show On Earth to astonish us.
Thank heaven there will still be some circuses in America - real ones, I mean, with exotic things, animals and clowns, acrobats and unicyclists, jugglers and aerialists, performers who open up our imaginations as only the circus can to let us know, particularly the children among us and the children still inside of us, that there are more things possible in this life than we ever dreamed.
(SOUNDBITE OF CY COLEMAN SONG, "COME FOLLOW THE BAND")
MCEVERS: Murray Horwitz is a playwright, lyricist and host of The Big Broadcast on member station WAMU in Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF CY COLEMAN SONG, "COME FOLLOW THE BAND")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Just a few days before President Obama leaves office, 10 more detainees have been transferred from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That's according to the foreign ministry of Oman, which announced today it had accepted the detainees, quote, "in consideration of their humanitarian situation." Obama campaigned on a pledge to close that facility. And while he has reduced the number of inmates, there will still be dozens of people in the prison when he leaves office. To talk more about this, we are joined by Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald. Welcome.
CAROL ROSENBERG: Hi.
MCEVERS: So does Oman's announcement come as a surprise, I mean, right before Obama is ready to leave the presidency?
ROSENBERG: Well, we knew that Oman would take some, and they have taken up to 20 detainees before for resettlement through this rehabilitation program. And we know that this has been a positive and successful program, that both the U.S. government and the detainees are satisfied with the arrangements. They take them into a rehab center, and in some instances they've allowed their families to come over. All of the detainees so far have come from Yemen, which is a neighbor, and so they're culturally familiar. So, no, the answer in short is this is not a surprise.
MCEVERS: Do we know much more about who these 10 detainees are?
ROSENBERG: That we don't, and that's unusual. Usually by now we've gotten the identities of the detainees. There were 19 captives as of yesterday who were cleared for release, now there should be nine left, but they can't all be Yemeni numerically. So I think we could expect probably an Afghan or two among them in this new program.
MCEVERS: So there were 242 detainees when President Obama took office, there are now 45 who remain. Aside from a number of nine that you mentioned that have been cleared for release, what happens to the rest?
ROSENBERG: Ten of them are actually accused of not just being prisoners of war, but being war criminals, including the five men accused of orchestrating the September 11 attacks and the man accused of arranging the al-Qaida bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen in 2000. And the rest are what we would call the forever prisoners, they're 26 people who've been taken prisoner in this war - the war on terror - which has no one on the other side basically to surrender. Typically you take a prisoner of war and when the war ends you return them, but because this isn't a war with a country and there is no one on the other side to surrender, we call them the forever prisoners, people that the Obama administration and before them the Bush administration considered too dangerous to release - indefinite detainees. And they stay at Guantanamo until some board at some time decides that there is a way to get them out of there and send them somewhere else.
MCEVERS: President-elect Donald Trump has tweeted, quote, "there should be no further releases from Gitmo. These are extremely dangerous people who should not be allowed back onto the battlefield." What else do we know about what would happen with Guantanamo under Trump?
ROSENBERG: Well, we know that when he campaigned he said he wanted to load it up with some bad dudes, which to me means that he wants to find more war prisoners to put there. So I think that we can anticipate that Guantanamo will get some attention under this administration, that at some point they'll cancel President Obama's closure order. You can't close Guantanamo as long as there are detainees there, but there's an executive order on the books that says close it, and I expect that we'll hear from the Trump administration that it's back in business, whatever that means.
MCEVERS: Carol Rosenberg is a reporter for The Miami Herald, she joined us on Skype. Thank you.
ROSENBERG: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Muslim-Americans are anxious about a Donald Trump administration. During his presidential campaign, Trump said he favored halting all Muslim immigration to the U.S. He also suggested he would support increased monitoring of Muslim communities in the states. The president-elect has since retreated from these positions, but as NPR's Tom Gjelten reports, Muslim-Americans are wary.
JOHARI ABDUL MALIK: (Foreign language spoken).
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: The Friday prayers at the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Northern Virginia find hundreds of men kneeling in the prayer room, women in a separate room.
MALIK: (Foreign language spoken).
GJELTEN: It's a diverse group - taxi drivers, security guards, housewives, doctors, educators, largely immigrant Muslims. Dar al Hijrah means place of migration in Arabic, but many Muslims now fear they will no longer be welcome under a Trump presidency. The imam preaching here at this day, Johari Abdul Malik, felt the need to remind the worshippers how many of them had already known repression coming from countries ruled by dictators.
MALIK: We had a woman here the other week. She said, Imam, I grew up in Albania where they outlawed practicing Islam. There was no freedom of religion under the communists.
GJELTEN: Even so, Abdul Malik said, Islam there survived and Muslims will survive in America. Dar al Hijrah has known crisis before, after 9/11. The jihadi propagandist Anwar al Awlaki served as an imam here before heading off to join al-Qaida, those years brought FBI scrutiny. Since then, the mosque leadership has cooperated closely with law enforcement agencies. On this day, Abdul Malik brought along FBI agent Paul Abbate, director of the bureau's D.C. field office, to reassure the congregation.
PAUL ABBATE: The essence of our mission is to keep people safe, to keep all of you safe, your loved ones, your families, the communities that we serve, and we do that fairly and equally for everyone under the Constitution of the United States.
GJELTEN: The problem is from Donald Trump, American-Muslims have heard a message of hostility, crystallized in a CNN interview last March.
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DONALD TRUMP: I think Islam hates us.
GJELTEN: The question now is whether such comments were just campaign rhetoric. Muslim leaders watched what Trump's Cabinet picks said during their confirmation hearings to see, for example, whether a Trump administration would require all U.S. Muslims to register. Gen. John Kelly, Trump's choice for homeland security, said he's against that, so did Sen. Jeff Sessions, set to be attorney general. But Sessions also said he thinks someone's religious beliefs, not just their actions, but their beliefs should be a factor when deciding whether to let them into the country.
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JEFF SESSIONS: Many people do have religious views that are inimical to the public safety of the United States.
GJELTEN: President-elect Trump is advocating extreme vetting to weed out immigrants, radicalized Muslims, for example, who might pose a security threat. A 1990 law says people can't be barred from the United States on ideological grounds, but another law allows the president to keep out any class of people he considers, quote, "detrimental to the interests of the United States," unquote. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, says President Trump could interpret that authority as allowing him to do what he wants.
MARK KRIKORIAN: The president directs his subordinates to keep out anyone who, you know, is a member of this class of persons, which is to say people who think it's OK to chop people's heads off and throw gays off of buildings even though they have not engaged in that activity themselves.
GJELTEN: At Dar al Hijrah, almost all the worshipers last Friday stayed to hear the FBI agent. Wadi Adam Lahrim emigrated as a child from Morocco 30 years ago.
WADI ADAM LAHRIM: I have three children ages 7, 11 and 12.
GJELTEN: His plea - don't lump us Muslim-Americans in with ISIS terrorists.
LAHRIM: We would like the rest of the U.S. to understand us, just as we took the time to learn your language, your culture, and to understand you and be able to work with you and live with you, I hope that some folks in America will take the time also to get to know us rather than hate us.
GJELTEN: One concern - President-elect Trump has not yet invited any Muslim faith leader to his inauguration. Tom Gjelten, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF ISLANDS SONG, "CHARM OFFENSIVE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Today, of course, is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And it's also the start of the final week of Barack Obama's presidency, and a good moment to talk about how race has shaped the tenure of the nation's first black president. NPR's Code Switch team has been talking about this, and Shereen Marisol Meraji joins us now to talk about it. Hi, Shereen.
SHEREEN MARISOL MERAJI, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So it's probably safe to say that this is a presidency that's both affected and been affected by chronic issues about race in America, yeah?
MERAJI: Yes, like we say on Code Switch every episode of our podcast, it's totally complicated. There's a generation who has only known a black president. Your daughter, for example, President Barack Hussein Obama is the person that your daughter associates with the most powerful position in this country.
MCEVERS: Yep.
MERAJI: We don't know how that's going to impact the way her generation will view race relations when they grow up, but that's a really big deal. But then you've got this segment of white America that feels left behind, forgotten. They're economically insecure, and they feel like their concerns were sidelined over the last eight years under an Obama presidency. Some of that, not all of it, but some of it has manifested itself in racial resentment, and we saw that play out in this latest run up for president. And we've got people of color who are generally supportive of President Obama, but who still feel like he didn't do enough to attack the racial inequities that exist in this country. Kelly, we're talking about the racial wealth gap, the racial achievement gap in education, mass incarceration.
And on the Code Switch podcast, we're doing a three-part series on Obama's racial legacy, and our guests give voice to some of these frustrations. You know, we heard from a Native American writer, an activist, who was disappointed in how the president handled the Dakota Access Pipeline issue. So I think his presidency was both evidence of the racial progress we've made, and the reason we now understand how stubborn our race problems continue to be.
MCEVERS: You talked about mass incarceration and education policy, and obviously there's some mixed results there. Are there any Obama administration policies that demonstrably improved the lives of people of color?
MERAJI: Well, the percentage of uninsured African-Americans and Latinos has dropped due to President Obama's Affordable Care Act. That's one policy that gets shouted out over and over again. There's the Department of Justice investigations into police misconduct in places like Ferguson, Chicago, Baltimore and other cities. The next one's not a headline grabber, but it's still relevant, the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It's not something we talk about a lot, but it provided safeguards from discriminatory lenders that prey on working class Latinos and African-Americans disproportionately. And you can't forget, Kelly, President Obama appointed the first Latino to the Supreme Court - Justice Sonia Sotomayor. And we had Janet Murguia on the podcast, she's president of the National Council of La Raza, talking about just that.
JANET MURGUIA: She is going to be a testament to so many Latinos who have high aspirations and giving us a sense that we can achieve all things, and finally have that representation on the highest court in the land.
MCEVERS: Janet Murguia, now that's the same Janet Murguia who called President Obama, quote, "deporter in chief" in 2014, am I right?
MERAJI: It's the same Janet.
MCEVERS: OK.
MERAJI: And, look, she told us the president has a mixed record on immigration, and that complicates his relationship with Latinos. He deported more people than any other president, a majority of whom are Latino, but he also provided some relief for a portion of undocumented immigrants through administrative actions. And Janet told us she thought the president wasted way too much time trying to get recalcitrant Republicans to the table by showing he was tough on illegal immigration. You know, she thinks he should have taken executive action sooner.
MCEVERS: And we can hear Janet Murguia on part two of your series on Obama's racial legacy. What's coming in part three?
MERAJI: On this week's episode, our last one, we're going to discuss what it meant to have a black president who's also white and then some, he's Kansas, Kenya, Hawaii, Jakarta and Chicago South Side. And we're going to explore the idea of, no, not a post-racial America, but a multi-racial America. And we ask if in the future we'll be at a place where we can embrace President Obama's multiple identities.
MCEVERS: That's Shereen Marisol Meraji, co-host of the Code Switch podcast. Thank you very much.
MERAJI: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHAKEY GRAVES SONG, "FAMILY AND GENUS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There's a confirmation hearing tomorrow for Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke. He's President-elect Trump's pick for interior secretary. The U.S. Department of the Interior is the guardian of America's national parks, but that's only a tiny part of his portfolio. It oversees nearly one-fifth of all the land in the United States. That means it plays a huge role in energy development.
As Montana Public Radio's Eric Whitney reports, Zinke is a friend of the fossil fuel industry who might also work to protect some undeveloped lands.
ERIC WHITNEY, BYLINE: The interior secretary can say yes or no to a lot of coal mines, oil and natural gas fields and renewable energy projects, too. Congressman Ryan Zinke hasn't granted any interviews since being appointed to lead Interior, but his views on fossil fuels are well-known. Here he is at a candidates debate last October.
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RYAN ZINKE: I don't agree with keep it in the ground. We can do it better. We can do it safer. Put money into research. That's where we should be putting our investment - to make our coal, our oil, our fossil fuels - all of the above - more efficient, cleaner and better over time.
WHITNEY: In his two House campaigns, Zinke has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from fossil fuel development interests. That and his voting record has environmentalists very concerned.
DREW CAPUTO: He has cast dozens of environmental votes, and the overwhelming majority of them are bad for the environment.
WHITNEY: Drew Caputo is vice president of litigation at Earthjustice, the nonprofit law firm that sues on behalf of the Sierra Club and other green groups. He points to Zinke's votes for fracking and against new national monuments and one that Caputo says would weaken the Endangered Species Act. But, he says...
CAPUTO: There are pieces of his record that give hope for the environment.
WHITNEY: A big one is Zinke resigning his seat as a delegate to the Republican National Convention last year because the party platform calls for transferring ownership of federal lands to the States. That's a huge issue out West, where 50 percent or more of some states is owned by the federal government. Many conservatives think states could manage that land better and be more friendly to logging, mining and energy development.
But there's also a lot of bipartisan opposition to states taking over federal lands. Earthjustice's Drew Caputo hopes Zinke will stand up for federal land protection and show some independence.
CAPUTO: Which is a very valuable thing in a Republican Party that has become more and more hostile to the environment.
WHITNEY: Zinke cultivates an image that didn't make him an obvious choice for interior. He's a proud retired commander in the Navy SEALs and frequently appears on Fox News to talk about defense issues. His just-published autobiography, "American Commander," is heavy on leadership and national security but light on natural resource policy.
But the Montana native is familiar with Interior Department issues. For instance, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is part of Interior, and several Montana tribal leaders are praising his nomination. Vernon Finley is chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
VERNON FINLEY: Congressman Zinke's record of willingness to work with tribes shows that he's someone who the tribes would be able to work with.
WHITNEY: Montana tribal leaders say they feel like Zinke listens to their concerns. He's gone to bat for Indian water rights and supports reversing oil and gas leases previously issued by the Interior Department near Glacier National Park on land the Blackfeet Tribe considers sacred. Zinke is popular with congressional Republicans and is expected to be confirmed easily. For NPR News, I'm Eric Whitney in Missoula, Mont.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELECTRELANE SONG, "TO THE EAST")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In Atlanta today, thousands of people gathered at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. They reflected on King's legacy as they prepare to see the nation's first black president leave office and President-elect Donald Trump sworn in. From member station WABE in Atlanta, Elly Yu reports.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) (Unintelligible).
ELLY YU, BYLINE: A choir sings as part of the annual service in remembrance of King, who would have been 88 years old this year. About 2,000 people packed into the pews at the church near downtown Atlanta as hundreds more stood outside. King's daughter, the Reverend Bernice King, was among the first to address the crowd.
She told them to stay committed to fighting for justice in light of the incoming administration.
BERNICE KING: Because at the end of the day, Donald Trumps come and go, but injustice will still be here.
YU: King called for people to unite and reflect back to her father saying there's a choice between creating chaos or community.
KING: Dr. King brought to us a message of unity. He brought to us a message of sister and brotherhood. And he taught us that no matter how much we differ, we still have to find a way to create this beloved community.
YU: The annual service comes just days after President-elect Trump tweeted criticism of civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta who marched with King. That's after Lewis said he didn't see Trump as legitimate. Trump tweeted Lewis should focus on his metro-Atlanta district, which he said was, quote, "in horrible shape and falling apart."
Atlanta's mayor Kasim Reed defended Lewis and said he wasn't going to let those tweets ruin his Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
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KASIM REED: We want to get along in Atlanta. See, getting along is the Atlanta way. Mr. Trump may not have heard of the slogan that we are a city that is too busy to hate and not one that is too busy to love on each other.
YU: Atlanta resident Malika Sanders brought her 8-year-old son Malik to the service. She said it was important for her to have him remember King's legacy.
MALIKA SANDERS: More time than now, we're so divided as a country. And I just wanted my son just to see the unison of all races. And that's what Martin Luther King stands for, the unison of everybody.
YU: She said if Dr. King had been here today, his message would have been come together and not further divide. For NPR News, I'm Elly Yu in Atlanta.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The inventor of Pinyin - that's the system of transcribing Chinese characters in the Roman alphabet - has died. Zhou Youguang had just celebrated his 111th birthday. He was also a political dissident, which made him a thorn in the government's side. Six years ago on this program, NPR's Louisa Lim sent us a profile of Zhou after meeting him at his home in Beijing. We decided to share it with you again.
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UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Speaking Chinese).
LOUISA LIM, BYLINE: A class of Chinese kids learns Pinyin, a system for spelling out Chinese words using the Roman alphabet. This is the first step towards literacy in China, one that hundreds of millions of people have taken over the past half century. Pinyin is largely the work of one extraordinary and extraordinarily modest man. As a young man, Zhou Youguang moved to the States and worked as a Wall Street banker but returned to China after the 1949 revolution.
Today, he's frail but he still lives in a third-floor walk-up and he still blogs. He's cheerful as he remembers how as an economist, he was named to head a committee to reform the Chinese language.
ZHOU YOUGUANG: (Through interpreter) I said, I was an amateur, a layman. I couldn't do the job. But they said, it's a new job, everybody's an amateur (laughter). Everybody urged me to change professions, so I did. So from 1955, I abandoned economics and started studying writing systems.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Zhou didn't start out intending to revolutionize the Chinese language.
LIM: It's a measure of Zhou's fame that cartoons like this one are made about his life. It took Zhou and his colleagues three years to come up with the system now known as Pinyin. It was introduced to schools in 1958. Recently, Pinyin's become even more widely used to type Chinese characters into mobile phones and computers. Zhou is delighted by this.
YOUGUANG: (Through interpreter) In this era of mobile phones and globalization, we use Pinyin to communicate with the world. Pinyin is like a kind of open sesame, opening up the doors (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken).
LIM: Even though his life is celebrated in official documentaries by the state broadcaster, Zhou's position is more precarious. In the late '60s, he was branded a reactionary and sent to labor camp for two years. In 1985, he translated the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" into Chinese and then worked on the second edition.
So he was in a position to notice the changes in China's official line.
YOUGUANG: (Through interpreter) At the time, China's position was the U.S. started the Korean War, but the encyclopedia said North Korea started it. That was troublesome, so we didn't include that bit. Later, the Chinese view changed, so we got permission from above to include it. That shows there's progress in China but it's too slow.
LIM: Zhou has unbelievably published 10 books since he turned 100. Some have been banned in China, making him something of a political dissident. But he seems to relish the controversy saying he enjoys it when people criticize him. Zhou believes China has become a cultural wasteland with the communists attacking traditional Chinese culture but leaving nothing in the void.
He becomes animated as we talk about a statue of Confucius, which was first placed near Tiananmen Square earlier this year, then removed.
YOUGUANG: (Through interpreter) Why aren't they bringing out statues of Marx and Chairman Mao? Marx and Mao can't hold their ground, so they brought out Confucius. Why did they take it away? This shows the battles over Chinese culture. Mao was 100 percent opposed to Confucius. But nowadays, Confucius' influence is much stronger than Marx.
LIM: Zhou calls it as he sees it without fear or favor. He's outspoken about what he believes is the need for democracy in China. And, he says, he hopes to live long enough to see China change its position on the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989. He believes China needs political reform and soon.
YOUGUANG: (Through interpreter) Ordinary people no longer believe in the Communist Party anymore. The vast majority of Chinese intellectuals advocate democracy. Look at the Arab Spring. People ask me if there's hope for China. I'm an optimist. I didn't even lose hope during the Japanese occupation in World War II. China cannot not get closer to the rest of the world.
LIM: One final story illustrates Zhou's unusual position. A couple of years ago, he was invited to an important reception. At the last minute, he was told to stay away. The reason he was given was the weather. But his family believes another explanation. One of the nine men who ruled China was at the event. And that leader did not want to have to acknowledge Zhou and so give currency to his political views.
That a Chinese leader should refuse to meet this old man is telling both of his influence and of the political establishment's fear of him. Louisa Lim, NPR News, Beijing.
MCEVERS: That story first aired six years ago on this program. Zhou Youguang died over the weekend at the age of 111.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
People with rare diseases had few options for treatment before the Orphan Drug Act of 1983. That law gave drug companies financial incentives to develop drugs for small groups of people. It has been wildly popular with the industry. In 2015, nearly half of the new drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were for rare diseases. The price tags are high, often in the six figures for a year's worth of treatment.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Kaiser Health News has investigated the booming business of orphan drugs, their cost and their effect on the U.S. health care system. Sarah Jane Tribble has the story of one Connecticut family. They have health insurance, but they still struggle to pay for the medicine.
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SARAH JANE TRIBBLE, BYLINE: Luke Whitbeck is 2 years old, and today is button day.
MEG WHITBECK: Bum bada bum (ph). Can you say bum bada bum?
LUKE WHITBECK: Bum, bum, bum.
TRIBBLE: Luke has a rare genetic disorder called Gaucher disease. Each week, he goes with mom, Meg Whitbeck, to the hospital to get an infusion. The medicine goes through a surgically implanted port at the center of his tiny chest, what Luke calls his button.
LUKE: Ow.
M. WHITBECK: Are you OK? Is something hurting you?
LUKE: My button's hurting me.
M. WHITBECK: Your button's hurting you. Tell me where.
LUKE: Right there.
TRIBBLE: The hospital machines beep around him as a liquid medicine called Cerezyme flows through the plastic tube in his chest to his bloodstream. The drug replaces an enzyme Luke's body lacks. Gaucher disease is fatal, and without treatment, children die as young as 2 years old. Luke was already suffering at 5 months old. Meg says that's when his doctor noticed that Luke's liver and spleen were swollen.
M. WHITBECK: From that point on, Luke got sick all the time. One month, out of 30 days, he had 15 days with a fever.
TRIBBLE: He was agitated, cranky and tired. When solid food was introduced, it was difficult.
M. WHITBECK: Luke would, like, choke or gag and vomit - like, empty the contents of his stomach violently.
TRIBBLE: Luke became so thin that his rib cage was visible, yet his liver and spleen continued to swell. At 18 months old, Luke spent a string of days in the hospital for tests.
M. WHITBECK: He would just, like, lay around and just, like, look around the room. He didn't even need to hold the toy. But he was so lethargic and exhausted that he just kind of laid there.
TRIBBLE: Genetic tests confirmed Gaucher, a disease so rare that it only affects about 6,000 people in the U.S. The doctors immediately prescribed Cerezyme, and the therapy has worked so well that the family calls it Luke's superhero medicine. There's only one problem. It costs about $300,000 a year. Abbey Meyers is one of the architects of the 1983 Orphan Drug Act and the founder of the National Organization for Rare Disorders.
ABBEY MEYERS: People will set a price of $300,000 a year for their drug for a fatal disease, and they'll go to church every Sunday. And they'll pray, and they'll ask for God's grace, you know? And I'm wondering, what does God really think about this (laughter), you know - wow.
TRIBBLE: Abbey Meyers' son suffered from severe Tourette's syndrome. An experimental drug helped him, but then the drug maker stopped developing it when it didn't work on a more common condition.
MEYERS: They didn't really care whether it worked on Tourette's syndrome or not because there weren't enough people with Tourette's syndrome to make the drug profitable.
TRIBBLE: The Orphan Drug Act gave drug makers a goody basket of financial incentives to ensure medicines would be made even if they didn't make a profit. The law gives companies a fee waiver, tax credits and access to special grants. Plus it guarantees the drug no direct competition for seven years in treating that disease. That meant that when Cerezyme was approved in 1994, the drug maker could charge whatever it wanted. And while the seven years has passed, there's still not much competition.
The other drugs approved to treat Gaucher all cost about the same, $300,000. The FDA has no authority over prices. Luke's father, Drew Whitbeck, says he doesn't understand why the drug still costs the same as it did two decades ago.
DREW WHITBECK: It doesn't seem to make sense to me that the amount of money that they used to create this drug hasn't been recouped and now just socking profits. (Laughter) Like, I just don't - I don't buy it.
TRIBBLE: Sanofi Genzyme, the maker of Cerezyme, maintains that it has increased the price only slightly. Company spokeswoman Lisa Clemence wrote in an email that, quote, "the price relative to inflation is 33 percent lower today than it was 22 years ago." She also said the prices of their drugs were determined by several factors, including the clinical value they provide to patients and the rarity of the diseases.
Drug makers also have to pay for the research and development on drugs that fail, says Jim Greenwood, president of the industry group BIO. Higher prices for orphans should be expected, he says.
JIM GREENWOOD: You're having to recover your costs over a much smaller population than you would for a big blockbuster drug. And so the per-unit price has to be higher.
TRIBBLE: Express Scripts own the specialty pharmacy that the Whitbecks use through their insurance company. Express Scripts is one of the biggest pharmacy benefit managers in the U.S. As part of our investigation, it ran an analysis of the price it pays for orphan drugs. Four of the orphan drugs it covers cost more than $70,000 a month. Another 29 cost at least $28,000 a month. Dr. Steve Miller is medical director of Express Scripts.
STEVE MILLER: Orphan drugs are for those rare conditions, and often there's only one drug to treat those patients. When there's only one product, we have very little negotiating power.
TRIBBLE: United Healthcare, the Whitbeck's insurer, has a drug it prefers more than Cerezyme for patients with Luke's disease, but Luke was too young to take it. Months passed before the Whitbecks were certain the insurer would cover the drug their boy was receiving. Meg Whitbeck was at a loss.
M. WHITBECK: And so we're like, how could something that's going to keep my baby alive not be covered by insurance?
TRIBBLE: The insurance company did agree to pay for the drug. United Healthcare spokeswoman Tracey Lempner stated in an email that specialty medications like Cerezyme are among the greatest drivers of pharmacy cost. The Whitbecks are still unclear how much they will end up owing on Luke's medicine and then the related care. Last year, they spent about $17,000 out of pocket, but this year could be higher.
M. WHITBECK: I feel like it comes down to putting a price or a value on a human life.
TRIBBLE: The growing number of orphan drugs combined with their average six-figure price tags is taking a toll on families and the U.S. health care system, says Craig Burns with AHIP, the National Health Insurance Association.
CRAIG BURNS: There's a tidal wave of expensive orphan drugs coming, and so it's becoming harder and harder and harder for payers to try and keep up.
TRIBBLE: Back in the Whitbeck's Connecticut living room, it's been two days since Luke's infusion, and his energy level is high. Like any toddler boy, Luke loves his toy cars and racing them.
LUKE: Watch this (unintelligible) down here. Oh, wow - see that?
TRIBBLE: Meg and Drew Whitbeck say they will do anything to make sure Luke gets his medicine.
LUKE: Whoa.
TRIBBLE: I'm Sarah Jane Tribble in Ridgefield, Conn.
MCEVERS: Sarah Jane Tribble is with Kaiser Health News. More about the investigation is at npr.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE FLAMING LIPS SONG, "ARE YOU A HYPNOTIST??")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
More than four decades after Roe v. Wade, abortion remains a major political issue. But the number of American women seeking abortions has steadily declined. A report out today shows the abortion rate recently fell to its lowest level since the landmark Supreme Court decision. NPR's Sarah McCammon has more.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: The abortion rate hit its peak in the early 1980s at more than 29 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age. In recent years, the rate has fallen to around half that. That's according to new data for 2014 released by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports legalized abortion. It's the lowest level since 1973, the year abortion became legal nationwide. Lead author Rachel Jones is a research scientist with Guttmacher.
RACHEL JONES: There is some evidence that, at least in some states, decreased access to abortion is contributing to the decline in abortion.
MCCAMMON: Some states like Texas that have enacted new abortion restrictions have seen clinics close in recent years. Jones says their report found fewer clinics didn't always translate to fewer abortions, though. For example, the number of clinics went up in the Northeast. But the abortion rate in the region still went down.
JONES: So if you have abortion declining in states that aren't restrictive, this suggests that there's something else going on.
MCCAMMON: That something, she says, appears to be better access to contraception. For more than a decade, Jones notes, growing numbers of women have been using long-acting birth control options like IUDs, which are highly effective and last for years. The dropping abortion rate is drawing praise from both sides of the abortion debate, although for different reasons. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards says it shows the importance of giving women access to better contraception.
CECILE RICHARDS: There's just no way to overstate the difference that this has made in this country. And unlike other public health issues, where we're really not sure how to solve them, this is a problem that - we know the solution collectively.
MCCAMMON: As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, and Republicans in Congress vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Richards and other abortion-rights advocates are gearing up for fights over reproductive health policy. Republicans have promised to make cutting federal funding for services provided by Planned Parenthood a top priority. For Chuck Donovan, President of the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute, a trend toward fewer abortions is good news.
CHUCK DONOVAN: By and large, this is encouraging for a country that, obviously, remains deeply discomfited and divided about the benefits of abortion to the public.
MCCAMMON: Anti-abortion advocates tend to de-emphasize contraception as a driver of the declining rate. Donovan thinks people's attitudes are turning against abortion. That's despite research by the Pew Center suggesting public opinion on the issue is largely stable. Rachel Jones with Guttmacher says it's not just that fewer women are choosing abortion.
JONES: Abortion is going down, and births aren't going up. And what we're seeing are fewer women getting pregnant in the first place.
MCCAMMON: Meanwhile, the Guttmacher report also found that, in 2013, the total number of abortions nationwide fell below 1 million for the first time since 1974, a decline that continued the following year. Sarah McCammon, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Kids with parents in the military can have it hard. They move around a lot. They constantly need to make new friends. They worry when their parents are deployed. And a lot of times they miss out on life in the U.S., Little League, Fourth of July fireworks. But one group of eighth graders at a base in Italy is getting a treat. They are coming to D.C. to march in the inauguration parade. Shawn McCarthy is a U.S. history teacher at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, Italy. And he joins us on the line. Hi, there.
SHAWN MCCARTHY: Hello, Kelly. Great to be with you.
MCEVERS: Your group is called Kids Overseas. What will the kids do in the parade?
MCCARTHY: So we had a ceremony before we left Sigonella. About a week before we left Sigonella, we had a 8-by-12-foot flag that's hung in our school for about 10 years. And our students have brought that with them to march down Pennsylvania Avenue not just as a representative of our school but to represent all the students both - you know, we have 73,000 kids in our schools.
There's 23,000 that serve in the States. But we have 50,000 that serve overseas. And I'll tell you what's really crazy is that we can't walk off the base, really, with a bunch of American stuff on. You know, we have to understand that when we're - we try to keep our volumes fairly low. We don't want to wear a lot of insignia on our shirts.
For these kids to walk down the middle of the street with an 8-by-12 American flag - I mean, it's just - I'm a military kid, too. I just can't imagine being able to do that. The next day, they're going to get on a plane and come back to Italy. For some kids, they'll be out of the States for the next two years.
MCEVERS: You know, you said that the kids serve. That's an interesting way of putting it. You know, I wouldn't have thought of it that way - that they themselves are also serving in some way.
MCCARTHY: So I will tell you that came - we had a meeting today. And I let them know that I was going to have an opportunity to chat with you. And so I said - because, quite frankly, I know you want to know about them, and I'm just kind of a medium to help you learn a little bit more about them. So I said, you know, what should I tell Kelly about who you guys are? And so they said three things, OK?
So the first one was, we're normal kids. Of course, they're saying that when they, you know, got a half carton of milk in their hand with a sweatshirt on their head. So yes, they are definitely normal kids. The second thing was, we travel a lot. And the third thing that they wanted you to know is, when our parents serve, we serve.
MCEVERS: Wow. You know, some groups that have been invited to participate in the inauguration have, you know, faced some dilemmas about whether or not to do so. Did you have any friction among the kids about this with parents?
MCCARTHY: You know, that's a very good question. I can say that it was a very long process to get approval to bring the students to the States, as it should be. It's a big trip. And we let the parents know. And the students signed up at the end of October. But we didn't actually buy the tickets until just after the election.
And I can say not a single parent changed their mind. Not a single child changed their mind because we weren't there to support a given candidate. We're there to support the United States. And so it's apolitical in that regard. We're there to experience history. It's a focus on America, our capital. And, certainly, part of that is the inauguration.
MCEVERS: Shawn McCarthy is a U.S. history teacher at a defense department school at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy. Thank you very much.
MCCARTHY: Thank you, Kelly.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Here are two kinds of medical treatment - the heroic intervention that rescues us from catastrophe and the incremental attention of a doctor who knows and treats our pains and discomforts year in, year out. The New Yorker's Atul Gawande, as a surgeon, practices the heroic kind of medicine. And in his article, "Tell Me Where It Hurts," he reports with great admiration on the other side of the health care fence. He comes away convinced that our health care system had better discover the heroism of the incremental, those his words.
And he joins us now from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Welcome to the program once again.
ATUL GAWANDE: Thank you for having me, Robert.
SIEGEL: An example of effective incremental care that you write about is treating headaches. Describe a case of incremental care that really struck you as important and effective.
GAWANDE: Yeah, I start out the story with a man who has the worst chronic migraine headaches imaginable. He is someone who has suffered for decades with headaches on almost a daily basis, seen all kinds of doctors who offered all kinds of fixes, and nothing ever worked. But then he found a physician, Dr. Elizabeth Loder, whose career has been built around taking care of folks like him by paying enormous attention to let's try a little something now, let's pay attention to what happens and then tweak it again and tweak it again.
What I'm pointing to is that the problem in our existing health care system is it's not made to put great value on opportunities that take time to pay off. But after three years, at the age of 62, his headache was cured. And he'd missed 40 years of life with this terrible thing. And that's the opportunity we're missing.
SIEGEL: Talk about the value that's placed on different kinds of doctors. You cite a survey from last year which found that the five highest-paid specialties in American medicine - I'm quoting now - are "orthopedics, cardiology, dermatology, gastroenterology and radiology. Practitioners in those fields average $400,000 a year." And lowest-paid specialties, who average about half that much, are pediatrics, endocrinology, family medicine, HIV/infectious disease, allergy/immunology, internal medicine, psychiatry and rheumatology. Why do those doctors make so much less? Is it my power as a consumer? Is it policy makers, insurance companies? Who decided that?
GAWANDE: Well, we all decided it. And it came from a history that, you know, if you go back to the 1940s, 1950s, medicine was really only able to rescue at that point. It was an amazing thing that we could bring on antibiotics like penicillin to cure bacterial diseases or to do operations to take care of problems even like heart conditions or bring on dialysis machines. Primary care physicians couldn't do much. We didn't even know high blood pressure was one of the biggest problems we have, let alone how to address it.
Fast-forward to where we are now. We now know our biggest killer in the country now that smoking is declining is high blood pressure. And what it takes to control blood pressure is that kind of step-by-step incremental investment. And we don't make it. We wait until the heart attack.
SIEGEL: I'm just trying to imagine the surgery department at a major hospital and you coming along and saying, here's the good news. We're going to have much better health care in the country. The bad news is our pay gets cut in half. You can sell that to your fellow surgeons?
GAWANDE: It's not really about how much we're individually paid. When I go to work as a surgeon, I have at my fingertips millions of dollars' worth of equipment and an entire team to provide a rescue for people. But if I want to prevent that problem from happening, if I'm an incrementalist in a field where I can prevent someone from coming to the operating room, we barely are willing to provide resources to offer them a nurse or an innovation like encourage them to buy applications that let you track on people's phones what their blood pressures are and give them feedback that way.
SIEGEL: Is our health care system at a point where somebody could pull some levers and enact some new laws, whatever it might be, that would shift the emphasis toward more incremental primary care? Or would it take decades for us to alter the system that we have?
GAWANDE: I think we're already on our way there. Obamacare put incentives in that are strengthening and giving resources to primary care clinicians to have more team-oriented care for people, even reach outside of the clinic and serve you virtually. But that is what, I think, we miss is at stake if we have repeal of legislation without replacement that keeps this kind of direction moving.
SIEGEL: Atul Gawande's article in The New Yorker magazine is called "Tell Me Where It Hurts." Thanks for joining us.
GAWANDE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELLIOTT SMITH SONG, "NEEDLE IN THE HAY")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A director looks sideways at a musical that goes backwards. That's what happens in a new documentary about a Broadway flop that is now viewed as a classic. The film is called "Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened." Critic Bob Mondello says it has enough twists to give viewers whiplash.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Most Broadway musicals that close after 16 performances barely prompt memories, let alone documentaries. But in 1981, the Stephen Sondheim show "Merrily We Roll Along" rolled along so bizarrely it became the stuff of legend, worthy of a post-mortem and a rummaging around in archives.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")
LONNY PRICE: This is definitely film.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We'll get the film guys on it tomorrow.
PRICE: Wait, there's good stuff under there, and it says tryouts.
MONDELLO: A barely-out-of-his-teens Lonny Price played one of the leads in '81. Now he's a director looking back at his own acting debut.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")
PRICE: Oh, here's my interview.
MONDELLO: When he queues it up, the kid staring back at him from the screen is an innocent, thrilled to be cast in the first project director Hal Prince and composer-lyricist Sondheim tackled after their Broadway triumph with "Sweeney Todd."
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")
PRICE: You know, I get silly about it. I walk around smiling all day in the street. This show, if I never do anything again in the rest of my life, I will have had this moment. If I get hit by a truck the night after the opening, I don't think I'll care 'cause...
MONDELLO: He was perfect casting for the exuberant college kid he was playing. You can hear it in his voice on the original cast album.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OUR TIME")
PRICE: (As Charley Kringas, singing) Something is stirring, shifting ground. It's just begun.
MONDELLO: This song, though, isn't how the show starts. It's how it ends. "Merrily We Roll Along" is about college pals whose friendship sours over time, but it's told in a way that sweetens over time. And that confused audiences.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")
PRICE: The big conceit of the show is that it goes backwards. These unhappy characters start in their 40s and in each following scene, it's a few years earlier. They're a few years younger, a few years less bitter, less jaded until finally, at the end of the show, they're graduating from high school, optimistic and full of dreams, with no idea of what's to come.
MONDELLO: You could say that about the show's creators, too. Prince and Sondheim were pretty young back then, and an unbroken string of Broadway hits - "Company," "Follies," "A Little Night Music," "Sweeney Todd" - had not prepared them for what was about to happen with "Merrily." Oh, it started out like a song. Nothing but excitement in rehearsals, these gods of Broadway working with kids aged 16 to 25, including one by the name of Jason Alexander, who remembers for the camera the first time there was an audience out front.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")
JASON ALEXANDER: I don't think anything will ever top being behind the curtain, you know, just before the overture started at the first preview.
MONDELLO: And that's saying something. This is the guy who later played George on "Seinfeld," after all. But halfway through the first act, it all started coming apart. This going backwards thing and kids playing adults? The audience didn't get it.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I remember singing to the backs of people walking out of the theater. And someone could say that was not a subtle cue (laughter) that this show had problems.
MONDELLO: This first part of "Best Worst Thing" will be absolute catnip for Sondheim fans - the ecstasy and the agony, as it were. And then in the second half of the film, director Lonny Price does something unexpected. You think he'll chronicle what happened to the show, which is basically that after it flopped the creators figured out how to fix it so that it gets produced all the time now. Instead, he does what "Merrily" does.
He concentrates on what everything from disappointment to wild success did to the people involved. Their trajectories are riveting because "Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened" has all this footage of them when they were just starting out, footage from a TV special that was never broadcast and that includes that interview with the young Lonny Price that the grown-up Lonny Price was watching at the beginning of the film.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")
PRICE: If I get hit by a truck the night after the opening...
MONDELLO: He plays it again, and this time you watch him watching - couldn't feel more different. I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OUR TIME")
PRICE: (As Charley Kringas, singing) Something is stirring, shifting ground. It's just begun. Edges are blurring all around, and yesterday is done.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Donald Trump is heading into office with the lowest approval ratings of an incoming president in decades. That's according to several polls that have been tracking public opinion ahead of the inauguration. But how much does that matter to what Trump will accomplish in office? We're going to try and sort that out with NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson, who's here now. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi - happy to be here.
MCEVERS: So where does President-elect Trump stand right now with the public?
LIASSON: He doesn't stand in a very high position. Quinnipiac put him at 37 percent approval rating. Gallup has him at 40. That's below his ballot. He got 46 percent of the vote. Usually presidents-elect get a higher approval rating than their ballot. There's a surge of goodwill. There's kind of a honeymoon period.
President Obama's approval rating at this point was 78 percent. Only 18 percent disapproved. Even George W. Bush, after that very contested election, was polling at 62 percent favorable, 36 percent unfavorable. So Donald Trump is an outlier on this measure.
MCEVERS: However, I mean one of the things we've seen again and again over the past year is that the usual political rules do not seem to apply to Donald Trump. I mean he certainly says so. Do these low approval ratings matter?
LIASSON: That's a very good question. We know that Donald Trump won the election even though 66 percent of Americans said he wasn't qualified to be president. So maybe one of his takeaways is that the normal rules of political gravity don't apply to him. It doesn't matter whether he has a high approval rating.
This could be one of the reasons why he has not made any effort to reach out to the 54 percent of Americans who didn't vote for him, why he's continued to pick fights either with John Lewis or the intelligence community or a local labor leader in Indiana. He's continued to be very divisive on Twitter. This worked for him during the campaign. Maybe he thinks this is going to work for him as president even though his transition team says that the theme of his inaugural address is going to be unity.
MCEVERS: What about in Congress? If Trump is seen as unpopular, will that hurt him as he tries to push his agenda on Capitol Hill?
LIASSON: Well, theoretically, but usually presidents, regardless of their approval rating, do get their first-year agenda through Congress, especially when they have control of both houses, as Donald Trump does. And remember; Barack Obama, who had a very high approval rating, didn't get any votes for his stimulus plan from the other side of the aisle.
So when you have an opposition party that's determined not to help you, you're going to have to pass things with your own party. And right now, I think that Donald Trump won't have a lot of problems doing that even though there are big differences between him and Republicans in Congress on things like the Obamacare replacement plan, tax policy or whether the government should be able to negotiate prices with the drug companies for Medicare.
MCEVERS: Will Donald Trump need Democratic votes for some things?
LIASSON: Yes, he certainly will. There are a lot of things he can pass with 51 votes, which he has obviously in the Senate. There are some other things that he'll need 60 votes for, and he will need Democrats for that. And the big question is, can he get those Democratic votes? What kind of outreach will he do? And is he willing to go against the wishes of some in his own party on an infrastructure plan, for instance, or on entitlement reform, which is something that he doesn't want to do? His party does. So those are questions that remain to be answered.
But one thing we should say is even though Donald Trump has a historically low approval rating, he is coming into office at a time when his party is more dominant than any party has been in a very long time. Not only do Republicans have both houses of Congress and the White House in Washington. They are in a dominant position in state after state after state all over the country.
MCEVERS: NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson, thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you.
MCEVERS: By the way, Trump tweeted today about his approval numbers. Trump said it was, quote, "the same people who did the phony election polls and were so wrong." Trump also claimed without any evidence those polls are rigged.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Our co-host Ari Shapiro is on a road trip leading up to Friday's inauguration. Today he brings us a story from a rural corner of North Carolina. Yadkin County sits due north of Charlotte not far from the Virginia border. It is overwhelmingly white, and it went overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. As Ari reports, people there are eagerly anticipating dramatic changes.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Twenty-five years ago, Yadkin County, N.C., had more than 350 tobacco farms. Now that number is down to just a few dozen.
CHUCK WOOTEN: Tobacco was what payed for, you know, the red brick house, the vehicles, my college education, you know, that sort of thing.
SHAPIRO: Chuck Wooten is giving us a tour of his farm. It's been in the family at least five generations. These days, the land sprouts soybeans, pumpkins, even mobile homes. We sit by a fire pit next to the hut where he sells strawberries in the spring, and he explains farming's not the only thing that's been in his family a long time.
WOOTEN: Some people love sports. Some people love hunting. Some people love fishing. My dad loved politics.
SHAPIRO: Wooten takes after his dad, and he's excited. Republicans are about to control the U.S. House, Senate and the executive branch. And the guy heading to the Oval Office is not afraid to break things.
WOOTEN: Oh, yes. I'm not the person that wants to see the wreck on the side of the road, OK, but I am fascinated by the changes that are going to take place.
SHAPIRO: For example, he says, look at the debate over whether the new president will divest his business interests. Critics warn that Trump might put his own profits over the good of the country.
WOOTEN: I don't think they see the other side of the coin. OK, that's great. If his businesses are profiting, that also means my businesses might be profiting. And they look at it so negatively. It's not such a bad thing.
SHAPIRO: The people we met in Yadkin County take pride in being self-sufficient, paddling hard to stay afloat. A lot of them told us that over the last eight years, it feels like the government has been a weight dragging them down.
CONNIE FLESHMAN: Yeah, this is where I live.
SHAPIRO: Connie Fleshman and her husband have owned and operated their flooring shop for 18 years.
FLESHMAN: We don't really bring in any outside employees or installers, just family. So it's just ongoing. It's just - their day never ends.
SHAPIRO: Under the Affordable Care Act, her health insurance payments jumped a thousand dollars a month to $1,700 for their family of five.
FLESHMAN: So I dropped it, and this is the first time in my adult life that I have not had health coverage.
SHAPIRO: What does $1,700 a month mean to you?
FLESHMAN: Thirty percent of my income. That's what it means. And we've worked so hard to get to this point to really start putting away for our retirement, and I just felt that being pulled out from underneath me.
SHAPIRO: Tell me about how it felt the morning after the election.
FLESHMAN: Jeez, (laughter) I'm serious. It was like what I would have thought that it would have been like when World War II was over. When they heard on the radio World War II's over - I'm not kidding. I mean everybody was just out, and they were down at Mount Olympus, eating breakfast and going in and getting coffee. And they're honking the horn, and they're high-fiving and thumbs up and - you know, I mean it was seriously just like a load had been taken off.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And you wanted pancakes?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yes, Ma'am.
SHAPIRO: Mount Olympus is the family restaurant on the corner where everybody catches up with the local gossip. Ronnie Fletcher is retired from the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. He's here having breakfast with his nephew. He says there are no strangers here or secrets, for that matter.
RONNIE FLETCHER: Everybody - about everybody knows everyone, or they think they do.
SHAPIRO: He told me he actually has more confidence in the vice president-elect. Mike Pence strikes him as more grounded than Trump, more of a Christian.
FLETCHER: Pence is going to - I think he's going to pull this thing out and get us in the right direction.
SHAPIRO: What is it about Trump that gives you pause?
FLETCHER: He's a big old bully. I don't think Trump thinks about it before he says it.
SHAPIRO: Lots of people here have that reservation. Andy Matthews is a freelance writer sitting just a couple booths over.
ANDY MATTHEWS: I'm hoping that, you know, he will get off Twitter for one thing, I guess you would say, and come up with some serious policy proposals.
SHAPIRO: It sounds like you're the first Democrat we've met in Yadkin County.
MATTHEWS: (Laughter) We're something of an endangered species.
SHAPIRO: Democrats here feel the way Republicans felt for the last eight years under President Obama, and some Republicans are frustrated about the way Democrats are handling the setback.
(SOUNDBITE OF IMPACT WRENCH)
SHAPIRO: Anthony Smith has owned an auto repair shop for 30 years. Everybody calls him Inky, which is the name on his mechanic's shirt.
ANTHONY SMITH: They just need to get on board, you know? Use your education, and you know, let's get down to business.
SHAPIRO: Which is what you did when Obama was elected...
SMITH: Yeah, yeah.
SHAPIRO: ...Which you didn't support.
SMITH: No, I did not vote for him, but you know, I didn't get out and cry and - you know, and run around. I just - I come into work every day, and I start working on cars.
SHAPIRO: Smith has seen life here transform over the decades.
SMITH: Back then, after 8 o'clock, you couldn't even buy a pack of cigarettes or Coca-Cola or anything like that 'cause everything - you know, mom and pop - everything was mom-and-pop stuff.
SHAPIRO: Friends of his who used to make $30 or $40 an hour in manufacturing now earn minimum wage and struggled to make ends meet.
SMITH: If we get the United States, you know - concentrate on the United States first, it'd be just like a lot of financial issues. I think it would - a lot of other things would try to fall in place.
SHAPIRO: Inky Smith is 55 years old, and life has taught him that change is inevitable. He's just hoping that now after eight years of Obama, a different kind of change is on the way.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
That's our co-host Ari Shapiro in Yadkin County, N.C. His road trip continues tomorrow - Blacksburg, Va.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The peaceful transition of power from Obama to Trump apparently does not include swing sets. Malia and Sasha's castle, a large wooden playground structure complete with a slide, rope ladder and swings, was a fixture outside the Oval Office for the past eight years.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The playset is now a fixture at a Washington, D.C., shelter for needy families. Yesterday the president and first lady had one more chance to play.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: What's going on, guys? How you doing?
SIEGEL: The Obamas visited the Jobs Have Priority Naylor Road Program, the structure's new home.
MCEVERS: The castle was built in 2009 for the two Obama daughters. It gave the president a chance to watch his children play while he worked. The outgoing Obamas offered the playset to the incoming Trumps, but the Trumps declined.
SIEGEL: And while Sasha and Malia are way past playground age these days, the president had no problem jumping back into his role as swing teacher in chief.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Keep your legs - pull your legs up. When you go out, you pull your legs up. (Inaudible) There you go. That's the move right here.
MCEVERS: One more wistful moment for the Obamas in a week and month full of them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: I know. It brings back memories.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Don't forget the other one.
OBAMA: Don't worry. She's got it. She's got it. She's got good momentum.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Pump those legs, girl.
OBAMA: Pump those legs.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCADE FIRE SONG, "HAITI")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
After nearly three years 46,000 square miles and $160 million, the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is over. Australia, China and Malaysia have officially suspended the hunt for the missing jet. They say they might reopen it if, quote, "credible new information" pointing to a specific location emerges. The plane disappeared while traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014. Two hundred thirty-nine people were onboard, including the wife of K.S. Narendran. He is with us now on Skype from Chennai, India. Welcome, sir.
K S NARENDRAN: Thank you.
MCEVERS: Your wife's name is Chandrika Sharma. Is that right?
NARENDRAN: That is correct.
MCEVERS: And, as I said, you lost her on that flight. What do you think about this decision to suspend the search for the plane?
NARENDRAN: I think this decision is deeply disappointing, very unfortunate. And through the day, I've just felt quite rushed and very angry. More than anything else, the decision seems like a betrayal of a certain commitment that the government, militia and its search partners, China and Australia, made to the families and the flying public from the very beginning. And that three years - close to three years down the road, it seems that that commitment doesn't hold anymore.
MCEVERS: In a statement from all three governments, Australia, Malaysia and China, they said, quote, "despite every effort using the best science available, cutting-edge technology, as well as modeling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft." So it sounds like they're saying, you know, they're using the best science they have. And they just couldn't get the job done.
NARENDRAN: The experts that the governments have put together have looked at all the new evidence. And they have actually come up with a recommendation to search another 25,000 square kilometers a little north of the current search area. And they believe that that constitutes their best chance of finding the aircraft. Now, they're pulling back and winding down when they have the - probably, the best chance of finding something, you know? So it's a little surprising.
MCEVERS: In your own life, I understand that one of the ways that you've gone through this is you write...
NARENDRAN: Oh, yes.
MCEVERS: ...Imagined conversations between yourself and your wife. What did those sound like?
NARENDRAN: You know, there are so many occasions that feel - so many years that we spent together - that a lot of the things would keep coming back. Every moment of the day had something associated with a time that we may have spent together. And they would keep coming back. And it was rather difficult to just see them as freeze frames. And, you know, so it was more like a video that was playing out right in front of my eyes day after day. And I thought it was one of the ways, perhaps, for me to, first of all, capture some of that and also, perhaps, to find a release from all of that was to actually write it down.
MCEVERS: Did it help?
NARENDRAN: I thought it did. I thought writing was a way that I found as a very meaningful process for myself. And it helped me in many ways. It helped me to clarify what - how I felt and what I was actually really thinking and also to make sense in a very cogent way about what the prospects were ahead of me and what choices lay in front of me. So, yes, it was very meaningful.
MCEVERS: Have you been able to have any kind of ceremony for her - funeral?
NARENDRAN: No, not really. We have had no ceremony. It's hard to think of one when you don't know what really happened. You don't know - when was the end? Where was the end? And it's been suggested to me by many of my friends and family that, perhaps, we should do something symbolic as a way of letting go.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
NARENDRAN: But I don't know how to even construct something like that at this point in time.
MCEVERS: Wow. K.S. Narendran, whose wife, Chandrika Sharma, was aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, thank you very much.
NARENDRAN: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Groups that speak out on behalf of patients are known as patient advocates. But those groups often get some of their funding from drug and medical device makers, and that creates potential conflicts of interest. A new study pinpoints just how common the practice is, as NPR's Richard Harris reports.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: Patient advocates speak up at Food and Drug Administration meetings where new drugs and devices are being considered. They buttonhole their members of Congress and research administrators.
SUSANNAH ROSE: We think of patient advocacy groups as being largely independent nonprofits. And we don't often think of them, you know, working with many other entities.
HARRIS: Susannah Rose, a bioethicist at the Cleveland Clinic, says it's not news that some of these groups take industry funding. But nobody had put a number on that, so she and her colleagues surveyed some of the 8,000 groups who advocate for patients. She was surprised to find that two-thirds of the groups who replied said they took at least some money from industry.
ROSE: Furthermore, we found that about 12 percent received over half of their annual revenue from industry, which also was surprising to us. One worry is that industry may be influencing their actions and they may be biased in terms of industry interests.
HARRIS: One way to deal with these conflicts is for organizations to reveal exactly who's giving them money and how much. Often that information is hard to find and parse or absent altogether. Rose says they also need strong conflict-of-interest policies.
ROSE: Many of the groups mentioned that they have policies, but many of them are not convinced that what they're doing right now is adequate to manage industry influence in their organizations.
HARRIS: The survey results are published in JAMA Internal Medicine. These groups can further the interests of the companies that fund them. For example, David Hilzenrath at a consumer group called the Project on Government Oversight notes that the FDA's drug approval process is funded heavily by industry. Periodically, the agency is required to review its system, getting input from both industry and advocacy groups.
DAVID HILZENRATH: We took a look at the groups that the FDA consulted in fulfillment of that legal requirement. And we found that more than 90 percent of them received funding from pharmaceutical and biotech industries.
HARRIS: So they weren't exactly an independent voice. Hundreds of these groups also wrote letters to Congress supporting the 21st Century Cures Act, which, among other things, makes it easier for drug and device makers to get new products approved.
HILZENRATH: Clearly they add credibility to undertakings such as this.
HARRIS: The National Health Council is an umbrella group for these organizations and also gets a lot of industry funding. CEO Marc Boutin says drug and device companies aren't setting the agenda here.
MARC BOUTIN: Patient organizations are going to address the issues that are important to their members. They're governed by their members. They're accountable to their members.
HARRIS: Boutin says in many cases, patients and industry want the same things and they move in lockstep. He says they do have disagreements, for example, over the high cost of drugs and other medical care. In those cases, though, the louder they protest, the more they risk alienating their industry funders. Richard Harris, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Just a reminder that when President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on Friday, many NPR stations will be live with voices from the National Mall and across the country.
SIEGEL: Listen to live inauguration coverage and go to npr.org to watch a live fact-check on the inaugural address.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A San Diego nonprofit is taking an unorthodox approach to help seniors cope with Alzheimer's disease. It's building a village for them to spend time during the day. It's not residential. But the village is modeled on San Diego in the 1950s, complete with vintage cars, period music, payphones and shops from the pre-shopping mall, pre-Wal-Mart era. The nonprofit says research suggests this type of visual reminder might improve cognitive function and quality of life of Alzheimer's patients over 65.
Scott Tarde is the CEO of the nonprofit, the George G. Glenner Alzheimer's Family Care Centers. Welcome to the program.
SCOTT TARDE: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
SIEGEL: What research shows that this sort of place actually works for Alzheimer's patients?
TARDE: Yeah. So what's interesting about what's called reminiscence therapy - which is not a new source of treatment and care - it's been shown to reduce agitation, improve mood and actually improve sleep quality. So it's something that we've been utilizing in our centers for some time, but now we're taking it to a level where we're creating more of a immersive experience for our participants and for their families.
SIEGEL: But does research show that Alzheimer's patients respond to sights and sounds that are from the time of their youth but may not have been important to them in their youth? That is, I'm pushing 70. I grew up in an urban high-rise. I could have moved to San Diego. But I wouldn't find a mock San Diego of the 1950s reminiscent of my youth.
TARDE: Yeah. It's a very interesting question. I think one of the things that we're really focused on is our expansion. And what we want to do is to create these environments that are reminiscent of the individual's past wherever they may be. So certainly kind of a Main Street, USA feel is consistent across many individuals' youths. But what we've seen is that when you take certain prompts - for example, we have a participant who saw we have a 1959 Thunderbird.
Soon as he saw that vehicle, he was immediately triggered back to that time in his youth where he saw kind of a connection. And not only for himself, but for his family member, his wife, who was there as well. So you see those types of prompts are able to bring individuals back to that time in their life where there is a connection.
SIEGEL: Now, these buildings in the entire town square, they're miniature. They're not full size.
TARDE: Yeah. So the thought process is that the building itself will be about 8,500 square feet. So we're talking about quite a large space. Anywhere between 15 and - to 25 fully designed storefronts, everything from a fully functioning movie theater. So there's nothing fake, if you will, or a facade about the actual storefronts themselves. The participants and their families will be able to go inside. They'll be able to view a movie. They'll be able to go into a pet store. They'll be able to go into a '50s-style diner. So this is an opportunity for individuals to do things that, honestly, they really don't have the opportunity to do now.
SIEGEL: And the movies in the movie theater will be Doris Day movies and things from 1958?
TARDE: It will. It will be consistent with that time period.
SIEGEL: And are you sure that this wouldn't be - for people who haven't completely lost touch with the present that it wouldn't be confusing at all as to what's happening during the day when they go and visit 1958?
TARDE: You know, I don't know about confusing. I think what we know about Alzheimer's - and we have an incredible medical advisory committee that we've spent many, many months working with on this project - is that the reality is that short-term memory is poor. And so when we're able to create an environment again where we're able to trigger some of those long-term memories, we find that that will be incredibly beneficial for our participants and their family, certainly a lot more than any kind of confusion we'd create about the change from the outside, if you will, to the inside.
SIEGEL: Scott Tarde of the George G. Glenner Alzheimer's Family Care Centers. Thank you very much for talking with us.
TARDE: My pleasure. Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The United Kingdom is headed for a clean split from the European Union. That was the message in London today as British Prime Minister Theresa May began to spell out just what Brexit will look like.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
THERESA MAY: Not partial membership of the European Union or anything that leaves us half in, half out. No, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.
MCEVERS: May's speech ended months of uncertainty over the terms under which Britain wants to exit the EU. It is also a sharp departure from the gospel of globalization, open borders and free trade. NPR's Frank Langfitt reports from London.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Prime Minister May made it clear that taking control of the country's borders was worth the risk of short-term damage to the U.K. economy. May was responding to Brexit voters who said immigration was costing British people jobs and eroding national identity.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAY: Britain is an open and tolerant country, but the message from the public before and during the referendum campaign was clear. Brexit must mean control of the number of people who come to Britain from Europe, and that is what we will deliver.
LANGFITT: May insisted she didn't want Britain's exit to undermine the trading bloc which has supported peace and prosperity in Europe for decades.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAY: It remains overwhelmingly and compellingly in Britain's national interest that the EU should succeed.
LANGFITT: And she warned EU countries not to take vengeance on Britain for pulling out.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAY: Yet I know there are some voices calling for a punitive deal that punishes Britain. That would be an act of calamitous self-harm for the countries of Europe, and it would not be the act of a friend.
LANGFITT: Currency markets seem to like May's clarity on Brexit. The British pound, which has taken a beating since the June Brexit vote, made a small rebound. Research fellow Rem Korteweg said the EU would also welcome May's clear terms.
Korteweg works for the Center for European Reform, a London think tank. He thought the prime minister's mix of friendly and threatening tones reflected the awkwardness as well as the contentious negotiations ahead. Korteweg spoke on Skype from Brussels, the de facto capital of the EU.
REM KORTEWEG: Very much this is like a 40-year-old marriage that is being unraveled. The challenge will be to allow it to unravel in a as-moderate and as-frictionless way as possible.
LANGFITT: May's speech adds to the growing uncertainty about the global economic order, especially with Donald Trump, a free trade critic, preparing to become president of the U.S. later this week. Again, Rem Korteweg...
KORTEWEG: You have two countries which used to lead, really were the vanguard of free trade, and there are question marks above both of them. And so I think it's relevant to ask this question. Well, where does free trade go from here?
LANGFITT: For Theresa May, the answer is a new free trade deal between the U.K. and the EU, which she wants to cut while negotiating Brexit. Analysts say that is wildly ambitious, and the U.K. is certain to come out worse off than it is now.
MUJTABA RAHMAN: The agreement Theresa May negotiates is going to be a lot less beneficial than the status quo.
LANGFITT: Mujtaba Rahman works for Eurasia Group, which analyzes global politics. He says in negotiating a new trade deal, May will have to choose which sectors of the U.K. economy get tariff-free access to the EU single market and which don't.
RAHMAN: And now the government I think will have to move into a position of picking winners, choosing losers. I think this will make investors nervous.
LANGFITT: And to ensure the best outcome, Rahman says, Prime Minister May will have to make sure she maintains European good will. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, London.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Donald Trump told the British daily The Times that the U.S. will offer Britain a quick and fair trade deal within weeks of his taking office. Trump says he wants to help make Brexit a great thing. But what lies ahead for relations between the U.S. and the U.K.? David Rennie, the Washington bureau chief of The Economist, is here in the studio. Welcome...
DAVID RENNIE: Hello.
SIEGEL: ...To the program. And first, how big is the economic relationship between Britain and the U.S.?
RENNIE: It's gigantic, and it goes two ways. And British companies employ a lot of Americans. American companies employ a lot of Brits. There have been moments where the single largest source of foreign direct investment in the U.S. was from the U.K.
SIEGEL: And how much of the attraction of the U.K. to American business has been Britain's membership in the EU?
RENNIE: Well, a lot. Britain has positioned itself over the years as the English-speaking, free market, Thatcherite kind of gateway to the continent. A lot of American businesses, not just finance but also all kinds of Americans of high tech businesses, big pharmaceutical companies, have taken advantage of that.
And that then begs a big question about whether Britain is completely attractive to someone America-first like Donald Trump before Britain can answer the question, what will be the future of its trading terms with the continent of Europe?
SIEGEL: We've heard Theresa May say it remains overwhelmingly in the interest of Britain that the EU should succeed. You think Donald Trump, who's predicted that other European countries will be leaving the EU, shares that interest that it should succeed?
RENNIE: Well, precisely not, and I think that was why it was a really important statement for her to make because we - what we've just seen - you mentioned the interview that Donald Trump gave to The Times of London the other day where he was saying that Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, had made catastrophic mistakes letting in Syrian refugees and describing the European Union as basically a vehicle for Germany.
That aligns Donald Trump with the far right, with Nigel Farage in Britain, with people like Marine Le Pen, who's trying to become president of France this year, people who basically think the EU should blow up, and that would be a jolly good thing because it should be replaced by kind of nationalist identity politics. That's not where Theresa May is. And she also does not want a fallout with Angela Merkel as she begins these very painful negotiations.
SIEGEL: Well, let's go back to something else that Trump said in that interview with The Times, which is the quick and fair trade deal that he hopes to negotiate with the U.K. Can you imagine the United States and Britain negotiating a trade deal within a matter of weeks?
RENNIE: No. These things take years, and they take years for a reason, which is that they're not expressions of love and friendship between two countries. Their business deals. Until Britain can explain to U.S. firms what happens when goods cross the English Channel and go into Europe from Britain, it's not clear that you can do a final deal with the U.S. and the U.K.
SIEGEL: Donald Trump speaks of his openness to a friendlier relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That's a position that enjoys support with some of the continental nationalist movements that you've described. What about Britain's Conservative government? What's their view of Putin?
RENNIE: Totally the opposite. Britain has been a leading player in pushing for tougher sanctions on Russia after the occupation of Crimea and its ventures in Ukraine. The British government needs America as a friend. Donald Trump is offering to be a friend. But once you get into real questions of crunchy geopolitics - and you're right to mention Russia - there's a huge gap. And the big tell is the word global.
If you look at how many times Theresa May used the word global Britain in her speech today, this is against Donald Trump, who - globalism is his enemy. Nationalism is his friend. The pitch from the British government is that the EU is this kind of rotting hulk that is keeping us back from zooming all around the world as this kind of Singapore of the north - de-regulated, in love with free trade, a sort of swashbuckling capitalism. It's a very different view from that kind of Steve Bannon nationalism that Trump is peddling.
SIEGEL: Yeah, the argument is, we want to get into a larger arena than the EU, not, we want to be a little England.
RENNIE: Absolutely.
SIEGEL: David Rennie of The Economist, thanks for talking with us.
RENNIE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF DEER TICK SONG, "BALTIMORE BLUES NO. 1")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In one year, a typical American will read about four books. For more serious readers, it's more like 50 or a hundred. Daliyah Arana has read more than a thousand books in the past couple of years. That is 1,000. And Daliyah is 4 years old. All that reading got her a trip to the Library of Congress where she was named honorary librarian for the day last week.
Daliyah Arana and her mom, Haleema, are with us now from Gainesville, Ga., where they live. Hello to both of you.
HALEEMA ARANA: Hello.
DALIYAH ARANA: Hello.
MCEVERS: What was it like to be at the Library of Congress?
DALIYAH: I had so much fun.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
DALIYAH: Uh-huh.
MCEVERS: Haleema, when did you start reading to Daliyah, and when did she take over the reading job?
ARANA: I started reading to her immediately after she was born. I would pretty much hold her, and she would hear stories as I was reading to my two older children. And she was actually memorizing a lot of the words that she would see in the books. And it was at one point where she wanted to take the book and say, I want to do this now. And it took off from there.
MCEVERS: Most kids don't learn to read till 4 or 5, even 6. You must have been aware, like, wow, she's really getting started early.
ARANA: It's actually something that I did with all three of my children. But with her, I just - I took it to the next level just because of her passion for it and her love for it so much.
MCEVERS: Daliyah, was it your idea to read a thousand books?
DALIYAH: No, it was mommy's idea.
MCEVERS: Did you think, boy, that's going to be hard, or did you think, that'll be easy?
DALIYAH: That was easy 'cause I love to read.
MCEVERS: So Haleema, it was your idea to read a thousand books. Where did you get the idea?
ARANA: Actually I read about - there was an article in a local newspaper about a young girl who had just finished the program, and that's where I actually got the idea. Hey, you know, Daliyah - she's already reading a lot. This is a great way for me to start counting.
MCEVERS: But wasn't that program about the number of books parents should be reading to kids, right? And you took it a step further.
ARANA: Right, I did, and she actually enjoyed it because every time she completed a log of 50 books, she would return that to the library, and she would get a small prize. And that's what kind of kept her motivated as well.
MCEVERS: Oh, neat. Daliyah, can you hear me?
DALIYAH: Hello.
MCEVERS: Hi. Do you remember the first book you ever read?
DALIYAH: "Ann's Big Muffin."
MCEVERS: "Ann's Big Muffin."
DALIYAH: Yeah.
MCEVERS: What's your favorite book right now?
DALIYAH: My favorite book is "The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog!"
MCEVERS: "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!" - I love the "Pigeon" books. What happens in that book?
DALIYAH: Well, it's about a duckling and the Pigeon. They fight over the hot dog. And the duckling splits it in half at the ending.
MCEVERS: And they share it.
DALIYAH: And they share.
MCEVERS: Daliyah Arana, thank you so much.
DALIYAH: You're welcome.
MCEVERS: And Haleema Arana, thank you, too.
ARANA: Thank you.
MCEVERS: Daliyah Arana was librarian for the day at the Library of Congress last week. Here she is reading her favorite book.
DALIYAH: "The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog!" - words and pictures by Mo Willems. Oh, a hot dog - yummy, yummy, yummy. Oh, may I help you? Is that a hot dog - not a hot dog, my hot dog. Oh, I don't think...
(SOUNDBITE OF SUFJAN STEVENS SONG, "THE TALLEST MAN, THE BROADEST SHOULDERS")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Education Department took the hot seat today for her Senate confirmation hearing. Here is billionaire Betsy DeVos making her case to the Senate Committee on Education.
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BETSY DEVOS: President-elect Trump and I know it won't be Washington, D.C., that unlocks our nation's potential, nor a bigger bureaucracy, tougher mandates or a federal agency. The answer is local control and listening to parents, students and teachers.
SIEGEL: DeVos has strong Republican support, but she fielded some tough questions from the committee's Democrats. For more on the hearing and DeVos' record, I'm joined by Cory Turner of the NPR Ed team. And Cory, let's start with what we know about DeVos' education philosophy and why that's put her at odds with so many Democrats.
CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Sure, Robert. She's been scathing in her criticism of the government's ability to really improve America's education system. And she believe deeply instead in the power of the free market to do that. She has opposed teachers' unions. She in an outspoken supporter of school choice, specifically public charter schools.
But also perhaps most controversially, she's a big supporter of vouchers which let parents pay for tuition at private schools and even religious schools using public school dollars. And that led to this exchange this evening - earlier this evening with Democratic Senator Patty Murray.
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PATTY MURRAY: Can you commit to us tonight that you will not work to privatize public schools or cut a single penny from public education?
DEVOS: Senator, thanks for that question. I look forward, if confirmed, to working with you to talk about how we address the needs of all parents and all students.
TURNER: DeVos went on to say that not all schools serve the needs of the kids who are assigned to them but that she hopes she can find some common ground with those who disagree with her views on school choice, to which Murray said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MURRAY: I take that as not being willing to commit to not privatizing public schools or cutting money from education.
DEVOS: Well, I guess I wouldn't characterize it in that way.
MURRAY: Well, (laughter) OK.
SIEGEL: Now, Cory, Congress passed a bipartisan federal education law just over a year ago. Even if DeVos wanted to create a kind of national voucher plan, could she actually do that?
TURNER: Certainly not easily, and this came up in the hearing tonight, Robert. It was brought up by actually one of her strongest supporters, a Republican, a former education secretary himself and the committee's chairman, Lamar Alexander. He made clear Congress had debated vouchers when they were debating the big federal education law just over a year ago, and they decided not to go there. So he asked DeVos if she would still try to push a voucher mandate onto states.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DEVOS: No. I would hope I could convince you all of the merit of that in maybe some future legislation but certainly any kind of mandate from within the department.
SIEGEL: Now, Cory, I want you to talk briefly about DeVos' financial holdings, which were also a topic at the hearing. What was said about that?
TURNER: Yeah, well, Democrats were clearly frustrated that the hearing was being held before the Office of Government Ethics, which looks into potential conflicts of interest, could actually finish its review of DeVos' vast holdings.
A spokesperson for Chairman Alexander said even though the hearing was still held, the committee will not vote on DeVos until it's received her paperwork from the Ethics Office. Senator Murray asked DeVos about what she will do if that Ethics review turns up conflicts, to which DeVos said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DEVOS: Where conflicts are identified, they will be resolved. I will not be conflicted - period.
TURNER: It was a definitive answer, but Democrats still weren't happy about the timing of the hearing.
SIEGEL: OK, that's Cory Turner of the NPR Ed team. Cory, thanks.
TURNER: Thank you, Robert.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Republican lawmakers intent on repealing Obamacare are getting a warning from congressional forecasters. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says stripping away parts of the law could leave 18 million people without health insurance in the first year after a repeal and many more people in the years that follow. The office says it would also cause premiums in the individual insurance market to spike.
Republicans are dismissing the forecast. They say it doesn't account for their plans to replace Obamacare. Democrats hope to capitalize on the warning at a time when many Americans are worried about the future of the health-care system. To talk about this, we have NPR's Scott Horsley now. Hi, there.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So the CBO is painting a pretty bleak picture here. What are the forecasters afraid is going to happen?
HORSLEY: Well they're afraid that, if on the one hand, you take away the carrots in the Affordable Care Act, the government subsidies that help lower-income people buy insurance, and you take away the stick - that is the tax penalty for people who don't buy coverage - then you're going to have tens of millions of people dropping out of the individual insurance market, some by choice and some because they simply can't afford insurance.
And when you have that kind of exodus, the people who are left are those who need insurance the most, the older, sicker and more expensive patients. So the cost of premiums goes up. And the number of insurance companies offering coverage goes down. We've already seen this happening to some extent with the Affordable Care Act as it is because the carrots aren't juicy enough, the sticks not big enough. If you take those away altogether, then the problem could get that much worse.
MCEVERS: Republicans, as I mentioned, are saying this forecast is meaningless and incomplete. Does it leave some things out?
HORSLEY: It does. What the Democrats asked the CBO to do was go and look at what the Republicans passed last year, which was kind of a dry run for repeal. What the bill did was take away insurance subsidies, took away the requirement that individuals buy insurance. It didn't take away the requirement that insurance companies cover everyone regardless of pre-existing medical conditions because Senate Democrats could filibuster that. And the result of that partial repeal, according to the CBO, would be a very unstable insurance market - individual insurance market - with soaring premiums and insurance companies bailing out.
MCEVERS: Republicans say the CBO did not include their proposals to replace Obamacare. Why not?
HORSLEY: Well, the GOP has yet to really coalesce around any single replacement plan. You've got some Republicans in Congress who've talked about finalizing their plan at a retreat later this month. You've got President-elect Trump saying he'll roll out his plan just as soon as his health secretary is confirmed. What Democrats, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, are trying to do with this report is say, look, here's what repeal does. How does the GOP replacement plan try to overcome that?
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CHUCK SCHUMER: Now that repeal is real and not just a political exercise, the tide is turning. The American people are becoming roused by the prospect of dismantling health reform and leaving chaos in its wake.
MCEVERS: Quickly, Scott, are the American people becoming roused?
HORSLEY: Well, there is a new poll out today from NBC and The Wall Street Journal that finds, for the first time, more people think Obamacare is a good idea than a bad idea. It's still not real popular, and there are still deep divisions on a partisan basis. But fully half those polled say they have little confidence that the GOP replacement plan will be any better. So that's a political caution for the Republicans along with the health-care caution from the CBO.
MCEVERS: NPR's Scott Horsley, thank you.
HORSLEY: You bet.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When Donald Trump takes the oath of office on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Friday, many Democrats in Congress will not be there. More than 50 House members now say they will skip the inauguration in a break with tradition. NPR's Scott Detrow reports that number grew dramatically in recent days thanks to a feud between the president-elect and a civil rights legend.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Some of the Democrats skipping the ceremony are like California Congressman Mark DeSaulnier. They're trying to be very careful in laying out their reasons for staying home.
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MARK DESAULNIER: Most Americans aspire to a common sense of decency, even when we disagree. I haven't seen that from the president-elect in any of his capacities.
DETROW: That's not the case for everyone, though. Just listen to what Congressman Kurt Schrader told Oregon Public Broadcasting.
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KURT SCHRADER: He hasn't proved himself to me at all yet, so I respectfully decline to freeze my ass off out there in the cold for this particular ceremony.
DETROW: Some Democrats skipping the inauguration had made a point to announce the move, while others just told their colleagues. Many more came forward, though, after Georgia Congressman John Lewis told "Meet The Press" this weekend that he doesn't view Trump as a legitimate president.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MEET THE PRESS")
JOHN LEWIS: I don't plan to attend the inauguration. It will be the first one that I miss since I've been in the Congress.
DETROW: It's not unusual for lawmakers from the losing party to skip an inauguration. In fact, Lewis misstated the facts in that interview, as Trump pointed out on Twitter. He had also skipped George W. Bush's 2001 swearing-in. But Trump's decision to attack a civil rights icon elevated the inauguration boycott. Many say they're boycotting out of solidarity with Lewis. Other reasons are being given, too - Trump's tone and demeanor, his vow to repeal Obamacare. Here's Luis Gutierrez of Illinois speaking on the House floor a week ago, before Lewis made his comments.
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LUIS GUTIERREZ: When the new president denigrates Latinos or Mexicans or immigrants as drug dealers and criminals, I want to be able to say that I did not condone or allow that type of speech to go mainstream. That was not normalized on my watch.
DETROW: Trump's incoming White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, is downplaying the importance of the Democrats' decision. He says Trump would love every member to attend, but if they don't it frees up great seats for other people.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SEAN SPICER: I think that when you wake up on Friday and see the enormous crowds that are there, you're going to recognize that it is going to be an inauguration for all Americans.
DETROW: Other members of the Trump transition say the boycott boils down to the fact Democrats just can't accept that they lost in November. Asked about Lewis' claim of illegitimacy on CBS's "Face The Nation," Vice President-elect Mike Pence said the fact is voters elected Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FACE THE NATION")
MIKE PENCE: For someone of his stature not just in the civil rights movement but in voting rights to make a comment that he did not consider Donald Trump to be a legitimate president I think is deeply disappointing.
DETROW: Still, for all the attention the boycott has gotten, most Democratic Party leaders - and, for that matter, most Democrats in Congress - will attend. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi recently spoke to NPR's Morning Edition.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
NANCY PELOSI: I will be there. I'll be there for the inauguration, yes. That's my responsibility. The wonderful thing about our country, the peaceful transfer of power - and in this case, from one party to the next.
DETROW: President Obama and Hillary Clinton have both taken pains to endorse that peaceful transition. And they'll both be within camera shot Friday when Trump takes the oath of office and delivers his inaugural address. Scott Detrow, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS ANIMALS SONG, "CANE SHUGA")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
As the presidency of Barack Obama comes to an end, we're taking stock - and so is he.
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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If I had told you eight years ago that America would reverse the Great Recession, reboot our auto industry and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history...
(APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: You might have said that our sights were set a little too high, but that's what we did, the president said in his farewell address last week. So what is likely to be Barack Obama's economic legacy? For an answer to that, we turn now to Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics at Harvard, who was in the John McCain camp back in 2008. He joins us now from Davos, Switzerland. Welcome to the program once again.
KENNETH ROGOFF: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: The first monthly jobs report of the Obama presidency showed the country had lost 791,000 jobs in January 2009. The last one assessing this past December showed job growth of 156,000, 75 consecutive months showing job gains, not losses. Is that a fair measure of Obama's economic legacy?
ROGOFF: Well, I think it's one measure. He pulled us out of a very deep abyss. We could have had a second Great Depression and we didn't. I mean, there were a lot of people who helped. And frankly, even George Bush did things he couldn't imagine towards the end of his presidency with fiscal stimulus and such to help. But Obama really ramped it up, really took control. And I think history will judge him as a great president on the economic side, on par with Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.
SIEGEL: Not just one who continued the policies of George W. Bush, you say, but who really did intensify that effort.
ROGOFF: Oh, he certainly didn't just continue the policies of George W. Bush. I was just trying to make sure George Bush got a little credit here. I mean, he did some stimulus and Obama ramped it up. He put in financial regulation. There were some really key technical things he did with stress-testing the banks that really helped. And, of course, he supported the Federal Reserve's policy, and this in an extremely fractious, difficult political climate at a very grave time for our country.
SIEGEL: I recall your being somewhat skeptical of the auto bailout, saying that, yes, the U.S. would always be involved in the financial sector very heavily, but the auto industry might not figure that much in our future. Was Obama more right than you thought to have bailed out GM and Chrysler?
ROGOFF: It worked and I think it helped stabilize things, so yes. I mean, it's true that the future of manufacturing in the U.S. is probably going to go the way the future of agriculture. It already is way less than 10 percent of jobs, although you'd never know that from the political rhetoric. It's likely to decrease. But no, I mean, that was certainly, I'd say, a flourish on his policy. It's not a central one. But it worked much better than I thought it would.
SIEGEL: Obama extended health insurance to - said 20 million Americans. There was a rise in median household income last year, and the earned income tax credit was expanded. Do you think there'll be any Obama legacy about reversing the trend toward inequality of wealth, or just a couple of years that were blips on the radar?
ROGOFF: Well, he certainly brought a lot of people back to work. But you have to understand these are global events going on that are hurting the middle class in advanced countries. Every single advanced country is suffering from a similar problem, even though, you know, you can go from France to Germany to Canada, they have all different policies. So it's a big, long, historical wave that he's fighting against.
SIEGEL: You're in Davos at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Of course, the remarkable thing about Davos is the appearance of President Xi of China. I guess first just that he's there, and second that he's the world leader expressing great confidence in the world economic market.
ROGOFF: They have not been able to get major Chinese representation here ever before. Suddenly, with Donald Trump coming in, he sees an opening. The U.S. is retreating from trade. They're talking protectionism, talking about pulling back on NATO, and China's moving to fill in the gap. I mean, there's a bit of hypocrisy there in the sense that the fact is the U.S. is way more open to the world than China is. It's not that easy to invest in China. But nevertheless, from a political strategy point of view it's a master stroke.
SIEGEL: Economist Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard speaking to us from Davos, Switzerland. Thanks for talking with us once again.
ROGOFF: Thank you, Robert.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In one of his final acts as president, President Obama has significantly shortened the prison sentence for Chelsea Manning. She is the Army private convicted of leaking classified information to the website WikiLeaks. In addition, the White House pardoned General James Cartwright in another prominent media-leak case. Over the past eight years, Obama has granted clemency to nearly 1,600 people. With us to talk about some of those cases is NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Hi there, Carrie.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: On NPR a few weeks ago, the lawyer for Chelsea Manning called her case a matter of life or death. What did he mean by that?
JOHNSON: Chelsea Manning's been in prison for about seven years now. She's attempted suicide twice during that time. Her lawyer at the ACLU and her friends say she's been having a really tough time with incarceration. Manning's transgender, and she says she's not getting the support she needs. To the contrary, when she was first locked up, she was put in solitary confinement.
And supporters say that took a real toll on her mental and physical health. Manning had been expecting to serve a 35-year sentence, the longest ever, her lawyers say, for an act of whistleblowing and longer than some people even convicted of murder in the military system. Now with today's action, she could be out by May.
MCEVERS: There's always a flurry of pardons and clemencies as presidents prepare to leave office. Another one in this round is James Cartwright, as we said. Remind us about his case.
JOHNSON: So he's often called Obama's favorite general. Cartwright pleaded guilty late last year to false-statements charges for allegedly leaking information and lying to the FBI about it. He was talking to reporters about the Stuxnet computer worm, Kelly. You'll remember that whole hack attempted to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program.
MCEVERS: Right.
JOHNSON: But it also spread outside the country and got detected. Prosecutors wanted Cartwright to serve two years in prison. His sentencing was set for later this month. Now it won't happen at all. That's because he's got a full pardon. And Cartwright said in a statement today a pardon means he can continue his work to support his country after being a public servant more than 40 years now.
MCEVERS: Presidential pardons are sometimes controversial - President Ford's pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for example, Bill Clinton's pardon of the fugitive money man Marc Rich. Besides Chelsea Manning, are there any other names on the list that are likely to raise objections?
JOHNSON: Kelly, with this caveat, I'm still digging through the list. There are over...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: ...Two-hundred people on it. But I found a few other well-known folks - the hotel magnate Ian Schrager, better known for running the famous nightclub Studio 54. He got pardoned on old tax charges dating back decades. I also saw Willie McCovey, a famous baseball player - first baseman. And, finally, there's Oscar Lopez Rivera. He's been described by supporters as a political prisoner, an independence activist from Puerto Rico. He spent 35 years in prison. Chicago Congressman Luis Gutierrez praised his release today.
MCEVERS: And most of the 200 or so names on today's list are people who have been associated with drug charges, right?
JOHNSON: Yeah. Those offenders have represented the vast majority of President Obama's clemency grants. The idea is those people have had clean records in prison, and they'd be serving less time today for the same crimes because the way we punish drug criminals has changed now. The Obama White House and Justice Department set up a special program for those drug criminals. More than 500 of them who have gotten clemency under Obama had expected to spend the rest of their lives in prison. That won't happen anymore, Kelly.
MCEVERS: And could you just remind us quickly what Chelsea Manning - why Chelsea Manning had been sentenced for so long in prison.
JOHNSON: Well, Chelsea Manning had taken materials from her job and secreted them out of locations overseas and passed them to the website WikiLeaks. They included a lot of military information, State Department cables, a video that she said showed some wrongdoing by U.S. officials in killing innocent civilians. There were a lot of sensitive kinds of things in the reams of information she took and passed the website WikiLeaks. Military officials were very upset back at the time.
MCEVERS: There's still two days left in the Obama administration. Do you think there'll be more to come on the clemency front?
JOHNSON: Well, sources are telling me don't rule anything out - possible that we'll see more clemencies for some of those nonviolent drug offenders before President Obama leaves the White House.
MCEVERS: NPR's Carrie Johnson, thank you.
JOHNSON: You're welcome.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The movie "Fences," a leading contender for the Oscars, is based on a play by August Wilson that got its start at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Conn. This season, Yale Rep is celebrating its 50th anniversary as an incubator for many of today's leading playwrights. Jeff Lunden has more.
JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE: Here's James Earl Jones in the original production of "Fences."
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "FENCES")
JAMES EARL JONES: (As Troy Maxson) It is my job. It is my responsibility. You understand that? A man got to take care of his family. You live in my house. You sleep your behind on my bedclothes. You put my food in your belly because you are my son. You are my flesh and blood, not because I like you.
LUNDEN: The late playwright August Wilson told NPR in 1991 that Yale Rep was crucial to his work.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
AUGUST WILSON: For me, one of the most valuable things I think that has contributed to my development is the fact of having a home here at Yale Rep and knowing that I can write a play and that the theater would be willing to produce it. I've constantly worked to reward that faith that has been placed in me.
LUNDEN: Yale Rep not only premiered 6 of Wilson's 10 plays about the African-American experience but ensured that he could refine them by getting the plays staged in theaters across the country.
Yale is different from other nonprofit theaters in several ways. It doesn't have to worry about funding because it's connected to a major university, and it was conceived as an integral part of the Yale School of Drama, says James Bundy, who, like all of his predecessors, serves as both dean and artistic director.
JAMES BUNDY: The best possible training in every discipline of the theater could only be offered in conjunction with a practicing professional theater that regularly brought leading artists into the community and allowed students to work alongside those artists in a manner not dissimilar to that of a medical school and a teaching hospital.
LUNDEN: Students go to classes from 9 to 2, then spend their afternoons and evenings doing everything that goes into staging a play. Actress Dianne Wiest recently starred in Samuel Beckett's "Happy Days" at the Rep.
DIANNE WIEST: My costume was made by a brilliant student. The stage manager is a student. The assistant stage manager is a student who was down in the pit with me, you know, giving me a line.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "HAPPY DAYS")
WIEST: (As Winnie) Just to know that in theory you can hear me even though in fact you don't is all I need.
(LAUGHTER)
LUNDEN: One of the students who graduated from the Yale School of Drama is stage and screen star Liev Schreiber.
LIEV SCHREIBER: I mean it's such an incredible history, that theater. And you know, just to walk around the halls and see pictures of Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards and Morgan Freeman and Meryl Streep and the remarkable Paul Newman...
LUNDEN: And remarkable playwrights like Danai Gurira, who's had three of her works done at Yale Rep.
DANAI GURIRA: It's a place where you can really go and incubate because, you know, it's so tricky with how some of the things are structured now in our industry where it's all about whose review comes out when, et cetera, et cetera. And so it was really awesome to have that space to just not have to think about that stuff and to get to really think about what story am I trying to tell here.
LUNDEN: One of the stories Gurira refined at Yale Rep was "Eclipsed." It eventually moved to Broadway starring Lupita Nyong'o, who was a student understudy at the theater.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "ECLIPSED"
LUPITA NYONG'O: (As The Girl) I don't know. I just think we should know who we are, what year we got, where we come from. This war not forever.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) But that's what it feel like.
NYONG'O: (As The Girl) Yeah, but it not.
LUNDEN: Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel developed her latest play, "Indecent," at Yale while she taught at the school. She says the audiences at the Rep were invaluable when it came to honing and shaping the work.
PAULA VOGEL: New Haven is exceptional in the conversation I have with audience members. People come up. They want to engage in a conversation. They write me long letters. They go out, and they have coffee and cake, and they discuss the play. They want to be engaged in the conversation. They're not looking for the next play on its way to Broadway.
BUNDY: Which is where "Indecent" is headed this spring. Still, artistic director James Bundy says it's a play that really fulfills Yale Rep's mission.
BUNDY: What are the odds that a play about censorship and lesbians would make it to a Broadway stage? That's improbable. And in fact, if you're going to make theater that's really worth making, you should probably be investing in the improbable.
LUNDEN: A new play called "Imogen Says Nothing" opens at the Rep this Friday, and an exhibition of photographs from the theater's 50-year history has just opened at the Performing Arts Library in New York's Lincoln Center. For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden.
(SOUNDBITE OF VAMPIRE WEEKEND SONG, "OXFORD COMMA")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Student loan debt is not just an issue for young people. A new report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says that in the last decade, the number of older Americans - 60 and up - with student loan debt has quadrupled. And many of those older people who are often on fixed income struggle to make loan payments. They default at a higher rate than any other age group.
With us to talk about this report is Seth Frotman, the CFPB student loan ombudsman and head of the CFPB's office for students. Welcome to the program.
SETH FROTMAN: Thank you so much for having me.
MCEVERS: So how much do these older Americans owe? And what do we know about where these loans came from?
FROTMAN: So we are talking about billions of dollars that older Americans now owe on student loan debt. The bureau estimates that number is around $66, $67 billion in the aggregate. But for individual borrowers, what we've seen is a near doubling, jumping from around $12,000 to nearly $24,000.
And while some of this debt stems from them taking out, you know, a student loan for themselves, the overwhelming majority now come in the form of cosigning where a parent or grandparent is actually taking on debt on behalf of their child or grandchild.
MCEVERS: For older Americans who are making the payments but struggling to do that, how are they doing it?
FROTMAN: Sure. I mean I think this is one of the real challenges and one of the things we highlight in our report. You know, the bureau documents how older borrowers are more likely than those with outstanding student debt to skip health care expenses like prescription drugs or doctor visits. Those borrowers with student loan debt tend to have less money in their retirement account.
So it really runs the gamut of borrowers. It's not necessarily just those in default that are struggling but also, you know, borrowers just struggling to make their payments.
MCEVERS: And we also just want to be clear, too, that this kind of debt is not the kind of debt that can be erased by, say, declaring bankruptcy. Is that right?
FROTMAN: Absolutely. So one of the things that this report highlights is the growth in the number of social security recipients who are actually having their social security garnished because of student loan debt, a fact that is particularly concerning when you know that 69 percent of social security recipients - that is their only source of income.
MCEVERS: Can people get the payments lowered?
FROTMAN: This is something that we really wanted to highlight. One of the challenges that the bureau sees across the student loan market is despite the availability of federal consumer protections that allow student loan borrowers to pay an amount that is in line with what they can afford, what we see is the most vulnerable borrowers - and that definitely includes older borrowers who are struggling under the weight of student loan debt - reaching out to their student loan company and continuously getting bad information, no information despite the fact that they should be able to get into these affordable repayment plans.
MCEVERS: And what about for people out there who are thinking about cosigning on their child's student loan? I mean that's where a lot of this comes from, right? What advice would you give that parent?
FROTMAN: So I think the first advice is to ensure that, you know, they could make the payment should their child or grandchild be in a position where they can't pay. But another issue that's important is understanding how and then they might be able to be released from being a cosigner.
So for quite a number of private student loan companies, they actually allow the borrower to apply to have their cosigner be released from the loan after making a certain number of on-time payments or other requirements. And I think one of the things that the bureau has highlighted for years now is that far too often, cosigners who are trying to get released are running into roadblocks and unnecessary hurdles in that process. So you know, we urge primary borrowers and cosigners to really understand the aspects of that key consumer protection.
MCEVERS: Seth Frotman, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's student loan ombudsman, thank you very much.
FROTMAN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHINAMO MOKI SONG "GO WITH ME")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Our co-host Ari Shapiro is driving through North Carolina and Virginia this week on the way to Donald Trump's inauguration Friday. He's talking to voters he meets along the way about their hopes and fears for the new administration. Today's report is from Blacksburg, Va., where 25,000 undergrads attend Virginia Tech. About a thousand of them are cadets.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Ryan Leavis and Alex Miller wear a uniform to class every day. They're both seniors, both planning to go into the military once they graduate. And their lives don't stick to the typical undergraduate schedule.
RYAN LEAVIS: You're waking up at five. You're working out, taking a shower, and then you're getting outside around 7:15 to go salute that flag.
ALEX MILLER: It's also kind of funny doing PT in the mornings, and we'll see students walk into their dorms, going - about to go to bed, and we're waking up early. It's always - it's always funny just watching them.
SHAPIRO: PT is physical training - push-ups, sit-ups - that sort of thing. Ryan and Alex are friends and fraternity brothers who cast different votes in November's election. Ryan liked what Donald Trump said about the Affordable Care Act, illegal immigration and radicalism. Alex voted for Hillary Clinton. Trump's style turned him off.
MILLER: It was also kind of troublesome - you know, his inconsistency with his policies. It seemed like he would say one thing and then, you know, kind of change it in another interview and then change it again. And to me, that was just a huge problem, and, you know, I really couldn't vote for him because of those reasons.
LEAVIS: I do, Alex, remember you not necessarily being, like, either the Bernie or Hillary camp when it first started. Weren't you in...
MILLER: Yeah.
LEAVIS: Ted Cruz - was it Ted Cruz or Rubio?
MILLER: I was a big, like, John Kasich fan.
LEAVIS: OK.
MILLER: I voted for him in the primaries. I really liked him a lot.
LEAVIS: Just as you went from being a John Kasich fan to a Hillary Clinton supporter - that's a pretty drastic change. And I understand, like, where your decision, you know, is coming from. A lot of people don't feel comfortable with the way Donald Trump will just speak his mind. He's not afraid to hurt people's feelings or call you a loser on Twitter...
MILLER: (Laughter).
LEAVIS: ...Which I think is hilarious, by the way.
MILLER: China doesn't think it's funny.
(LAUGHTER)
LEAVIS: Well...
SHAPIRO: You say China doesn't think it's funny. Like, are you actually afraid that there could be a trade war or a real war with a country that Trump insults on Twitter?
LEAVIS: A war - a war over Trump (laughter).
MILLER: I don't know if there's going to be an actual war, but I just don't think it's a good idea to start off on the wrong foot. I think it's important to call them out and to - you know, to stick up to them, but just being insulting - that's something completely different.
SHAPIRO: It sounds like the very same thing that, Alex, worries you is, Ryan, what appeals to you.
LEAVIS: I would say that, you know, you're probably right about that.
MILLER: Yeah, you're probably right (laughter).
LEAVIS: That's probably - sounds pretty spot-on. But I think that he appealed to, you know, the silent majority. And they like the fact that, you know, you can tell that what is coming out of his mouth is sincere, even if it is what some people might want to say - kind of a loose cannon.
SHAPIRO: I guess one of the reasons I wanted to talk to both of you is because heading into the military, whatever people might fear about what you, Ryan, described is the loose cannon aspect of Trump potentially getting the country into a conflict overseas or something like that - people may, in the abstract, have something on the line. Your lives are on the line.
LEAVIS: Well, even though - sorry, this is Ryan. But even though Donald Trump will become the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, it is not entirely on his shoulders. He is not the commanding general of all of the armed forces.
SHAPIRO: If it were on his shoulders, would you have confidence in him?
LEAVIS: I would have confidence in General Mattis, who he picked to be secretary of defense.
MILLER: I do in part agree with Ryan. I think Mattis is, you know, going to be a great - is a great pick for secretary of defense. And, you know, it's not entirely on Donald Trump, but at the end of the day, he's the commander-in-chief. He's given the final say.
SHAPIRO: I think today in America, so many Trump voters are surrounded by only Trump voters and so many Clinton voters are surrounded by only Clinton voters...
MILLER: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: ...And are in these sort of Facebook bubbles and where we live determines who we vote for. You guys are friends in a fraternity together. What advice do you have for people in their bubbles?
MILLER: It's politics. I mean, it shouldn't get in the way of, you know, your friendships. I mean, we were friends before this election. We're friends during the election. We're going to be friends after the election. Just because someone has a different opinion than you doesn't mean they're an awful person, doesn't mean they're a bad guy.
LEAVIS: Yeah - a hundred 100 percent. I think you're a great guy, Alex, but...
MILLER: (Laughter) You're all right.
(LAUGHTER)
LEAVIS: Tough love. But, no, I definitely - I think that if a lot of people sat down and actually had, you know, conversations with each other, I think that we'd find that we can find common ground and we can work together to make a Donald Trump presidency, hopefully...
SHAPIRO: I was sure you were going to say make America great again.
(LAUGHTER)
MILLER: In a way.
LEAVIS: In a way - in a way. Yeah, I wouldn't - I definitely want to make America great again, but I think that we can work together.
MILLER: I don't think anyone wants - doesn't want that.
LEAVIS: I think we can work together to make it happen.
SHAPIRO: Ryan and Alex, thanks for your time.
LEAVIS: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having us.
MILLER: Thank you. Thank you.
MCEVERS: That was Ryan Leavis and Alex Miller talking to our co-host Ari Shapiro. Tomorrow, the trip continues through Virginia to Roanoke.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
This week, as we look forward to Inauguration Day, our co-host Ari Shapiro is talking to people in North Carolina and Virginia. He's been asking voters there for their feelings about Donald Trump. The next person we're going to hear from did not vote, even though he had a lot riding on the election. His name is Juan de la Rosa Diaz. He's 20 years old. He wears a T-shirt that says I Am Undocumented. Ari met him in the Hispanic Cultural Center at Virginia Tech, where Juan is in his last semester as a political science major.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Juan de la Rosa Diaz came to the U.S. from Mexico with his parents when he was five years old. He has sisters who were born here. They're American citizens. Juan always knew that he was undocumented and that he had to keep it a secret. But he only really understood what it meant when he turned 16, and all of his friends started getting driver's licenses.
JUAN DE LA ROSA DIAZ: And so for all of high school, all of my friends just thought I was a really bad driver, and that's why I didn't have my license. And so when you're undocumented, you get really good at lying - all these little white lies that sort of you use to build a barrier that protects you and your family. It's not only my secret. It's my family's secret.
SHAPIRO: President Obama signed an executive order that meant Juan didn't have to lie anymore. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, meant that he could get a driver's license and permission to work. He went to college with plans to get a Ph.D. and become a university professor. Donald Trump campaigned on undoing all of that.
DIAZ: You know, for me, it's not only what it'll mean for me, but what it will mean for all of the other undocumented students I've come to know. In-state tuition is one of the things that could instantly go away if the DACA program is rescinded. And so what does that mean for all of the other DACA students that are still continuing their education? I'll be graduating, but I still care about the access to education that other DACA students have.
SHAPIRO: Do you think of deportation as a real threat?
DIAZ: Yeah. I think that's probably, you know, the biggest fear. It's always in the back of my mind. And that's particularly scary for individuals who have DACA - who have the deferred action program - because when we apply to a DACA, we have to do things like turn over all of our information - where we live, how long we've been here, what we look like.
SHAPIRO: Tell me about what it was like going to class the day after the election.
DIAZ: The day after the election, I actually didn't go to class at all. I was actually in here all day. I was actually in the Hispanic...
SHAPIRO: Here meaning the Hispanic Cultural Center.
DIAZ: Yeah - the Hispanic Cultural Center all day because it was one of the few places on campus that, like, the day after the election I felt safe. And the second day after the election, I thought, you know, it's been a day. I've had my time to recover. I think I should be fine.
And so I remember getting to my first class. I look up, and projected onto the projector screen was Donald Trump's victory speech. And I just remember, like, trying to hold back the tears, and I just got really emotional. I just walked out, and, like, the professor chased after me. And I just needed more time to process. I thought I was ready, but I just need more time to process because even though I thought it was fine, I knew it was going to get - like I'm getting emotional right now, like, just thinking about seeing - like, being in that moment.
SHAPIRO: It's not just that the man who was elected might change legal policies for people who are undocumented. It's also that during the campaign, Donald Trump said a lot of really terrible things about Mexicans. He referred to Mexican immigrants as murderers and rapists. And that was just the first day of his campaign.
DIAZ: Right. Right. No. I thought about this the night of the election when, you know, I knew Donald Trump had won. And I just remember, like, texting my sisters at that time and just telling them, you know, no matter the outcome of this election, this country is still yours. But I had difficulty telling them that because I almost felt betrayed by this country. I almost felt betrayed that, you know, the country I'd grown enough to call home for the last 16 years would elect somebody that would almost reject everything that, you know, my person is built on.
SHAPIRO: You texted your sisters who are American citizens, and you said this is - this country still belongs to you. Do you feel like this country belongs to you?
DIAZ: I definitely feel like this country belongs to me, and people can disagree with it all they want. I think that I've built such a strong connection to this country. I consider myself Mexican-American. It's not only that I don't consider myself a Mexican national living in the United States. I very much consider myself woven into the fabric of this country because it's taught me everything I know. It's given me so many opportunities.
SHAPIRO: After Friday when Donald Trump is inaugurated president, will you wear your I Am Undocumented T-shirt any less often?
DIAZ: No. I don't think I'll wear it any less often. I think if anything, now is the time more than ever to say, you know, undocumented individuals are not all criminals. Like, I'm a student at Virginia Tech. We have to be able to see undocumented individuals not by their status, but by the contributions that they've been willing to make to this country.
SHAPIRO: Juan, thanks for talking with us.
DIAZ: My pleasure.
MCEVERS: That's Juan de la Rosa Diaz talking to our co-host Ari Shapiro in Blacksburg, Va.
POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In the audio of this story, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was incorrectly referred to as an executive order. It is an executive action.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump has spent the past few weeks filling out the top jobs in his administration. And along the way, he has named some prominent people as special advisers. NPR's Jim Zarroli looks at what a special adviser does and why Trump's move has some people worried.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Trump named former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani special adviser on cybersecurity, and he named billionaire investor Carl Icahn special adviser on regulatory issues. What they'll be doing is still unclear. The title special advisor is a vague one.
WILLIAM GALSTON: It is not a formal title. Special advisor means whatever the president wants it to mean.
ZARROLI: Bill Galston, senior fellow in government studies at the Brookings Institution, says there have long been advisors at the White House, such as Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett. But Trump seems to intend special adviser to be a kind of honorific - someone whose advice he can seek from time to time. Interviewed on CNBC last month, Icahn said he won't be making policy. He'll be giving advice about things such as hiring.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CARL ICAHN: It doesn't mean Donald is going to take my advice necessarily. I'm not the guy saying, well, he's got the job.
ZARROLI: What separates Icahn and Giuliani from other advisors is that neither is giving up his day job. Icahn is an active investor with large stakes in companies that have business before the government, including Xerox and AIG. Giuliani has a cybersecurity consulting practice. Galston says being named as Trump's cybersecurity adviser can only help Giuliani's business.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ICAHN: The way the world works - if you're perceived as having proximity to power, that brings certain advantages.
ZARROLI: To Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Trump's reliance on advisors with a financial stake in government policy is a problem.
NOAH BOOKBINDER: I think there's a significant cause for concern there. You have people who are going to be advising the president, apparently in a important way, on issues that directly affect their businesses.
ZARROLI: Bookbinder says because special advisers aren't formal positions, they aren't covered by conflict of interest laws, and it's hard to know what their real roles are.
BOOKBINDER: These people don't need to be officially vetted. They don't need to be confirmed, and their arrangements are not in any official ways scrutinized by Congress.
ZARROLI: But Bill Galston, who worked in the Clinton White House, says what Trump is doing isn't necessarily unusual. All presidents turn to outsiders for advice.
GALSTON: People give self-interested advice to politicians all the time. If that were criminal activity, I think our jails would be even fuller than they are.
ZARROLI: Galston says it will be up to President Trump to sift through all the advice he gets and judge whether the advisor is acting in the country's best interests. And in the end, that's one of the ways he will be judged. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Supporters of President-elect Donald Trump are preparing for his inauguration on Friday. So, too, are protesters. They've already begun with rallies in front of the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Tonight they're holding what they're calling a queer dance party outside the D.C. home of Vice President-elect Mike Pence. The groups say there's much more to come, as NPR's Pam Fessler reports.
ROBBY DIESU: Take a step in if you're ready to disrupt the inauguration - yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
DIESU: All right, all right, thanks, folks. Go ahead and take your seats.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: Several would-be protesters were at a training session this weekend run by a group called DisruptJ20. Their goal, as you might have guessed, is to disrupt, if not stop, Trump's inauguration. Trainer Robby Diesu has everyone lined up to show how it can be done nonviolently. He tells one side to be protesters and tells the others to pretend they're Trump supporters.
DIESU: Who just drove eight hours to get here and to see President Trump become president. And you've come upon a protest that is preventing you from getting there. So ready, set, go.
(CROSSTALK)
FESSLER: Things quickly break down. Diesu later tells the group they can de-escalate tension first by lowering their voices and never touching their adversaries. DisruptJ20 plans to blockade or protest at every security checkpoint along the inaugural parade route.
Kate is with a group promoting LGBTQ rights. She won't give her full name. Many here are antsy about going public. She says they plan to dance, spread glitter and hand out rainbow flags.
KATE: Showing people who are trying to attend the inauguration that we're not going away.
FESSLER: And that they'll fight any effort to repeal laws protecting their rights. It will likely be one of dozens of protests around the city. Thousands of pro-Trump supporters will also be along the parade route.
One group, Bikers for Trump, has warned that they'll form a, quote, "wall of meat" to prevent protesters from spoiling the event, which has raised some concerns about possible violence. But at least one protest promises to be very mellow.
ADAM EIDINGER: So you put the filter tip at the beginning of the joint, and then you place the marijuana in there kind of like a taco shell.
FESSLER: Adam Eidinger and several volunteers are in his dining room rolling cigarettes. They plan to hand out a few thousand joints for free on Inauguration Day. They don't want the new administration to turn back the legalization gains made here and elsewhere in recent years.
EIDINGER: It's actually saying, we're here. We're a community. We're not going to be cowered. We just won 8 out of 9 ballot initiatives as a community in this last election cycle. We're more popular than either one of the two presidential candidates in all the public opinion polling. Why are you still putting us in jail?
FESSLER: This week's biggest protest won't be on Inauguration Day itself but the day after when the Women's March on Washington is expected to attract some 200,000 people.
CARMEN PEREZ: We're going to have musical performances. We're going to have spoken word. There are some people that have been working with us in the movement for quite some time that will be on that stage performing. We'll have gospels.
FESSLER: Carmen Perez is one of the organizers. She says more than a protest, the march is a chance for women to show their political clout. Many fear that things they care about like reproductive rights and racial equality are threatened by the new administration. Perez says the initial goal is to be heard.
PEREZ: And if they don't continue to listen to us and if they're trying to take away some of our rights, we'll come back.
FESSLER: Like the others, she says this is the beginning, not the end. Pam Fessler, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF HECTOR PLIMMER SONG, "MISSION TO THE MOON")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Donald Trump's nominee for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency was on Capitol Hill today. At the same time, government climate scientists announced that 2016 was the planet's hottest year on record. It is the third year in a row that record has been set.
Climate change was one of the many issues Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was asked about today. NPR's Nathan Rott has been watching the proceedings, and he joins us now. Hi.
NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE: Hey, Robert.
SIEGEL: Let's start with that question about climate change. Donald Trump has said he believes climate change is a hoax. His nominee for secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, broke with that yesterday, saying he believes it's real. Where does Pruitt stand?
ROTT: Pruitt took the same line as Zinke. He said that he believes climate change is real, that science tells us that the climate is changing and that human activity is having an impact. But he was skeptical about just how big that impact was. He wouldn't say that human activity is the driving force behind climate change, which is what many in the scientific community believe. Instead, he said that the degree and extent of human impact and what should be done about it are subject to continuing debate and dialogue.
Now, this is similar to what he said before when he's accused Democrats and the Obama administration of silencing those debates. And it's important because as head of the EPA, Pruitt would be in charge of enforcing emission standards for pollutants like carbon and greenhouse gases.
SIEGEL: Now, Mr. Pruitt has had an antagonistic relationship with the Obama administration while he was attorney general in Oklahoma. He sued the EPA, the very agency he's been nominated to run, more than a dozen times. Was that brought up today?
ROTT: At length (laughter). A number of Democrats took Pruitt to task for not only that but his history of taking campaign contributions from oil and gas industries, polluters and then for suing the EPA, saying that as attorney general he represented industry and polluters instead of the public in Oklahoma. Pruitt obviously denied that charge and said he worked on behalf of his constituents and the state of Oklahoma by challenging what he saw as overreaching federal programs.
As attorney general, he sued the EPA on issues ranging from smog and mercury pollution to carbon emissions and water quality. And it's important to note that a number of those lawsuits are ongoing. That was something that was brought up by Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ED MARKEY: As EPA administrator, you would be in a position to serve as plaintiff, defendant, judge and jury on these ongoing eight lawsuits, and that would be wrong.
ROTT: Now, Markey tried getting Pruitt to say that he would recuse himself from those lawsuits if they came up while he was the administrator, but Pruitt said he'd follow the recommendations of his ethics committee.
SIEGEL: Scott Pruitt's critics say he is against the very mission of the EPA, that he'd probably prefer there be no federal EPA. What does he see as the role of the EPA?
ROTT: Well, so Scott Pruitt does not want to abolish the EPA. He says he believes that it has an important role in protecting the environment and the public's health, especially in issues across state lines. But it's his belief that the EPA has hurt states' economies and industry by overstepping its bounds. Let's hear a little about that now.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCOTT PRUITT: The states are not mere vessels of federal will. They don't exist simply to carry out federal dictates from Washington D.C. There are substantive requirements, obligations, authority, jurisdiction granted to the states under our environmental statutes. That needs to be respected.
ROTT: And this was a big talking point for Republican senators during the hearing, too - the idea of states' rights and federalism. Many talked about the damaged relationship between states and the EPA under the Obama administration, and Pruitt has promised to improve those relationships if he becomes the administrator.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Nathan Rott. Nate, thanks.
ROTT: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
More now on federalism and the environment. States and cities have long taken the lead in pushing for clean energy and climate initiatives, and for a sense of what we might see from the states during a Trump administration, we're joined now by Dallas Burtraw. He's a senior fellow with the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future. Welcome to the program.
DALLAS BURTRAW: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: And perhaps you can help us understand the landscape of state regulations and policies, where they're strongest and where they're weakest.
BURTRAW: There are state policies that are strong throughout the nation, but especially in the northeast states, in California and a number of other states, we see leadership on climate and energy policies. There's 10 states nationally that have cap and trade programs in place.
A number of other states have climate policy goals already articulated. And they take the shape mostly in the form of clean energy policies with over half the states in the country having funded energy efficiency standards.
SIEGEL: But if the federal government were not to have an activist EPA, would you expect the states to continue behaving as they've been behaving?
BURTRAW: I would expect to see these states really double down on their commitment to climate and energy policies partly because it's been so important for their economic development and job creation in those states. And even in the states that don't have in place these climate and energy policies that we refer to, we're seeing the breakout of market forces that are leading to the development of clean energy and industry that is very prominent even in so-called red states.
SIEGEL: You're saying in many states, there is strong an economic interest in sustainable energy development as in traditional fossil fuels.
BURTRAW: Well, that's right. We're seeing that across the solar and renewable industry, for example, there are more than twice as many jobs as there is in the coal electricity generation pathway.
SIEGEL: And is it fair to say that those jobs would exist even if the federal government were not subsidizing them in any way?
BURTRAW: Well, the federal subsidies have enabled those industries to develop and emerge now, but it's now the case that their costs have fallen that they're really competitive with coal and even natural gas.
SIEGEL: Now, California has its own auto emissions standards that are more rigorous than federal standards. Could the federal government say to California, you no longer have the authority to do that?
BURTRAW: Well, the way it works is California has a unique situation in that it can develop auto standards that exceed the federal standards. And then other states are given a choice about whether to jump onboard with California or to adhere to the federal standards.
And time after time over the last four decades, California has taken the lead and sought a waiver to enact its standards, and the federal standards are then ultimately caught up with California. And that's where we are just now with standards going through 2025.
SIEGEL: But what about California's waiver? Is that secure until 2025?
BURTRAW: Well, that's an uncertain question - whether Pruitt would go after to try to revoke the waiver for California. But every waiver request previously has always been accepted, and for him to go in and try to revoke a waiver that's already been granted - a lot of chicken feathers would hit the fan if that were to happen.
SIEGEL: From the sound of it, from the way you see it, it sounds like no matter what federal policy is at EPA, it's unlikely to have much effect on the environment. Is that being too rosy?
BURTRAW: That is being a little bit too rosy. What I would say - it's as though the federal government is taking its foot off the accelerator, and now we're going to be coasting. Many of the states that are providing leadership and developing policies will continue to do their part of the work, and I think the state-level policies will propagate to other states.
But the problems cannot ultimately be solved without some sort of federal involvement. The states can go so far, but they cannot really leverage the kind of actions that's necessary, especially on climate, at the international level. That requires a role for the federal government to coordinate and compel international partners to do their part.
SIEGEL: Dallas Burtraw, senior fellow with the D.C.-based think tank Resources for the Future, thanks for talking with us today.
BURTRAW: Thank you very much.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Obama gave the last press conference of his term today. The first topic he was asked about - his decision to commute the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning. Manning is the former Army private who gave hundreds of thousands of military and State Department records to WikiLeaks back in 2010. She was arrested, tried and convicted and sentenced to 35 years. But following Obama's clemency, she will get out of prison this May.
NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman is covering this story, and he's with us now. Hey, Tom.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey there.
MCEVERS: So why did the president say he decided to commute Chelsea Manning's prison sentence?
BOWMAN: Well, in short, the president said Manning had been punished enough. She was found guilty, paid the price with about seven years in prison. And here's what he talked about in a press conference today.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Let's be clear. Chelsea Manning has served a tough prison sentence. So the notion that the average person who was thinking about disclosing vital classified information would think that it goes unpunished I don't think would get that impression from the sentence that Chelsea Manning has served.
BOWMAN: And, Kelly, the president said that this was a commutation of the sentence and not a pardon. And he said that justice was served.
MCEVERS: I want to talk about WikiLeaks which published these documents for Manning. I mean how damaging were those documents? Does this commutation mean anything in terms of the government's position on WikiLeaks?
BOWMAN: Well, the - initially the leaks back in 2010 of military documents upset the Pentagon. One officer said that WikiLeaks had blood on its hand. There were, for example, names of Afghan informers. But there was never any indication that anyone got killed. Still, there was great concern about these sensitive military documents. And back then, with regard to the State Department documents released in 2010, then Defense Secretary Robert Gates said all of this was embarrassing, not all that damaging, though, to national security.
Now, the new administration of President-elect Trump has embraced WikiLeaks because it played of course such a big role in releasing the leaks during this recent election, the leaks of documents from Democratic operatives embarrassing to Hillary Clinton. And they - these were hacked of course by Russian intelligence.
And Assange was stridently anti-Clinton and suggested that he'd surrender to the U.S. if Obama granted clemency to Manning. Now that the president has, no one expects him to get on a plane to the U.S. But we'll have to watch what happens with WikiLeaks and whether it's a partisan supporter of Trump or what happens. We don't know that yet.
MCEVERS: One person who did not get clemency was Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who also leaked sensitive government documents. Why no pardon for him?
BOWMAN: Well, the White House says he never applied for a pardon, but also, his leaks were far more serious, officials say. It included war plans for Korea, for the Middle East, for Russia. It included collections of how the NSA collects against foreign adversaries - very, very sensitive information. It's far different from what Chelsea Manning leaked. So for that reason, they were never even considering a pardon for Edward Snowden. Also, Snowden fled to Russia, which is a big deal, too.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Tom Bowman. Thank you very much.
BOWMAN: You're welcome.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Donald Trump's pick for commerce secretary didn't get quite the grilling that some of Trump's other nominees did from Democratic senators. Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross actually sees eye to eye with some Democrats and makes some Republicans nervous. NPR's Chris Arnold reports.
CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: Wilbur Ross is a former Democrat. He's won the support of labor unions. He saved tens of thousands of jobs buying and basically rescuing bankrupt steel companies. And Democrats today largely offered Ross a warm reception, though that did not extend to the incoming president.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: I think you have really made a very personal sacrifice.
ARNOLD: Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said he was impressed by Ross' decision to sell off a huge portion of his assets to avoid conflicts of interest.
BLUMENTHAL: I don't want to embarrass you or presume, but of all of the billions of dollars in holdings, you have divested more than 90 percent. You have resigned from 50 positions. The process has been enormously complex and challenging and costly to you personally, correct?
WILBUR ROSS: Yes, sir.
BLUMENTHAL: And I want to ask you very directly - shouldn't the president of the United States do the same?
ROSS: Well, as I understand it, the ethics rules that apply to Senate to approve nominees do not apply to the president.
BLUMENTHAL: But simply as a matter of appearance and morality, for that matter, you were able to do it. Why not the president?
ROSS: I'm not familiar enough, Senator, with the exactitudes of his holdings.
ARNOLD: Ross politely deflected ethical questions about Donald Trump during the hearing, but, interestingly, some of the deepest concerns about Ross came not from Democrats, but from Republicans. Both Ross and Trump have talked about protecting U.S. businesses by erecting tariffs against foreign competitors. That makes many free trade Republicans nervous. Senator Todd Young from Indiana said a lot of people in his state work for foreign companies.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TODD YOUNG: Subaru in Lafayette employs 5,000. Toyota in Princeton - roughly 4,500 Hoosiers. So can you reassure the tens of thousands of autoworkers and others whose jobs rely on free trade that their livelihoods will not be put at risk by restrictive tariffs?
ARNOLD: Several other Republicans sought similar assurances from Ross. Ross basically said that he had no intention of damaging the U.S. economy by starting a trade war, but he also said that if other countries cheat, break trade agreements, that tariffs are crucial for enforcement.
(SOUNDBITE CONGRESSIONAL HEARING)
ROSS: We are a country of the rule of law. Some of these other countries are instead the law of the ruler. That's an asymmetry that permeates all kinds of sectors of their economies and ours, and we need to deal with that.
ARNOLD: Ross also said that the first thing he wants to do is deal with unfair trade barriers imposed by other countries, and he repeatedly talked about China.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROSS: It's a little weird that we have very low tariffs, and China has very high tariffs. That seems to me to be a bit of an imbalance.
ARNOLD: Unlike Donald Trump's often oversimplified rhetoric about trade, Ross offered nuance in his answers. He said he preferred carrots to sticks for dealing with trading partners. He acknowledged at one point that technology kills a lot of jobs and didn't just blame cheap labor abroad. This afternoon, Democrat and ranking member Senator Bill Nelson of Florida thanked Ross for his non-evasive answers and summed things up this way.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BILL NELSON: This hearing is a piece of cake compared to some of the other nominees.
ARNOLD: So a betting person would probably put money on Wilbur Ross becoming the next commerce secretary of the United States. Chris Arnold, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case brought by an Asian-American rock group that calls itself The Slants. The group is challenging the 1946 trademark law which bars the government from registering trademarks that disparage individuals or groups. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: The band members acknowledge that the name they picked for their group is viewed as offensive and racist by many Asian-Americans. But they say they're seeking to reclaim the term and make it something positive. Simon Tam is the group's bass player.
SIMON TAM: We fought this case for nearly eight years now because we want to prevent the government from discrimination based on viewpoint.
TOTENBERG: The government counters that there's nothing in the law that prevents The Slants from speaking out through their music. Indeed they're entitled to trademark their name, but when it comes to getting the extra protections afforded by registering the name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the law bars such racial slurs.
Inside the Supreme Court chamber, the argument was fast and furious with almost all the justices, liberal and conservative, beating up both sides ferociously. Defending the law, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart argued that Congress reasonably put a limit on what kinds of names the government should give its imprimatur to with a trademark registration that's published throughout the world.
Justice Kennedy - but to ignore the fact that we have a culture in which we have T-shirts and logos and rock bands and so forth that are expressing a point of view - Justice Breyer - the government is saying, you can say something nice about a minority group, but you can't say something bad about them.
The government's Stewart replied that the function of a trademark is to tell the public the source of the goods or services. It's not expressive in its own right, he said. And while most trademarks seek in some way to advertise or promote, Congress justifiably barred disparaging marks.
Justice Kagan - I can say all politicians are virtuous, but I can't say all politicians are corrupt? Why is that not viewpoint discrimination? It's not that simple, replied Stewart. Here, Congress reasonably barred registering disparaging trademarks in the same way that a public university might set aside a room for students to post messages as long as those messages contain no racial epithets or personal attacks. Justice Kennedy, caustically - so the government is the omnipresent schoolteacher. Is that what you're saying?
Moments later, The Slants lawyer, John Connell, also found himself facing a barrage of hostile questions. Justice Kennedy - what if this band were non-Asians, wore makeup to exaggerate slanted eyes and made fun of Asians? Could the government decline to register that as a trademark in your view? Answer - they could not.
Justice Sotomayor - but you're asking the government to endorse these names with a trademark registration. Justice Breyer - do you believe the government can stop trademarks from saying Joe Jones is a jerk? Answer - they could not stop that. Justice Breyer, incredulous - so they could not stop a trademark that says Smith's beer is poison? They could not. Justice Breyer - my goodness, there are laws all over the place that stop you from saying that.
Justice Ginsburg - could the government refused to register a trademark using one of George Carlin's seven dirty words? No, replied lawyer Connell. That would be a burden on speech. Ginsburg - even though this court said it was OK to ban those words from the airwaves? Justice Alito - you say the expressive and commercial aspects of the trademark are intertwined. If that's true, could the government ban cigarette manufacturers from putting a message on the packages saying great for your health; don't believe the surgeon general?
Lawyer Connell seemed to suggest such a message ban would be unconstitutional. At the end of the day, viewing the argument as a whole, one could only say it was schizophrenic. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We're going to take a moment now to remember William Onyeabor, a groundbreaking Nigerian funk musician in the 1970s and '80s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOOD NAME")
WILLIAM ONYEABOR: (Singing) I have a good name. I have a good name and no money, no money, no money, no money. No money can buy my name.
MCEVERS: Until at one point, he just stopped making music. Onyeabor died this week at the age of 70 according to Luaka Bop. That's the record label that reissued his work in America after a lot of persuading.
With us to talk about Onyeabor is someone who helped convince him to rerelease those old recordings. Uchenna Ikonne is a Nigerian music scholar, and he joins us on Skype from Boston. Welcome to the show.
UCHENNA IKONNE: Thanks a lot for having me.
MCEVERS: So let's go back to Onyeabor's days as a recording artist. What made his music stand out from other artists like, say, Fela Kuti?
IKONNE: One thing that distinguishes his music was that it was largely not band-based. It was studio-based, which was something new at the time. Most bands played live, and then they made records to sort of document their live performance.
He, on the other hand, made records that were conceived wholly in the studio. He was able to integrate a lot of new technology, such as synthesizers, drum machines and the like. So that gave his music a sort of a futuristic feel.
(SOUNDBITE OF WILLIAM ONYEABOR SONG "GOOD NAME")
MCEVERS: And he ended his music career pretty abruptly, right?
IKONNE: Yeah. He stopped recording in 1985. The reasons for that are not completely clear. I have my own theories about it.
MCEVERS: What are they?
IKONNE: The popular mythology right now is that he stopped because he became a born-again Christian. I don't think that's correct. The music industry started to decline halfway through the '80s. And since Onyeabor was strictly a businessman, I don't think he really wanted to involve himself in something that was not profitable for him. But the bigger issue is the fact that he got involved in politics, and being a pop star didn't really jive well with being a politician.
MCEVERS: As we said, you were involved in reviving Onyeabor's music here in the U.S., but to do it, you had to get him to sign a contract first. So you went to his hometown of Enugu, Nigeria. What was he like when you visited him?
IKONNE: Initially, he was extremely warm. But then shortly after that, he became a cold-blooded businessman...
MCEVERS: Oh.
IKONNE: ...And quite a cutthroat negotiator.
MCEVERS: Yeah 'cause at one point, I read that he considered you an agent of Satan.
(LAUGHTER)
IKONNE: I had started to get impatient because at this time, I had been in Nigeria for almost a year. I was getting really tired. I was broke. And I just really...
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
IKONNE: ...Had to get the deal closed. And (laughter) he wasn't playing ball. So there was a time that I decided I had to get really firm with him. And he said, you've come over here to disrupt my life and cause me all these problems, and I'm starting to think that you are an agent of Satan.
MCEVERS: With the rerelease of his music, he actually did find this whole new audience here in the U.S. Did he ever consider a tour or making new music? Or was he just going to remain an enigma until the end?
IKONNE: He definitely never considered a tour. He did plan to make some more music. He was supposedly working on a new album. I don't know if any of that was actually put on tape or not.
MCEVERS: Oh, so you're saying there could be some Onyeabor music out there that we haven't heard yet.
IKONNE: Possibly.
MCEVERS: Uchenna Ikonne is a writer and record producer and one of the people who helped bring William Onyeabor's music to the digital age. Onyeabor died on Monday at the age of 70. Uchenna, thank you so much.
IKONNE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BODY AND SOUL")
ONYEABOR: (Singing) When I play my kind of music, I'm playing for your body and soul. When I sing my kind of song...
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The White House press room was standing room only this afternoon. President Obama took questions from reporters one last time before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on Friday. Obama says he's been offering advice to the incoming president, but he acknowledged Trump is likely to pursue a very different agenda. NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now. Hi, Scott.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: Scott, Obama continues to exercise his own presidential power while he still has it, including his move this week to shorten the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning. She's the former intelligence analyst who gave reams of classified information to WikiLeaks. And Obama has been criticized for that. What did he say today?
HORSLEY: Yeah, Obama did not downplay the seriousness of Manning's crime which critics say put American lives at risk. What the president does say is that Manning took responsibility for that crime and was punished in a way that sends a significant signal to other would-be leakers.
Obama says the original sentence Manning was given was disproportionate - 35 years. And even though he shortened that sentence, Obama notes Manning will still have served about seven years by the time she's released in May.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Let's be clear. Chelsea Manning has served a tough prison sentence.
HORSLEY: Manning's one of more than 200 prisoners whose sentences Obama commuted this week. And the White House says we could see more grants of clemency before Obama leaves office on Friday.
MCEVERS: President Obama says his conversations with President-elect Donald Trump have been cordial and sometimes lengthy. Trump has promised to reverse much of what Obama has tried to do over the last eight years. So what are they talking about?
HORSLEY: Obama says he hopes the incoming president will see some issues differently once he's actually sitting in the Oval Office. But he doesn't have any real illusions that Trump, who campaigned as the anti-Obama, is suddenly going to do a 180. Obama says by necessity, a lot of Trump's views are going to be shaped by the people he surrounds himself with.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
OBAMA: Which is why it's important to pay attention to these confirmation hearings. I can tell you that - and this is something I have told him - that this is a job of such magnitude that you can't do it by yourself.
MCEVERS: After the inauguration on Friday, Obama and his family are going to fly off to California for a vacation. What's next for him after that?
HORSLEY: Obama said he still plans to be an active citizen and that he will speak out if he sees what he calls core values being challenged. He gave the example of rounding up immigrants who are brought to the country illegally as children.
But the outgoing president also seemed to pour cold water on the idea that he's going to be deeply involved in kind of everyday policy debates in the next few months. Obama says he wants to spend time with his family, do some writing and be quiet for a bit and not hear himself talk so much.
MCEVERS: Obama ended his final press conference today with the same kind of hopeful, optimistic message that he brought into the White House eight years ago even though Donald Trump is not the successor he would have chosen. What's he saying about that?
HORSLEY: Yeah, the president was asked in particular how he and the first lady had been talking to their daughters about the election after Mrs. Obama was so outspoken about Donald Trump and some of his conduct towards women. The president said Sasha and Malia are disappointed by the election results, but they're also resilient. And he seemed to be recommending that quality to his fellow Democrats, saying the thing he's proudest about of his daughters is that they don't get cynical.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
OBAMA: I think they could not help but be patriotic, to love this country deeply, to see that it's flawed but see that they have responsibilities to fix it.
HORSLEY: And as he got set to leave the press room for the last time, Obama said, at my core, I think we're going to be OK.
MCEVERS: NPR's Scott Horsley, thank you.
HORSLEY: You're welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Several of Donald Trump's Cabinet picks were at Senate hearings on Capitol Hill today. Trump's choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services got some tough questions. Georgia Congressman Tom Price was asked to explain why he invested in companies then introduced legislation that affected those companies. Price said he had hired a broker to manage his finances, and he wasn't aware of the transactions. Price also got plenty of questions about the future of Obamacare. NPR's Allison Kojak reports.
ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: The senators tried to pin Price down on the incoming Trump administration's plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. He had to answer for his own past proposals and for the statements of his future boss. Democratic Senator Patty Murray criticized him for supporting a bill that will allow lawmakers to repeal Obamacare.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PATTY MURRAY: Just last week, you voted to begin the process of ripping apart our health care system without any plan to replace it despite independent studies showing that nearly 30 million people would lose health care coverage.
KODJAK: But she wasn't alone in her concern. Her Republican counterpart, Lamar Alexander, made the case for lawmakers to slow down.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LAMAR ALEXANDER: The president-elect has said, let's do a repeal and replace simultaneously. To me, that must mean that any repeal of parts of Obamacare wouldn't take effect until after some concrete, practical alternative were in place for Americans to choose.
KODJAK: Price agreed and suggested Democrats are scaring the public by saying millions of people are about to lose their health insurance.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TOM PRICE: Nobody's interested in pulling a rug out from under anybody. We believe that it's absolutely imperative that individuals that have health coverage be able to keep health coverage.
KODJAK: Price also assured the senators that he doesn't intend to include any changes to Medicare in the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. Senator Bernie Sanders also sought reassurance about Medicare as well as Medicaid and Social Security. He read a series of comments that President-elect Trump has made over the last two years promising not to cut any of those programs. Price said he expects Trump will keep those promises.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BERNIE SANDERS: So you are telling us that to the best of your knowledge, Mr. Trump will not cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
PRICE: As I say, I have no reason to believe that that position has changed.
KODJAK: Price will face another round of questions next week at his official confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. Alison Kodjak, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH SONG, "THE SKIN OF MY YELLOW COUNTRY TEETH")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
When Barack Obama was elected president more than eight years ago, many people around the world celebrated. There was one notable exception - Russia. The day after Obama's election, Russia's president at the time, Dmitry Medvedev, announced the deployment of nuclear-capable missiles to the Polish border. Well, now Russia is awaiting Donald Trump's inauguration with the same eager anticipation that the rest of the world once greeted Obama. NPR's Lucian Kim reports from Moscow.
LUCIAN KIM, BYLINE: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week that the Obama administration had broken enough chinaware and was looking forward to a fresh start with a Trump White House.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SERGEI LAVROV: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: Lavrov said he understood that Trump was looking for the most effective way to secure America's national interests. That coincides exactly with Russia's idea of how to conduct its own foreign policy, Lavrov said, and it would be, quote, "stupid not to cooperate where the two countries interests intersect." The Kremlin has reacted angrily to suggestions that it interfered in the U.S. presidential election to help Trump win. Yesterday, Putin tried to set the record straight.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: "I don't know Mr. Trump, and I've never met him," Putin said. "I don't know what he'll do on the international stage, so I don't have any reason to attack, criticize or defend him." But the message the Kremlin has been sending is clear. Trump is Russia's best hope to get Obama's sanctions lifted and the U.S. off its case. That idea is being delivered by the national TV channels which all are controlled by the Kremlin.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DMITRY KISELYOV: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: On his weekly news program last Sunday, moderator Dmitry Kiselyov mocked Obama's farewell speech in Chicago. "Never have so many male teachers been shed in politics," Kiselyov said. That's how it used to be under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and now in America under Obama. Scenes of death and destruction caused by U.S. foreign policy then filled the screen.
Judging by a recent poll, Russians have gotten the message. A poll taken by the independent Levada Center after the U.S. election showed that 60 percent of Russians believe Trump will be better for Russia compared to a mere 5 percent who thought Hillary Clinton would have been.
In an unusual honor for a foreign leader, silversmiths in the Ural Mountains were commissioned to mint a commemorative coin featuring the 45th U.S. president with the words in Trump we trust. The company's website says it's the perfect gift for your boss, business partner or client and a symbol of success and, quote, "unique accomplishments." On Monday, Russian TV celebrated Trump's own accomplishments and introduced his extended family.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: Limos, jets and high rises flashed by, but when the announcer introduced Trump's sister Elizabeth, footage of Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the president-elect's fiercest critics, appeared. Now, even Donald Trump would call that fake news. Lucian Kim, NPR News, Moscow.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In our series Finding America, we've been visiting some of the communities that make up the country Donald Trump will soon lead. Today, we go to Holdenville, Okla., home to about 5,800 people. It has a small downtown - banks, restaurants and a few shops. Some are closed.
BROWNIE HARJO: G.W. McShan founded this town October 10, 1895, and named it Holdenville. This is the first location - my building.
MCEVERS: That's Brownie Harjo reading the historical plaque outside the entrance to his martial arts studio, his dojo. It's up a flight a creaky wooden stairs - a big, open area with blue mats, punching bags and other equipment. And every Thursday night, a group of kids climbs those stairs for a taekwondo class with Harjo.
HARJO: On your feet. Let's go. Enough chit-chat. We're going work now. (Unintelligible). Feet together, out - jumping jacks. Go.
I've lived in Holdenville for over 50 years. I've taught martial arts for over 30 years. Hoy, hoy, hoy, hoy, hoy, hoy (ph).
I've been here at this current location, which is the old Chestnut Hardware Store, for about five years. Actually, my grandpa used to work here when it was a hardware store. Sam Coleman (ph) - Salesman Sam, they called him - and they stored caskets up here.
One.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: One.
HARJO: Two.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Two.
HARJO: Three.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Three.
HARJO: Four.
It's not an industrial town. It's not a rich town. It's a poor town. There's a lot of empty buildings and houses here that just - are just falling in. And we have the same problem as the United States has, as far as greedy people. They'd rather see a building of theirs fall in than to let somebody get some use out of it, you know.
On your feet. (Unintelligible).
I don't know if Holdenville was ever great, but Holdenville is always home. The pride just kind of went away lately. There's good people at Holdenville. Some of the best people I've ever met are here, and a lot of them are right here in my dojo, you know.
No, other way.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Like this, Brownie?
HARJO: Let me see. Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Like this? Like this? Like this? Like this?
HARJO: We're not just here just to punch and kick. We're here to improve ourselves.
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Yeah, 'cause it'll be more faster.
HARJO: We all have between 10 to 20 kids, ages 12 and under.
Say tae.
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Taekwondo.
HARJO: Kwon.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Kwon.
HARJO: Do.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Do.
HARJO: Good. Close your eyes. Forget about whatever you've been thinking about.
They all do baseball, football, soccer, basketball where they compete. And sometimes you need to kind of keep in perspective that it's a game, that you're competing and there's going to be a lot of animosity developed during then between you and other kids and you and parents. The parents want every kid to be superstars, and not every kid is a superstar, as opposed to what I want here - is every kid is as good a superstar as they can be.
Who's your toughest opponent? Jocelyn (ph), who's your toughest opponent?
JOCELYN: Me.
HARJO: You are. That's right. You are your toughest opponent.
I think everyone needs to have pride in something. If you don't have pride in something, you lose hope.
Good job. Jimmy, don't attack me.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Unintelligible).
HARJO: There's good here in Holdenville.
One.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Hyah (ph).
HARJO: Two.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Hyah (ph).
HARJO: This building - this is the oldest building in town.
Three.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Hyah (ph).
HARJO: It's cold in the winter, it's cold in here. When it's hot in the summer, it's hot in here. It's still standing, so this building's has got a lot of character. It's got a lot of stories probably, so I guess we're just adding to the legacy of it.
Four.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Hyah (ph).
MCEVERS: That was Brownie Harjo at his martial arts studio in Holdenville, Okla. His story was produced by Alison Herrera, with help from Emily Wendler. It comes to us from Localore: Finding America, a national production of AIR, the Association of Independents in Radio. You can find more stories at NPR and at Finding America.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Government scientists announced today that 2016 was the hottest year on Earth since recordkeeping began in the 1800s. That has environmentalists worried. They're also worried about Donald Trump, who has called global warming a hoax. And joining me to discuss the state of the climate and the state of the government's climate research is NPR's science editor Geoff Brumfiel. Hi.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Hi.
SIEGEL: The report says we just experienced the hottest year on record. Haven't we heard that before?
BRUMFIEL: Yeah. This is actually the third year in a row we've had a record. That's according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The global surface temperature was around 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. That may not sound like a lot, but it's huge in climate terms. Now, a big part of this had to do with manmade global warming, but there was an added effect from El Nino, the Pacific weather event. That caused a jump in the long-term steady rise in temperatures. NOAA scientist Deke Arndt explained it to me this way.
DEKE ARNDT: The long-term warming is a lot like riding up an escalator over time. The longer you're on the escalator, the higher you go. And the El Nino phenomenon is like jumping up and down while you're on the escalator.
BRUMFIEL: El Nino is over now, so the temperatures will likely not set a record in 2017. But we're still on this long, upward trend, and there's no end in sight.
SIEGEL: Now, some environmentalists are worried about what the Trump administration might mean for climate science. I want you to walk us through their concerns.
BRUMFIEL: Government plays this huge role. I mean, it produces reports like the one we're seeing here. And Donald Trump is about to become basically the boss of all these climate scientists. Now, as we mentioned, in the past, he said things like it's a Chinese plot to hurt U.S. manufacturing.
SIEGEL: The idea of global warming...
BRUMFIEL: That's right. More recently, he's been more, in his words, open-minded about it, but there's been some worrying signs. The Department of Energy received a questionnaire from the Trump transition team. It asked for the names of scientists who had attended climate meetings. And some people were fearful that could mean that there would be some sort of purge. The administration has since backed away from that. They haven't gotten the names. But people are really worried about what this could mean.
SIEGEL: How could a Trump administration conceivably affect climate change research?
BRUMFIEL: Well, any sort of full-on purge like the one people talked about is very unlikely. I mean, the U.S. has an enormous investment in satellites and weather stations and manpower. I mean, it has a lot of people working on climate change. But politicians have a history of dabbling in climate science. George W. Bush tinkered with an EPA report on climate. Just recently, the Obama administration was accused of fiddling with the fracking report.
And I think that's where you'll see the change. It will be in the way this information is presented to the public and the way it's put out there. Ultimately, that's going to be up to the people who are running these agencies, like NOAA and NASA. And so far, we haven't seen names for those administration positions, so I think we have to wait and see.
SIEGEL: NPR's Geoff Brumfiel, thanks.
BRUMFIEL: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Obama granted clemency to more than 200 people yesterday. Among them was Oscar Lopez Rivera. He has been in prison since 1981. To his supporters, he is a freedom fighter for the cause of Puerto Rican independence. To others, he's a terrorist. Maria Hinojosa is the host of Latino USA and has been reporting on Oscar Lopez Rivera's story for months. Welcome to the show.
MARIA HINOJOSA, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So tell us who he is. And what was the group he was involved with?
HINOJOSA: So Oscar Lopez Rivera is 74 years old now. He was born in Puerto Rico. He moved to Chicago when he was about 14, and he was drafted to serve in Vietnam as a young man. And actually, it was in Vietnam when he said that he became politicized. We spoke to him back in 2016 for our documentary on Latino USA, and he said it was there that he became more politicized - you know, the whole context of colonialism, Vietnam, political protest.
When he comes back from Vietnam where he earns a Bronze Star for his bravery, essentially comes back to Chicago, becomes a community organizer, becomes much more politicized. And there he becomes a part of the FALN, the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, or the Armed Forces of National Liberation, which was a clandestine armed revolutionary group fighting against colonialism in Puerto Rico.
MCEVERS: The group was responsible for setting off over 70 bombs. The deadliest one was at the Fraunces Tavern. Tell us about that.
HINOJOSA: Right. That's in Lower Manhattan in the Financial District. It was January of 1975. And yeah, FALN had basically said they were not attempting to kill people, that they did want to harm property. But in this case, they did. Sixty people were injured. Four people were killed. The FALN left a note there in New York City saying that the bombing was targeting, quote, "reactionary corporate executives."
That day, the father of Joe Connor happened to have lunch at Fraunces Tavern. He was killed in 1975. And we spoke with Joe Connor, his son, and this is what he had to say about the release of Oscar Lopez Rivera.
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JOE CONNOR: I'm hearing he's a freedom fighter. He's done all these things. He's not violent. But what did he do if not being a terrorist? There's no answer to it because he was a terrorist (laughter).
MCEVERS: And Lopez Rivera wasn't tried or convicted for murder. The charge was seditious conspiracy related to some other bombings. Explain that.
HINOJOSA: Right. So the FBI had no physical evidence to prove that Lopez Rivera set any bombs himself. So instead, he was tried for a seditious conspiracy to overthrow the power of the United States in connection with 28 FALN bombings in Chicago.
So his supporters essentially say that seditious conspiracy is, quote, "a political crime for simply opposing the United States government." And they say that his 55-year sentence was essentially unfair. But his opponents say that he is essentially an unrepentant terrorist. He has never, you know, said anything, for example, about the Fraunces Tavern. He's denied his involvement. So there's a real divide here.
MCEVERS: What has been the reaction from people about this commutation?
HINOJOSA: Well, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of "Hamilton" who was actually - who asked President Barack Obama to do this, was ecstatic, saying that he was in tears. The speaker of the New York City Council, Melissa Mark-Viverito, also saying she couldn't stop crying.
But there are people who are just saying, you know what? This is somebody who should not have been released. He should be more repentant. And Joe Connor said, you know, he's upset that President Barack Obama is releasing a person who he says is a terrorist on the American people.
MCEVERS: Maria Hinojosa is the host of Latino USA. Their hour-long documentary about Oscar Lopez Rivera is airing later this month. Thank you very much.
HINOJOSA: Thank you.
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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump once dismissed the United Nations as a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. His pick to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. says she doesn't see it that way. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was a surprise pick for the post. She was not a Trump supporter during the Republican primaries. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she's a businesswoman turned politician with no foreign policy experience. But at her Senate confirmation hearing, Haley said she's ready to work to reform the U.N. and to challenge the anti-Israel bias at the world body.
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NIKKI HALEY: It is what I've done all my life. I love to fix things. And I see a U.N. that can absolutely be fixed.
KELEMEN: Haley fielded questions about topics from North Korea to Iran. The ranking Democrat, Ben Cardin, zeroed in on Russia, which he says meddled in U.S. elections and faces sanctions for its actions in Ukraine. Haley reassured him those sanctions should only be lifted if Russia takes positive steps.
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HALEY: What I'll tell you is Russia is trying to show their muscle right now. It is what they do. And I think we always have to be cautious. I don't think that we can trust them.
KELEMEN: She said she believes Russia carried out war crimes in Syria, and she vowed to make sure the U.S. remains - in Haley's words - a moral compass at the U.N. Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut said he felt the hearing was taking place in an alternate universe.
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CHRIS MURPHY: President-elect Trump has downplayed Russian attempts to influence our election. He's suggested that NATO is obsolete. He's openly rooted for the breakup of the European Union. He's lavished praise on Vladimir Putin and refused to commit to continuing sanctions.
KELEMEN: And the list went on. Haley said what's important is what Trump will say once he's in office and has his team advising him.
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HALEY: That's how an administration works. You surround yourself with people who don't just say yes to what you think. They actually challenge you, and they tell you of other opinions. And what I know about president-elect is he actually will listen.
KELEMEN: The South Carolina governor told the Senate committee that she has spoken to Trump about Russia and about China but not in much detail. She distanced herself from Trump's Twitter comments that are dismissive of America's longtime alliances.
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HALEY: It is important that we have alliances. I know the president-elect realizes that. It is important that we create coalitions, and I know that he realizes that as well. And so his comments are really coming from the fact that he does have a fresh set of eyes. He is looking at those things. But my job's not just at the U.N. My job is to come back to the National Security Council and let them know what I know.
KELEMEN: When Trump tapped her, he decided to keep the U.N. ambassador as a Cabinet-level post, and Haley was reassuring senators that she will take that part of the job seriously if confirmed. The Republican chairman of the committee, Bob Corker, predicts Haley will get overwhelming support. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Among the many things that President Obama will be handing off to his successor this week are two wars. Obama came to office eight years ago vowing to end U.S. military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, President-elect Trump stands to inherit the nation's longest war in Afghanistan and renewed fighting in Iraq that has spread to Syria. NPR's David Welna has the story.
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DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Earlier this month at a military base near the Pentagon, there was a farewell ceremony with lots of pomp for President Obama. General Joe Dunford, who will stay on as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hailed the commander in chief who gave him that job with a stark reminder.
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GENERAL JOE DUNFORD: Mr. President, we've been at war throughout your tenure. That's a period longer than any other American president.
WELNA: And it's far longer than Obama would have wanted, but he reminded the troops that he's adopted a new approach to those wars that relies on local forces doing most of the fighting.
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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Not by letting our forces get dragged into sectarian conflicts and civil wars but with smart, sustainable, principled partnerships. That's how we brought most of our troops home - nearly 180,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan down to 15,000 today.
WELNA: Nearly 10,000 of those 15,000 U.S. forces are in Afghanistan despite Obama's earlier aim to leave behind only a small residual force. Some of those forces are there to fight groups the U.S. considers terrorists. Others are training and advising Afghan security forces to fight the Taliban. Last month at Bagram Air Base, General John Nicholson - he's the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan - portrayed that effort as going well.
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GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON: When you look at the performance of the Afghan forces this year, it was a tough year. They were tested, but they prevailed.
WELNA: Others who know Afghanistan well take a dimmer view.
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JOHN SOPKO: It's basically playing whack-a-mole.
WELNA: That's John Sopko. He's the special inspector general for the U.S. in Afghanistan. Last week at a Washington military think tank, he delivered a stinging report portraying the Afghan security forces as hobbled by corruption and poor leadership.
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SOPKO: So what we're doing is we're defining success by the absence of failure. At a minimum, they're playing defense and are not taking the fight to the Taliban.
WELNA: President-elect Trump will inherit a 15-year war in Afghanistan with no end in sight, says the Council on Foreign Relations' Stephen Biddle.
STEPHEN BIDDLE: The situation in Afghanistan in the rosiest possible, reasonable analysis is a stalemate, which can only be sustained if the U.S. Congress keeps writing multibillion-dollar-a-year checks to keep the Afghan national security forces in the field.
WELNA: And then there's Obama's war against the Islamic State. At his Pentagon farewell ceremony, the outgoing commander in chief portrayed it as a war being won.
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OBAMA: These terrorists have lost about half of their territory. They are losing their leaders. Towns and cities are being liberated. And I have no doubt this barbaric terrorist group will be destroyed because of you.
WELNA: General Stephen Townsend is the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Last month at a fire base just outside Mosul, he defended what to many seems a slow-motion assault on Islamic State forces holding that city.
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LIEUTENANT GENERAL STEPHEN TOWNSEND: Any army on the planet, to include the United States Army, would be challenged by this fight. And the Iraqi army has come back from near defeat two years ago, and now they're attacking this major city.
WELNA: At least 600 U.S. forces are now on the ground in war-ravaged Syria. They're mainly there to train and advise local forces to confront Islamic State forces. Some experts doubt that will work. Michael O'Hanlon is a military analyst at the Brookings Institution.
MICHAEL O'HANLON: We're losing. They're winning. And they maybe don't say it in quite those terms because they like the fact that we're still pulling the wool collectively over our own eyes. But the idea of defeating ISIS, replacing Assad and doing all this with a minimal American military investment does not add up to a logical policy.
WELNA: It's not clear how the next president will fight these wars. Trump barely mentioned Afghanistan during his campaign. The man he's chosen for national security adviser, General Michael Flynn, did tell NPR last summer that nations nearby Syria should be doing more there.
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MICHAEL FLYNN: Where is the king of Jordan? Where is the emirs of some of these other countries? They need to actually stand up and internationally and publicly condemn this violent form of this ideology that is operating inside of their bloodstream right now. And I don't see it. And that's where the president of the United States needs to place a different set of demands on these guys.
WELNA: That president will soon be Donald Trump, who told a campaign rally in Iowa...
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DONALD TRUMP: I would just bomb those suckers.
(APPLAUSE)
WELNA: And he will soon have the power to do so. David Welna, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
This week, we've been hearing from people whose lives may change under a Donald Trump presidency. My co-host Ari Shapiro is talking with them as he drives through North Carolina and Virginia on his way to the inauguration. Today's stop - Roanoke, Va., and a visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Planned Parenthood clinic in Roanoke is a one-story brick building off a busy street. The Blue Ridge Mountains float on the horizon. Once a receptionist buzzes you in, a waiting room has coloring books for patients and their kids. In a room on the other side of the building, women sit in cubicles and answer the phone.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Are you having any symptoms, Sir, or did you...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Yes, it is.
SHAPIRO: Patrice Campbell works here, booking appointments for 15 Planned Parenthood clinics across the region. Right after the election, she noticed a huge increase in calls, many of them asking for the same thing.
PATRICE CAMPBELL: We've seen where a lot of patients - I would say maybe 50 to 70 percent of patients eager to get in for long-term contraceptive, which we call LARCs. So their focus is, I need to get an IUD before January 20 because, you know, an IUD can last for five or even 10 years.
SHAPIRO: January 20 - Inauguration Day - Anne Logan Bass has been a clinician here for eight years. She says for the entire staff, the election was tough.
ANNE LOGAN BASS: My mother actually called me, and she was asking how things were going. And I said, Mom, it's just - we're just - we're all crying. And she said, is everyone worried they're going to lose their job? Like, no, everyone is so worried about our patients.
SHAPIRO: For years, Republicans have tried to end federal funding that gets routed to Planned Parenthood. They object to the fact that the organization provides abortions among other health care services. This clinic in Roanoke treats about 2,800 patients a year. Nationally, Planned Parenthood says it treats 2 and a half million patients a year, and abortions make up 3 percent of the services.
(CROSSTALK)
SHAPIRO: At the Sweet Donkey coffee shop in central Roanoke, Laura Rodriguez drinks tea while her 2-month-old baby girl stares wide-eyed at the world. Rodriguez describes herself as lower-middle-class, working as a waitress. She has no health insurance.
LAURA RODRIGUEZ: I'm not a big fan of Planned Parenthood. I went there before for health issues, and they were extremely overpriced. I had to pay out of pocket a lot of money.
SHAPIRO: Planned Parenthood says it uses a sliding scale for fees based on a patient's annual income. In another corner of the cafe, Sarah Law is meeting a friend for coffee. She's a registered nurse.
SARAH LAW: So I'm pretty conservative myself, and as far as abortions go, that's a different subject. But as far as women's health and Planned Parenthood, I think that does a lot of wonderful things for women that don't have the means to get proper care that they need.
SHAPIRO: So if I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly, you don't support abortions, but you do think Planned Parenthood does some good stuff.
LAW: Absolutely.
SHAPIRO: So how do you feel about that people who say, well, the only way to limit abortions is to strip federal funding for Planned Parenthood?
LAW: It doesn't make any sense to do that.
SHAPIRO: Figures out this week show the U.S. abortion rate is at its lowest level since Roe versus Wade, and Sarah Law fears that without easy access to contraception, those numbers could go back up.
On this road trip, we've been asking everyone what their hopes and fears are for the next four years. So at the clinic, I ask Anne Logan Bass about her hopes and fears.
BASS: I hope that we can continue to see more people, increase access. I fear that misinformation and inaccurate, unreliable information is going to continue to make our job hard.
SHAPIRO: I mean you talk about misinformation, but isn't there really an ideological divide here?
BASS: Well, the ideological belief about abortion I think is separate from the whole defunding conversation because federal funds don't cover abortion services.
SHAPIRO: While that's true, conservative lawmakers argue that money can be moved around. Congress has passed a bill stripping funding for Planned Parenthood before, and President Obama has always vetoed them. Next week, after Donald Trump is in office, Congress plans to vote on such a measure once again.
SIEGEL: That's my co-host Ari Shapiro reporting from Roanoke, Va. Tomorrow, Ari arrives back in Washington, D.C., with college students who are traveling to see Donald Trump take the oath of office. NPR's Steve Inskeep and Audie Cornish will be out there, too, and you can hear there live coverage of the event. You can also watch as NPR footnotes the inaugural address as it happens at npr.org.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
One of the most unlikely figures to capture the spotlight since the election is the lawyer who runs the Office of Government Ethics. Walter Shaub openly criticized Trump's moves to separate the presidency from his businesses as inadequate, and he tweaked the president-elect on social media. As NPR's Alina Selyukh reports, that has made him a lightning rod in the nation's capital.
ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: When the Watergate scandal blew up in the 1970s, one of the things to emerge from its shadow was the Office of Government Ethics. And OGE usually works quietly behind the scenes to make sure that people who run the country have no financial ties that could influence their work.
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WALTER SHAUB: We can't risk creating the perception that government leaders would use their official positions for personal profit.
SELYUKH: That's director Walter Shaub, and he's been a lawyer at OGE for a decade. And when you ask people about him, he's described as careful, even-keeled, kind of boring, which made it all the more surprising that he was the man who orchestrated a bizarre Trump-style tweet storm from OGE, saying things like bravo and brilliant. Divestiture is good for you, very good for America. Except Trump had promised no such thing.
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SHAUB: I was trying to use the vernacular of the president-elect's favorite social media platform to encourage him to divest.
SELYUKH: This was another unlikely move by Shaub - an unexpected speech at a think tank last week.
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SHAUB: I need to talk about ethics today because the plan the president has announced doesn't meet the standards that the best of his nominees are meeting.
SELYUKH: This was a direct public response to Trump finally revealing his financial plan - that as president, he will keep his business empire but shift the management to his sons. Trump's team says by law, presidents can't have conflicts of interest.
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DONALD TRUMP: So I could actually run my business. I could actually run my business and run government at the same time.
SELYUKH: And that's true. While presidents have bans on bribes, foreign gifts and insider trading, they are exempt from conflict of interest rules that apply to Cabinet members. Still, historically, presidents have voluntarily met the same standards as their nominees. Shaub's push for Trump to divest has put him in Republican crosshairs.
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JASON CHAFFETZ: All I really want is I want the person who heads up the Office of Government Ethics to be ethical. And right now, I don't see that.
SELYUKH: That's Representative Jason Chaffetz on Fox News. He has accused Shaub of partisanship and has summoned him to a meeting, pointing out that the committee he chairs oversees OGE's budget.
RICHARD PAINTER: The worst thing is for Congress to start going after OGE on the behalf of the president. It makes the president look terrible.
SELYUKH: That's Richard Painter, who was the chief ethics lawyer to President George W. Bush. And he says OGE has no enforcement power. Potential conflicts of interest would likely fall to Congress, the Justice Department, to courts. So getting in a spat with OGE sends the wrong message, and any effort to push Shaub out of his job would be worse.
PAINTER: Firing the head of the Office of Government Ethics is about the dumbest thing I think a president could do if he wants the public to have confidence in his ethics.
SELYUKH: Shaub's term as OGE director runs into 2018, and the next time Trump will have to deal with him is when the president submits his financial disclosures. Alina Selyukh, NPR News, Washington.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Among the guests Donald Trump's inauguration tomorrow will be one of his kindred spirits, a fellow populist who railed against immigration and who helped drive an electoral upset that stunned the world. I'm talking about the British politician Nigel Farage, a major force behind Brexit.
Unlike Trump, Farage does not hold political office in his home country. And since the Brexit vote, he's been searching for a new role. NPR's Frank Langfitt reports from London.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: After his victory in last June's referendum, Farage was his brash self. Here he is in Brussels sticking it to fellow members of the European Parliament.
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NIGEL FARAGE: You know, when I came here 17 years ago and I said that I wanted to lead a campaign to get Britain to leave the European Union, you all laughed at me. Well, I have to say, you're not laughing now, are you?
LANGFITT: But Farage, a 52-year-old former commodities trader, is like the dog that finally caught a car. After achieving his ultimate goal, he faces the question. Now what? The answer so far...
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DONALD TRUMP: Mr. Nigel Farage...
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FARAGE: Thank you, Donald. Welcome everybody to the first Nigel Farage show exclusively live here on LBC.
LANGFITT: In an interview with NPR, Farage said he wants to use this show which goes out on London's LBC radio to bring more people to his brand of populist politics.
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FARAGE: It's a fantastic platform. But I get the chance at the end of the hour every night to give my thought for the day. And I think that I can use this opportunity. I can continue to help shift thinking on major issues in this country.
BRIAN KLASS: I think that Nigel Farage, like Donald Trump, really likes the spotlight.
LANGFITT: Brian Klass is a political scientist at the London School of Economics. He says talk radio may be the best way for Farage to stay relevant. Given that his politics are so polarizing, they've kept him from winning a seat in the U.K. Parliament.
KLASS: Nigel Farage is someone who hasn't built up a base much beyond the diehard Brexiteers.
LANGFITT: But Klass says they still add up to millions of fans who admire Farage's quick wit and silver tongue.
KLASS: And that's where the transition to the media empire could be very helpful because you don't need to win over the entire public to have a successful radio show, as we see in the United States with the sort of hard-right and hard-left media. You get a constituency; you get good ratings.
SOPHIE GASTON: This is where populists can be so powerful. They don't need to be in power. They don't need to be leading the government.
LANGFITT: Sophie Gaston works for Demos, an independent London think tank. She says even though Farage was not a member of parliament, he was able to use his rhetorical skills to shape the debate on Brexit like other populists in Europe playing to fears about immigration.
GASTON: They know how to identify simmering or nascent social tensions and seize upon them to drive cleavages in societies.
LANGFITT: Farage's critics unfairly demonize him and the U.K. Independence Party, known as UKIP, which he used to lead. He says his UKIP supporters are just like the Trump fans he met when he campaigned with the president-elect last year in Mississippi.
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FARAGE: I found they were exactly the same kind of people that have been voting for UKIP and voted actually for Brexit. They generally had jobs. They very often had kids who were not doing as well at the age of 25, 30 as they'd been doing.
LANGFITT: He says they saw a failing political system and demanded change.
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FARAGE: The time had come for somebody bold to stand up in public and say what they'd been saying in private for some years.
LANGFITT: An apt description of Farage himself. Farage says if Prime Minister Theresa May follows through on Brexit as she pledged to do in a speech this week, he says he'll eventually retire from the political battlefield. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, London.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Donald Trump's pick for secretary of energy says he no longer wants to get rid of the department. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry was on Capitol Hill today for his confirmation hearing, as NPR's Jeff Brady reports.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: Back in 2011, it was an embarrassing moment for Rick Perry during a presidential campaign debate when he couldn't remember the name of the agency he wanted to eliminate.
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RICK PERRY: And the - what's the third one? Let's see.
(LAUGHTER)
BRADY: It was the Department of Energy, and today Perry said he regrets ever suggesting that idea.
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PERRY: My past statements, made over five years ago, about abolishing the Department of Energy do not reflect my current thinking.
BRADY: Democrats on the panel grilled Perry about his past statements on climate change. At different times, Perry has questioned whether human activity contributes to climate change. At one campaign event, he accused scientists of manipulating data so their research funding stream would continue to flow. Today, again, his message was different.
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PERRY: I believe the climate has changed. I believe some of it is naturally occurring, but some of it is caused by manmade activity. The question is how we address it in a thoughtful way that doesn't compromise economic growth.
BRADY: The ranking Democrat on the committee, Senator Maria Cantwell from Washington state, challenged the second half of that statement.
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MARIA CANTWELL: I guarantee you today we're compromising economic growth because of our overdependence on fossil fuel.
BRADY: Cantwell told Perry climate change is hurting her state's economy. It makes wildfires more intense and hurts the shellfish industry. Cantwell also pressed Perry on a questionnaire that the Trump transition team circulated through the Department of Energy. It sought the names of employees who attended climate change meetings. Current energy secretary Ernest Moniz refused the request. Perry said that questionnaire went out before he was nominated.
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PERRY: I didn't approve it. I don't approve of it. I don't need that information. I don't want that information. That is not how I manage.
BRADY: How Perry will manage the Department of Energy is a key question for his critics. He's not a scientist, and science is a big part of what the agency does. It oversees 17 national laboratories and is charged with keeping the country's nuclear weapons safe. Perry said as governor of Texas, he learned how to identify talented people who can help him manage agencies. On renewable energy, Perry said if confirmed he'll support and promote all kinds of energy. He reminded senators that Texas became the number one wind energy producer while he was governor. How to handle nuclear waste from power plants was another big issue. Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto sought assurance that the Yucca Mountain repository in her state would never be used, but Perry made no promise.
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PERRY: I will not sit here in front of you in a committee hearing and tell you absolutely no way is Nevada going to be the recipient of any high-level waste.
BRADY: There was a moment of levity when Minnesota Senator Al Franken referred to a conversation he had with Perry before the hearing.
AL FRANKEN: Did you enjoy meeting me?
(LAUGHTER)
PERRY: I hope you are as much fun on that dais as you are on your couch.
FRANKEN: Well...
(LAUGHTER)
PERRY: May I rephrase that, sir?
FRANKEN: Please.
BRADY: The Energy and Natural Resources Committee has not scheduled a vote on Perry's nomination yet. If senators there approve, Perry's nomination would go to a vote of the full Senate. Jeff Brady, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
How might TV change in the age of Trump? That's a question Hollywood is mulling. NPR TV critic Eric Deggans is in Los Angeles for the Television Critics Association gathering, and he asked writers, actors, producers and executives what they think.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Lee Daniels is known as a fiercely creative producer with a taste for controversy. He tackles gay issues, race and class in the hit TV drama he co-created for Fox "Empire." He does the same in his new series for the network, "Star." I caught up with him after a press conference and asked how he felt about the election of Donald Trump. Daniels got unexpectedly emotional.
LEE DANIELS: I think that some of the great art will come from this time right now.
DEGGANS: Daniels shed a tear as he recalled his shock at Trump's victory which he believes was fueled by anger in Middle America.
DANIELS: I couldn't write. It really affected my everything. And then the next morning, I wrote the most brilliant scenes that I have ever written before in my life.
DEGGANS: After his emotions subsided, Daniels says he was energized, but it took a moment to get there. And he's not alone. Last week, ABC's comedy "Black-ish" aired an excellent episode showing the characters struggling with the implications of Trump's victory. But several of the actors, writers and TV executives I spoke to in Los Angeles said they were still trying to understand what the election of Donald Trump might say about the mood of the country and their audience.
Some were concerned about Trump's bruising rhetoric on Mexican immigrants, women and Muslims. They wondered if they should follow the example set by Meryl Streep, who delivered a speech critical of the president-elect at the Golden Globes. Others considered steering clear of politics, wary of involving their shows in partisan arguments.
It reminded me of the weeks immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A few shows back then tried to dramatize the nation's trauma quickly. "The West Wing" assembled an episode in a few weeks, but many found the event was too fresh to put into perspective.
In November, producers of the series "The Good Fight," a spin-off of the CBS drama "The Good Wife," had to swiftly rewrite a scene in their first episode that showed Hillary Clinton winning the election. Christine Baranski spoke during a press conference on playing attorney Diane Lockhart who starts over after losing all her savings.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRISTINE BARANSKI: Interesting thing is you have a lead character who is in moral practical free fall in a similar way to what the country is feeling right now. Like, how do you take the next step up when there's no foundation? Where are we? Where are we morally?
DEGGANS: Some TV shows written and filmed before the election may come across differently afterwards. Fox's new drama "APB" centers on a tech billionaire who takes control of the police department in a crime-filled district of Chicago, helping them with new equipment and technology. But a series that may have seemed like a nod to the altruism of people like Bill Gates before the election might now seem like an endorsement of handing over government power to a rule-breaking billionaire.
"APB" executive producer Matt Nix said during a press conference that he and the show's other producers talked after the election about what kind of show they wanted to make.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MATT NIX: If you're on this side of this issue and you believe that what America needs is a businessman taking things over and telling everybody what's what, great. And we've got a vision where we think this could be done responsibly.
DEGGANS: Producers on one series that features Washington, D.C., ABC's "Scandal," said they were unaffected by real-life politics. Their season returns next week with the results of an election where either a woman or a Latino with a gay running mate will win the presidency.
Creator Shonda Rhimes presents a world where such diversity is a fact of life. Viewers get wrapped up in the characters before they even realize how groundbreaking the situation is, which might be just the blueprint for navigating politically charged stories in a polarized country. I'm Eric Deggans.
(SOUNDBITE OF JINSANG SONG, "LEARNING")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, Americans are still deeply divided about the next president. That includes some married couples who voted differently in the election, couples like Marty and Jessica Halprin. They live in Woodbridge, Conn. He supported Trump. She supported Clinton. We talked to them back in November, and they told us about their tense night watching the election results.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JESSICA HALPRIN: I really hate to sound melodramatic, but I was devastated.
MARTY HALPRIN: It was a long night of not enough sleep. The TV was on. Shortly after things didn't look well for Hillary, the TV got shut off.
SIEGEL: With the inauguration coming up, we reached back out to the Halprins to see how they're doing. Jessica says things have gotten less tense in their house. She says she's even noticed some cracks in Marty's support for Trump. Marty agrees that things have gotten less tense, but he says the election made for a tough Thanksgiving with Jessica's extended family.
M. HALPRIN: I was actually banned from any conversation, any paraphernalia whatsoever.
SIEGEL: You had to leave the red baseball cap at home or somewhere packed away.
M. HALPRIN: Yes, and my Trump sunglasses as well.
SIEGEL: Marty, just how bad was Thanksgiving?
(LAUGHTER)
M. HALPRIN: It was not the - it was a very quiet Thanksgiving for me. It was not the normal one that I've experienced in previous years. To me, the tone was set before Thanksgiving even started. I didn't even get the benefit of the doubt.
J. HALPRIN: He really self-censored, and he wasn't allowed to use humor as a way to sort of decompress the situation, which is a bit of a shame.
SIEGEL: Have you been able to discuss all this with other people - neighbors, community, family, friends? Have they reacted to your division, Jessica?
J. HALPRIN: Actually, we've received a lot of support. We have friends who heard our first interview at NPR across the nation and sent some really nice support that they, too, were dealing with division within their families and didn't know how to address it and were also embarrassed or ashamed in sharing with others that they were from houses divided.
I have felt a little defensive of my husband, the man whom I love, the man who deviates in such, what I feel, a very significant way from my own reasoning in the election and having to justify that to people. I've have actually never been in that circumstance.
On the other hand, I like to lead by example and say to my friends, say to my neighbors that I am not afraid to have this discussion with you, and let's talk about how my husband could make the wrong decision but still be a good person.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: Marty, you appreciate that?
M. HALPRIN: Very much so. It's incredible.
SIEGEL: Jessica said that she has sensed some cracks in your support of Donald Trump since the election. Is she right? Have you softened at all on your...
M. HALPRIN: Well, I think I'm still in favor of him, and I'm still hopeful that he will do what's right for the country. But he does disappoint me sometimes, you know, for example, when he did his press conference the other day and he completely shut out the CNN reporter and wouldn't even let him ask the question. The tweeting - you know, that's him, unfortunately, but I'm not sure it should happen with the future president.
SIEGEL: There was so much attention paid to the idea that the Russians were trying to interfere in the election. Has any of that stuff had an impact on you? Marty, we'll start with you.
M. HALPRIN: You know, at this point in time, it really hasn't had an impact on me until I see actual proof and it's proven that they had involvement. Then I might think differently, but it wouldn't have changed the outcome of my vote.
SIEGEL: And, Jessica, has it affected you?
J. HALPRIN: Oh, you didn't see me roll my eyes when Marty just spoke? Yeah, I guess not.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) Well, looking ahead to the inauguration and the weekend that follows, what kind of plans do you have?
M. HALPRIN: A big celebration.
(LAUGHTER)
J. HALPRIN: Oh, my God. Marty, what plans do you have?
M. HALPRIN: I'm going to listen to it as much as my schedule allows. My wife wants to be part of the movement and go march with all the other crazy people out there.
J. HALPRIN: Seriously?
M. HALPRIN: Maybe I shouldn't say crazy.
(LAUGHTER)
M. HALPRIN: Passionate people - with all the other...
J. HALPRIN: There you go.
M. HALPRIN: ...Passionate people out there, all the #HesNotMyPresident people.
J. HALPRIN: You're not even on Twitter.
M. HALPRIN: The Democrats and Republicans who are not going to the inauguration need to stop. You know, I said it last time, and I'll say it again. Everybody needs to get over it. Move on. Let's see what he can do.
J. HALPRIN: Can we say nothing to him? At what point...
M. HALPRIN: You can say anything you want to him.
J. HALPRIN: (Laughter).
M. HALPRIN: He might not actually listen or respond to you.
J. HALPRIN: We can go around and around on this (laughter).
SIEGEL: Yeah, I can hear.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: I get the idea. Marty and Jessica Halprin of Woodbridge, Conn., thanks for talking with us once again.
J. HALPRIN: It's been our pleasure.
M. HALPRIN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE MONKS SONG, "I HATE YOU")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
On Capitol Hill today - a rough welcome for President-elect Trump's choice for treasury secretary. Steven Mnuchin, a former Wall Street banker, was grilled by Democrats on an array of issues. But it was Mnuchin's actions during the financial crisis nearly a decade ago that lawmakers returned to again and again. NPR's John Ydstie reports.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: In the midst of the financial crisis in 2008, Mnuchin and some partners bought a California bank that failed under the weight of bad mortgage loans. It was renamed OneWest Bank, and under Mnuchin's management, it foreclosed on tens of thousands of homeowners. Housing activists dubbed it a foreclosure machine. In his opening statement at today's Senate hearing, the ranking Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon, signaled OneWest was in the crosshairs.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RON WYDEN: OneWest was truly unique. While Mr. Mnuchin was CEO, the bank proved it could put more vulnerable people on the street faster than just about anybody else around.
YDSTIE: That brought this caustic response from Kansas Republican Pat Roberts.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAT ROBERTS: Senator Wyden, I've got a Valium pill here that you might want to take before the second round.
YDSTIE: And that brought a quick retort from Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SHERROD BROWN: I hope that that comment about Valium doesn't set the tone for 2017 in this committee. I just am (unintelligible).
ROBERTS: I said that to the president of the Unites States at one...
BROWN: Perhaps you did. That's...
(CROSSTALK)
YDSTIE: Mnuchin sat silently as the senators bickered, but when he got his chance to speak, he said he was proud of the work he'd done at OneWest. He claimed that the bank had offered loan modifications to a hundred thousand borrowers to help them keep their homes, which he said was in the bank's interest as well.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STEVEN MNUCHIN: Banks are highly incented to do loan modifications. Anybody who thinks that we made more money foreclosing on a loan than modifying a loan has no understanding of this.
YDSTIE: But the Democrats, including Sherrod Brown, continued to pursue the issue.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BROWN: Is it true that OneWest's independent audit firm said that it violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act by initiating foreclosures on 54 active duty military families? That's what the independent audit firm said - yes or no?
MNUCHIN: Well, you have the document in front of you. I don't. I do want to just comment for the record. We unfortunately did foreclose on certain people in the military. We responded to those people and made them whole. As I said, every single person had the opportunity to have their mortgager reviewed, and we corrected any errors. Our errors were less...
BROWN: Perhaps.
MNUCHIN: ...Than anybody else, so...
BROWN: Yeah, I'm going to cut you off (unintelligible).
MNUCHIN: It's not that I'm being defensive. I'm proud of our (unintelligible).
BROWN: Well, I wouldn't be proud of all these findings.
YDSTIE: When questioned by Republicans, Mnuchin did have a chance to talk about his goals and President-elect Trump's proposed policies. He said he shared Trump's concern about slow growth.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MNUCHIN: Our No. 1 priority from my standpoint is economic growth. I believe that tax reform will be our first and most important part of that.
YDSTIE: There was one area where Democrats took some encouragement. That was on the subject of the IRS. Mnuchin said he'd noticed its staff had been cut by 30 percent in recent years and that it had old technology. He suggested it needed more resources.
Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland observed that the president-elect has called for a freeze on federal hiring, and he urged Mnuchin to convince his boss that the IRS needs more people.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BEN CARDIN: I assume that you'll have an opportunity to talk to the president and hopefully get the number of people you need.
MNUCHIN: I can assure you that the president-elect understands the concept of where we add people, we make money.
CARDIN: Good.
MNUCHIN: And he'll get that completely. That's a very quick conversation with Donald Trump.
CARDIN: Great.
YDSTIE: Whether that will be enough to produce Democratic votes for Mnuchin remains to be seen. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The U.S. carried out airstrikes in Libya late last night. The Pentagon said it destroyed two camps of Islamic State fighters, part of a continued effort to halt the spread of the militant group. NPR's David Welna reports.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: In his final appearance before the Pentagon Press Corps, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the renewed airstrikes in Libya.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
ASH CARTER: Initial estimates indicate that the airstrikes killed more than 80 ISIL fighters, many of whom had converged there after fleeing from local partner forces who had cleared Sirte last month with our help.
WELNA: Six weeks earlier at a U.S. air base in Aviano, Italy, Carter had announced with little fanfare that the U.S. had concluded its operations in Sirte, the central Libyan city some 30 miles to the north of where the airstrikes were carried out. Although those operations were billed as having successfully expelled any remaining fighters with the Islamic State, Carter warned that the U.S. could be back.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
CARTER: We're always prepared to take action against those who are threatening the United States.
WELNA: To carry out the Wednesday night strikes, two B-2 Stealth Bombers flew from their base in western Missouri on a nearly 12,000-mile round trip that lasted more than 30 hours. Pentagon Spokesman Peter Cook said commanders had requested the planes for their ability to loiter over their targets.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
PETER COOK: The use of the B-2 demonstrates the capability of the United States to deliver decisive, precision force through the Air Force's Global Strike Command over a great distance.
WELNA: Cook said the planes dropped around 100 precision-guided bombs on two camps.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
COOK: And if there's a message sent to terrorists around the world, so be it. This was a military operation specifically targeting ISIL. And it demonstrates the capabilities of the United States, the ability for us to reach anywhere in the world and to strike a blow to terrorists who threaten us.
WELNA: Defense Secretary Carter, for his part, said some of the operatives at the camps had been involved in plotting attacks against American allies in Europe. He said the U.S. is winning the fight against the Islamic State and expressed confidence that fight will continue.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
CARTER: I'm certain that the United States and our coalition and local partners will continue to build on the results we've achieved and ultimately destroy the fact and the idea of a state based on ISIL's barbaric ideology.
WELNA: Carter will relinquish his post to General James Mattis after the Senate confirms Mattis as expected tomorrow. David Welna, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
In Tehran today, a massive fire at a high-rise led to a building collapse. The video footage is disturbing and shocking as the facade crumbles and then the building appears to implode, a tumbling brown cloud of dust and smoke. Iranian state media reported that dozens of firefighters were injured. More are feared dead or trapped inside. They had been battling flames from the fire for hours before the collapse.
Joining us on the line from the Iranian capital Tehran is Thomas Erdbrink of The New York Times. Thomas, this is a high-rise in the middle of Tehran. What do you know about how the fire started?
THOMAS ERDBRINK: Well, in all honesty, almost nothing. And I'm not the only one. Nobody knows why the fire started in Plasco building right in the center of Tehran. Fifty-four-year-old building impounded after Islamic revolution and now home to Iran's garment industry, if you will. There are around 590 units in that building where shop owners sell garments, where garments are stockpiled and where they have offices. So what went wrong and why the fire started is unclear. But that things got really out of hand, that's obvious.
SIEGEL: This building - 17 stories, it was - was built in the 1960s. In the photos, you can see that there are window air conditioner units. It suggests not the kind of building where we would assume there would be, say, a sprinkler system throughout it, I would think.
ERDBRINK: No. Iran became a modernized country over the past 30, 37 years, but building regulations, unfortunately, are not really checked very intensively by the local governments. Now, sprinkler systems, as you would expect those in the United States or in Europe, are often not present here, not even in newly built buildings. And municipality civil servants who would normally check such regulations can often be bribed or tend to look the other way.
SIEGEL: There have been reports of at least 20 firefighters killed in this fire or in the building collapse. Has anyone expressed any hope that some might still be alive, buried inside the rubble?
ERDBRINK: Well, the reports have been very diffused. Iran's health minister said that three people were brought out from under the rubble alive. But there's also reports out there by semi-official local media that there might be up to 300 people buried under the rubble. Of course, this is a huge embarrassment for Iran's Islamic government that likes to portray their country as a regional paradise where, unlike other regional countries, there's no war or there are no terror attacks. Iran is a calm country, they say.
But an accident like this in the center of Tehran involving a building that is an icon for many Iranians collapsing in this manner, that is a big embarrassment for them. And the whole handling of the issue today is also being criticized in the Iranian media with security forces arriving way after the building originally collapsed, thousands of people gathering around the site, some people taking selfies. So all in all, it was not only an embarrassment but also a very tense day for Iranian authorities.
SIEGEL: Well, Thomas Erdbrink brink of The New York Times in Tehran, thanks for talking with us today.
ERDBRINK: Thanks for having me, Robert.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
British Prime Minister Theresa May clarified what the U.K. seeks in leaving the European Union this week - not some half-in, half-out special status, but a clean break.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
THERESA MAY: We do not seek to hold on to bits of membership as we leave. No, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union, and my job is to get the right deal for Britain as we do.
SIEGEL: In a speech, Prime Minister May made it clear that Britain has no intention of remaining in the European single market after it leaves the EU. For more on the state of Britain's exit from the European Union, we're joined now by the United Kingdom's ambassador to the U.S., Kim Darroch. Welcome to the program.
KIM DARROCH: Thank you very much for inviting me.
SIEGEL: Donald Trump has promised to move quickly on a trade agreement with the U.K. since U.S. agreements with the EU wouldn't cover Britain once it's out of the European Union. How can Washington reach trade terms with your country without knowing what access American firms in the U.K. would have to the European Union?
DARROCH: Look, under the EU treaties, which we are currently part of, you can't no-go and conclude a trade deal with a third country because trade rests with the central authorities in the EU, with the European Commission. But what the incoming administration has said about their enthusiasm for a free trade deal with us is extremely welcome. And I think that there is quite a lot we can do in terms of exploring the scope of and nature of a deal with them while we are negotiating our departure from the European Union, which will start from the end of March.
SIEGEL: Simultaneously, you would negotiate an exit from Europe and at the same time be negotiating with the U.S. in terms of a trade agreement...
DARROCH: Well, what you call negotiations or exploratory talks or scoping discussions is all still to be worked out. But there's nothing to stop us having informal conversations with our American friends while we're negotiating the terms of our exit. And certainly the sooner we can establish a free trade deal after we leave, the better.
SIEGEL: Nicola Sturgeon, who leads both the Scottish National Party and Scotland's regional government, told the BBC that Brexit makes another vote on Scottish independence all but inevitable. In Scotland, the vote to remain in the EU was 62 percent. Can you sympathize with the Scottish voter who said the last time we had a referendum it was on remaining in the U.K. as a member of the European Union, everything's totally different now?
DARROCH: Well, first of all, we've not started the negotiations with the European Union. Let's see how those go. Second...
SIEGEL: Do you think you could negotiate a special status for Scotland within the new agreement?
DARROCH: I - we're not in that area at moment. The idea is that we negotiate a deal for the whole of the United Kingdom that that suits the United Kingdom as a whole. We've had a referendum on Scottish independence, and there was a clear outcome from that in favor of continuation of the union. It was agreed by both sides, by all parties, that that was a once-in-a-generation, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so that's done now...
SIEGEL: He said - I think Nicola Sturgeon said barring some major changing development, and this would be exactly the kind of development she was talking about.
DARROCH: The prime minister and the government have said that we will associate all the devolved administrations very closely, including some formal structures with the negotiations on exit, and we intend to find a solution that everyone can live with.
SIEGEL: Like everyone else in Washington, you have heard Donald Trump's nominees for various key Cabinet positions express strong support of NATO and suspicions of Russian activities in eastern Ukraine. And we've also heard Mr. Trump express more positive sentiments about Russia. When you report back to your government, which way do you tell them the United States is going after tomorrow's inauguration? What sense do you make of things?
DARROCH: We have, as you say, followed the confirmation hearings of the nominees for Cabinet positions and, of course, all of the pronouncements that have come out of the incoming administration. We think that a strong dialogue, good, operational, open channels between Moscow and Washington - between the White House and the Kremlin - are important. We also think that it's important that they are used for clear messages to the Kremlin about the unacceptability of Russian actions in Syria, about the unacceptability of they're doing in Ukraine. What we've heard from the hearings, from what nominees like General Mattis and Rex Tillerson have said suggests they completely agree with that approach.
SIEGEL: Kim Darroch, British ambassador to the United States. Thank you.
DARROCH: Thank you for the opportunity. It was a pleasure.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Tomorrow, the new president of the United States will take a limousine to the Capitol with the outgoing president. There will be an important speech, an inaugural luncheon and a parade - all the rituals of a typical peaceful transition of power. But there is much about the new president that is out of the ordinary, as NPR's Mara Liasson reports.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Donald Trump takes office with investigations continuing into relations between the campaigns and Russia. Trump has ongoing business interests that present hundreds of potential conflicts. And Trump's never-ending barrage of tweets has caused confusion on Capitol Hill and around the world. But, says former Democratic White House aide Bill Galston...
BILL GALSTON: For all the appearances of unpredictability and chaos, I think there are two fixed points that we need to keep in mind. First is the fact that an American-first foreign policy has been an area of consistency with him going back three decades. And the second is that the president-elect in domestic policy has a very clear understanding of the interests of the kind of people that he brought into the Republican coalition.
LIASSON: In other words, the president elect is an isolationist and a populist. What does that mean? In domestic policy, it means, for example, that Trump has promised that everyone should have insurance coverage. Trump knows that many parts of Obamacare are popular with the white, working-class voters that put him in office.
And as he showed during the campaign, he's perfectly willing to break ranks with his party's leadership in order to stay true to his base. And that, says Republican strategist Doug Heye, makes replacing Obamacare much harder.
DOUG HEYE: Republicans have now learned with Obamacare, though, it's obviously very unpopular within the party - we also know that one of the reasons that Democrats enact broad entitlement programs is because once they're in place, it's near impossible to get rid of it. And that's what we're experiencing right now.
LIASSON: On foreign policy, Trump's longstanding isolationism along with his pro-Putin tilt means that he's willing to break with 70 years of bipartisan consensus. He's put Germany's Angela Merkel on par with Vladimir Putin as U.S. allies. He's called NATO obsolete. He predicted, with approval, the break-up of the EU, saying that the eurozone, which happens to be the United States' biggest trading partner, quote, "doesn't matter very much for the U.S."
These statements have been contradicted by many of Trump's Cabinet nominees. Secretary of Defense designate James Mattis, for instance, testified that NATO is vital to U.S. national interests and that Putin's goal is to break up the Western alliance. But it's Trump's words that count right now, and they've caused despair in Europe, confusion on Capitol Hill and, for Russia experts like Molly McHugh, lots of concern.
MOLLY MCHUGH: The world view Trump is presenting tends to echo the worst aspects of the Russian worldview which is this idea of the unraveling of the liberal democratic world order, the removal of the values that have sort of held global security and prosperity in place since the end of World War II. That is something that Putin has been very focused on, and ignoring that is very dangerous.
LIASSON: Peter Feaver former national security aide in the Clinton and Bush White Houses has a different view. Despite Trump's expressed disdain for America's allies and admiration for Vladimir Putin, Feaver says the jury is still out on Trump's approach to the world. Maybe, says Feaver, Trump just wants a reset with Russia, not a wholesale realignment, much like other presidents - a difference in degree not in kind.
PETER FEAVER: It's possible that what we're seeing is just a very unconventional strategic communication strategy that will end up with policies that are more or less within the boundaries of the mainstream. It's impossible to say with certainty because he hasn't made a single presidential decision yet.
LIASSON: Trump hasn't made any presidential decisions yet, but he has been an extremely active president in waiting. And that brings us to something else that's unusual about Trump. He is the most unpopular new president in history. His approval ratings have actually dropped during his transition. Maybe that doesn't matter. After all, he won the election with almost two-thirds of voters saying he was unqualified.
And his low ratings are unlikely to affect his chance of success on Capitol Hill since most presidents - popular or not - get their first-year agendas passed if their party controls Congress. Ed Brookover, a former Trump adviser, says Trump's current approval ratings don't mean much for all the rule-breaking aspects of a Trump presidency. In the end, Brookover predicts Trump's success will be measured by a very traditional yardstick.
ED BROOKOVER: I think that we need to measure Mr. Trump's presidency by his effectiveness, so what that means is that do we have more jobs? Is our economy getting more stable? Are we safer than we were before he became president?
LIASSON: And it will take several years for America to answer those questions. Mara Liasson, NPR News, Washington. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In the audio of this story, there is a reference to James Mattis as "Secretary of State designate" .He should have been referenced to as "Secretary of Defense designate". ]
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
One hundred ten miles an hour - that's how fast a minor league pitcher just traded to the Chicago White Sox is seen throwing in a video that hit the internet this week. Now, Michael Kopech was not throwing a regular-weight baseball, and he get a running start. But even so, 110 miles per hour is pretty fast, and Kopech has been clocked at 105 in a real minor league game. To talk baseball in the offseason, I'm joined now by Jonathan Hock. He's a documentary film director whose credits include last year's "Fastball," which is about what you might think it's about. Welcome back to the program.
JONATHAN HOCK: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: What do you know about this kid, Michael Kopech?
HOCK: Well, oddly enough, when we were filming the documentary, we filmed a national high school showcase game. And Michael Kopech was the kid who hits 95 as a high school senior. And you see all the scouts holding up their radar guns, and there's this sort of collective gasp at this big, burly kid who's got the thing that they came to see. Will it translate into success? Well, how can he command it in game situations? We'll see, but he's got the velocity. The question remains what he does with it, and that's the difference between the greatness and the ones we forget about.
SIEGEL: It seems that during baseball games, we see more guys throwing 95, 96 miles per hour. Have pitchers actually gotten faster over the years?
HOCK: Well, pitchers haven't gotten faster in terms of the top velocity. But the way the game has changed now in terms of advanced metrics and the whole "Moneyball" thing - for pitchers, the strikeout is valued much more highly than it ever was in the past. The other trend is starting pitchers being taken out of the game at a hundred pitches, which means they don't have to pace themselves for 150, 170 pitches the way pitchers used to, so they can throw harder. And then the relief pitchers changing every inning - they can throw as hard as they can.
So you have this premium on the strikeout, which equals a premium on speed. And then you have the way the managers orchestrate the game so the pitchers can basically throw as hard as they can the whole time. And you see many, many, many more pitches up around 100. That doesn't mean these guys threw harder than Nolan Ryan and Bob Feller and - but it means they throw as hard as they can a lot more often.
SIEGEL: But you've got to admit - under any circumstances, throwing a ball 110 miles per hour - that's pretty fast.
HOCK: You know, one of the major changes in the fan experience at a Major League Baseball game now is the fact that every pitch - in big, bright lights, the numbers on the scoreboard - the speed is lit up - 97, 99, 102. The hundred-mile-an-hour fastball has become baseball's slam dunk. It's not so much the home run anymore. It's that hundred-mile-an-hour fastball. That's, in many ways, is the most exciting part of the game for fans these days.
SIEGEL: That's film documentary director Jonathan Hock, who's movie about baseball was called "Fastball." Thanks for talking with us.
HOCK: Thank you, Robert.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
"Reservoir Dogs," "Memento," "The Blair Witch Project" and the Coen brothers' debut film, "Blood Simple," all have one thing in common. They premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. My co-host Kelly McEvers has more.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Sundance begins tonight in Park City, Utah, and NPR arts correspondent Mandalit del Barco is covering it, so she knows what to expect. Hi, there, Mandalit.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So no one really knows what's going to be the next big, you know, Sundance breakout, but there are some clues that can help us make predictions, right?
DEL BARCO: Right. You know, there are themes that bubble up, and this year Sundance has a program called New Climate. Robert Redford - he founded the festival. He's been an environmentalist for many, many years. And he told me he's especially gratified the festival will feature 14 documentaries, short films and virtual reality experiences on the subject of climate change and conservation.
You know, tonight, Redford will personally introduce his longtime friend, former Vice President Al Gore. He's premiering a sequel to his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." That film premiered 11 years ago at Sundance. And it went on to win two Oscars, and then, of course, Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize. There's also a film about a Chinese recycling plant. Another follows a team of divers and scientists exploring coral reefs, and another looks at California's water system.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WATER AND POWER: A CALIFORNIA HEIST")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Water is power. Water is power, and water is money. You don't have an industry, you don't have a town, you don't have agriculture unless you have water.
DEL BARCO: That film is called "Water And Power: A California Heist." And there's also a documentary in this program about working in a massive textile factory in India.
MCEVERS: All right, but all the films at Sundance can't all be about climate change and the environment. Yeah?
DEL BARCO: Right, right. There are a few films out of Cuba. One is a sequel to the "Buena Vista Social Club."
MCEVERS: Oh.
DEL BARCO: Another is a documentary about the historic free concert last year in Havana by Major Lazer. There are some films about police violence, including a feature called "Crown Heights." And there are a handful of films about Syria, including one called "City Of Ghosts" about a group of anonymous citizen journalists taking on ISIS.
MCEVERS: You said you talked to Sundance founder Robert Redford. He's also onscreen at the festival this year?
DEL BARCO: He is. He's in a movie called "The Discover," but he didn't really want to talk about that. He wanted to talk about the power of storytelling, and he told me about his idea to create Sundance back in 1978.
ROBERT REDFORD: What if we start a film festival where at least filmmakers could come and see each other's work and form a community? So the first year is maybe 25 films, maybe six or seven documentaries, and maybe a hundred people wandered around out in front of the theater. And I thought this is probably not going to work, but slowly it caught on and then it caught fire. Now it's almost out of control, but the mission was accomplished - to create the space for other voices in film to get their stories told and be seen.
DEL BARCO: You know, Sundance is massive right now.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
DEL BARCO: And Redford says it's still a struggle to fund independent films, but he did talk about the value of having a communal experience of watching movies on the big screen together.
MCEVERS: It's amazing to think about a small Sundance, given what it is now. Sundance does start tonight, as we said, and tomorrow, of course, is Inauguration Day. Do you expect any crossover between the two events?
DEL BARCO: Oh, sure. You know, Sundance has always attracted a really politically aware group of filmmakers and movie lovers. So in addition to going to screenings and parties, thousands of people plan to march down Main Street in Park City on Saturday. As women march in Washington, the sister march will be led by comedian Chelsea Handler, and among the speakers will be activist Dolores Huerta. She's also the subject of a doc premiering at the festival, so it should be a really interesting time.
MCEVERS: NPR's Mandalit del Barco, who's covering the Sundance Film Festival, thank you.
DEL BARCO: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
No matter what you think about what Donald Trump says, there's no doubt that there's something very unusual about how he says it. Tomorrow, after Trump takes the oath of office, he's expected to deliver a set piece speech recited from text, not by impulse. But what distinguished him as a campaigner wasn't his talent with the teleprompter. It was a manner of speaking unlike anything we heard from his rivals or his predecessors.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: I always joke. I say, we want to see win, win, win, constant winning, and you'll see if I'm president. And you say, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much. We can't stand it anymore. Can't we have a loss? And I'll say, no, we're going to keep winning, winning, winning because we're going to make America great again. And you'll say, OK, Mr. President, OK.
(APPLAUSE)
JENNIFER MERCIECA: The way that he talks is as different from any other politician as Barack Obama looked.
SIEGEL: Jennifer Mercieca is a historian at Texas A&M. She's writing a book on Trump's rhetoric. She says Trump's informal, impulsive style goes over well with his supporters. They hear a man who says what he thinks, not what consultants think he should say.
MERCIECA: The idea seems to be that all other politicians are corrupt and that we know that because of the way that they talk to us.
SIEGEL: They are canned, prepared, rehearsed. He is spontaneous, authentic, candid. Or at least that's the impression. Professor Mercieca says Trump is using rhetoric very strategically - for example, the rhetorical device called paralipses.
MERCIECA: Paralipses can be said colloquially as, I'm not saying; I'm just saying. It does this great thing of allowing you a window supposedly into what he's really thinking. At the New Hampshire primary, he said, but all of the other candidates are weak, and they're just weak.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: ...All of the other candidates are weak, and they're just weak. I think they're weak, generally. You want to know the truth. But I won't say that because I don't want to get myself - I don't want to have any controversy. Is that OK? No controversy - so I refuse to say that they're weak, generally, OK?
MERCIECA: Right, so he said it three, four times. They're weak. But he knows that he shouldn't say that. He's walking you through his thought process. It shows us just how strategic he is about what he says 'cause he tells you in the middle of saying it that he knows that he ought not to say it and still says it anyway.
SIEGEL: We asked Trump supporters around the country how the president-elect sounds to them. No one said he sounds like a politician.
RYAN WRIGHT: To me, it sounded like more like a football coach.
SIEGEL: That's Ryan Wright in Tipton, Iowa. Here's Ney Vasconcelos in Phoenix.
NEY VASCONCELOS: This is like the way I talk with my peers, people that I work with or whatever.
MARY NICKERSON: He seems more like a game show host to me.
SIEGEL: That's Mary Nickerson in Nashville.
NICKERSON: He does not take the time to think long enough to even lie about anything.
SIEGEL: Marc Jampole is not a Trump supporter. He's a blogger and poet in New York City, and he says what Trump really sounds like is a stand-up comedian. He says a typical Trump speech has the structure of a stand-up routine.
MARC JAMPOLE: Most stump speeches have a beginning, a middle and an end and follow classic speech structure, which basically is, tell the audience what you're going to say; say it, and then tell them what you just said. Trump doesn't do that. It appears to be free-form just like a comedian.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: What a crowd. What a crowd. They're beautiful.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: What a crowd. What a crowd. And outside - we have many more people than this outside. It's incredible.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RON WHITE: I came home from doing a show the other night, and she goes, Honey, the dryer's broken.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: She said, Darling, you're president. You cannot call an air conditioning company. I said, that's OK. It's so much fun.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Even the guy stamping the passports was terrifying. He was like, what is your occupation?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: They said, you know, he made that statement. I'd like to take him to the back at the gym.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: I just got back from Israel, you know what I'm saying?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I just got back from Florida. I was begging for, like, a regular commercial - Ivory Snow, Heinz Ketchup.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: Every commercial was a hit on on Trump - hit, hit, hit. And almost all of them weren't true. Some were...
SIEGEL: Marc Jampole says Trump's followers hear him as a comic hero, a disruptor.
JAMPOLE: It was Rodney Dangerfield or Jackie Mason in the "Caddyshack" movies where these two comedians played rich guys who were really average Joes breaking down the barriers of elite institutions.
SIEGEL: Our Trump supporters didn't describe him that way. In Tipton, Iowa, Jim Trcka heard in Trump echoes of a real-life figure from his youth.
JIM TRCKA: He kind of reminds me of my Air Force recruiter back when I joined the military - off color, tend to exaggerate at times to make a point.
MATT BENWARD: He just talks like he's going to be your buddy drinking a beer with you, you know?
SIEGEL: That's Matt Benward in Nashville making a point people used to make about George W. Bush.
BENWARD: Hillary just, like, talked down to people. To heck with that.
SIEGEL: Jim Trcka pointed higher in the pantheon of Republican presidents.
TRCKA: He does remind me a little of Ronald Reagan, though Reagan is much more eloquent. I think with time, Donald will come around and speak more presidentially.
SIEGEL: But here's a difference between Reagan and Bush, between most politicians and Donald Trump. Other politicians often tell us stories they've heard from ordinary Americans, little object lessons that prove a larger point. In Trump's speeches, that hardly ever happens. John Murphy is an associate professor of communication at the University of Illinois. We reached him by Skype.
JOHN MURPHY: There's no effort to identify a Joe the Plumber. He never ever does that. He doesn't seem to speak of or meet people personally. It's all a kind of public performance.
SIEGEL: Elvin Lim, who teaches political science at the National University of Singapore, says that to cite other people would only detract from Trump's central message, which is all about himself.
ELVIN LIM: He does not need props or analogies or other people to help him tell his tale. He believes that he is almost messianic in his status and ability to be the solution to what America needs to become great again.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I alone can fix it.
LIM: It's focused very much about his line and his narrative. And I don't think he takes very kindly to other people helping him make that narrative happen.
SIEGEL: Nor, it seems, to facts that run counter to his assertions. Again, John Murphy of the University of Illinois...
MURPHY: Trump relies very much on separating appearance from reality. So it may look like you're getting good health care, but in truth, you don't have any health care options. For Trump, he wants to be the only source of information about himself and, in some ways, about the world itself.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Again I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper. Nearly 4 in 10 African-American children are living in poverty while 58 percent of African-American youth are now not employed.
MURPHY: And so he's constantly pointing out how the appearances of the world lie to us, that they don't tell the truth. What you think you see is not actually what's going on.
SIEGEL: In that case, Trump's assertion of the plain facts flies in the face of federal data. That 58 percent black youth unemployment figure includes full-time students who aren't looking for work. The Labor Department's unemployment rate for young blacks is 19 percent.
For admirers of Donald Trump, his style works. His facts might not check out, and he might not be especially eloquent. But what supporters, like Jon Mortensen in Salt Lake City hear, is a man unfiltered, speaking his mind.
JON MORTENSEN: He doesn't like the BS. I don't like BS. He tells the people straight. So when he's done speaking, I know what he's said.
SIEGEL: Donald Trump's next public speaking assignment will be his biggest to date by far - his inaugural address tomorrow afternoon at the U.S. Capitol.
(SOUNDBITE OF YOUNG GALAXY SONG, "HARD TO TELL")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Washington has begun to fill with the tens of thousands - perhaps hundreds of thousands - of people coming here for the inauguration tomorrow and for this weekend's Women's March. Tracey Winbush made the trip from Youngstown, Ohio. She is the vice chair of the Mahoning County Ohio Republicans whom I met a few days ahead of the election, and she joins me now in the studio in Washington. Hi. How've you been?
TRACEY WINBUSH: I'm well. How are you?
SIEGEL: You're in town for the inauguration - not your first, I understand.
WINBUSH: No. This is my third.
SIEGEL: Tell me about the others.
WINBUSH: I was here in '05, I was here in '09, and I'm here in '17. I will thank you so much for the weather.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) Oh-five was the second inaugural for President George W. Bush...
WINBUSH: Yes.
SIEGEL: ...Like you, a Republican. Oh-nine was the first inaugural of Barack Obama, a Democrat. You came here to town for that.
WINBUSH: He was the first African-American president. I expected more out of him than I got, but I had to honor the significance of his win.
SIEGEL: When you were animated, as an African-American, and connected to it.
WINBUSH: Absolutely. I never thought I'd see it. I'm glad that I did.
SIEGEL: Has the discussion about politics and Donald Trump among family and friends - has it changed much since when I saw you just before the election?
WINBUSH: Usually when I come to D.C., I stay with a friend. She wouldn't let me stay because I was coming to the inauguration of Donald Trump.
SIEGEL: You were unwanted in her home.
WINBUSH: I think that's sad. I have friends who are friends on Facebook who have unfriended me. They won't talk to me, won't answer my calls because of my alliance with Mr. Trump. They don't understand that we fight, and then we work together to win.
SIEGEL: The period, though, between election day and inauguration day is a time when a victorious candidate who typically has been opposed by - who knows? - at least 45 percent of the people who cast their votes - but there's usually some reach out and some actions that bring people together. Do you fault him at all for not trying to meet people halfway in some manner?
WINBUSH: Every time he's extended his hand, I think they've slapped it, from election night to the protest outside to the thousands of letters that people got who were electors.
SIEGEL: The campaign to try to influence the Electoral College vote. Yeah.
WINBUSH: The Electoral College - absolutely. All the way to the congressman saying he's not a legitimate president.
SIEGEL: Congressman John Lewis of Georgia...
WINBUSH: Yes.
SIEGEL: ...A civil rights activist. You disagree with this.
WINBUSH: I disagree. He's a representative. I honor his history, and I appreciate it as an African-American, but this is not about his history. This is about his present. People who are the citizens of America, we boycott. Representatives represent. He has access to the president. He should be talking to him about what's needed in urban America and in his district, not boycotting and making enemies walking in.
SIEGEL: You're from Youngstown, Ohio.
WINBUSH: Yes.
SIEGEL: You're familiar with your city being used as a backdrop by politicians who come through and say, we're going to fix this. We're going to bring jobs to Youngstown, and this old steel city is going to hum again. What kinds of promises about jobs in Youngstown do you think are worth holding President Trump to?
WINBUSH: We need to have a education initiative, so we need some type of programming that's going to make that happen because right now in Youngstown, a lot of our problem with job growth is not having skilled labor.
SIEGEL: I've one micro-political question for you.
WINBUSH: Sure.
SIEGEL: You're a Republican county vice chair in Ohio.
WINBUSH: Yes.
SIEGEL: There was an election for a state Republican chair in Ohio.
WINBUSH: Yeah.
SIEGEL: And the incumbent, Matt Borges, is a supporter of Governor Kasich and supported by Governor Kasich, was beaten by Jane Timken, who was supported by Donald Trump. The right move for the Ohio Republicans?
WINBUSH: Jane Timken is going to make an excellent chairman. I think the party has changed under Donald Trump. The party has become something that we haven't seen yet, and she is going to be able to take the vision that Mr. Trump has and make it what needs to happen in Ohio because we're going into '18. And '18 that's going to be just as significant a winning as '16.
SIEGEL: The governorship is up in 2018.
WINBUSH: And governorship is up and so is another senator seat - Sherrod Brown. And we plan on being victorious, and so we've got a great candidate that's going to run. And we have to have a solid foundation to build on and to thrive on so that they can get their message out.
SIEGEL: Well, Tracy, it was great to meet you in Youngstown just before the election, and now it's good to see you in Washington on the eve of the inauguration. Thanks for coming.
WINBUSH: Thank you. I appreciate it.
SIEGEL: Tracey Winbush, who is vice chair of the Mahoning County - that's Youngstown, Ohio - Republicans and now treasurer of the Ohio State Republican Party.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
All this week, we've been taking a first pass at this question - what will Barack Obama's legacy be? We've heard opinions on the president's economic policies, his handling of race relations and the wars he leaves behind - today, foreign policy. My colleague Kelly McEvers spoke with a critic of the president's approach to Iran and Syria.
KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributor to The Atlantic magazine, where his latest piece is called "Obama And The Limits Of Fact-Based Foreign Policy." Welcome to the show.
SHADI HAMID: Hi. Thanks for having me.
MCEVERS: So you write about how the Obama administration's foreign policy team, one full of academics and technocrats - basically lots of smart people - was a welcome change from the George W. Bush era. Why?
HAMID: So I think in 2009 - this was after eight years of someone - George W. Bush, who I think a lot of people saw as having a kind of anti-intellectual aspect - and I think one thing that I've learned over the past eight years is facts are necessary, but they're not sufficient. In other words, you can have smart people who know all the facts about a specific conflict or country, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they have good judgment or bold vision.
MCEVERS: I want to talk about some examples where you think the Obama team's foreign policy wasn't necessarily going in the right direction. And one problem you have, as you see it, is that the administration privileged the Iran nuclear deal above all other issues. Why did you see that as a problem?
HAMID: The problem is that came at the expense of a focus on the Syrian civil war because one concern the Obama administration had was that if they moved more aggressively against the Assad regime and its Iranian backers in Syria - that that could possibly undermine negotiations with the Iranians on their nuclear program.
MCEVERS: Yeah. Let's talk about that one for a second. I mean, it's 2013. It's the so-called red line moment, right? I mean, I think it's a moment a lot of people are going to look back and talk about. Obama says if the Syrian government uses chemical weapons on its own people, that his calculus would change. It was a strong hint that the U.S. was going to strike. The Syrian government does use chemical weapons. Obama decides not to strike, and instead there's this multilateral agreement to destroy Syria's chemical weapons. I mean, the administration now calls that a victory. You say it's not a victory. Why?
HAMID: I think it's actually somewhat offensive that the Obama administration would refer to this as a victory. I mean, for the Syrian people that was really the turning point. Essentially, after Obama backed down from the red line, it sent a message to the Assad regime that they couldn't kill people with chemical weapons, but killing people through conventional means was pretty much going to be accepted.
MCEVERS: You know, a lot of people talk about Obama's optimism - you know, this quote that he always says - a quote of Martin Luther King Jr.'s - that the moral arc of history bends toward justice. People are awed, of course, by this optimism. But you say when it comes to the Middle East and foreign policy that that's kind of a problem. Why?
HAMID: Obama doesn't see the world as it actually is. He - he's full of this optimism about human nature, and that's what that quote captures - that the arc of history bends towards justice. But presumably, someone has to do the bending. And when America isn't interested in playing that role in the Middle East, then you're going to have an arc that bends in a very different direction. So if you're going into foreign policy with these assumptions about human nature, and those assumptions turn out to be mistaken, then you have a real problem.
MCEVERS: Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author most recently of "Islamic Exceptionalism: How The Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping The World." Thanks so much.
HAMID: Thanks for having me.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
For the millions of Americans who support Donald Trump, Friday's inauguration ceremony is a moment of celebration, hope and renewal. North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann met up with one of them this week, a millworker in northern New York.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Gary Varmette is a big guy with a thick beard and huge grin. When I ask him about Donald Trump, he lights up even brighter. Right off, he says he's frustrated. He thinks too many liberals and Democrats are trying to spoil this moment.
GARY VARMETTE: He is in. We need to back him up. We need to stop the protesting. We need to gather behind him and try to make the country great again.
MANN: On this afternoon, a few days before the inauguration, Gary works the floor of the new business he's opened.
VARMETTE: We dump them here. Here's where we count them. We
MANN: It's a bottle and can recycling shop on the outskirts of his tiny hometown, Crown Point, N.Y.
VARMETTE: It takes a lot of bottles and cans to pay bills.
MANN: This is just one of Gary's side businesses He's 55 and also works night shifts in a paper mill down the road, which barely leaves him time for his real passion, deer and bear hunting, but he says he doesn't mind.
VARMETTE: You've got to stand up for yourself and take care of yourself. Pull up your big girl panties and do it.
MANN: This is the ethic Gary thinks Donald Trump embodies, and Gary loves him for it. It's full-steam ahead. It's hard work and starting new businesses and not worrying about political correctness. He thinks fears about the new president are overblown. And all the controversy and the questions raised by some critics about the president elect's legitimacy - Gary thinks that stuff is downright un-American.
VARMETTE: We can't be divided. We need to back him up and go forward. Give him a chance.
MANN: I remind Gary that Republicans and Donald Trump himself spent a lot of years questioning Barack Obama's legitimacy, sometimes attacking his very Americanness. Gary kind of winces when I ask about all that. He doesn't like Barack Obama, but says the current president also deserves respect.
VARMETTE: Even with Obama - I don't care who's in there. They're voted in. Now get behind them and support them. They are the head of our country. Back them up. Help them out. Do your part.
MANN: I ask Gary what he thinks about the serious questions that have lingered and even grown since Election Day about Russia, about Donald Trump's business ties overseas.
VARMETTE: It's not that I don't care. There's (laughter) - there's always dirty politics.
MANN: Before Gary takes any of those concerns seriously, he says he'll need to see a smoking gun - clear evidence that Donald Trump crossed a big line - but he hopes it doesn't come to that. He hopes Donald Trump tackles ambitious things right out of the gate. I ask what tops Gary's wish list, and it's kind of a surprise - health care.
VARMETTE: Because if they yank out the Obamacare, then people are sitting with nothing, so I would love to see him nail that first. That should be the first thing - is nail the insurance so everybody's covered, so that people can have their health care.
MANN: So Gary Vermette is excited and hopeful and proud, but Donald Trump has also built huge expectations. Gary wants him to unite the country, and he wants proof that Republicans can deliver fast - replacing Obamacare with something a lot better. For NPR News, I'm Brian Mann in upstate New York.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
At a pre-inaugural luncheon today, President-elect Donald Trump bragged about his cabinet. He said they'll have, by far, the highest IQ of any cabinet ever assembled. That sort of boast is nothing new for Trump. Throughout the campaign, he regularly made statements that were exaggerations, unprovable or plainly untrue. There will be much time in the years ahead to fact-check President Trump. Today, NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith looks at what may have inspired Trump's bravado and helped him reach the highest office in the land.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Nineteen months ago, Donald Trump rode an escalator into the lobby of Trump Tower and, for the first time as a presidential candidate, did something he would do repeatedly during the campaign.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: That is some group of people - thousands.
KEITH: There weren't thousands of people there - more like hundreds - but never mind that.
TRUMP: This is beyond anybody's expectations. There's been no crowd like this.
KEITH: In that moment, the long-shot candidate may just have been employing the power of positive thinking.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NORMAN VINCENT PEALE: Think big, and you'll achieve big results. Think success, and you'll have success.
KEITH: That is the voice of Norman Vincent Peale, the author of the best-selling book "The Power Of Positive Thinking," first published in 1952. In the late 1960s, he had a regular radio segment, which is where this audio comes from. He was also the longtime pastor at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, which Trump attended with his family growing up. Peale even officiated Trump's first wedding.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Norman Vincent Peale - the great Norman Vincent Peale - was my pastor. "The Power Of Positive Thinking" - everybody's heard of Norman Vincent Peale. He was so great.
KEITH: That was Trump in July of 2015 at the Iowa Family Leadership Summit, talking about where he got his religious grounding.
TRUMP: I still remember his sermons. It was unbelievable. And what he would do is he'd bring real-life situations - modern-day situations - into the sermon. And you could listen to him all day long.
KEITH: Peale took a nontraditional approach to Christianity, catering to businessmen like Trump and his real estate developer father with what today would be called a prosperity gospel. Religious faith, he wrote, is not something piously stuffy, but is a scientific procedure for successful living.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PEALE: Once you've determined your goals, paint a mental picture of yourself achieving them. Hold that picture of success before you at all times. Concentrate on it, and it will materialize.
KEITH: In his book, Peale offered advice like - any fact facing us, however difficult, even seemingly hopeless, is not so important as our attitude toward that fact, adding - a confident and optimistic thought pattern can modify or overcome the fact altogether.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PEALE: See yourself not failing, but succeeding. Believe in yourself, in your capacity, in your ability to get good results, and your supply of confidence will become equal to your responsibilities. Confident thinking gets positive results.
KEITH: One chapter is titled I "Don't Believe In Defeat," which easily could have been Trump's personal motto in 2016 as he carefully cherry-picked the few polls he could find that showed him ahead.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FOX NEWS")
TRUMP: Well, we're very close or winning, I think. You know, the IBD poll just came out, and we're two points up.
KEITH: That was Trump calling into "Fox News" two weeks before the election, when virtually every poll showed Hillary Clinton ahead. And it may have been that same power of positive thinking that drove him to campaign in seemingly solid blue upper Midwestern states. At 1 a.m. on the morning of the election, Trump closed out his campaign with a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Today we're going to win the great state of Michigan, and we are going to win back the White House.
(CHEERING)
KEITH: As Peale wrote, affirm it, visualize it, believe it, and it will actualize itself. And there, in the middle of the night, Trump's crowd really did number in the thousands. A little more than 24 hours later, he would become the president-elect. Tamara Keith, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The world's most notorious drug trafficker left a Mexican prison today. This time, though, it was with an escort out the door and not in a daring escape. Joaquin El Chapo Guzman has been extradited to the U.S. He was handed over to DEA agents this afternoon and put on a plane to New York where he'll face charges in connection to his leadership of one of Mexico's most powerful drug cartels. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports from Mexico City.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: According to Mexican officials, Guzman was handed over to U.S. authorities this afternoon in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Shortly after, the U.S. Justice Department confirmed the handover and said Guzman was on his way to New York. It's been a long and spectacular journey for the infamous leader of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel. It involves two daring prison escapes, years on the run, a clandestine meeting with Hollywood stars and lengthy legal maneuvers. But in the end, Guzman will face what he's feared the most, a U.S. prison cell.
According to the Justice Department, Guzman is charged in six separate indictments throughout the United States. First up will be in federal court in New York. He faces multiple charges for money laundering, drug trafficking and murder, all connected to his leadership of the Sinaloa drug cartel, one of the largest and far-reaching in the world today.
Mexico had at one point said it would not extradite Guzman and would have him stand trial for his crimes at home. That was shortly after a second arrest in 2014. But the government reversed itself after being embarrassed by Guzman's brazen escape from Mexico's maximum security prison in the summer of 2015.
From a hole that began in Guzman's prison cell, the drug lord climbed down a ladder and then rode a rigged motorcycle through a mile-long tunnel to freedom. Guzman remained on the run for nearly six months. During that time, he met secretly with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo and U.S. actor Sean Penn.
Shortly after, though, and partly due to his meeting with the stars, Mexican officials caught up with Guzman, capturing him in January of last year. This time officials immediately began extradition procedures. Guzman's lawyers have been fighting it ever since. He lost his final appeal this week. Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Mexico City.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Our co-host Ari Shapiro has been on a road trip this week, driving through North Carolina and Virginia. He's brought us the voices of people he met along the way. For the last leg of his journey, Ari traveled with a group of college students headed to Washington before the inauguration.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: We're in a parking lot in Lynchburg, Va., on Thursday hours before the sun comes up. About a dozen students from Liberty University are freshly scrubbed, looking ready for church - men in neckties, women in high heels.
This is a conservative Christian school. Some of these students were first-time voters in November. One said he knocked on 10,000 doors for the Republican Party in Wisconsin. All of them are Donald Trump fans. Andrew Watkins is 18.
ANDREW WATKINS: I'm just super excited getting involved in politics, and I'm really excited to see something historical.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE IGNITION)
SHAPIRO: We all pile into a caravan of cars, and after a four-hour drive from Lynchburg, the Washington Monument appears on the horizon. Eighteen-year-old Kayla Bailey says the site gives her goosebumps.
The students stretch their legs in front of the Greater New Hope Baptist Church downtown. And I asked Kayla the question we've been putting to everyone on this road trip. What are your hopes and fears for the Trump administration?
KAYLA BAILEY: I come from West Virginia. And so we've seen a really big decline in our economy, and a lot of people are addicted to drugs and just really have no hope anymore. And so I'd really like to see sort of my home state get better (laughter) because after eight years, I've just - it's been a really hard process to watch people suffer.
SHAPIRO: These college students are the youngest people by far in the long line waiting to get into the midday church service. Once worship is over, they all agree on the site they want to see next.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: We're going to Trump Hotel.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: We're walking to Trump Hotel.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Yes.
SHAPIRO: There are barricades out in front. The street is closed. People have lined up taking pictures. This has become a tourist attraction in its own right.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Do one of you guys mind taking our picture?
WATKINS: It's super cool actually seeing it in person - the place that, like, I hear about on the news all the time. It's like oh, wow, I'm actually right here.
SHAPIRO: While they're taking their photos in front of this old stone building repurposed as a luxury Trump Hotel, one of them spots a sort of celebrity.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Jerry.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: Jerry.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: It's Jerry.
SHAPIRO: It's Jerry Falwell, Jr., Liberty University's president, son of the school's founder.
JERRY FALWELL JR: Hey, guys.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #6: How are you?
FALLWELL JR: Glad we ran into you.
SHAPIRO: Time for a decision. Plan A is the concert on the mall with Toby Keith, Three Doors Down and other entertainers. Plan B is Capitol Hill with a chance to meet a member of Congress and maybe even upgrade their tickets to get a better view of inauguration. They head for the Capitol.
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: Going up.
SHAPIRO: Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia does not disappoint.
BOB GOODLATTE: Hey, guys.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #7: Hi.
GOODLATTE: Y'all looking forward to the inauguration?
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Yes, Sir.
GOODLATTE: All right. Do we have tickets for everybody?
SHAPIRO: A Liberty graduate who works in the office plays the name game with the students. A couple of them know her brother. Just outside the building, a tall man approaches them. He offers little prayer cards. The students all sort of roll their eyes, trying to ignore him, but he won't go away.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: ...Knowing Jesus.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #8: We're actually from Liberty University, so...
UNIDENTFIED MAN #2: Are you? OK.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #8: Yeah, we definitely know Jesus. But thanks for the card anyway.
UNIDENTFIED MAN #2: Well, we need to pray...
SHAPIRO: It's early to bed Thursday night for these students and another very early morning on Friday. They meet in the hotel lobby well before dawn to get to the mall in time for inauguration.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #9: Getting ready to head out for the big day.
SHAPIRO: The hotel is in the Virginia suburbs, so the students have to figure out the Metro. Ben Solem, who's been to Washington before, is helping show people how to get into town. He takes a seat on the train.
BEN SOLEM: Growing up, my parents would quote to me that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. And it's true. That quote is lived out on many fronts here in Washington, D.C., every single day. It's cool to see it firsthand.
SHAPIRO: What's funny is that I think there will probably be marchers with that quote tomorrow who have the exact opposite opinion from...
SOLEM: Probably.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
BAILEY: Wow.
SHAPIRO: Coming out at the top of the escalators, Kayla Bailey confronts a noisy explosion of democracy.
BAILEY: There's a lot going on. There's protesters, and there's people expressing their opinion...
(LAUGHTER)
BAILEY: ...Very loudly. It's a bit confusing.
CODY CLINEBELL: And there's a lot of bullhorns, a lot of men trying to sell T-shirts, hats, and it's very chaotic.
SHAPIRO: Cody Clinebell, who's wearing a thin cardigan over his shirt and tie, is realizing that maybe he should have dressed more warmly. A few of them stopped to buy Trump scarfs and stocking caps to keep warm and have a souvenir.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: ...The other gate. We're shutting this one down, folks.
SHAPIRO: As the students turn to walk down another street, Cody passes a long line of uniformed officers with helmets, batons and shields.
CLINEBELL: It's sad, you know? Regardless of who you voted for, I think this is something that the nation needs to come together and do - is just love and forgive and let go.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: Tickets out, please.
SHAPIRO: Finally, tickets in hand, the students reach their gate.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #10: We're definitely excited.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: It's going to be cool.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #10: We're ready...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: It's going to be cool.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #10: ...Ready to get in there and get started.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: All right, guys, let's go get it.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #10: All right, thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: See you.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #10: Thank you, guys. Bye.
SHAPIRO: They walk through onto the mall to watch Donald Trump take the oath of office.
SIEGEL: That's our co-host Ari Shapiro. The stories from his inauguration road trip were produced by Jinae West.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
On today's program, we'll hear from Americans who came to Washington for the inauguration - some to celebrate, some to protest. We'll hear from political journalists and commentators on the transition that took place today and what it may foretell.
But first, we'll hear what the new president of the United States had to say. And we'll start with his oath of office administered by Chief Justice John Roberts.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN ROBERTS: I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear...
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear...
ROBERTS: ...That I will faithfully execute...
TRUMP: ...That I will faithfully execute...
ROBERTS: ...The office of president of the United States...
TRUMP: ...The office of president of the United States...
ROBERTS: ...And will, to the best of my ability...
TRUMP: ...And will, to the best of my ability...
ROBERTS: ...Preserve, protect and defend...
TRUMP: ...Preserve, protect and defend...
ROBERTS: ...The Constitution of the United States.
TRUMP: ...The Constitution of the United States.
ROBERTS: So help me God.
TRUMP: So help me God.
SIEGEL: Then, having been sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump gave a relatively short speech, just over 16 minutes. President Trump struck familiar themes from his campaign - the nation hollowed out by the flight of business, the middle class abandoned and promises of a new order.
Seated behind him among the assembled family and clergy were past presidents, Supreme Court justices, leaders of Congress. And Donald Trump railed against the political establishment that was so amply represented.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories.
SIEGEL: That, he said, changes here and now. In his view, what Americans want from government is modest. What they have is horrific.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families and good jobs for themselves. These are just and reasonable demands of righteous people and a righteous public.
But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists - mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation, an education system flushed with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
(APPLAUSE, CHEERING)
SIEGEL: The forgotten men and women of our country, he said, will be forgotten no longer. And as he did often in his campaign, Donald Trump contrasted what he described as Washington's neglect of Americans at home with what he claims is its excessive generosity abroad.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: For many decades, we've enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry, subsidize the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military. We've defended other nation's borders while refusing to defend our own...
(APPLAUSE, CHEERING)
TRUMP: ...And spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. We've made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon.
One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world.
SIEGEL: That is the past, he said. Looking ahead to America's role in the world during his presidency, Trump invoked a familiar phrase. It was for decades a slogan of discredited isolationism. This past year, it was one of his rallying cries.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first.
(APPLAUSE, CHEERING)
TRUMP: Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.
SIEGEL: We will, in the familiar words of the new president of the United States, restore American greatness.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: So to all Americans - in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, from ocean to ocean, hear these words. You will never be ignored again.
(APPLAUSE, CHEERING)
TRUMP: Your voice, your hopes and your dreams will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way. Together, we will make America strong again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And, yes, together, we will make America great again.
(APPLAUSE, CHEERING)
TRUMP: Thank you. God bless you, and God bless America.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We're going to take a closer look at President Trump's inaugural address and what to expect from the new administration. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson is here with me in the studio. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi. How you doing?
MCEVERS: So let's talk about the tone of the speech. Inaugural addresses are often uplifting and positive, and the tone of this one did seem kind of dark, no?
LIASSON: Kind of dark - it was a continuation of his campaign speeches. And remember; he wrote that book "Crippled America." So he did paint a grim, almost apocalyptic vision. He talked about drugs and crime and gangs, mothers and children trapped in poverty, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones.
You know, I can't think of another inaugural address that used the term American carnage, but it was a nationalist, populist, isolationist, protectionist speech. It had two clearly identified foils - one, the political establishment, who, as you just heard him say, protected themselves, not the citizens - and other countries, who he said are destroying our jobs and stealing our companies.
So it was a speech directed to his base, not necessarily to a wider group of Americans because that grim view of America I think resonates with the white, working-class rust-belt towns ravaged by deindustrialization or opioid abuse. Maybe it's not the same America that other people see who are beginning to enjoy the fruits of a growing economy and a low unemployment rate.
MCEVERS: You talk about other countries. He mentioned that. I mean these other countries are paying close attention to a speech like this. What was his message to them?
LIASSON: Sounded like he was saying, you're on your own. The only international goal that he laid out for the world's only democratic superpower was to, quote, "eradicate radical Islamic terrorism completely from the face of the Earth."
Now, this is a very big shift, and it's one the American people may be in the mood for after 16 years of foreign wars. He said from this day forward, it's going to be only America first. So it sounds like he's saying the U.S. no longer sees any overlap between its interests and the world interests.
U.S. foreign policy used to be based on the idea that the U.S. was willing to shoulder more than its fair share because a democratic, stable world was in our economic and national security interests. But now he says we're going to have to protect our borders from the ravages of other countries, and protection will bring us great prosperity.
MCEVERS: Trump transition officials had signaled that this was not going to be an agenda-driven speech, and it wasn't. But what did you hear today that gave you a sense of President Trump's priorities going forward?
LIASSON: The one priority he talked about was infrastructure. He did not mention the wall. He didn't talk about Obamacare. And that's where I think Trump's speechwriters are onto something. I think that Steve Bannon and Steve Miller understand that this is the most unifying part of his message. A lot of his white working-class base like some of the provisions of Obamacare, but everyone wants jobs. And infrastructure is a bipartisan - has a lot of bipartisan support.
MCEVERS: So we think that's what we're going to see in the first hundred days?
LIASSON: I think that's what he's going to try to do. A trillion dollars is hard. But today, remember; he was surrounded by the establishment, by a bunch of free traders, small government conservatives, and we heard him deliver the outside message. It was a pretty scorched-earth, anti-establishment message, but now he has to get the establishment behind him. And he has to play the inside game to get that infrastructure program passed.
Some of the things he and the Republicans want will be easy, like tax reform and deregulation. But to get a trillion dollars' worth of infrastructure, he will have to reach across the aisle. And a big question is - he seems to want to govern as a populist. He campaigned as one. But his cabinet has been criticized as faux populist, filled with Wall Street financiers and billionaires and CEOs.
MCEVERS: Finally, I mean you and I have talked about Trump's poor approval ratings. But the crowd today looked relatively thin compared to the last few inaugurals. How significant is that?
LIASSON: I don't think it's significant at all right now. I think he's going to get his first-year agenda through with maybe a few exceptions. Most presidents do when they have complete control of Congress. He may have low approval ratings and a small crowd, but remember; he won with 66 percent of Americans saying he was not qualified to be president. So maybe you don't need high approval ratings to be successful.
And he is inheriting the best economy that any president has inherited in 20 years - dropping unemployment and growing economy. And net illegal immigration from Mexico is zero.
MCEVERS: NPR political correspondent Mara Liasson, thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE THE SONG, "THIS IS THE DAY")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A big part of the pomp and circumstance of today is the inaugural parade that winds from the Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. NPR's Asma Khalid is in a good spot for watching that parade right near the White House. She's on the line now.
Hi, Asma.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Hey, how are you?
MCEVERS: Good. So tell us where you're standing.
KHALID: Well, I'm in one of the press risers that looks over the reviewing stand. That's on the north side of the White House, and it's where President Trump, the vice president and their families will be able to see the parade. So, you know, they sort of lead off the parade. So once they arrive - they haven't gotten here yet - they'll sit behind bulletproof glass here to watch the rest of it.
MCEVERS: And has anyone come by yet?
KHALID: None of sort of the big parade performances yet. We had a marching band that came by just prior to this and police escorts. But what was interesting is some of the sort of Trump administration officials or the picks for his Cabinet have come by. They enter just by foot into the walk - the parade stand.
So we saw Jeff Sessions, who's Donald Trump's pick for attorney general. He got a huge round of applause from the crowd, as did Ben Carson, his former rival who's now his pick for HUD.
MCEVERS: The head of this parade of course is Donald Trump's limousine. He and his family at one point got out and walked for a stretch. Let's listen to how the crowd reacted to that.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: And besides the Trump family and some of these nominees, who else is in the parade?
KHALID: So there's a - sort of a mix of college marching bands and high school marching bands. The boy scouts of America will be here as well. But, Kelly, one of the things that's been interesting is the inaugural committee expects about 8,000 participants. This is fewer than they've had, say, for President Obama's inaugural parade in 2009. And some of this is no doubt because Donald Trump was seen as being a really polarizing candidate during his campaign.
And so, you know, as I'm sure some of our listeners know, there's a historically black college in Alabama that sort of faced a lot of heat from alumni for agreeing to participate in the inaugural parade. And, you know, usually the city of Washington, D.C., has a public school or two who's marching band participates. And this year, no Washington, D.C., public schools are sending a marching band either to the parade.
MCEVERS: You were walking around the area earlier today. What else did you see?
KHALID: So, Kelly, I was on the streets around the White House prior to the kickoff of the parade. And it was sort of this really surreal moment where you would turn your head right, and you'd see supporters of Donald Trump, you know, wearing those make America great again hats. And you'd turn your head left, and you'd see people with protest signs saying dump Trump.
And I had stopped into a coffee shop just so I could physically see the inaugural address on the screen. And I was in there with some Trump supporters. And at that moment, we had protesters come down H Street, which is one of the streets real close to the White House, protesting Donald Trump's inaugural speech. There's sort of two very, very different experiences for folks at the same time.
MCEVERS: NPR's Asma Khalid near the end of the inaugural parade route at the White House, thank you.
KHALID: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF DIRTY PROJECTORS SONG, "ABOUT TO DIE")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel with our regular Friday political observers - columnists E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution. Hi, E.J.
E J DIONNE, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
SIEGEL: And joining us this week from Arlington, Va., just across the Potomac, David Brooks of The New York Times. Hi, David.
DAVID BROOKS, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
SIEGEL: Let's talk first about one of the big themes in Donald Trump's inaugural address, one that we heard throughout the past year, the idea that American cities and manufacturing have declined terribly, dragging down middle America. To those he calls the forgotten Americans, Trump made this promise.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.
SIEGEL: David Brooks, a promising start to a new presidency?
BROOKS: A daring start. You know, it struck me as very much a realigning type of speech, a speech that's really going to try to realign our politics. No longer the traditional arguments we've had over big or small government, but from bottom to top, rallying the people at the bottom against the people at the top, and a very bloody-minded view of the world, very zero-sum.
The Republican Party, which he more or less made direct assault upon in the speech, has always been a party that believes in growth and innovation and that it's not a zero sum world, that we can in the larger the pie with growth policies. But he is - if they're taking, then we're losing. If China is winning, we're losing if. Washington is winning, we're losing. And so I think the attempt is to totally reshape our politics and maybe win over some populists on the left.
SIEGEL: And that populist appeal, E.J., the dystopian vision of mid-America and the idea that Donald Trump will be the champion of forgotten Americans. Is it possible that he'll be the hero of the American working class?
DIONNE: I think it's highly unlikely given his Cabinet and given the policies he's going to sign. I mean, I thought the bleakness of this speech was astonishing. I heard New Leftists a half a century ago more positive about America. Abraham Lincoln was more upbeat during...
SIEGEL: During the Civil War, yeah.
DIONNE: ...The middle of the Civil War. This is an astonishing speech. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. And he made big promises to his base here. He says we will bring back our borders, we will bring back our wealth, we will bring back our dreams, we will bring back our jobs. And I think he's got two problems here.
One is Obama's left him with a really strong economy already, so he's going to have a really tough time pushing this up further. Secondly, he not only has a Cabinet of millionaires and billionaires as I said, including a lot of Wall Street people, but the policies he promises to pursue so far are not promises that are going to reach those folks. So I think he's created a real dilemma or a problem for himself.
SIEGEL: I want to ask you both about the fact that Donald Trump enters the presidency today with remarkably low poll figures for a new president. First of all, David Brooks, given that his party has majorities in both houses of Congress, does it really matter?
BROOKS: Yeah, it matters a lot because 'cause he doesn't - he's not a traditional representative of the party, so the party's not just going to snap into line behind him. His own Cabinet is not going to snap into line behind him. And as his popularity goes down, and I think the small crowds today is a bit of a sign of that, the lack of enthusiasm, the lack of at least broad-based popularity. Republicans are going to feel less beholden to him.
And one of the things we've noticed even so far among the - his supposed representatives talking about health care legislation on the Hill, they feel perfectly fine going against his stated opinions. His spokesmen feel perfectly fine saying he doesn't mean what he clearly wants to mean, so enforcing discipline among his own people is going to be a gigantic problem which will be made worse without popularity.
SIEGEL: E.J., Donald Trump did not seem to improve his - the opinion in which he's held by those who didn't vote for him since Election Day, but he did call for solidarity today in this speech. Is that a - some kind of appeal for national unity as you heard it?
DIONNE: Well, you know, he offered a take no prisoners message, and his adversaries are going to respond in the same spirit. There was no outreach to them at all. He had a little nice thing about Hillary Clinton later at the congressional lunch...
SIEGEL: Yeah.
DIONNE: ...But nothing in the speech. And I actually found that sentence very disturbing. He said, we must speak our minds, openly debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. Now, I love the word solidarity, but that word can sound like a threat when it's used in a way that seems to subordinate free speech and open debate, and that's at least one reading of that sentence. So for those of us who worry a bit or more than a bit about Trump's commitment to democratic values, that sentence is one I hope we don't have to come back to, but I think we might.
SIEGEL: Trump hit a second big theme from his campaign in the inaugural address, that Americans will not be neglected at the expense of U.S. obligations to other countries. In short...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: From this date forward, it's going to be only America first, America first.
(CHEERING)
SIEGEL: Big cheer there, David Brooks, for America first. How different do you think America's role in the world is going to be under President Donald Trump?
BROOKS: Well, he's going to try to make it different. Again, the zero-sum thinking, if they're winning, we're losing. Second, a reorientation of our politics. Both parties have been pretty pro the post-World War II institutions, the pro - the institutions of globalization. He clearly is going to be opposed to them. There are not many people in this country or in this government at least who agree with him. Even within his own Cabinet most do not agree with him.
And so one of the things that'll be interesting to me, there was sort of a slight difference - or a large difference between Trump the inaugural speaker and Trump at the luncheon who was very much the insider, palsy (ph) palsy with all the insiders. And so when push comes to shove on foreign policy issues, is he going to side with Gen. Mattis and some of the insiders who are much more pro-globalist, or will he stay with Steve Bannon? That, to me, is one of the large foreign policy questions.
SIEGEL: E.J., I went back to read the remarks of John F. Kennedy in his inaugural, that the U.S. would pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. What a dramatic change since those days in terms of presidential rhetoric.
DIONNE: The radical nationalism in this speech is a break with pretty much every president in the post-World War II era, and that Kennedy quote is a particularly good representation of that view. I mean, we've got to remember, America first is a very vexed slogan in our history. It was the slogan of those who didn't want to intervene in World War II against Hitler. And I think what's troubling is that if he were talking about just trade deals and saying a lot of Americans have gotten a bad shake out of trade deals, there were a lot of people who would agree with him and say we've got to do better by those folks.
But when he uses this language, it sounds like he wants to take apart international systems, international agreements, international organizations that on the whole have served American interests quite well for a very long time, NATO prominent among them. And so when I heard that today, again, I think for those who are inclined to worry about Trump, his extreme nationalism raised those worries, it didn't appease them more or reduce them.
SIEGEL: But, David, nationalism is - it's a big flavor of the year, not just in the U.S.
DIONNE: You're right about that.
BROOKS: Yeah, welcome to the 21st century. I mean, it's Vladimir Putin, it's Marine Le Pen, it's UKIP party in the U.K., this is a global movement. And I think the Trump people, especially Steve Bannon, are extremely conscious that this is like Marxism in 1905. They see this as the rising movement for our century and defeating what had been the globalist agenda of the 20th century, and who knows, they may be right. I hope they're not. The one final thing I just want to say about Trump is it's easy to say, oh, he's a little like Andrew Jackson, or he's an outsider like Jimmy Carter. One of the takeaways from today is he's like nobody. We've never had a president remotely like him.
DIONNE: Amen to that.
SIEGEL: E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post, David Brooks of The New York Times, thanks to both of you.
DIONNE: Thank you.
BROOKS: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SOFI TUKKER SONG, "MATADORA")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We want to take a moment to hear from Americans in other parts of the country about what they thought about President Trump's inaugural address. We'll start in Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount College where several hundred people gathered to watch the event on one huge screen in the auditorium.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Zachary Hayes is a senior from Chicago who voted for Mr. Trump. He called Trump's speech inspiring.
ZACHARY HAYES: It was the culmination of his movement in which he wants to take back the White House from special interests and make sure that average citizens' voices are heard again and that they're not ignored. That struck a tone with me because I feel like my voice hasn't been heard.
SIEGEL: Aoife Tejada is a freshman at Loyola Marymount. She thought the new president hit some of the right notes.
AOIFE TEJADA: I think that saying that he wants it to be in the American people's hands, he wants the government to be run by the people kind of helped everyone's fears settle a little bit with this address because it is his first address as president.
I do think that some of the things that he said were somewhat broad. And one of the problems I have with Donald Trump is that he never kind of gives a solution to a problem that he addresses.
MCEVERS: In Hamilton, Mont., the TV is always on at a diner called BJ's. Several people watched the inauguration there during breakfast. Matthew Locati was raised in a conservative Republican home. He voted for Obama in 2008, but this time around, he voted for Trump. Locati hopes President Trump follows through with his campaign promises like stopping illegal immigration and getting rid of NAFTA. As for today's speech...
MATTHEW LOCATI: He's not the greatest orator, but I think he'll follow through with everything that he has said. I guess I like more of the direction than his actual words. It seems like there is real intent and passion behind what he's saying.
MCEVERS: Zach Strain was also at the diner. He's from Corvallis, Mont., and trains horses.
ZACH STRAIN: I was glad he mentioned God and connected him to the people of America. So I think if everybody obeys God, then it will heal America.
SIEGEL: In Ohio, Diassante Malike Greene is a 17-year-old who attends Cleveland Heights High School. He's not a voter yet, but he has an opinion. He says Trump's speech was not very presidential.
DIASSANTE MALIKE GREENE: I feel like he should have addressed more of him being in the office and, like, becoming the president and just how that feels and the experience of it and all that.
MCEVERS: Brady Blair was at work today in Louisville, Ky. But he still managed to catch the swearing in of the 45th president.
BRADY BLAIR: In between trying to work and watch the inauguration, most of what I heard was about unity, which with, like, all the drama and gossip about Trump, I think that was really, like, good stance on, like, his end to try to say, like, hey, I know you guys think this of me, but I really do want to try and stand for unity amongst races and different backgrounds of people.
So I thought it was (laughter) - I mean, like, don't get me wrong. I really don't like Trump, and I'm not excited for the next four years, especially as a gay individual. But I'm going to give him a chance.
MCEVERS: That's Brady Blair, just one of the voices from across the country today reflecting on President Donald Trump's inaugural address.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Tomorrow, here in Washington, there will be a response to today's inauguration of Donald Trump. It's called the Women's March on Washington. Organizers are expecting a couple hundred thousand people. Our co-host Audie Cornish has more.
AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE: Not all those who want to march are women, and not all are marching primarily for women's rights. We spoke with three people who plan to take to the streets of D.C. tomorrow - Katherine George from Phoenix Arizona, Lee Johnson - he lives in Wisconsin. And we begin with Arij Mikati from Chicago.
ARIJ MIKATI: I think - for me, I really believe fundamentally in the notion that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Some of our greatest American heroes were also great dissenters, if not most of them.
So for me, I believe that because I love this country so much and the people in it even more, that it was really important for me to stand alongside all marginalized groups that don't fit into the dominant culture. So I wanted to make sure that I was a part of that and showed solidarity with all of those people to empower them and to amplify their voices.
CORNISH: You guys are talking about dissent. And I think your critics are calling it whining, right? They're saying like, oh, quote, unquote, "we didn't do this when Obama was inaugurated," right? And, Lee, what's your response to that?
LEE JOHNSON: I do not think it's whining at all. If we expect there to be some sort of electrical, concrete change that happens after this march, that's just dreaming. I'm old enough to remember marches for civil rights and against the war in the 1960s.
At the beginning, those people were reviled. Most of the country just said, we don't need this right now; we have other things to think about. And it took a while for people to begin to see the truth of what those marches and what those protests were about.
And so that's what I think we're beginning now. As time passes and as some of the things that President Trump wants to do - and his people - begin to bite, I think that people will begin to see this was less whining than opening a door for you to come along with us so that we can make progress against the things that I fear will be attacking us.
CORNISH: Lee, you're coming from a place of someone who - as you said, you've gone to other marches in your life - right? - like the first Gulf War. You were protesting against that (laughter). You were protesting against nuclear war in the '80s.
But for Katherine, do you see this as the beginning of your political life - like, real activism? Like, can we call you in two years and see what you've been up to (laughter)?
KATHERINE GEORGE: Oh, my gosh, Audie, I hope so. You know, I think the marches are not what they used to be. In the '60s and in the '70s when people flooded out to the street to march, I think that that said maybe all that needed to be said. But we're not there anymore. We're in a different time, and we're in a different place.
And I think that for any movement like this to become a true mass movement for social change, the march can only be the beginning. We all have to come back home after that march on Sunday, on Monday and dig our heels in and do the real work on a local, grassroots level.
CORNISH: Arij Mikati, do you believe that, like, as someone who is - you know, works for a nonprofit? You work for an education nonprofit and are active. I mean does it feel like the beginning of something?
MCCATIE: I fundamentally believe that. I think that the most successful thing we can have happen at this march is if everyone that attends that march, which - they're saying 200,000 people. If they feel that that's an activating event for them - to come back and sit in school board meetings, local school council meetings...
CORNISH: But didn't people think that about President Obama, right? Wasn't that like, oh, this is the beginning of a movement, a whole new generation of people? I mean there were movements born but not the ones people thought.
MCCATIE: That is true of that. Although I do believe that now there's a fundamental difference in that I think people feel - even if it's not true, they feel that they have nothing left to lose. And what I mean by that is a lot of people are feeling in imminent danger right now.
And I think that unfortunately is a fact but hopefully will create an urgency that perhaps we didn't feel before. I think there was maybe a complacency prior to this, when now - I'm a Muslim Middle-Eastern immigrant to this country that has been told that I am not welcome here by our president during his campaign season. That creates an urgency in a lot of people that may not have felt it before. So I'm hopeful that this activates that kind of mobilization in a way that hasn't been activated before.
GEORGE: This is Katherine. I just wanted to step in really quick and say that I completely agree with that. And I think a lot of the misunderstanding with Obama's presidency - I think a lot of people saw him come in as our first black president, and you know, maybe more progressive people thought, oh, this is great; I can kind of kick back. And we've won. And you know, we're in post-racial America and all of that. And as we see, none of that's true.
I mean I feel like one of the positives of this whole situation and Trump becoming president is that white, privileged, middle-class America has kind of seen the rug pulled back and see this generational festering of racism and misogyny and anti-inclusion and anti-religious freedom that has been in the underbelly of America for so long. But now that those things have been brought to light, you can't say that they're not out there and it's not present in our country.
CORNISH: This incoming president has been kind of active. How have you felt, Lee Johnson, of, like, kind of how - the direction things are headed now that he's actually out there talking?
JOHNSON: I think they're headed in the exact direction that I felt since Election Day - absolutely the wrong way. I don't know what he is, and I don't know what he's actually going to do. He's just all about himself. And I would like to think that there's a rational person in there. Perhaps there is. I cannot assume that. The notion that he was just saying things to win his people over or to get elected - that's just dangerous. We have to take him at face value.
CORNISH: Arij, I want to ask you something just to follow up because Lee has mentioned this twice where he said, like, policies that could burn, policies that bite. For you, Arij, is there an element of this that feels high-stakes because you are an immigrant, because you identify as a Muslim woman? Like, what's driving you in this march?
MCCATIE: Well, I think the presence is incredibly important. I'm ready to go out there and make my voice heard and make sure that I'm seen as an ally by other groups that I fundamentally believe I need to stand with.
I want to make sure that Black Lives Matter know I support them. I want to make sure that the LGBTQ community knows I support them and stand with their rights. I want to make sure that undocumented folks know that. And it's much easier for us to make change if we all stand together. We are an unstoppable group together.
CORNISH: Well, thank you so much for speaking with ALL THINGS CONSIDERED today, and best of luck with the march this weekend.
MCCATIE: Thank you, Audie. It's an honor.
JOHNSON: Thank you.
GEORGE: Thank you so much, Audie.
CORNISH: That was Arij Mikati, Lee Johnson and Katherine George. All plan to participate in tomorrow's Women's March on Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHASTITY BELT SONG, "BLACK SAIL")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Today, Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States. John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States, administered the oath of office.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN ROBERTS: I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear...
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear...
ROBERTS: ...That I will faithfully execute...
TRUMP: ...That I will faithfully execute...
ROBERTS: ...The office of president of the United States.
TRUMP: ...The office of president of the United States.
SIEGEL: Throughout the program today, we'll be covering the events in Washington. That includes the celebrations as well as the protests. Many were peaceful, though, the D.C. police said a small number have been violent, and they have made more than 200 arrests. We'll have more on that in a moment as well as the latest on Trump's first actions as president.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
But today's main event was President Trump's inaugural address.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: This is your day. This is your celebration. And this, the United States of America, is your country.
MCEVERS: It was a 16-minute speech. Trump said that politicians had ignored the American people for too long as factories closed and people lost jobs. He told the crowd a new vision would govern the country.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families.
SIEGEL: And he outlined what America first would mean for relationships around the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: Trump supporters traveled from across the country to watch the speech from the National Mall.
AMY HIGGINS: Full of pride. It's a blessing to be here to witness this.
LIONEL PARSONS: I believe he's a listener. I believe he listens to everyone around him.
STEVE HEILBRUN: For the first time, you felt as if we've got a leader who is truly for the people and not for special interests and not for Washington, D.C.
MCEVERS: That was Amy Higgins of Delaware, Lionel Parsons of Pennsylvania and Steve Heilbrun from Massachusetts.
SIEGEL: After the address, Trump joined the inaugural luncheon at the Capitol. He spoke briefly, and he asked the crowd to stand and honor his rival in the election, Hillary Clinton, who was there along with President Bill Clinton.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I was very honored - very, very honored - when I heard that President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton was coming today. And I think it's appropriate to say. And I'd like you to stand up.
(APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: As the luncheon wrapped up, the inaugural parade began and headed from the Capitol to the White House.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There are many groups here in Washington protesting President Trump's inauguration. Some were on the National Mall during his swearing-in ceremony, holding signs with slogans like, not my president. Other people demonstrated downtown.
In one part of the city, a group of people smashed windows and set fires. Protesters there are facing off with police officers who have responded with pepper spray.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #1: (Chanting, unintelligible).
MCEVERS: Police say more than 90 people have been arrested across the city. In the rest of the city, demonstrations were mostly peaceful. I went out this morning to talk to protesters and ask them why they came out.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: (Chanting) Got to go - hey, hey, ho, ho - Donald Trump has got to go.
MCEVERS: OK, so we are at First and D Street. We're just, like, a couple blocks away from the Mall - looks like it's the approach to one of the entrances. You've got people who look like Trump supporters sort of in line. You can tell because they're wearing the red make-America-great-again hats. And then sort of walking up and down the street next to them are protesters.
BRADEN DAUER: My name's Braden Dauer.
MCEVERS: How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?
DAUER: I am 30.
MCEVERS: So what does your sign say?
DAUER: My sign says, the American dream is something no wall will ever contain. It's a quote from Barack Obama, and it meant a lot to me. I thought it was a powerful quote. And, you know, I think the wall is not going to be an effective deterrent to keep people out, but it undermines the very idea of the American dream.
Republicans listening, they might be thinking that all these protesters are protesting the inauguration and protesting, that they're just whiners. My answer to that is, you know, I'm not here to whine. I understand that he won, but I don't think he's done anything to deserve a celebration as of yet. I don't think that he's a good man.
MCEVERS: What about after today? What plans - you know, volunteer, organize, run for local office - you know, what kind of plans do you have in terms of opposing Trump?
DAUER: I don't really know how things are going to go. Maybe Trump will be a good president.
MICHAEL CALLIS: My name is Michael Callis. I'm from New Hampshire - Conway, N.H. You know, I'm a Republican. The problem is that he lies. He didn't win in a landslide. He won in a mudslide.
MCEVERS: What's your sign say there?
CALLIS: It says January 20, Trump lies. That's why I'm here. I drove 12 hours to do this. And when I go back to New Hampshire, there's going to be a lot of people that are grateful that I came down here to do this because they're very upset. They're scared, you know, of what Trump is up to because he just doesn't tell the truth.
MCEVERS: I see you walking up and down, showing this, you know, thing that says Trump lies to a lot of people who are waiting in line, people wearing things supporting Donald Trump. I mean, are you trying to have conversations?
CALLIS: Oh, yeah, come on. They're giving me the nod. They know he lies.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #3: (Chanting) Donald Trump has got to go.
MCEVERS: All right, so we're standing on top of these stairs right here. This was supposed to be an entrance for people who have tickets to get into the ticketed area to go in for the inauguration festivities.
However, a group of protesters mostly led by Black Lives Matter protesters have basically formed a sort of a human wall around this entrance and tried to close it down.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #4: (Chanting, unintelligible).
MARTHA NEUMAN: My name is Martha Neuman, and I'm from Boston.
MCEVERS: What about you?
ANIQA RAIHAN: Aniqa Raihan. I'm a local D.C. organizer.
MCEVERS: Tell us why you're here.
NEUMAN: We're Palestinian solidarity and human rights organizers. We're here to oppose Trump's racist and bigoted agenda, specifically around the issue of Israel and Palestine. We're here specifically at this location because Black Lives Matter has asked for backup. And they successfully blockaded it so that nobody can enter inauguration through this checkpoint.
MCEVERS: So people listening who aren't from D.C., who aren't protesters - the question they would ask is, why block an entrance to a thing that people are going to get to anyway?
NEUMAN: For us, this is an extraordinarily symbolic and powerful movement of resistance. We will put our bodies in the way because we believe so strongly in justice.
MCEVERS: What after the protest? Where does that go?
NEUMAN: It shouldn't end here, and it won't end here. Trump's policies are real. There's a lot of really problematic legislation coming up, but we have to keep fighting - if nothing else, for hope.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #5: (Chanting) Human rights are under attack. What do we do? Stand up. Fight back.
MCEVERS: Yeah, it sounds like they're cheering because the police just said that this gate is closed.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #5: (Chanting) We love you. We love you.
MCEVERS: And now they're chanting, we love you.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #5: (Chanting) We love you.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Chanting) Hey, hey, hey, no fascist U.S.A.
MCEVERS: Protesters earlier today here in Washington where Donald Trump was inaugurated as president.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Now we're going to hear about some of the first moves that the incoming president made today. As promised, President Trump got to work quickly, spending some time in the Oval Office tonight in between the inaugural parade and a trio of formal balls. He signed an executive order relating to Obamacare.
NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now. And Scott, tell us about this nighttime signing ceremony.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Well, as you say, it happened after the new president had watched the inaugural parade come down Pennsylvania Avenue and before he changed into his tuxedo for tonight's celebratory balls. He ducked into the Oval Office along with Vice President Pence and White House Chief of Staff Priebus and some others. And he signed an order directing government agencies to ease the burdens of Obamacare while this new administration and Congress work towards repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.
Now, it's not clear exactly what kinds of relief that executive order envisions. The new president also signed some paperwork for the first two members of his Cabinet who were confirmed by the Senate this afternoon, and then Vice President Pence swore in the new defense secretary, James Mattis, and the new Homeland Security secretary, John Kelly.
SIEGEL: Now, the new White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, is also issuing a memo tonight that calls for a freeze on government regulations. What does that entail?
HORSLEY: That's right. He's directing all government agencies to freeze new regulations. And this is just part of the way in which the incoming Trump administration plans to undo what it sees as overregulation over the course of the Obama administration. They have talked about rolling back regulations that limit fossil fuel production and carbon pollution.
And we also saw another change in a small way earlier today when the Federal Housing Administration, or FHA, halted a planned reduction in mortgage interest premiums that outgoing HUD secretary Julian Castro had ordered just 11 days ago. That premium cut was supposed to take effect later this month and would have saved affected families about $500 a year. But the incoming HUD secretary - or nominee for HUD secretary, Ben Carson, said he was surprised by that.
So within an hour of the swearing-in this afternoon, the FHA came out and said, hold on; we're going to suspend that rate cut. And it's just a small example of the way that the new administration plans to set a very new direction for the government.
SIEGEL: Scott, as of today, the actual White House is under new management. But this being the 21st century, the virtual White House is also under new management. Tell us about what's new at whitehouse.gov.
HORSLEY: Yeah, the whitehouse.gov website got its own digital makeover at the stroke of noon today. Most of the old Obama-era content disappeared, and we saw a whole new set of issues dear to the Trump administration taking its place. So if you go to whitehouse.gov now, you see the American First Energy Plan and the America First foreign policy - things like that.
Also at noon today, we saw all of the official White House Twitter handles taken over by the incoming members of the administration. That's important because as we know, Twitter has been a vital source of communication for Donald Trump. Not all the makeovers, though, were digital today.
We've also seen some changes in the decor of the Oval Office itself - new drapes on the windows, a new rug underfoot and a bust of Winston Churchill which gave way to a bust of Martin Luther King during the Obama years is now back. Winston Churchill has a place of honor in the Oval Office.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Scott Horsley. Thanks, Scott.
HORSLEY: My pleasure, Robert.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Some Donald Trump super fans packed right in front of the Capitol today to see the new president take his oath. To those Americans who are dreading a Trump presidency, these supporters say hold tight and have faith. NPR's Ailsa Chang reports.
AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: While thousands of people arrived in Washington, D.C. to protest the new president, what radiated around the Capitol grounds was a palpable peacefulness. Gary Alden of Charlotte, N.C. sat in his wheelchair after the ceremony reflecting on the tumultuous last year.
GARY ALDEN: Being here today has been an emotional journey.
CHANG: Alden is a Navy veteran who served in the Vietnam War. He says maybe it's naive of him to honestly believe Trump can accomplish great things, but he's going to keep that faith for now. And if there's one thing to marvel at today, it's this...
ALDEN: This country is so great that we can actually transfer power from the totally opposite ends of the spectrum.
CHANG: Even though news of protests around the city had spilled through the crowds here, it did nothing to spoil the vibe.
Ladies...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Hi.
CHANG: ...You guys look festive. I'm Ailsa Chang from NPR.
Many people in the audience had this message for voters still anguishing over the election - it helps no one to assume the worst is around the corner. Debbie Vaughn traveled here from Harlington (ph), Texas.
DEBBIE VAUGHN: If America's going to go forward, we've got to work together. And I respect your right to disagree, but I hope that you will understand that this is where America is going. This was Trump's election, was the voice of the people.
CHANG: But then there were others in the crowd who had a very different message for the other side.
VAUGHN: Go smoke some dope or something, get over it. (Laughter) I mean...
CHANG: Tom Case, another guy from Charlotte, N.C. is a retired mortgage broker.
TOM CASE: Let them stay in the background, let them suffer. They don't want change, they want their way.
CHANG: Do you think Trump should reach out to the other side given how divided the country is?
CASE: What other side? If you're...
CHANG: All the people who voted for Hillary Clinton.
CASE: No, what's to reach out to? You can't negotiate with evil. If you are decent honest people and you want to support the Constitution and you want to make this country great, you can reach out. But core values - there's nothing to reach out to.
CHANG: Still, this was a crowd who spoke in phrases like new beginnings and fresh hope. Many of them were attending their first inauguration like Rocky Beene.
ROCKY BEENE: Originally I'm from Florida, but I've been living the last 32 years in Guatemala.
CHANG: You guys came all the way from Guatemala?
BEENE: Yes.
CHANG: Beene and her husband are missionaries in Guatemala, and they say Trump is returning the country back to its roots.
BEENE: We were based and grounded on Christianity, and you couldn't even say merry Christmas. There were so many things that were just not politically correct, and there were so many things that were just not right in the hearts of America. It was like the - our nation was being hijacked from us, and so he's given us our nation back.
CHANG: Beene says give Trump a chance. He spoke today about one America, and she says for now, people owe him the benefit of the doubt. Ailsa Chang, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Donald Trump's inauguration is being closely watched all over the world. We're going to hear now from three countries whose relationships with the United States could change dramatically under President Trump - China, Mexico and Russia. We brought together three NPR correspondents to talk about perceptions of the new president and expectations going forward.
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: I'm Rob Schmitz, one of NPR's China correspondents. Prior to the election, China's government seemed to be rooting for Trump. But now they're worried because Trump has questioned the One China policy - the idea that Taiwan is part of China.
The Chinese have lodged complaints with the U.S. over this, but Trump appears to believe that the One China policy is something that's up for negotiation. He also believes a lot is negotiable when it comes to U.S.-Mexico relations, too, right, Carrie?
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Definitely, Rob. I'm Carrie Kahn. I'm NPR's Mexico correspondent. And renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement was a big part of President Trump's campaign. What exactly is on that negotiating table is unknown.
What is known, though, is that since Trump's victory in November, the economy here has been hit hard. The peso has plunged by more than 15 percent and continues to drop with every tweet Trump dispatches, whether he's either threatened to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it or slap on that so-called border tax on Mexican auto exports into the U.S.
And Mexico's leaders have been left pretty much flat-footed and not with a lot of good options. Mexico is very tied to the U.S. Around 80 percent of exports head there. So an all-out trade war with its big neighbor to the north doesn't look so good for Mexico.
SCHMITZ: And China is also worried about a trade war. It has a lot to lose in that scenario, but so does the U.S. And China's government said just this week that it hopes it can solve these trade issues through dialogue with the Trump team. But obviously this is a very different picture where you are, Lucian.
LUCIAN KIM, BYLINE: Oh, yeah, definitely. Hi, this is Lucian Kim, NPR's Moscow correspondent. Nobody here is talking about (laughter) a trade war. It's actually quite the opposite. There's the hope that the sanctions imposed by the U.S. over Russia's intervention in Ukraine will finally be lifted or at least eased. That is the No. 1 priority for the government here. So, in that sense, the Russian government hasn't really hidden its preference for Trump.
All the national TV channels are controlled by the Kremlin, and he's received a lot of positive coverage. I think it's fair to say that people here welcome Trump, especially since they've been hearing that Hillary Clinton just would have continued the same policies of Obama.
KAHN: Right. For Mexicans, Trump's policies or threatened policies have been very scary. Just during the transition period, as I said, the peso has plunged. And also foreign investment has fallen, too. Ford canceled the $1.6 billion investment here earlier this month, and that's really sent a harsh message here.
Mexican leaders have been sort of tepid in their response. They don't really know how to respond to Trump. They - you hear from a lot of them that they hope that he'll moderate his position and see how interdependent the two countries are and their economies are and how such taxes or a trade war will hurt the U.S., too.
KIM: Well, out here in Moscow, when you listen to Russian leaders, you really hear an impatience in their voice to get down to business. They're ready to turn over a new leaf in relations.
But what's interesting that if - is if you talk to officials off the record, you can actually hear some trepidation about what the Trump administration will really mean for Russia, especially in light of some of his more hawkish cabinet picks.
SCHMITZ: So it sounds like sort of a mixed bag where you are, Lucian. You know, Russia is not sure about Trump because he's been so unpredictable. And speaking of unpredictable, China is very worried about secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson's comments on the South China Sea. And China's government has vowed to militarily defend the islands that Tillerson says China should have no access to. So a conflict over that region seems more possible than ever.
That said, one silver lining for the Chinese is that China's government considers Trump's presidency as a symbol of a deeply divided United States, a superpower whose global dominance is fading. And China's leaders believe that if they play their cards right, they might have a chance to use this moment to reshape the global order to their liking.
KIM: Well, I think in Russia, there's also this hope for a new global order. But (laughter) still, it might seem a bit weird that Russians are quite so enthusiastic about Donald Trump. And I think in that sense, it's important not to look just through an American filter. Russians actually have very little information on Trump. And if they hear someone who's saying the U.S. should just get along with Russia, what's not to like about that?
KAHN: Unfortunately, in Mexico, there's a lot not to like, and President Trump is not very well-liked here. Mexico is not the global power player like China and still very interdependent and dependent on the U.S. in many ways. And I hate to end on a down note, but it looks - especially economically, 2017 is going to be a tough year for Mexico.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Carrie Kahn in Mexico City, Lucian Kim in Moscow and Shanghai correspondent Rob Schmitz.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE SEA AND CAKE SONG, "JACKING THE BALL")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Today at the stroke of noon Eastern time, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. After reciting the oath of office, President Trump delivered his inaugural address to the thousands assembled on the National Mall. We'll hear a few sections of that speech now.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Trump thanked those assembled, including his predecessor, Barack Obama. And then the new president set the tone of the speech.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left, and the factories closed.
SIEGEL: Trump laid out the challenges facing the country as he sees them - inner city poverty, empty factories, inadequate schools, a depleted military, crime and gangs taking lives and holding the country back. The carnage, he said, stops right here and now.
MCEVERS: And then Trump looked toward the future and laid out the principles for his presidency.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength. I will fight for you with every breath in my body, and I will never ever let you down.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: America will start winning again, winning like never before.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth, and we will bring back our dreams.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation. We will get our people off of welfare and back to work rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We will follow two simple rules. Buy American, and hire American.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America. And through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: The Bible tells us how good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity. We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: Trump called for an end to what he described as the empty talk of politicians. He said now arrives the hour of action.
SIEGEL: He ended his speech with this message.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: It's time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget - that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American flag.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky. They fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: So to all Americans in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, from ocean to ocean, hear these words. You will never be ignored again.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Your voice, your hopes and your dreams will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way. Together, we will make America strong again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And, yes, together, we will make America great again. Thank you. God bless you, and God bless America.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Thank you. God bless America.
SIEGEL: That was President Donald J. Trump delivering his inaugural address from the west front of the U.S. Capitol today.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAMBCHOP SONG, "UP WITH THE PEOPLE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It was light on A-list celebrities. The crowd was much smaller than eight years ago. Still, there were plenty of people out in Washington to celebrate and protest the inauguration of Donald Trump.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Stella Slattery was there in support of the newly minted president, and she was impressed with Trump's speech.
STELLA SLATTERY: I think that it was the first time that a president spoke candidly as to what he plans to do on behalf of the nation. And it's about time that somebody spoke their mind for better or for worse.
MCEVERS: Amy Kelash from Gilman, Minn. - population 200 and change - rode the bus for 32 hours just to see Trump get sworn in today.
AMY KELASH: We thought this whole thing was so crazy. We never - it was a joke to us at first. We should go to the White. I mean we should go to the inauguration. And we were toasting over New Year's, so excited about the direction of the country. And then we kind of got up the next morning; we said, maybe we can do this.
So we started looking for tickets and stuff and got - there wasn't a lot of tickets available that could get us back in the time frame. So on the bus, we ordered some sweatshirts up, got on the bus and headed here.
SIEGEL: Van Nelson from Toms River, N.J., voted for Trump and says he hopes for unity.
VAN NELSON: You know, we're all one nation. Let's come together and give him a chance. We, you know - I didn't support Obama, but after he got into office, I supported him to see where we went. So you know, that's why we're here.
MCEVERS: And of course, there were lots of people who were not supporting Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Chanting) That is not my president.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Chanting) Not my president.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Not my president.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Chanting) Not my president.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Not my president.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Chanting) Not my president.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Not my president.
MCEVERS: There were several protests around Washington, D.C. - some violent, most peaceful.
SIEGEL: Anti-Trump protesters also traveled far to be in Washington, like Landis Mcintire from San Diego.
LANDIS MCINTIRE: I normally don't attend things like this. But I want the world, the press to see that not everybody went for this. It's certainly - it's a big inconvenience to me, but I felt like I have to do it.
MCEVERS: Suhaib Khan is from Washington, D.C. He described the Trump presidency as a corporate coup.
SUHAIB KHAN: This is a takeover of our government by big money interests that's been going on for many years now. It didn't start with Donald Trump, and it's not going to end with Donald Trump. So we're here just to show that we resist not only Donald Trump but all of the white supremacists and corporate backing that he has.
SIEGEL: Finally, there was Lionel Parsons. He did not vote for Trump, but he came from Philadelphia to support the new president all the same.
LIONEL PARSONS: He's been legally elected as the president of United States of America. And you, as an American, have a responsibility to support your leader. So that's my position. I have to support him. He's the leader of the big family of America.
MCEVERS: Those were some of the many voices at today's inauguration ceremonies here in Washington, D.C.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE MICROPHONES SONG, "I WANT WIND TO BLOW")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The politics of Donald Trump are not easily categorized. Unlike conservative congressional Republicans, he shows little interest in reforming Social Security and Medicare. His inaugural address today sounded populist themes, but his Cabinet and inner circle are dominated by movement conservatives, billionaires and generals. So what does his ascendancy mean for the conservative movement and for the Republican Party? We're going to put those questions to Sam Tanenhaus - journalist, historian and author of the book "The Death Of Conservatism." Welcome to the program once again.
SAM TANENHAUS: Great to be with you, Robert.
SIEGEL: Sam, what did you hear in Donald Trump's inaugural address today that struck you?
TANENHAUS: This is I think the resurgence of Pat Buchanan-ism (ph). Pat Buchanan has emerged as the prophet and forerunner of a real economic nationalism on the right, and Donald Trump is now its tribune. This is not movement ideology which is all about limited government, the power of free markets and also internationally - globalism. And Donald Trump very clearly said America first. That is a traditional right wing, but also very isolationist. That takes us back to the era of the 1920s, when there were immigration restrictions, and also to the isolationism before World War II. Donald Trump descends in a very powerful way from longstanding tenets of American conservatism, they're just not the movement conservatism we associate with Reagan.
SIEGEL: Well, there are movement conservatives in the House of Representatives for sure, and many in the Senate as well. And Republicans have majorities in both houses. In the contest between movement conservatism and what you hear from Donald Trump, what does history tell us? Who wins?
TANENHAUS: It comes down to polls. I've just been writing about another interesting conflict within the party between Dwight Eisenhower and Joseph McCarthy. And McCarthy was the tribune of the hard movement right, and Eisenhower was a more centrist figure. McCarthy was winning that battle until his poll numbers plunged. Donald Trump enters office with historically low approval ratings, that's where the battle could get fought. If the country turns against him, his Republican adversaries could feel emboldened.
SIEGEL: So you think, in effect, he's the underdog in this battle with, say, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan?
TANENHAUS: In many ways he is. In his great book the "Master Of The Senate" about Lyndon Johnson's years as Senate majority leader, Robert Caro reminded us what the Constitution says - Congress shall make the laws. Paul Ryan and his allies, who include Mike Pence, are congressional conservative Republicans, they have a very clear conservative agenda. The question will be who has to bend more to accommodate the other - Mr. Trump accommodate their ideology, or will they have to accommodate his? And if he can rally audiences behind him, we could see a very interesting intra-party war of a kind we haven't seen in a really long time.
SIEGEL: Last year when Donald Trump was doing very well, getting - winning the Republican nomination often with populist arguments, you wrote that he might be the man to save the Republican Party. Does the Republican Party see itself in need of saving?
TANENHAUS: That's a great question - they don't. The Republican - conservative Republican answer has always been when we lose it's because we're not ideological enough. If they lose midterm elections, that's why. If Obama defeats McCain and then Mitt Romney, it's because those two Republican candidates were not ideological enough.
Donald Trump actually broke that stranglehold of ideology not only by obliterating 16 other candidates, but defeating in particular their most articulate and attractive movement conservatives. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, maestros of Republican ideological talking points, Donald Trump took them apart in their own backyards. What that means is his brand of Republican politics, which isn't ideologically conservative, might actually have a bigger broader constituency, and the party now seems to be aware of that, maybe even frightened of it.
SIEGEL: Does the rise of Donald Trump confirm the end or the beginning of the end for the conservative movement?
TANENHAUS: It signals the transformation of the American conservative movement into a subset of nationalism on the American right. Those strands have always been there. Donald Trump is drawing on those strands, and he might be able to reshape the Republican Party in that way. Paul Ryan is already now talking about a responsible nationalism, that's his effort to sound more like Mr. Trump.
SIEGEL: Sam Tanenhaus, thanks for talking with us once again.
TANENHAUS: Always a pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF U.S. MARINE BAND PERFORMANCE)
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Despite all the stories about musicians opting not to perform at the inauguration, Washington D.C. has been full of music these past few days. At today's Swearing-In Ceremony, the U.S. Marine Band played. That's them right now.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A bit later, the Missouri State University Chorale performed. The chairman of the Inaugural Committee, Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, said it was easy to find them, as they perform only about two blocks from his home.
(SOUNDBITE OF PERFORMANCE OF "NOW WE BELONG")
MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY CHORALE: (Singing) Keep faith. Keep watch. Take heart. Take courage. Take heart. Take courage. Guard mind. Guard spirit. Feed love. Feed longing...
MCEVERS: Some familiar voices made a repeat appearance. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed for the seventh time at a presidential inauguration.
(SOUNDBITE OF PERFORMANCE OF "AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL")
MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR: America, America, God shed his grace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea...
SIEGEL: And finally, TV talent show star Jackie Evancho performed the national anthem. After a rocky start, she finished big.
(SOUNDBITE OF PERFORMANCE OF "THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER")
JACKIE EVANCHO: (Singing) For the land of the free and the home of the brave.
(APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: Things were more lively at yesterday's Welcome Celebration featuring Sam Moore - one half of the classic R&B group Sam and Dave - also rock group Three Doors Down, YouTube sensations The Piano Guys and country star Toby Keith.
(SOUNDBITE OF PERFORMANCE OF "AMERICAN SOLDIER")
TOBY KEITH: (Singing) Freedom don't come free. I'm an American soldier, an American...
SIEGEL: And it continues tonight at the Inaugural Balls with the likes of Blues Traveler, Rascal Flatts and many others keeping the music playing until well into the night.
(SOUNDBITE OF PERFORMANCE OF "AMERICAN SOLDIER")
KEITH: (Singing) I will always do what's right. I'm out here on your front lines. Sleep in peace tonight, American soldier.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A big part of the festivities today is the inaugural parade that winds from the Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. NPR's Asma Khalid has a prime location for watching the parade and to see the new first family enjoying it. She's on the line now. And, Asma, describe where you're standing.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: I - Robert, I'm right in front of the White House on the north side. That's where the reviewing stand is. It's where - the president, the president's family and the vice-presidential family are all sitting here. They've been enjoying the parade come through. They actually arrived here a little bit earlier. I think we have some clip of tape of when the president actually got out, waved to the crowd here.
(CHEERING)
KHALID: And, Robert, you know, as he got out, there were folks in the stands who started yelling, Trump, Trump. He waved to the crowd. He had a really warm reception from some of the folks here. You know, I got here about 1 o'clock, and some of the folks were here at that point.
SIEGEL: Tell us about who's in the parade. We can hear them right now.
KHALID: Who's in the parade? So at this point, you can probably hear (laughter) that there's a marching band behind me. Just prior to that, there were some Army helicopters that came through. There was a rural tractor brigade. Donald Trump particularly liked them. He gave them a thumbs up.
But, Robert, one of the really interesting groups to me was - there's a - the only historically black college to participate - Talladega College's marching band in Alabama. They got some backlash for participating, but you know, they came, and they performed to the song "Happy."
(SOUNDBITE OF TALLADEGA COLLEGE MARCHING BAND'S PERFORMANCE OF PHARRELL WILLIAMS' "HAPPY")
KHALID: And, Robert, they've put on, you know, (laughter) a really - a great show. And it was interesting because they had been getting a lot of sort of questions from alumni about whether or not they should participate just given some of the polarizing rhetoric of the campaign.
SIEGEL: That's a novel arrangement of that tune. You were walking around the area earlier today. What did you see?
KHALID: That's right, Robert. I was on the streets surrounding the White House, and it was a really sort of surreal moment when Donald Trump took the oath of office and gave his inaugural address. I popped into a coffee shop and was surrounded by some Trump supporters.
But then, you know, sort of if you turned your head in another direction (laughter), right outside the street was a protest march of people who had signs saying, impeach Donald Trump, you know, black lives matter - sort of a hodgepodge protest. And it was one of these things where depending on if you looked right or left, you may see a Trump supporter or a Trump protester.
SIEGEL: How much longer does the parade go on?
KHALID: You know, that's a great question, Robert, I really don't know the answer to (laughter).
SIEGEL: (Laughter) OK.
KHALID: I will say, though, we have some marching bands right in front of us. And you know, it's been going on for quite a while at this point.
SIEGEL: OK. That's NPR's Asma Khalid near the end of the inaugural parade route at the White House. Thanks, Asma.
KHALID: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF DIRTY PROJECTORS SONG, "ABOUT TO DIE")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A number of inaugural balls are taking place right now around Washington, D.C. President Trump and first lady Melania Trump will appear at three of them - two Liberty and Freedom Balls at the Washington Convention Center and the Salute to Our Armed Services Ball at the National Building Museum. That ball is free, but admission is by invitation only. NPR's Elizabeth Blair is there, and she joins us now. And, Elizabeth, the National Building Museum is a very unusual building in normal times, what's it like there tonight?
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Tonight it is very much a tribute to the '70s, and it's, well, you know it's a 19th century building and it's - has these very, very high ceilings and these huge columns inside, but it's kind of almost turned into a bit of a disco here. There are - it's - but it's quite beautiful. There are American flags draped from the ceiling in between the columns, and it's quite elegant.
SIEGEL: Since that ball is a salute to the armed services, I assume it's filled with people in uniform. Who's there, and what have you heard from them?
BLAIR: Yeah, that's right. Every branch of the military is represented tonight, and, yes, there are men and women in uniform of all ages. And it's - we've also talked to some first responders, a state trooper and a woman with a volunteer fire department in Pennsylvania.
SIEGEL: You mentioned it's a return to the '70s tonight at the National Building Museum, I guess that reflects some of the entertainment. Who has been performing?
BLAIR: Tony Orlando, he did his version of "Tie A Yellow Ribbon," and the country singer Josh Weather (ph). And he is from Fort Worth, Texas, and I'm told you will be serenading the first couple when they do their first dance.
SIEGEL: Ah, their first dance, and do we know what they'll be dancing to after they arrive?
BLAIR: Take a wild guess. Take a wild guess - it's "My Way."
SIEGEL: Frank Sinatra's famous song "My Way."
BLAIR: That's right, and I'm told Josh Weather has never recorded, ever sung it before live, so first time for everything.
SIEGEL: How's the food?
BLAIR: We haven't had any food, and I haven't really seen any food to be honest, but there's, you know, people are drinking and we were told that - I think it's Crown and Coke was a popular drink tonight. And, yeah, it's a good party.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) OK. And that's NPR's Elizabeth Blair. Thanks, Elizabeth.
BLAIR: Thank you.
SIEGEL: And she was reporting from the Salute to Our Armed Services Ball at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., one of the three inaugural balls that the president and Mrs. Trump will be appearing at tonight.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Today is President Donald Trump's first full day in office. In a few minutes, we'll hear what the president has been doing. That includes a controversial visit to the CIA. But we're going to spend some time hearing about those massive women's marches that have been taking place all day.
Women and, yes, many men, and even children flocked to marches in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, among other cities. And there were marches overseas in places like Paris, Delhi and Bangkok. The purpose, they say, is to take a stand for women's rights and against Donald Trump's agenda, as well as the tone they say the new president is setting for the country.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONNA HILTON: This march is about us, the people, the women in this country, who refuse to be marginalized, sexualized and abused and silenced. March.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ELIZABETH WARREN: Now, we can whimper, we can whine, or we can fight back. Me, I'm here to fight back.
MARTIN: Those were the voices of Donna Hilton, an activist in Washington, D.C., and Senator Elizabeth Warren. She was in Boston. We're going to take a quick trip around the country now to hear more about this. NPR's Pam Fessler is here in Washington, D.C. NPR's Ina Jaffe is in Los Angeles. And Sarah Boden of Iowa Public Radio joins us from Des Moines. Welcome to you all.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: Hi.
SARAH BODEN, BYLINE: Hello.
INA JAFFE, BYLINE: Hi.
MARTIN: So Pam Fessler, let's start with you. What was the scene today on the National Mall in Washington?
FESSLER: There were just thousands and thousands and thousands of women, and they were very energized. A lot of them were wearing those pink caps, a lot of - carrying signs - my body, my choice, fight like a girl. The signs were very strident, but the mood there was very, very festive. And I was there yesterday at the inauguration. It was a very different mood.
MARTIN: Now, tell us about some of the things that people said - the people that you interviewed. What was on their minds?
FESSLER: A lot of them said they were very energized by their dissatisfaction with the election results, and they wanted to make sure - make it clear to political leaders, Donald Trump and others, that there are a lot of people in this country who care very deeply about protecting women's rights and reproductive rights, immigration rights, LGBT rights. One woman I spoke to - her name is Kyndall Rodriguez - she was with a group of young women, all women of color, who are law students. And she said that, you know, she feels that every day women are belittled and demeaned and that they're disrespected.
KYNDALL RODRIGUEZ: I'm sick of it, personally. So I came out here with other educated women to come together because, personally, I think I'm a woman first.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Screaming).
RODRIGUEZ: So I march for women. I march for minority rights. And people like...
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) No more violence, no more hate.
RODRIGUEZ: ...Donald Trump, they don't respect women.
MARTIN: As we said, these demonstrations are taking place all over the country. So let's go to Des Moines, Iowa, now where Sarah Boden is. Sarah, what's it like in Des Moines?
BODEN: Again, just like Pam said, very festive. People seem to be determined to take a more active role in the democracy. Some people said - I spoke to one woman who told me that, you know, I've - maybe I got a little too relaxed under the Obama administration and I didn't follow through my duty - with my duties as a citizen. And, you know, I'm trying to step up and be more engaged now.
MARTIN: Now, Iowa as a state, went for Donald Trump by a pretty large margin - almost 10 points. Now, you pointed out that a lot of the demonstrators said that they felt that they had not been as active as they could have been or should have been. Did the rally there reflect that? Did some of the demonstrators say - are there - say that they were there in part to renew their commitment to their own politics?
BODEN: People were saying that they wanted to be more involved with this democracy and that they felt like they had to make their voice heard so that the rights that had been gained under, not only the Obama administration, but, you know, decades, centuries passed, will still be here in the future. They're worried that under a Donald Trump presidency progress that has been made will be rewound.
MARTIN: So let's go to the West Coast now where NPR's Ina Jaffe is in Los Angeles. So, Ina, what's standing out to you there?
JAFFE: It - I've never seen so many people in one place in Los Angeles in my life, and that includes sold-out Dodger Stadium. When they marched from Pershing Square, which is where the first part of the rally was, to City Hall, which was where the second part of the rally was, one street could not contain them. There were essentially three separate marches on parallel streets and moving just inch by inch. It was like everyone was still on the train platform just squished together.
And it was an amazing mood of a combination of angry and joyful at the same time because people were really very kind to each other, very helpful with each other. People brought their children, even babies in strollers. And there were older people. Everybody, you know, got out of the way when they needed some room for canes and so forth. It was really a remarkable sight.
MARTIN: Were there any particular issues that people highlighted to you there, Ina, or that you saw reflected in their signs?
JAFFE: Well, certainly women's issues led. There were a lot of signs dealing with reproductive rights and Planned Parenthood, signs that said a woman's place is in the resistance with a picture of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia from "Star Wars." That was one of the things that people were really highlighting - men and women. But they also talked about, you know, women's rights are human rights. They talked about LGBT rights and minorities and religious freedom. And they were standing up for all those things that they say reflect the diversity of California.
MARTIN: And finally, before we let you go Pam, one more question to you. We spent a couple of hours on the Mall earlier today, as well. And one of the things that we noted were a number of people talking about the importance of science. And I was surprised by that. And I wonder what you thought of that - many people saying that science is not a liberal conspiracy, science is truth and things of that sort. I wonder what you make of that.
FESSLER: Well, I think there definitely were a lot of people there who were very interested in the climate and in the environment and want to make sure that there are not any turn backs in that area as well under the new administration.
MARTIN: That was NPR's Pam Fessler here in Washington, D.C. We also heard from Sarah Boden of Iowa Public Radio in Des Moines and NPR's Ina Jaffe in Los Angeles. Thank you all so much for being with us.
FESSLER: Thanks.
JAFFE: You're welcome.
BODEN: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to hear more about the marches and reaction to the inauguration of President Donald Trump later in the program. Now to Donald Trump's first full day as president. He attended an interfaith prayer service at the National Cathedral. That's something of a tradition for newly sworn in presidents. What Donald Trump did next is not so traditional. He visited CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. That's being seen as an olive branch to the U.S. intelligence community because in the past, President Trump has criticized them.
But Trump's message was eclipsed by his campaign-style rhetoric and exaggerations about the crowd at yesterday's inauguration. NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now to tell us more. Scott, thank you for joining us. Scott, are you with us? Scott Horsley?
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Yes. Hi, Michel. Good to be with you.
MARTIN: Hi, so - good to be with you, too. So let's start with the tension between Donald Trump and the intelligence community. The president insists he is not feuding with the intelligence community, but is he?
HORSLEY: Well, he certainly was, and this dates back to at least October when the director of national intelligence along with the secretary of Homeland Security went public with their findings that the highest levels of the Russian government were trying to interfere with the U.S. election. Trump disputed that argument and his protest got even louder after the election when the CIA and others said publicly Russia wasn't just trying to muddy the waters. It was actively trying to help Trump.
Now, the new president and his team repeatedly challenged that finding as an attempt to de-legitimize his election. There was also fallout with the dossier of unsubstantiated claims about Trump, which both he and former President Obama were briefed on and which Trump then suggested had been leaked to the media by the intelligence community. So there is some real friction for the new president to smooth over here. Although, Trump said today this is all just a media creation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I am with you 1,000 percent, and the reason you're my first stop is that, as you know, I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth.
MARTIN: OK. So the president - and I should also mention the vice president - made this trip out to Langley. They met with hundreds of CIA employees, sounds like they were warmly greeted. But could you tell us a little bit more about the setting?
HORSLEY: Yeah. Vice President Pence and the president spoke to CIA employees while they were standing in front of a memorial wall that honors CIA agents who've given their lives in the line of duty. And Pence took the opportunity to stress that he and Trump really recognize the sacrifices that the men and women of the intelligence community make for their country. Now, Trump gave a nod to that, and he spoke briefly about his nominee to head the CIA, Congressman Mike Pompeo, who could be confirmed on Monday.
But then, as he so often does, Trump turned the conversation around to his own successful presidential campaign. He said probably everybody in this room voted for me, and then he took another dig at the news media saying reporters had been understating the size of the crowd that watched his inauguration yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: But we had a massive field of people. You saw that - packed. I get up this morning. I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field. I said, wait a minute. I made a speech. I looked out. The field was - it looked like a million, a million and a half people.
MARTIN: Now, Scott, it is always difficult and politically fraught to estimate crowd sizes for large, public events. That's why government agencies don't do it anymore. But it does sound as though Donald Trump is inflating the size of the crowd by a considerable margin.
HORSLEY: Well, that's right, and his secretary doubled down on that this evening. Just a short time ago, Sean Spicer came into the briefing room at the White House and insisted to reporters this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period - both in person and around the globe. Now, let's face it. Trump drew a very respectable crowd for his swearing in yesterday, but it was smaller than the crowd that former President Obama drew in 2009. And it appears to be well below the million to million and a half people that Donald Trump himself was citing here.
And I point this out because this is something Trump did throughout the campaign - exaggerating the size of his rally crowds which were large crowds anyway. It's also something he's done throughout his business career - exaggerating the height of his buildings and the size of his profits.
Trump has explained this as harmless puffery, an innocent form of exaggeration. And it may be, but it is striking to hear him inventing facts in the headquarters of the CIA, an agency he will be depending on as commander in chief to get its facts straight.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks so much.
HORSLEY: My pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're spending this hour checking on the women's marches taking place in cities around the U.S. and around the world as hundreds of thousands of people react to the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States. But we also want to share a reaction from a woman with a slightly different take on things. She is a former political opponent of Donald Trump's, who eventually supported his candidacy, Carly Fiorina. The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard is one of the few women to run a Fortune 100 company.
She was the only female Republican who ran for the presidential nomination last year. We reached Carly Fiorina in Arlington, Va., late Friday. She didn't attend the inauguration, and I asked her why.
CARLY FIORINA: Well, I - having been to an inauguration or two, I've learned the hard way that the best seat is usually in front of a television.
MARTIN: Any reactions?
FIORINA: Look, I think his address is what we should have expected from him. He's sounded many of the same notes and many of the same themes that he did throughout his campaign. I, in particular, liked his comment about the most important thing being that the government belongs to the people. I actually very much appreciated his line if you are a patriot, there is no room in your heart for prejudice. I think that is very true. But I think there wasn't anything surprising about the tone of his speech.
MARTIN: A lot of women from both sides of the political spectrum came to know you as one of the first women and certainly one of the few Republicans to directly address now President Trump's belittling comments about women. I'm playing a clip here of a pretty famous moment during the presidential primaries.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAKE TAPPER: Last week in Rolling Stone Magazine, Donald Trump said the following about you quote, "look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that - the face of our next president?" Mr. Trump later said he was talking about your persona, not your appearance. Please feel free to respond what you think about his persona.
(LAUGHTER)
FIORINA: You know, it's interesting to me. Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly and what Mr. Bush said. I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.
(APPLAUSE)
MARTIN: And, of course, in October, after the release of the Access Hollywood tapes of Donald Trump overheard saying inappropriate things, you posted a critical comment on Facebook calling for him to step down from the ticket and suggesting that Mike Pence would be a better choice as the nominee. So, of course, I want to hear why after all that you eventually supported somebody that you called the Kim Kardashian of American politics.
FIORINA: Because as I also said for two years, Hillary Clinton, in my view, would make a terrible president. And the reason I have said that is because I disagree profoundly with her policies, particularly those she espoused during the general election. But also because she is the definition of the political class that 80 percent of the American people are tired of. This was an election about change. The choice people had in the general election was Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. And Hillary Clinton represented more of the same. And for me, we didn't need more of the same. We needed a change.
MARTIN: Let me ask you though about the - thoughts about the marches going on around the country this weekend. You know, a lot of women say that Donald Trump's attitude about women is exactly why they just can't support him even now. And I wanted to ask you your thoughts about this.
FIORINA: You know, I think, first of all, this is America. People have the right to express their point of view in a peaceful way any time and anywhere they want. I am disappointed, I guess I would say, that some people find it impossible to separate the process and the institution and the transfer of power from a person that they disagree with.
Here's what I would say - first, I think we need to give every president a chance. I didn't vote for President Obama, but I rooted for his success because I think a president's success impacts us all. The second thing I would say more specifically is despite my strenuous objections to our new president's words and attitudes and behavior, in many cases towards women, I also see that in his own businesses he gave real positions of responsibility to very accomplished women.
And he has done so in his cabinet as well - Betsy DeVos, Elaine Chao. These are extremely accomplished women. And so I think his behavior would suggest that he recognizes talent when he sees it, and he's prepared to use that talent no matter what size or shape it comes in.
MARTIN: Does Donald Trump or the Republican Party on the whole have work to do in addressing the concerns of women?
FIORINA: Well, I think the Republican Party in general does. I've been public about that for some time. Clearly, I think Donald Trump does. I also believe that the women, for example, that are marching, have said that women who are pro-life are not welcome. I don't understand that. In other words, I think we've reached a point where there are people who call themselves feminists, who believe that unless you agree with them on topics, you're not somehow in favor of empowering women. My candidacy, just as an example, for presidency was called an offense to women...
MARTIN: Forgive me. I don't recall that.
FIORINA: ...Because...
MARTIN: By whom? Who called it an offense?
FIORINA: Emily's List among others. But mostly what people objected to was the fact that I happened to be pro-life. So my point is this - I think women, like men, can disagree about the solutions to problems. That doesn't mean that someone is disrespectful to women because they disagree with some other women.
MARTIN: I take it you won't be at the marches then.
FIORINA: I will not. No.
MARTIN: OK - will be in front of the television watching them either?
FIORINA: Probably not.
MARTIN: Probably not. OK.
FIORINA: I have lots of things to do with my family on Saturdays usually.
MARTIN: That was former Hewlett-Packard CEO and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. She was kind enough to join us from the studios of WETA in Arlington, Va. Carly Fiorina, thank you so much for speaking with us.
FIORINA: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we'd like to get a view from the other side of the political aisle, so we're going to turn now to Congresswoman Maxine Waters. She is a Democrat from California in her 13th term. She is a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. She is among the six-dozen Democratic lawmakers who boycotted yesterday's inauguration. She did participate in the women's march today.
We spoke to her earlier today in our NPR studios in Washington, D.C., before she headed out to the march. And I started by asking her about statements she's made recently saying she wants as little to do with the Trump administration as possible. And I asked her what about policies that might benefit her constituents?
MAXINE WATERS: It's on him. If he really has an agenda to help, let him move forward with it. We'll see. But right now, I don't believe him. I don't trust him. Just yesterday in an administrative order, he overturned what the FHFA had done to reduce the premiums on people with FHA loans. And so if he's going to help poor people, why would he take away about $500 from the average home buyer, middle-class people? So if he's got a program and an agenda and an infrastructure and all of that that he's going to do, let him come forward.
If he comes forward and if he does that, then, of course, there will be some engagement. Otherwise, their only engagement I'm going to have with him is fighting back against their attempts to undo Dodd-Frank, their attempts to destroy the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and all of those things.
MARTIN: I noted, though, that other strong critics of Donald Trump did attend the inauguration. Hillary Clinton went. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders went. I saw Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. I saw Congressman James Clyburn, all of whom have been critics of Donald Trump. Do you think they should have boycotted as well?
WATERS: No. I think that people should do what their heart and soul tells them to do. I know some people like to follow the tradition, and that's who they are. That's not me. I'm not against anybody having gone, but, for me, it was not the right place to be.
MARTIN: So let's turn to the women's march today. What is your message and what do you think the march is intended to do?
WATERS: Well, first, let me just say that I flew in from Los Angeles last evening. And the plane was absolutely filled with women who were coming from the Greater Los Angeles area to be here. And it wasn't that they were necessarily organized in some particular group. Individual women that I talked to - I said, well, who are you with? They said I'm not with anybody. I just decided I couldn't stay home. I just got up, and I came.
So I was very impressed with that that, you know, women have come here to say that we're going to fight you, Donald Trump. We know who you are and what you said you will do. And we don't want the public policy that you are proposing.
MARTIN: Well, you know, some consider it disrespectful. For example, our previous guest former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina also criticized Donald Trump during the campaign, but now she was arguing that the new president deserves a chance to prove himself, and that, perhaps, you know, having a march just the day after his inauguration is kind of disrespectful. And I wonder what do you say to that?
WATERS: Well, I would say this. Donald Trump has defined himself very well, not only in the primary election where he was absolutely disrespectful to his colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle and for Fiorina who he basically said who would vote for you? Look at her face. She evidently wants to be a Republican leadership, a part of the Republican Party so bad that she would allow them and him to get away with that.
MARTIN: Well, she didn't attend the inauguration either, but her argument is that he does deserve it now that he is the president.
WATERS: That's not a good argument. She can argue it all she wants, but I don't believe that.
MARTIN: But the broader question of those who argue that he should be given a chance maybe I guess - I don't know. How would you call it? Like a honeymoon period of...
WATERS: Listen, let me tell you something. I don't have to give him a chance. I can't stop him from doing what he wants to do. If he wants to do good things, let's see it. Let him do it. I can't stop him from doing good things.
MARTIN: There's a debate among Democrats about how they should approach this new administration. Some are arguing that the Democrats should resist at every turn, and some Democrats are saying that's the strategy that Democrats should now employ. Others say that that's not good for the country and that they should work with this new administration on policies...
WATERS: Well...
MARTIN: ...That would help their constituents...
WATERS: Sure, sure.
MARTIN: ...And resist him on others. What's your take on this?
WATERS: Well, my take is this. They control the Senate. They have the majority of the House, and they have the White House. They can do whatever they want to do, really. And so let's see what they are going to do. If they're going to put together great programs, and everybody understands that they're good and they (unintelligible) infrastructure (unintelligible) - do it. If they do that, we certainly are going to vote for it. We're going to vote for something good, but it remains to be seen.
MARTIN: That is Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Democrat of California. She was kind enough to join us here at our studios in Washington, D.C., in advance of today's women's march in Washington in which she will be participating. Congressman, thank you so much for speaking with us.
WATERS: You're so welcome. Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
As we mentioned, these women's marches were not just here in the U.S. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of European capitals as well as major cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America to coincide with the women's march in Washington and other cities in the U.S. NPR's Frank Langfitt attended rallies in London yesterday and today, and he's with us on the line now. Frank, welcome. Thanks so much for joining us.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Yeah. No problem.
MARTIN: So what were the crowds like in the British capital and what were people saying about why they were there?
LANGFITT: They were huge. I remember I covered Brexit so that was this huge political issue here during the summer. And these were far larger. You had clearly thousands upon thousands of people starting off at the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square coming all the way down to Trafalgar Square with a lot of speeches. There were women's issues, a real concern about Mr. Trump and the way he's depicted women.
But it was also really clear that the inaugural speech that we heard really, really disturbed people. I was talking to a guy, a software engineer named Dave. And he said he watched the speech with fellow workers, and he watched it in silence. What they described - hearing all that American-first stuff was very sinister. Here's how he put it.
DAVE: It was a somber, quiet - there was silence. It was a harrowing, chilling experience.
MARTIN: So that was kind of a grassroots perspective. What about European leaders? Did you hear a response from them today to this speech? And did they have anything to say about today's demonstrations?
LANGFITT: Initially, when the speech came out, there was sort of the kind of platitudes you usually hear. But I think clearly people are alarmed here in Europe, and that's because, you know, the United States has with Great Britain, and Germany as well, kind of ensured peace in Western Europe really since World War II. And you have a president in the United States talking very, very differently.
I was just looking at an interview with Theresa May. Here's what she says. With the threats we face, it's not the time for less cooperation. It's extraordinary to think that a U.K. prime minister has to say something like this to an American president that, you know, this is not the time, especially with a very aggressive Vladimir Putin in Russia that this isn't a time to abandon NATO. Again, it's been decades that all of these countries have worked very well together to keep the peace here.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Frank Langfitt in London. Frank, thanks so much.
LANGFITT: Happy to do it, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to take a break from covering the women's marches today to talk about one of President Donald Trump's first moves after taking the oath of office yesterday. President Trump signed an executive order to limit what he calls the quote, unquote, "burdens of the Affordable Care Act," taking a step toward fulfilling his campaign promise to dismantle the law. NPR health policy correspondent Alison Kodjak is with us now to explain exactly what Donald Trump's order does and what it cannot do. Alison, thanks so much for joining us.
ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So what exactly is in this executive order? What is the president trying to do here?
KODJAK: Well, the order talks broadly about, quote, "easing the burden of the Affordable Care Act." But he talks about easing the burden, not just on individuals, but on insurance companies, on hospitals, on doctors, on medical device-makers, pretty much across the board, saying this law is hurting the entire health care industry.
And what it does is essentially sets the direction of policy for it. It tells all the heads of all his agencies, who haven't yet been confirmed mostly, that they should find ways to ease the financial burden of this law on all these constituencies.
MARTIN: Now, that's a pretty sweeping mandate. What can the order specifically require them to do at this point?
KODJAK: Well, it's a little bit vague because it depends on how aggressive they want to be. He specifically mentions the Department of Health and Human Services. He's nominated Representative Tom Price, who probably will be confirmed sometime in the next days or weeks. The HHS has a lot of regulations, such as the minimum requirements for coverage that they could change through a rule-making process. In addition, the HHS has the power to offer waivers to people who say that the individual mandate to buy insurance is a hardship.
So there are some people who speculate, oh, they're going to just start giving waivers to anybody who complains. They can't not enforce the law, meaning they have to have the IRS actually collect the penalty if people don't buy insurance. But if they offer too many of these waivers, that could kind of undermine the individual market by making people not buy insurance.
MARTIN: But is the danger here that the individual market could actually collapse before there is a replacement for it? Because that's what leads me to - my final question to you is how does this dovetail with President Trump's other plans and promises?
KODJAK: If they want to have a replacement before they repeal the law, then they clearly don't want the market to collapse, you know, in some sort of chaotic way. At which point, it's probably unlikely that they'll be too aggressive. It sort of just sets the tone of this is our intention, this is what we want to do. However, if they do want to really push it hard, they could do some damage early on.
MARTIN: So Alison, what is the bottom line here?
KODJAK: Well, no one's quite sure because President Trump and his colleagues on Capitol Hill don't yet seem to be on the same page about what they want. He has said he wants insurance for all. They've said they want to provide an atmosphere where everybody has access to insurance. And so we need to see where they're going to go with that.
MARTIN: That's NPR health policy correspondent Alison Kodjak here in our studios in Washington, D.C. Alison, thank you so much.
KODJAK: Thanks, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
As we've talked about throughout this hour, hundreds of thousands of marchers crowded into cities like Washington, D.C., Chicago, Seattle, Austin and Raleigh and overseas in London, Munich, Cape Town and Paris to press for protection of women's rights, including reproductive health care, LGBTQ issues and equal pay.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Rise up.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Nasty women.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Rise up.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Nasty women.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Rise up.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Nasty women.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Rise up.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Nasty women.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Rise up.
MARTIN: The marchers are being called the most diverse for women's rights in American history, but that diversity has come at a price - racial tension. NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates from our Code Switch team reports on the historic conflict between race and feminism.
KAREN GRIGSBY BATES, BYLINE: Today's marches were billed as one large step for womankind, a coming together to voice women's issues and concerns to a newly elected president and Congress. But it wasn't all "We Are The World." Grace Hong teaches Asian-American and gender studies at UCLA. She says while many women of color believe in the goals of the women's movement, they're also wary of being identified with it.
GRACE HONG: Historically, the category woman, you know, has sort of implicitly meant white woman.
BATES: Hong says women of color were often asked to not rock the boat with what were seen as side issues like racial equality.
HONG: It's sort of the idea that critique and dissent undermine a kind of unity that has to be based on kind of a lowest common denominator, right? Find the one thing that everyone has in common.
BATES: From the earliest days of suffrage until relatively recently, women of color were on the movement's margins, and scant weight was given to their concerns says Ashley Farmer. She teaches African-American women's history at Boston University.
ASHLEY FARMER: When we actually get down to representation and/or creating a list of demands or mobilizing around a set of ideas, it tends to be that white, middle-class or upper-class women's priorities get put above the rest.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Sisterhood is powerful Join us now. Sisterhood is powerful. Join us now.
BATES: At most women's demonstrations in the '70s, only a modest number of black and brown women answered the call to join the movement. Writer Margo Jefferson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic remembers what it felt like to be young, black and feminist in 1970s New York when feminism was considered a white woman's thing.
MARGO JEFFERSON: Of course, I felt lonely. I remember a dear, white friend asking if I wanted to join her women's group. And my thinking, oh, God, I'd love to have a women's group, and my saying, no, and feeling, no, I really don't want to be the only black person.
BATES: The perceived high handedness of some prominent feminists in the '60s and '70s led many black women to choose an alternate designation - womanist. Writers Alice Walker and Bell Hooks coined the term. And womanist has struck a chord today with some Latinos like Dolores Arredondo.
DOLORES ARREDONDO: I just remember this history of the feminist movement, and I can see the women. And none of them look like me.
BATES: Arredondo, a marketing executive for Wells Fargo, is sitting in a downtown LA conference room with her friend Brenda Gonzalez-Richardson (ph) who heads the California regional office of the National Council of La Raza. Gonzalez-Richardson says she's not hung up on labels. You can call her feminist, womanist, whatever. She prefers to describe herself in Chicano slang as a chingona.
BRENDA GONZALEZ-RICHARDSON: It means a bad ass, someone that is not afraid to stand up for what they believe in, somebody that's happy to shake things up when needed.
BATES: Chingonas, she says, get things done. After an initial stumble, the women's march on Washington has been careful to have women of color in positions of leadership. They're three of the four main organizers, but that diversity has brought into sharp focus the racial fault lines in the women's movement that have always existed, but were rarely discussed. When a young, black blogger suggested that white allies talk less and listen more to women of color while at the march, some white women were so offended they canceled plans to attend.
JULIE WITTES SCHLACK: I understand that immediate visceral sort of hurt response.
BATES: Writer Julie Wittes Schlack went to a sister march in Boston. Schlack is a white feminist and says it's past time to pay attention to women who may not be in today's feminist mainstream. For the sake of the movement's future, Schlack says, white feminists are going to have to accept some hard truths. They've contributed greatly to women's progress, but...
SCHLACK: The benefits of our work so far around things like reproductive rights aren't conferred equally across all women, and that's what I think particularly this younger generation of feminists and particularly feminists of color are sort of trying to wake us up to.
BATES: That's enlightened self-interest, says Boston University's Ashley Farmer.
FARMER: When you make something that accounts for the most depressed, everybody's life tends to get better.
BATES: And maybe there has to be some upheaval before that happens. UCLA's Grace Hong says the discord around today's marches is a good thing for feminism.
HONG: Maybe the point is to not all agree, you know, maybe the point is to do these kinds of things so that you can have the tough conversations.
BATES: Maybe, she says, these marches are the next step toward feminism's future. Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR News.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now it's time for the Barbershop. That's where we ask a group of interesting folks to talk about what's in the news and what's on their minds. Today, we figure we know what's on the minds of the hundreds of thousands of people who converged on Washington, D.C., from all over the country for the inauguration yesterday and for the women's march today. So we decided to ask some folks who came for these events this weekend to join us for a shape-up today.
With us today, we have U.S. Navy veteran, Rudy Los Sorelli He's from California. Deana Hurd is a small business owner from Tennessee. They both came to town for Donald Trump's inauguration yesterday. Welcome to Washington to you both.
RUDY LOS SORELLI: Thank you.
DEANA HURD: Oh, thank you.
MARTIN: And you're both so appropriately attired. I love the red, white and blue. Lots of color in the studio today. Also with us are Brittany Crowley Dodds - she's a school psychologist from Kentucky - and Dawn Ressel, a software designer from Florida. They're both in town for the women's march in Washington. Thank you both so much for coming as well. And it's a little chilly, but thank you both so much. And...
BRITTANY DODDS: Thank you.
MARTIN: ...We're sure you're not too sorry to be in a warm studio at the moment. Thank you both. And what's really fun is that all of you are participating in these big events for the first time. So we're really excited to speak with all of you. And I want to start with the people who attended the inauguration. Let's just go - Rudy, why don't you start. What made you want to come?
LOS SORELLI: I was invited here by a very good friend. I attended both the Freedom and the Liberty inauguration - excuse me - balls. And it was wonderful. It was more than I ever expected. It was done very well, very classy. And I was very proud to be here.
MARTIN: And what about you, Deana?
HURD: Well, I just wanted to participate in the process. I just think it's awesome that we live in a country where we have the opportunity to come and see, you know, the process take place. And it was beautiful, and it was very - in the area I was - it was a very peaceful, patriotic celebration.
MARTIN: OK. And what about our protesters? Let me go to you. Brittany, how about you? What was it that made you want to come to this? I know you've been to Washington, D.C., before but this was your first protest. What made you want to come?
DODDS: I recognized the historical significance that this event would have, and I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted my voice to be a part of a group that was advocating for something larger than ourselves.
MARTIN: Brittany, what about you? What made you want to come?
DAWN RESSEL: Well, I, you know, first heard about the march on Facebook after the election. And many of my friends were feeling despair and fear about what would happen next in our country. And I saw this as an opportunity to become part of a community, a large community of people, like-minded people who want to stand up for what we believe is right.
MARTIN: And, Dawn, is what - who's standing up for what you believe is right. Dawn, I'm so sorry.
RESSEL: That's OK.
MARTIN: We just met a few minutes ago. I apologize. That was Dawn Ressel who was talking just now. You mentioned Facebook and Twitter, and there has been a big debate on social media about some people who were saying, you know, it's great that there are all these marchers exercising their First Amendment right to protest. Other people are saying that they think it's kind of disrespectful that there should have been at least some kind of moment of pause where people respect the peaceful transition of power and respect the person who holds the office.
You know, Rudy, I'm really glad that you're here because you actually participated in both events. You went to the inauguration, and then you went to the march, as I understand it, on behalf of your daughter who was not able to attend and wanted some representation of the family. So I want to ask you this question. I mean, do you see a conflict there between going to the inauguration on the one hand and protesting on the other?
LOS SORELLI: No. I feel that as an American you need to look at all sides and facets of our system, democracy, our right for our First Amendment to express our self. If we ever lost that in our country, we would truly, truly lose something big. As a 150 percent Trump supporter, I do feel that looking at what I saw today there was a little bit of - quite a bit of disrespect out there today. And it kind of touched me in my heart.
MARTIN: Was it a little hard seeing some of the anti-Trump signs? I mean, I must say that I was out there myself. And humor seemed to be the order of the day. There were a lot of signs that were funny, but there were some that had, you know, profanities directed at the new president. Was that a little hard?
LOS SORELLI: Well, that's what disappointed me a bit because there were a lot of children marching, younger children with their parents. But the - there were these like plastic tape they were using with vulgarity on it as bandanas. And I find that very saddening. I think - I don't think our children should be shown this at such a young age.
MARTIN: Deana, what about you?
HURD: Well, I think the timing is probably perfect, and the reason I say that is because the whole world is looking at Washington and how awesome that you can have a peaceful transition of power one day and the next day people can also, you know, voice their opinions on their issues. So I think the timing would be fine.
MARTIN: Brittany, what about you? What do you think about that argument? I wondered if any of the people that you communicate with on social media - did they - did anybody challenge your being here? And I know that there are some who say, look, if the situation were reversed and Hillary Clinton had won the White House that a lot of the people protesting would have been kind of offended if people came out the very next day to to protest her taking the office, just as some, you know, some people were offended when they saw President Obama's limousine heading to Andrews Air Force Base for the customary departure.
People were, you know, we - a lot of our correspondents saw some gestures that weren't particularly nice and some comments directed that weren't particularly nice. What do you think about that?
DODDS: I mean, regarded - with regard to the timing, I think it was very pertinent that it followed the inauguration. I think that it was done to kind of follow that momentum. With - as far as my experience at the march today, I found it to be a very emotional and empowering event. Everyone I encountered was in good spirits. They were encouraging. They were open to dialogue and to communication. So I thought it was very well done and well orchestrated.
MARTIN: Dawn, what about you? What about the argument about the timing?
RESSEL: Well, I don't think that this women's march was about Donald Trump to be honest with you. I think it's so much bigger than him, and it's really about the policies that we believe he's going to enforce and we disagree with, as well as his administration - what they stand for. And I think that it's about preserving our democracy for, you know, the people - the generations after us. So I think it's - the timing is appropriate, but it's not directly tied to Donald Trump.
MARTIN: So before we let each of you go - as we mentioned that all of you are kind of first-time participants in a big event like this - what is next for you? Is this kind of - is this it or is there something that comes next? So Dawn, why don't I go to you first? Is there something that comes next or is this kind of - is this it for now?
RESSEL: I actually have the same question. I would love to see more things happen that make us feel like we're connected to each other. And I think that the events as they unfold over time are going to have to be nimble, and we're going to have to respond as we feel appropriate.
But I think this event was a great way to prove to ourselves and really to the world that we do have the power to organize, and we do have the power to use our voices. And so I think this is going to start a great wave of momentum.
MARTIN: Brittany, what about you?
DODDS: I completely agree with Dawn. I certainly hope this is not the end for me, personally, and for the movement at large.
MARTIN: Deana, what about you?
HURD: Well...
MARTIN: I certainly do hope you continue to be as fabulous as you are today which...
HURD: Well, thank you.
MARTIN: ...I wish I could describe...
HURD: I appreciate that.
MARTIN: ...The blue T-shirt and the kind of the red and white-striped vest with some red, white and blue Mardi Gras beads and a fabulous kind of fascinator in your hair that includes a red canary, so I do hope the fabulousness will continue. But...
HURD: Well, that is something that, you know, just reflects my personality. But just moving forward, I'm excited about the next four years. I'm hoping everybody can unite behind their new president because his success will mean success for the country. And I really believe there's - everyone in this room wants that.
MARTIN: All right. Rudy, what about you?
LOS SORELLI: As a - excuse me - as someone who was not born in this country - I was born in Tijuana (ph), Mexico - my mother came to this country legally and brought us here legally. I joined the United States Navy as a resident alien, and...
MARTIN: I'm sorry. Did you say legally or illegally?
LOS SORELLI: Legally.
MARTIN: Legally. OK.
LOS SORELLI: I came here as a legal resident alien.
MARTIN: OK. OK.
LOS SORELLI: I joined the United States Navy as a resident alien, and I saw the pride that you could have for our country as a patriot and seeing how other countries live and how their systems are. Listening to Mr. Trump's speech yesterday, I believe he was inclusive of all peoples and for the moving forward of our country.
And I believe that the best is in front of us. I think the best is in front for my family and all my friends. And I'm very, very happy to be in the United States and that Mr. Trump is president.
MARTIN: Well, I'm very happy to welcome all of you to Washington, D.C. I know you didn't come here just to see me, but I'm glad you did come to see us. And I'm glad that we were able to have the kind of conversation among all of us that, unfortunately, seems to be, you know, all too rare - people with different views all coming together to have a good conversation. So I hope that continues.
That's Rudy Los Sorelli, Deana Hurd. They came here for the Trump inauguration. Brittany Crowley Dodds and Dawn Ressel came here for the women's march, the protest. They were all here in our Washington, D.C., studios today. I thank you both so much.
HURD: Thank you.
DODDS: Thank you.
MARTIN: I thank you all so much for joining us.
LOS SORELLI: Thank you so much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to start the hour taking another look at the most recent confrontation between President Donald Trump and the media. On Saturday afternoon, President Trump claimed that crowds attending his inauguration were the largest ever to attend an inauguration. The government no longer makes official crowd estimates, but photographic evidence and public transit data show that statement is not true. A short time later the new White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, reiterated Mr. Trump's claim and also accused journalists of intentionally framing photographs to minimize Friday's inaugural crowds.
At the time there were not accurate figures, but since then local public transit figures from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority have backed up media reports. Seven hundred eighty-two thousand people rode the transit system on the day of President Obama's second inaugural, far more than the 570,000 people who rode Metro on Friday for President Trump's inauguration. Even apart from all that, it was a tense way to start off for the Trump administration and the White House press corps.
To talk more about that we called former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who served in the administration of President George W. Bush and also tweeted about all this. And he is with us now. Mr. Fleischer, thanks so much for speaking with us.
ARI FLEISCHER: Glad to be here.
MARTIN: You tweeted that the presser left you, quote, "uncomfortable and concerned, and the press is right to be upset," unquote. How come?
FLEISCHER: Because it's so confrontational right off the bat and because no questions were taken. But I also advise you have to see this as more than a Saturday story. On Monday, Sean is going to be accountable. Sean is going to stand in front of the press and he's going to take questions. He'll either be able to back up what he said and justify it or he'll be pilloried. And that's why I take a long view of what was said. It leaves me uncomfortable, but it's not over yet.
MARTIN: Why does it leave you uncomfortable?
FLEISCHER: Because I don't like this confrontation. I am much more of a traditionalist. I fought with the press. I wrestled with the press. It comes with the territory. But it can go too far. And that's my concern here. Now, the press, though, I have to say has made itself vulnerable to this. According to the Gallup poll, trust by the American people in the press has never been so low. The American people question whether the press report things accurately and fairly. And it's the worst ratings Gallup has ever shown for our country and for the press. And so the press has invited this vulnerability onto itself, and we're watching this live now on TV.
MARTIN: You tweeted last night and you wrote that this is called a statement you're told to make by the president, and you know the president is watching. Tell us more about that.
FLEISCHER: Well, Michel, as I sat there watching - and I instantly could tell what was going on behind the scenes. And that was Sean Spicer, a man I've known for almost 20 years - he used to work in the Bush administration - was told to do this. I know Sean, and Sean can be tough and combative. That's part of the job. But this clearly was told by the president to Sean to go out and correct what was wrong. And, you know, I try to look at these things from both lenses, the president's and the press's.
From the president's lens, he was falsely accused of removing the bust of Martin Luther King from the Oval Office. Reporter got it wrong and apologized for it, but still the administration was quickly faulted for something it did not do. I can see why that would anger Donald Trump and the administration. Then when it comes to the crowd sizes, the photo that everybody was talking about that was widely shown on the internet was a picture taken 45 minutes before the swearing-in. I think the only real photo should be the one taken at noon to compare to previous crowd sizes.
Now, at the end of the day, what difference does the crowd size make? But that's how Donald Trump sees these things. He takes everything as a slight. And he is going to fight back against the press corps, which frankly is hostile to him, and he enjoys being hostile right back.
MARTIN: OK, but should the press secretary go out and say things that are not true?
FLEISCHER: Of course not. If Sean believes that what he said is true and accurate, it's his burden now to back it up and to explain it to the press. If the press has got the goods on Sean, that's going to come out in the briefing as well on Monday.
MARTIN: And Sean Spicer ended the press conference with the - well, it wasn't a press conference because he didn't take any questions. It was a statement saying that the Trump White House will go around the mainstream press directly to the people. Is that a warning? What is that? How is that to be interpreted?
FLEISCHER: Well, according to Gallup, just for the record, it's the majority of the public. Trust in the press to report the news accurately and fairly has never been so low. And that's among Republicans, Democrats and independents. But the point about going around the press is nothing new. Every president does it. They should do it. The White House press corps should not have a monopoly on the news. But the responsibility of the president and the press secretary to give accurate answers is the same forever. And that's why I have faith in our system as well.
He gave a statement on Saturday. On Monday, the day of reckoning will come where he has to either back it up or not back it up. And I'm very curious to see what facts he can use to establish the things he said about the crowd size. Now, about the bust he's on high ground. About the crowd size, I'm not sure how he's going to argue some of the points he made, but I think he has potentially some arguments he can make. I want to hear them.
MARTIN: In fairness, though, the reporter corrected that incorrect information very quickly, that - I mean, you know, I received both reports within two minutes of each other. And he apologized for the inaccuracy, so...
FLEISCHER: Correct. But here's the point I'm making. When you try to see it through Donald Trump's lens or the lens of any sitting president, you have to ask yourself - why does the press right away suggest that he would have removed it? They believed he would remove it. And why didn't, before they tweet, they ask somebody - did he remove it? That's just how journalism works these days. You run with your suspicions and you run with them fast rather than slowing down to check.
MARTIN: OK, but on the other side of that, running with suspicions and checking with it, isn't part of the press secretary's job to perhaps be a buffer and to say, hey, let's slow down a minute?
FLEISCHER: It is part of the press secretary's job. It's part of the job of others at the White House. But face it, this is not a traditional administration. The people I worked for never would have sent me out to do that. But Donald Trump does. Donald Trump earned the right to try to change Washington and try to change the press corps. He hasn't changed. That's what he was like (laughter) at the campaign. And that's how I expect him to be as president, for better or for worse.
And I've got to say, it feels to me a little bit like this is an internal Washington eruption over things that you just don't do and you don't say in Washington. But in the eyes of most people in the country it's not that big a deal.
MARTIN: Before I let you go, I understand that you - you know, you're a consultant now. You're not in the business of consulting with the media. But I would like to ask you as a person who spent a lot of time on that side - do you have some advice for the media in addressing this going forward?
FLEISCHER: I do. Look, this is going to be very tough on the press because nobody likes to get attacked, and Donald Trump is going to want to regularly attack them. My advice to the media is whether somebody is praising you all the time or attacking you all the time, your job doesn't change. It's to be neutral - to be neutral and to be fair. If they want to get their numbers back up among the American people who trust them to report the news fairly and accurately, which is their core mission, be neutral, be fair.
MARTIN: That's former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. He served in the administration of President George W. Bush. Mr. Fleischer, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
FLEISCHER: Thank you, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Earlier today, the new White House Chief of Staff offered a hint of what the Trump administration has planned for thousands of immigrants who now have temporary legal status. Reince Priebus told Fox News this morning that the Trump administration would work with House and Senate leaders to find a long-term solution for immigrants who now have temporary legal status under the so-called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals known as DACA. It's an Obama administration executive action granting temporary legal status for immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children. That's a big change because during the campaign President Trump had pledged to undo DACA.
NPR's Joel Rose met up with some of the people he met in 2012 at an event where immigrants could learn about DACA. He recently tracked them down to find out what DACA has meant to them.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: The line to get into that event was long. It stretched out the door of a church basement on the Lower East Side and down the block. Dozens of young people waited for hours to find out more about DACA. Across the country, hundreds of thousands applied, including Daniela Alulema.
DANIELA ALULEMA: I was one among the 750,000 undocumented youth who came forward and decided to apply. And DACA has drastically changed my life.
ROSE: Alulema says DACA helped her go to grad school and get a better job with the Center for Migration Studies, a think tank in New York. But she also remembers that a lot of applicants were concerned about whether it was wise to hand over so much information to the government.
ALULEMA: As undocumented, we were concerned that we might put in jeopardy not only ourselves but also our families, that we would be coming forward to the government and telling them where we live, what we do. I'm happy I did it. But obviously, you know, the story's a little bit different now.
ROSE: It's different because President Trump pledged during the campaign to deport millions of immigrants living in the country illegally. There are fears that DACA sign-ups or their parents could be among those deported. A bipartisan group of senators has written a bill called the BRIDGE Act that would basically extend DACA's protections, but there's no guarantee it will go anywhere in Congress.
CESAR VARGAS: I could lose not just my work authorization, my driver's license, but I can also possibly lose my law license.
ROSE: Cesar Vargas is a lawyer in Staten Island. Back in 2012, he had graduated from law school and passed the New York bar exam. But without legal status, he had no idea if he would be admitted to practice law in the state. Now Vargas calls himself the first openly undocumented attorney in New York City. Last year he bought a house. Vargas says a lot of DACA recipients are now professionals with cars and mortgages.
VARGAS: It's not just taking away DACA. You're taking away something that has allowed many people to pay taxes - I pay taxes - and contribute to the economy in many ways that people - perhaps Donald Trump does not see.
NATALIA NARCISO: We're a start-up. We work with advertising.
ROSE: Natalia Narciso (ph) shows me the office where she works in Lower Manhattan. Narciso was born in Brazil and moved with her family to suburban Westchester County when she was 10. She says DACA made a huge difference for her.
NARCISO: I don't know if I would have finished school, honestly. Probably do some kind of job, like, under the books just to get by. It's changed a lot.
ROSE: Narciso is married to a U.S. citizen now, so her future looks more secure than some other people she knows. But Narciso still gets upset when she thinks about what could happen.
NARCISO: Do you want to secure borders and tighten up? I understand that. But to try to get rid of so many people that call this place home and, like, have been here for years? It's heartbreaking.
ROSE: DACA was never designed to be a permanent fix for the nation's immigration system, but it may turn out to be even more temporary than its supporters had hoped. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Hundreds of thousands of women and some men came to the nation's capital for the Women's March on Washington yesterday. This morning, many of those women were heading home with a big question on their minds - what now? NPR's Adrian Florido spent the morning at Washington D.C.'s Union Station talking to women waiting to catch trains home.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Last call for 51.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Jennifer Shotwell was waiting for the train to Baltimore, sitting with the signs she made for the protest.
JENNIFER SHOTWELL: This one says together resist an unjust, misogynist patriarchy.
FLORIDO: She'd written the first letter of each word in bold, spelling Trump. This weekend, D.C. public trash cans were overflowing with signs like this. But Shotwell said she was taking hers home.
SHOTWELL: Because we're going to need them again, I'm sure.
FLORIDO: Like each of the women I spoke with this morning, Shotwell said she was headed home from the march determined to continue resisting President Trump's proposals for things like health care, climate change and immigration, proposals she sees as either harmful or hateful. For her, protests will be important. Other women had other plans, like calling their members of Congress. Rama Rao is a doctor from New York City.
RAMA RAO: Yeah, I already have a planned call for Monday morning (laughter) about the Cabinet.
FLORIDO: Other women said they were going to try to convey to their loved ones the overwhelming emotions they felt during the march in the hope of motivating them. Frances Anne Ribillia Williams came from her native Hawaii. Before the march, she visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and found her brother's name.
FRANCES ANNE RIBILLIA WILLIAMS: And I was so moved because as soon as I left there, I felt his spirit follow me and I was able to march the whole way. And I feel like I wish I had my daughters with me. I have things to show - my heart - to show to them. We need to continue work for women.
FLORIDO: Jackie Knight was headed home to Durham, N.C.
JACKIE KNIGHT: I'm going to call all my family members and tell them what an awesome experience this was and that they need to join the events that we're going to continue to have around the country.
FLORIDO: After the march, one influential Democrat worried that the energy of the march would fizzle after people went their separate ways. But Paula del Rio, headed home to Georgia, said that didn't worry her.
PAULA DEL RIO: If that will be true, then the civil rights movement died also after the march. And I don't think so. I think actually it's helping us to realize how much work we have to do.
FLORIDO: She plans to get more involved in local politics. Jennifer Epps-Addison was headed home to LA, where she runs a nonprofit that supports local activism. She hopes this weekend was a start to something bigger.
JENNIFER EPPS-ADDISON: You know, I think it's great to see people marching. But could you imagine if every single person who was marching split off into a neighborhood and started knocking on doors and talking to their fellow constituents - so the people who didn't come out and participate - how different our country would look?
FLORIDO: And Debbie DeCotis said she plans to start donating to Planned Parenthood. She was sitting having coffee and wearing one of the now-famous pink hats from the march.
DEBBIE DECOTIS: It's a pussy beanie. We were a sea of pussy power beanies yesterday marching in this parade.
FLORIDO: DeCotis was here with Robin Miller, also of New York.
ROBIN MILLER: What we were discussing is that instead of walking around with the pink hats, we're going to have pins, not-for-profit pins made that will show support for the women and for the immigrants. And if you do that nationwide and around the world, you have this ability to have people know you're in my club. You're on my side. And I think that'll be a great effort to kind of mobilize everybody in the world.
FLORIDO: Miller said she's already working the logistics over in her head. Adrian Florido, NPR News, Washington.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Six faith leaders spoke at Donald Trump's inauguration on Friday. One of them was Paula White. Like so many other decisions by the new president, it was an historic and controversial choice. Pastor White is the first woman member of the clergy ever invited to offer prayer at an inauguration. She's been a spiritual adviser to President Trump for some years and has been credited with bringing him closer to the evangelical community. But she's also been derided as a prosperity preacher, even a heretic, by other evangelicals.
As we've been getting reactions to the inauguration throughout the weekend, we were pleased to have a chance to speak with her the day after the inauguration. Welcome, Pastor White. Thanks so much.
PAULA WHITE: Thank you so much, Michel. I'm semi-recovering, but it's historical and monumental to stand with such great men of God and just leaders around the world.
MARTIN: Well, I described you as his spiritual adviser. Is that how you would describe your role in his life? And do you mind telling us how you know him?
WHITE: Oh, not at all. Our relationship started 15 years ago when I received a phone call. And my office said, Mr. Trump's on the line. And I think had I been watching "The Apprentice" at the time I would've said, you're fired (laughter). You know, I was like, yeah, right. And he came on and he said, I have been watching your program. And he starts talking about growing up, being confirmed Presbyterian and quoted back some of the great sermons, and asked if I was ever in New York. And I happened to be doing the Yankees bible study at the time, and so I was. And I built a relationship with his family and his staff.
MARTIN: Can we talk about why some people are surprised about your connection to President Trump? I mean, you have a large multicultural following. For example, you've been a keynote speaker for years at MegaFest, which, for people who don't know, it's a very large spiritual gathering led by the well-known African-American preacher, author T.D. Jakes.
I'm sure you know that many people have felt that Donald Trump has made demeaning and even racist remarks about people of color for years now, not to mention questioning former President Obama's birthplace for years. And I'm wondering if you've ever talked to him about these remarks and how your congregants feel about those remarks.
WHITE: Well, first off, I've had the opportunity to know him for 15 years. And so knowing him on a private level, I know that there is not racism or prejudice in him. You can ask President Trump that question directly. But from my experience, it's...
MARTIN: Well, his questioning President Obama's birthplace was not something that was secret, nor that - was that a media invention. And many people experienced that as his questioning his legitimacy as president and as racist.
WHITE: No, I understand many people's hurt and many people's position on things. And I do understand that. I think that that is a great question to ask him about.
MARTIN: Can I ask you also about another sensitive issue, which is you've talked openly about being a survivor of sexual assault. And by now, of course, most people know about that "Access Hollywood" tape where then-candidate Trump bragged about grabbing women by their private parts. And I wondered how that struck you, and if you ever had occasion to talk to him about that, and what you think all that means.
WHITE: Absolutely. Immediately I talked to him; when I say immediately, probably within the first few hours of that release or sooner. He was very contrite, very embarrassed. And again, knowing the person, when he said, I am a changed man, I believe, and - or a better man - and I can say that over 15 years I've watched a man grow and I've watched a man change. And I think he - it's something that he took responsibility and ownership for and something that he was deeply bothered by.
MARTIN: How do you see his posture toward his role going forward? Many people have listened to his remarks at the inauguration and have felt that he was speaking mainly to the people who already support him. No doubt you have seen that there are many, many people marching to say that they protest his policies, his tone. In your conversations with him, have you observed a desire to reach out to those who have not supported him?
WHITE: Absolutely. This is a president who number one put the values and the voice of God at the forefront. When he could have chosen one person to pray, he chose six diverse people to pray. He also referenced and used very blunt, obvious references to God. It is no doubt in my mind that his heart is and his intention in every way and his actions - and I believe you'll see fruit bear forth from this - is to bring reconciliation, to unify.
Here's what we have - a president for the next four years who has absolutely dedicated and committed himself to say, let's make America great, and I will not forget the forgotten person. He has four years as our president. In four years, we will make a decision whether he has not forgotten the forgotten person and if he will make America great again because that's the beauty of our democracy, whether he is a man of his word with the integrity of what he has campaigned for or not.
MARTIN: Well, that's Pastor Paula White. She delivered one of the prayers at President Trump's inauguration on Friday. She is senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center in Florida, but she was kind enough to speak to us while she was still in Washington, D.C. Pastor Paula, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
WHITE: Thank you, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Today is the 44th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. That's the Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized abortion in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in cities across the country yesterday to demonstrate. And part of what brought many of them there judging from their signs and social media posts and interviews clearly was their concern that access to abortion will be restricted. Meanwhile, this Friday, people who favor those restrictions on abortion will rally at the National Mall in D.C. and march to the Supreme Court in what has become an annual event, the March for Life where President Trump senior counselor Kellyanne Conway is expected to speak.
Now, the truth is most people don't go to rallies or marches on either side, but there's evidence that the long controversy about abortion rights is playing out in a different public square, a place most Americans visit. And that is primetime television. Gretchen Sisson is a sociologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who researches how abortion is portrayed on screen. And she's with us now. Welcome. Thanks so much for joining us.
GRETCHEN SISSON: Thanks for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: Now, a lot of people will remember the TV show "Maude." I understand that that was actually not the first TV show that portrayed a character as having an abortion. But it was the first that portrayed the decision in depth and in primetime. How big of an impact did that make? How big was the controversy around that?
SISSON: So the controversy was pretty big at the time, and it's important to remember that the show is set in New York. Abortion was legal in New York before Roe, and that episode aired in that window where it wasn't even legal and accessible yet nationally. "Maude" was, of course, a little bit older for a pregnant woman. And it's actually Maude's daughter that is very encouraging of her mother's abortion and says this used to be a very shameful thing, but it's legal now. It's just like going to the dentist. For the time when it aired, it was pretty radical.
MARTIN: Now, in 2015 and 2016, HBO's "Girls," "Scandal" on ABC and "Jane The Virgin" on CW all portrayed characters having abortions, so clearly it's become more commonplace as a storyline. Do these storylines still evoke that kind of controversy that "Maude" did back in the '70s?
SISSON: So I think we're starting to see a shift. If you had asked me this question two years ago, I would've said that the stories were actually pretty reminiscent of "Maude's" episode where a lot of the story is really focused on the decision-making process and how emotional and difficult that was for women.
It's become much more a matter of fact, and the stories are less about the hardship of making a decision around an abortion and more about what this potential pregnancy and what the abortion means for the woman's relationships, what it means for her career.
MARTIN: One point that you made in your research you - says that typically on television an abortion is had by a young, wealthy, white woman who has no other children. Is that the way it is in real life?
SISSON: No. It's certainly not the way it is in real life. That experience isn't inaccurate. For many women, that's their reality. But we know a couple of things. Most women in the U.S. who get abortions are women of color. Most women who get abortions in the U.S. are already parenting and raising children. And until very recently, I would say their stories were largely undepicted (ph) on television.
MARTIN: Would people who believe that abortion is a profound moral dilemma - would they find depictions of that on screen today?
SISSON: I think we are seeing that balance, but in different ways than we used to. So, for example, on "Jane The Virgin," Xio's abortion is handled very straight-forwardly. We find out about it after the fact. And then the story is less about her decision to get the abortion and more about her disclosing that abortion to her mother who she believes will be opposed. So they sort of have that conversation in a different space.
MARTIN: If people watch television, whichever side they're on, are they likely to see their reality, their point of view reflected in what they see on television?
SISSON: I think the stories we're starting to see on television are becoming more diverse and thus more accurate. I also think that if you are in favor of abortion rights and you're looking ahead to the next four years and feeling like little policy progress is going to be made in support of abortion access, then the cultural sphere including television offers something more to move forward with, to change the way people are thinking and talking about abortion in those spaces.
MARTIN: Gretchen Sisson is a research sociologist at the think tank Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health or ANSRH at the University of California, San Francisco. We reached her in San Francisco. Professor Sisson, thank you so much for speaking with us.
SISSON: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Earlier in the program, we talked about the media and it's often fraught relationship with the Trump administration set off most recently by a confrontation about the size of the inaugural crowds. Now, Donald Trump has been accusing the media of distributing what he calls fake news for some time. In those instances, President Trump seems often to be referring to information that is accurate, but that he finds upsetting.
But The New York Times just published a piece about something that journalists, as well as others, find even more worrisome - the spreading of completely false information under the guise of news. New York Times reporter Scott Shane managed to track down a practitioner of this and convinced the man, Cameron Harris, to describe how and why he did it for a recent piece titled "From Headline To Photograph: A Fake News Masterpiece."
SCOTT SHANE: Cameron Harris is a 23-year-old recent graduate of Davidson College in North Carolina. He majored in politics and economics, and by his account - he's Republican, very active in politics, wants to be a political consultant. But he claims quite credibly that he did this really more for the money than for the politics.
MARTIN: Cameron Harris created several false stories for a defunct news domain christiantimesnewspaper.com which he'd picked up for $5. Many of the false stories were debunked almost immediately by the respected fact-checking website snopes.com. But one story of Harris' has stood out to Scott Shane. It read "Breaking: Tens Of Thousands Of Fraudulent Clinton Votes Found In Ohio Warehouse." I asked Scott Shane why Cameron Harris decided to write this particular story and why it had such a big impact.
SHANE: There was a point when Trump began to say that he feared the election would be rigged, and then he started repeatedly saying in every speech he gave, you know, they're rigging the election, the election's rigged. And so there was this feeling that on the part of his supporters that somehow something was going wrong and that Hillary Clinton was doing something, you know, illicit to rig the election. And so Cameron Harris decided he would try to tap into that by essentially providing the proof that this election was rigged. So he said he started with a headline, you know, "Tens Of Thousands Of Fraudulent Clinton Ballots Found In Ohio Warehouse" - made up out of whole cloth.
And he invented a guy, an electrician, who had wandered into a backroom at a warehouse and stumbled upon these boxes of ballots that were pre-marked for Clinton. He decided a picture would be good. And he went - and he did what any one of us does when we want to find a picture of something. He did a Google image search, and he found a picture in the Birmingham News in the U.K. And it was from an election, but an election, of course, completely unrelated to the presidential election in the U.S. But it showed a gentleman standing behind a big stack of ballot boxes, so he just took that picture from the Birmingham News and said that that was a picture of this man who discovered the fraudulent Clinton ballots in Ohio.
MARTIN: You say that even though Cameron Harris who made all this up is a Republican and is inclined to support Republicans, that his real motivation was money. He just wanted to make the money from the clicks. So do you have any sense of how much money he made from this fake story?
SHANE: I do. He actually shared with me his statement from Google that essentially gave the revenue for the life of the site, and it totaled $22,000, which is not a huge amount of money. But Cameron Harris estimated that he put a total of 20 hours into this project. So for the time that he put into it, it was, you know, more than a thousand dollars an hour. That particular story - his greatest hit so to speak, the one about the fake Clinton ballots - that one he estimated made about $5,000 by itself. He said it took him about 15 minutes to write the story.
MARTIN: When you confronted him, how did he feel about what he had done? Did he express any remorse?
SHANE: You know, to defend himself, he started kind of doing what, in fact, Donald Trump has done recently which is accuse the mainstream media of fake news. There's a difference between, you know, taking unverified information and trying to prove it or disprove it. And that's very different, in my mind, from sitting down to make something up out of whole cloth that you know from the beginning is false. He didn't fully seem to accept or grasp that distinction.
MARTIN: So was there any reaction to your story?
SHANE: Yes. Actually the Maryland delegate, the member of Maryland legislature that Cameron Harris worked for as a sort of legislative aide read the story and fired him immediately, saying he, you know, would not tolerate dishonesty. And the other thing that happened is that Cameron Harris' alma mater Davidson College in North Carolina, which prides itself on its honor code, actually put out a statement expressing, you know, essentially regret that one of its alums had gotten involved in something like this.
And then the president of the college sent a letter to all alumni, again, sort of expressing regret about this and saying they would use this fake news case study involving one of their graduates as a lesson for future students to teach them about, you know, the honor code and the difference between right and wrong.
MARTIN: That was reporter Scott Shane from The New York Times. Thanks so much for joining us.
SHANE: Very glad to be with you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now, if you follow the history of the civil rights movement, then Dolores Huerta is a name that you likely know. She was one of the co-founders of the group that became the United Farm Workers working with the late Cesar Chavez. After more than six decades of activism, she's still going at 86 years old. Yesterday, she took part in one of the many women's marches around the country in reaction to the inauguration of Donald Trump and his policies.
Although Dolores Huerta has been a prominent figure in the civil rights struggles going back decades, now there is a documentary that seeks to tell her story anew and to cement her place in this country's civil rights and labor history. In it, we hear from famous feminists voices such as Hillary Clinton and Angela Davis, but we also get a glimpse of just what has made Dolores Huerta a legend among activists.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVID ROBERTI: She's indefatigable. She's unorthodox. You know, Dolores will bring in hundreds of people who will camp outside your office. So when Dolores is in Sacramento, everybody knows she's in Sacramento.
MARTIN: That's former California State Senator David Roberti talking about Dolores Huerta in the new documentary about her. It's called appropriately enough "Dolores." It was written, produced and directed by Peter Bratt. And the film premiered this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. And that's where we caught up with Dolores Huerta. I started by asking her about what message she had for those who took part in the Park City women's march.
DOLORES HUERTA: Well, my message was that we have to get back down to basics. We have to start organizing at the neighborhood level to get people educated to vote. There's just so many facets, I think, of the ignorance in our society that have to be corrected if we're really going to have a democratic society and a society that is just and that respects all of the members of this society regardless of who they are, what color they may be, what sexual orientation that they have or what gender, you know, they happen to be.
MARTIN: I mentioned earlier that the documentary is written and directed and produced by Peter Bratt, but it's executive produced by the music icon Carlos Santana. And in the sort of background notes for the film, Peter Bratt describes getting a phone call from Carlos Santana saying we have to make a film about Dolores. The suggestion was that the filmmakers felt that your role in the building of the farm workers' movement had not been given adequate attention. The role of women in general on the struggle for farm workers' rights had not been given its due. Do you feel that way?
D. HUERTA: Well, I do believe they call it his story - history. And so, you know, that's, I think, the case of many aspects of the civil rights movement where men were really given most of the attention of the work that was being done, even though we had very many women that were at the forefront of the struggle and at the forefront of the movement.
So it's not just the history of the farm workers' movement. It's the history of our United States of America and general history of many, many organizations. And so a women's place in history has never been given the attention that it needs to be given, and, again, that's why we have a lot of the misogyny in our society today.
MARTIN: Well, but I'm going to keep going back to you Dolores because the film was about you. And you know what else though? It also talks a lot about the personal costs of having dedicated yourself so wholeheartedly to organizing. And, you know, I want to mention here that you have 11 kids, and a number of them are interviewed in the film. And I just want to play a quick cut of a couple of your kids as they reflect on their childhood. And here it is.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "DOLORES")
EMILIO HUERTA: It was very hard. I'll be honest with you, tough.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The movement became her most important child. I realize the importance of the work, but I was also very jealous of it. So there's scars there. You know, there's scars there.
MARTIN: Did you know that?
D. HUERTA: Oh, of course. Those are the choices, unfortunately, that women have to make, and hopefully some day we'll have adequate day care, so that more women can get involved in movements. And I just want to say to mothers out there in the world that might hear that my children grew up very resourceful and strong in spite of them having to live with different families and that I had to drag them all over the country with me.
And I want to say to mothers out there, you know, take your children to marches. Take them to meetings because this is a way that they can become strong, and they understand what politics is all about because they are actually living it. And so there are, of course, regrets that my children did have to make so many sacrifices, but at the end of the day, they turned out great.
MARTIN: (Laughter) How do you like the film? Do you like the film? As I mentioned, you obviously have trouble talking about yourself, so I'm betting that maybe this process of having this film made about you was, perhaps, a little bit more painful than some might have imagined. But do you like it? And do you hope that people see it? And when they see it, what do you hope they'll see?
D. HUERTA: Yeah. Well, I hope that people do like the film. I hope that this movie will inspire people when they see that farm workers who were the most discriminated and the most poverty-stricken people in our country, you know, had the courage to stand up and to fight for their rights, to organize. That way we'll inspire other people to say, hey, if those poorest of the poor could do it, then maybe we could do something great also.
MARTIN: That is Dolores Huerta. She's a lifelong organizer and activist. There's a new documentary about her called "Dolores." It premiered this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. And she was nice enough to speak to us from there. Dolores Huerta, thank you so much for speaking with us.
D. HUERTA: And thank you very much for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally today, I wanted to say a few words about Wayne Barrett, an author and journalist who died last Thursday at the age of 71. As my NPR colleague David Folkenflik pointed out in an obituary about him - if you haven't lived in New York, you might not have heard of him, but if you follow New York politics, you could not miss him. He spent nearly four decades at the Village Voice and wrote four books based on his reporting. A 1992 biography about Donald Trump then known mainly for his splashy real estate deals didn't get much attention when it was first published, but the book got new life last year for obvious reasons.
Wayne Barrett was a hero to a whole generation of New York reporters for his doggedness in pursuing subjects who did not particularly appreciate his attention, but there was one story about him I didn't know until I read it in a piece for the local news blog patch.com. Reporter Colin Miner says that back in 1990 when Barrett was working on his Trump biography, Barrett went to Trump Castle, a casino then owned by Mr. Trump who was celebrating his birthday there. Barrett planned to make his way in among the many other reporters who had been allowed in so he could make his case for an interview. It was not to be. First, he was blocked by security guards, so he slipped into the ballroom by another entrance where he was promptly arrested for something called defiant trespass. As reporter Colin Miner quotes him, Barrett wrote (reading) when I was chained to the wall in an Atlantic City holding pen for hours that night by cops who were moonlighting for Donald, I finally began to get the point.
Trump decided not to cooperate with this book. And why did Barrett go through all that? Because Barrett saw reporters as, quote, "detectives for the people." Can I just tell you I'm recounting this for two reasons? The first reason is that whether you think Wayne Barrett's methods are appropriate or not, that is how journalists are supposed to see themselves, as people working on behalf of the people to find out the truth about things that matter. I'm talking real reporters, not the fake ones making up fake stories to get advertising revenue or pushing stories they know aren't true, nor am I talking about political provocateurs who use the instruments of journalism to push their ideological ends. At the end of the day, they don't care what's true either. They only care about what's useful to them, to whatever cause they started out with.
I think this is important to say right now because as our senior vice president for news Michael Oreskes pointed out in a piece he posted on npr.org earlier this week, the right of working journalists to do their jobs shouldn't be up for debate. Unfortunately, it has been at various points in our history, and as the blow-up this weekend about the fairly trivial matter of how many people actually attended the inauguration demonstrates, it is so again. This is not a partisan issue as Michael Oreskes also pointed out. The Obama administration repeatedly tangled with journalists to the point of threatening journalists with prison over leak investigations related to national security. We do not relish such fights, although we may recount them with humor or brio after the fact.
The truth is it is not pleasant to confront those in power or even others who happen to be popular. But those are fights we must have because they are necessary in a democracy. Journalists give citizens the information they need to make the decisions they are called upon to make.
But the second reason I'm saying all this is that many of us in the media are realizing or remembering that the work of the Wayne Barretts of the world holding the powerful accountable is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of our mission. We need to be with the less powerful and the powerless to tell their stories, to document their joys and pains and sorrows. President Trump said he was returning the power to the people. We're coming, too.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Truckers are under intense pressure to rack up miles. When they get hungry, they often stop at fast food joints rather than stray from their roots for healthier offerings. That puts them at risk for conditions like heart disease and diabetes. Some fear poor driver health is threatening the industry. From KCUR in Kansas City, Alex Smith reports on a former athlete-turned-trucker who's trying to help.
ALEX SMITH, BYLINE: On a chilly winter morning, dozens of truck driver trainees file into a classroom at the headquarters of Prime Inc., a company based in Springfield, Mo. At the front is Siphwe Baleka, an energetic former swimming champion in his mid-40s who delivers grim news to the new recruits.
SIPHWE BALEKA: If you haven't started to think about this, you need to start right now. And I'm going to tell it to you straight, OK? You are about to enter the most unhealthy occupation in America.
SMITH: But Baleka says he's there to help. He's the company's driving health and fitness coach tasked with improving the health of the 7,000 Prime drivers who spend around 11 hours a day behind the wheel. It's a struggle he knows personally.
Baleka was once an Olympic hopeful, but about six years ago after his professional athletic aspirations faded, he took a job as an over-the-road trucker. He found his life reduced to the inside of a cab and the truck stops where he'd rest, refuel and take consolation in convenience foods.
BALEKA: You know, life on the road is tough. It's lonely. There's not a whole lot of things to really make you feel good. So eating is one of the things that you kind of have some freedom that can make you feel good.
SMITH: During his first two months, the trim swimmer gained 15 pounds. He says he tried every diet and exercise routine he could find, even doing workout DVDs inside his cab at truck stops before sunrise. He says he eventually turned his health around by combining a low-carb, high-protein diet with short bursts of high intensity exercise. He then approached the company management with an idea. The trucks, the trailers and their cargo are all carefully monitored while on the road.
BALEKA: At that time, the only thing that we didn't have any, you know, real-time information on was the driver. Well, these digital health devices now allowed me to do that. I can monitor the physical condition of a driver just like we do with a truck.
SMITH: This is entirely voluntary for Prime's drivers. They get an activity tracker and keep logs on smartphone apps. Baleka watches their data and helps them manage their diet and exercise. And it's for more than the sake of truckers' waistlines.
During the past few years, there's been a shortage of drivers, and that's due in part to health. A recent transportation industry report shows 20 percent of drivers who left the field in the last year did it for health reasons.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yesterday, there was a bad winter storm.
SMITH: About 3,000 drivers have signed up for Baleka's coaching.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We really couldn't get out of the truck.
SMITH: As husband and wife driving team even called while I was in his office.
BALEKA: Chances are you can run in place, or you can shadowbox.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: OK, so...
SMITH: Baleka is treated almost like a celebrity by drivers passing through the headquarters, like Rick Menolascina, who's hanging out here for a few days while his truck is being repaired. He's a driver in his late-50s who says Baleka helped him lose weight and bring down his blood pressure. Just paying attention to food and exercise was critical, and he didn't have to completely swear off his favorite comfort foods.
RICK MENOLASCINA: If I'm going to eat that macaroni and cheese, I know exactly what I'm putting in my body. And sometimes I'll make that choice because I'm human (laugher), you know?
SMITH: Nearly half of trucking companies don't have any health programs. And many of those that do are focused on driving safety. Baleka says that while many are eager to talk about health, few follow through with programs he considers worthwhile. For NPR News, I'm Alex Smith in Kansas City.
(SOUNDBITE OF COTTON JONES SONG, "SOMEHOW TO KEEP IT GOING")
SIEGEL: That story is part of a reporting partnership of NPR, KCUR and Kaiser Health News.
(SOUNDBITE OF COTTON JONES SONG, "SOMEHOW TO KEEP IT GOING")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Populist movements are gaining ground across Europe, and not just in economically depressed areas. Reporter Lauren Frayer visited a wealthy corner of the Netherlands where anti-globalization sentiments are running high.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: If you book a tour of old-fashioned Holland, the guide will likely take you to Volendam, a picturesque village with cobblestone streets, tulips and seagulls pecking at fish on the pier. That's where Yop Kaiser sells the local delicacy - smoked feels.
YOP KAISER: (Speaking Dutch) Mackerel.
FRAYER: Mackerel.
KAISER: Herring.
FRAYER: Eels, herring. How long is this shop here?
KAISER: Forty-five.
FRAYER: Forty-five years?
KAISER: (Speaking Dutch).
FRAYER: Forty-five years in business, and not much has changed in prosperous Volendam, with its waterfront homes and sailboats. There's almost full employment here and very few immigrants. But Theo Stirk, who owns a local fish-canning factory, says he and most of his neighbors quietly support the far-right Freedom Party.
THEO STIRK: They talk about it at parties and with people they know, but they don't publish it. Geert, he says things that a lot of Dutch people think.
FRAYER: The guy Geert he's talking about is Geert Wilders, the Freedom Party leader. He wants to ban Muslim immigration and pull out of the European Union. It's a bit of a contradiction for the Dutch, who've long defined themselves as open to the world - naval explorers, international bankers. Holland took in Jews after the Spanish Inquisition. The world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia, used to be a Dutch colony. But globalization has gone too far, says Stirk, the fish factory owner.
STIRK: The Netherlands' economy is founded on different people from the Middle Ages. But if you allow them to come in your country, you must ask them to fit in in our society and to do the same things as we are doing.
FRAYER: He thinks religious Muslims don't fit in, that they pose a threat to liberal values that have become synonymous with Holland - equality, gay rights, legalized drugs.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken).
FRAYER: At the Volendam soccer field, coach Wem Krockman says he supports banning immigration because the Netherlands, with just 17 million people, is already one of the most densely populated countries in Europe.
WEM KROCKMAN: You see all the fugitives who are coming by boat to Italy, to Turkey. They are looking for jobs, looking for houses. And there's only one man in Holland who says, take care, in 10 years we have a problem. And we think he's right.
FRAYER: That one man? Geert Wilders. In his political speeches, Wilders invokes nostalgia for places like Volendam, for the traditional Holland that the tourists come to see. But Dutch people rarely wear wooden clogs anymore. And that old Dutch identity the far right likes to play up may be mostly imaginary, says Bulent Ozturk, one of the soccer dads on the field. He's actually from an immigrant family.
BULENT OZTURK: You can start talking about windmills and clocks and tulips, but Holland doesn't really have an identity. You know, when you're talking about Dutch characteristics, you could also speak about a German or a Danish identity because they're the same, almost the same.
FRAYER: In those countries, too, just like in little Volendam, there is an increasingly vocal nostalgia for a white Christian past. Geert Wilders is riding that sentiment and is forecast to win the most votes in Holland's election this March. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Frayer in Volendam, the Netherlands.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Louisiana is losing land to the Gulf of Mexico. And each mile that washes away costs the state in industry, infrastructure and disrupted lives. Well, now Louisiana is looking to recoup some of those damages, and as WWNO's Teagan Wendland reports, it's turning to an old friend.
TEGAN WENDLAND, BYLINE: Louisiana is an oil and gas state. It's long relied on money from offshore sales to fund part of the state budget. But that's come at a cost. Guy McInnis is president of St. Bernard Parish, just south of New Orleans - in Louisiana, we have parishes instead of counties. McInnis stands at the edge of Lake Borgne, near a city pumping station.
GUY MCINNIS: We're looking at some of the central wetlands of St. Bernard Parish that are now, as you can see, an open lake. And before, this was prime wetlands and marshes.
WENDLAND: Marshes that once protected St. Bernard Parish from storm surge. It took a big hit during Hurricane Katrina. Oil companies had to get through this marshy area to their shallow water wells.
MCINNIS: They would dig a ditch to get their boat to the oil well. And that ditch was not replaced or filled in at the end of the time that they used that oil well.
WENDLAND: These small channels created mazes through the marshes that eventually eroded into open water. So when the governor said McInnis should sue the oil and gas companies for that damage, he signed up. It wasn't an easy choice. This is a guy who has a mural of an oil refinery inside his parish office. The state's price tag to fight coastal land loss is about $90 billion. That'll take some support from Congress. The state's new Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, says suing the energy industry is part of that.
JOHN BEL EDWARDS: Before we can ever have any hope of asking the taxpayers around the country to come to Louisiana and help us restore our coast, we have to be able to show them that we did everything that we could reasonably that is within our power. And certainly, you can't do that if you don't seek to hold those people accountable who damage the coast to begin with.
WENDLAND: Suing the companies, which include big ones like Exxon Mobil and Shell, was a pretty controversial idea at first. Edwards has made it a cause, saying all of the coastal parishes should file suit or he'll do it for them. A few have, but others are resistant.
Meantime, he's facing roadblocks as the state attorney general attempts to stop the process. Gifford Briggs the acting president of the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association, an industry lobbying group.
GIFFORD BRIGGS: We don't think these lawsuits are necessary. We believe that these lawsuits are driving investment out of Louisiana into other states and other communities, that it's harmful to Louisiana.
WENDLAND: Many acknowledge the companies are partially responsible for the damage. But Briggs says the state should do its job by enforcing its own permit requirements rather than turning to the courts. He says it's bad for business. The governor's office disagrees.
MATTHEW BLOCK: This is not about demonizing the oil and gas industry.
WENDLAND: Matthew Block is Governor Edwards' top lawyer. He says sure, oil and gas is the most important industry in the state.
BLOCK: But that does not mean that we cannot hold the oil and gas industry responsible for destruction of the coast.
WENDLAND: By some estimates, 60 percent of Louisiana's land loss is caused by oil companies. If one or more of the suits succeeds, it could put the industry on the hook for billions of dollars.
Rob Verchick is an environmental law professor at Loyola University. He says these suits could set a precedent. Many other states face problems like land loss and erosion.
ROBERT VERCHICK: And they are struggling right now to find the money to address those issues. And so these lawsuits are going to occur, whether our lawsuits in Louisiana go forward or not.
WENDLAND: But all of those other states may not have a longtime friend in oil and gas they can turn to in times of need.
For NPR News, I'm Tegan Wendland in New Orleans.
(SOUNDBITE OF ODDISEE SONG "SKIPPING ROCKS")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Heroin and prescription painkillers are fueling a rise in overdoses around the country, and research shows rural areas are particularly at risk. From Colorado, Luke Runyon of member station KUNC has this on the connection between rural life and opioid addiction.
LUKE RUNYON, BYLINE: Melissa Morris got her first prescription when she was 20. She had a C-section, and her doctor sent her home with Percocet. She took one and laid down on her bed.
MELISSA MORRIS: And I remember thinking to myself, oh, my God, is this legal? How can this feel so good?
RUNYON: She was hooked. Soon after, she started taking the pills recreationally, shopping around for doctors who'd write new prescriptions.
MORRIS: It starts out Vicodin, Percocet.
RUNYON: Then it was Oxycontin, then the highly addictive and potent Fentanyl.
MORRIS: And then it's heroin. That's the holy grail.
RUNYON: Morris started stealing to fund her addiction, then got into the drug trade herself, raising money to buy more heroin.
MORRIS: And you can buy a gram of heroin for 50 bucks, and it'll last you five days longer. So that's why so many people here have turned to heroin.
RUNYON: Morris lives in Sterling, Colo., a two-hour drive east of Denver out on the plains. About 14,000 people live here. A state prison is the top employer. And since 2002, the death rate from opioid overdoses in this county has nearly doubled. And it's not just Sterling. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of deaths nationwide in which opioids were involved quadrupled over the last 15 years. And the death rates are rising fastest in rural areas.
JACK WESTFALL: The number one issue we're facing is opioids.
RUNYON: Jack Westfall is a family physician and researcher at the University of Colorado. He works with a network of rural clinics and hospitals in the state.
WESTFALL: We don't know what to do with this wave of people who are using opioids. They're in the clinic. They're in the ER. They're in the hospital. They're in the morgue because they overdose.
RUNYON: But what's causing the spike? University of California Davis epidemiologist Magdalena Cerda says a mix of risk factors has made rural America more susceptible to opioid addiction. In the economic recovery after the 2008 recession, rural counties consistently lagged behind cities, losing jobs and population.
MAGDALENA CERDA: You have a situation where people might be particularly vulnerable to perhaps using prescription opioids to self-medicate a lot of symptoms of distress related to sources of chronic stress, chronic economic stress.
RUNYON: Cerda also says the specific types of jobs more prevalent in rural areas - like manufacturing, farming and mining - tend to have higher injury rates, leading to more pain and, in turn, more pain killers. Other research points to the unique social structures in rural America as a potential cause.
KIRK DOMBROWSKI: One of the things that I think probably is counterintuitive to most of what we think of as a small town is that rural people actually have much larger social networks than urban people.
RUNYON: Kirk Dombrowski is a sociologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He says rural people have more friends and family in similar situations.
DOMBROWSKI: And that gives them more opportunities to know where to get drugs, and so some of those social factors of being in a small town can definitely contribute.
MORRIS: This is what the wrapper looks like.
RUNYON: Back at her home in Sterling, Melissa Morris takes a small piece of orange film out of her purse.
MORRIS: And then you put it on your tongue and you let it dissolve there.
RUNYON: Morris stopped using heroin four years ago and now depends on Suboxone, a less potent opioid used to wean people off heroin. It's in short supply in many rural communities, in part because few rural doctors have gone through the required training to prescribe it. Morris drives to a clinic two hours away to pick hers up. She recently introduced two friends, also addicted to opioids, to the clinic she goes to weekly for treatment.
MORRIS: I used to sell them pills and heroin and stuff. So I do have hope because I've seen success stories.
RUNYON: That strong connection among small-town residents could be part of what spread the opioid epidemic. But it could also be what helps to fix it. For NPR News, I'm Luke Runyon in Sterling, Colo.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Florida has a long list of invasive species it's battling - Burmese pythons, lizards from Argentina, Cuban tree frogs. The Old World climbing fern is a new addition to that list. The fern is toppling trees as it spreads across the state. And as Amy Green of member station WMFE reports, it is posing a particular threat to a national wildlife refuge.
AMY GREEN, BYLINE: LeRoy Rodgers spends plenty of time in the Florida Everglades, mainly in airboats.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE IGNITION)
GREEN: He eases the boat alongside a tree island and doesn't like some of the changes he's seen. He pulls a pair of clippers from a bag and hops over the side. Rodgers will need the clippers to cut a path through the Old World climbing fern that's almost swallowed the island.
LEROY RODGERS: A white-tailed deer trying to make your way through this - you can see how difficult it would be.
GREEN: The florescent green fern is everywhere. It cascades from trees, its vines weaving a thick mat near the ground, obstructing every step. Rodgers works for the South Florida Water Management District. He says the tree islands dotting the sawgrass prairie here in the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge are where birds and other wildlife forage and nest. He takes the fern in his hand.
RODGERS: That's where the spores are produced, and if you - now that you know what you're looking for, if you look out, you see they're everywhere. So there are spores by the billions all around us right now. And that's the other part that makes this plant so invasive.
GREEN: The Old World climbing fern first appeared in Florida as an ornamental plant and is native to Africa, Asia and Australia. With no natural predators here, it grew unchecked. The fern stands to take down more than tree islands.
Its grip on Loxahatchee has prompted the state to threaten to kick the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service off the land because it's been unable to stop the weed. That's strenuously opposed by environmental groups in a region where a multibillion-dollar environmental restoration is underway, the nation's largest ever.
CHERYL MILLETT: I think it is the worst invasive species that Florida has faced in a very long time.
GREEN: Cheryl Millett of the Nature Conservancy considers herself on the front line of the fern's march north. She's part of a team of government agencies and private landowners monitoring its spread in central Florida. She steps among the pine trees of an eight-acre conservation area in a residential neighborhood near Orlando. The fern flows from trees like a waterfall.
Crews control the fern by spraying it with herbicide and hacking at it with machetes, leaving the vines overhead to die. It's exhausting work.
MILLETT: They've got their big boots on. They're coming through. And before they treated all this, this was all covering up here. And so they have to hack through all of that, cut it with machetes, climb through. You saw the blackberries that are growing in here, the thorny vines. They have to go through. It's really hard work.
GREEN: Back in Loxahatchee, Rodgers motors over to a tree island where the Old World climbing fern is just beginning to grow.
RODGERS: Here you can actually make out individual trees in the canopy. First of all, you can see that there is at least, you know, 40 trees here, probably about five different species of trees. And in some areas, you can actually see a little bit of an understory - shrubs and ferns.
GREEN: Rodgers says biologists are trying other ways to corral the fern, including experimenting with a moth and mite found where the fern originates and that feed only on the plant.
RODGERS: These tree islands are something that took centuries and millennia in some cases to form, so it's worth the battle and try to win.
GREEN: Otherwise, they too will succumb to the stranglehold of the Old World climbing fern. For NPR News, I'm Amy Green in Orlando.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Israelis and Palestinians are closely following the case of an Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter in the death of a Palestinian man. The soldier's sentencing hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. A bystander captured the shooting on video. He's a Palestinian from the city of Hebron. As NPR's Joanna Kakissis reports, he is urging Palestinians to pick up cameras instead of stones.
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: Early one morning in March of last year, a Palestinian shoemaker named Imad Abu Shamsiyeh was drinking coffee with his wife at their home in the West Bank city of Hebron.
IMAD ABU SHAMSIYEH: (Through interpreter) We heard shooting. My wife grabbed my video camera, and we ran to the roof of the house. Then I started filming.
KAKISSIS: He zoomed in and saw someone lying on the ground, surrounded by Israeli soldiers - not so unusual in this violent city.
ABU SHAMSIYEH: (Through interpreter) I wasn't sure if the man was Israeli or Palestinian. Blood was gushing from him.
KAKISSIS: The man was Abed Fatah al-Sharif, a 21-year-old Palestinian who had been shot and badly wounded after he stabbed an Israeli soldier. Sharif lay nearly motionless. Then a soldier shot him in the head from close range. Abu Shamsiyeh immediately sent his video to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group which verified and published the video on its website.
The video went viral. It was shown during the trial of Sergeant Elor Azaria, the Israeli soldier who fired that shot to Sharif's head. A military court convicted him of manslaughter earlier this month. The case deeply divided Israelis. Abu Shamsiyeh, who's 45 and has seven children, has been filming violence here for five years, spurred by what's happened to his own family.
ABU SHAMSIYEH: (Through interpreter) My daughter was injured by settlers. My two sons and wife were attacked and put in jail. I was attacked and put in jail. We've been the target of a lot of violence by the sheer fact that we live here.
KAKISSIS: They live practically adjacent to an enclave of Jewish settlers near the center of the sprawling city. The proximity breeds conflict between the two sides, but Abu Shamsiyeh tells young Palestinians that cameras are much more powerful weapons than stones or knives or fists.
ABU SHAMSIYEH: (Through interpreter) We want to change that in our children. We tell them, use your camera to show what's happening here. Do not use violence.
(Speaking Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: (Speaking Arabic).
ABU SHAMSIYEH: (Speaking Arabic).
KAKISSIS: At a recent training session at his home, he shows two young girls how to film a steady video. Nida Abu Haikal, and 11-year-old in a glittery, red sweater, tells me she recently hit a settler boy after he cussed at her.
NIDA ABU HAIKAL: (Through interpreter) But what did that do - nothing. He actually hit me back and pulled my hair. I should have just taken a picture.
(CROSSTALK)
KAKISSIS: But the videography now works both ways. Just down the street, Israeli settler Tzipi Schlissel is also taking video. She's zooming in on a Palestinian man arguing with a soldier who's asking for his I.D. Her father was stabbed to death here in 1998, and she sees filming as a way to highlight Palestinian violence.
TZIPI SCHLISSEL: And I can't be every place always, but I think this is part of the war now.
KAKISSIS: Schlissel says she's advocating settlers photograph more after seeing the impact of Abu Shamsiyeh's video of the soldier. Polls show that most Israelis want the soldier pardoned. Abu Shamsiyeh says however the case ends up, what he thinks matters most is that the video brought so much attention to what Palestinians face in Hebron. Joanna Kakissis, NPR News, Hebron, the West Bank.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Trump got right to work on his first full weekday at the White House. He met with a number of groups and signed several executive actions aimed at delivering on his campaign promises. It comes after a weekend of very different news in which his team focused on the size of the crowds watching his inauguration and questioned whether the media got it right.
Well, today - a reset of sorts. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins us now from the White House. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, HOST:
Hi, Robert.
SIEGEL: What did the White House press secretary do today?
LIASSON: Well, the White House press secretary did some things to reset. But first, I want to tell you about some things that the president did today because there were some things that he did that you'd expect from any Republican president.
He signed executive actions about abortion funding that every Republican president does to undo what the Democratic president before him has that prevents U.S. taxpayer money from funding international aid organizations that provide or promote abortions. He signed a federal hiring and pay freeze. That's not unique to Trump, but it makes his base very happy. And...
SIEGEL: And he exempted the military from that.
LIASSON: He exempted the military. So he did some things for fiscal conservatives, for social conservatives. But he also did some things that were more Trumpian than traditional Republican presidents.
SIEGEL: What would qualify as more Trumpian?
LIASSON: More Trumpian was he signed an executive action withdrawing from the TPP, the big Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. It was already dead. Even Hillary Clinton wasn't going to pursue it. But this was one of his No. 1 campaign promises, part of his America-first, populist message - puts him at odds with the pro-free trade wing of his own party.
Then he met with the leaders of businesses - CEOs, the leaders of that free trade wing. And while that's a typical thing for a new Republican president to do, he told them that although he would slash taxes and regulations - something they want to hear - he said if you move your factory out of the country, fire your workers then try to export your products back in, we are going to put a substantial border tax on you.
And then in the afternoon, he did something also very Trumpian and not typical Republican. He met with labor leaders - not just leaders of big unions but also presidents of locals. This is part of his populist strategy, reaching out to the working-class voters who helped him win. He said to them, there are going to be a lot of new jobs building all those new plants that are coming back to the U.S. So it was a pretty on-message day for Donald Trump.
SIEGEL: And that on-message day came after an extraordinary weekend when the news surrounding the president and his team was dominated by arguments about how many people watched his inauguration.
LIASSON: Yes.
SIEGEL: Tell us about that.
LIASSON: This - the weekend was all about Donald Trump's extreme sensitivity to comments about the size of his crowds and the comparison of his crowds to the bigger crowds of the Women's March on Saturday. He decided to talk about this in front of the wall of heroes at the CIA. That's all the anonymous people who worked for the CIA who've been killed in the line of service to the United States.
This was supposed to be a fence-mending visit after his comments comparing the intelligence community's actions to Nazi Germany. But he talked about the size of his crowds there. Then he sent his press secretary, Sean Spicer, out on Sunday to attack the media for its reporting of the crowd size. And Spicer used some very easily disprovable assertions about how the crowd was the biggest inaugural crowd ever.
So you had a lot of Trump critics saying this seemed like a conscious strategy to undermine the credibility of the press, to attack it. At the CIA, Trump had said he was in a running war with the media and journalists were the most dishonest human beings ever. That's actually one of the nicer things he's said about us.
(LAUGHTER)
LIASSON: But it sent the message, people thought, that everything the media says is a lie and that's what Trump wants people to think. They should just believe him and not anything they read in the mainstream press.
SIEGEL: Well, did this line of attack against the media continue today?
LIASSON: It actually did not. Sean Spicer, who was at his very first formal White House briefing, went out of his way to get a reset with the press. He tried in every way to redeem himself from Sunday's angry briefing. He was smiling. He was self-effacing. He said he wanted a good relationship with the press. And then he said this.
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SEAN SPICER: I believe that we have to be honest with the American people. I think sometimes we can disagree with the facts. There are certain things that we may miss - we may not fully understand when we come out, but our intention is never to lie to you, Jonathan.
LIASSON: He also said he will always tell us the facts as he knows them. So in that respect, this resembled a typical briefing of any new administration.
SIEGEL: Just one point, Mara - you said that Trump sent his press secretary out Sunday to attack the media. Do we know that? Was this a personal affront that Donald Trump felt?
LIASSON: From every bit of reporting that we know - that, yes, he was personally affronted. He wanted Sean Spicer to go out. It was not scheduled. He went out. He read a five-minute statement excoriating the press. He took no questions. And yes, this is - this was Sean Spicer channeling Donald Trump's great irritation.
SIEGEL: NPR's Mara Liasson, thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Over the weekend, millions of people marched in cities around the world. At the Women's March, people carried signs that talked about immigration, the environment, abortion and many other issues. Now one question is how organizers of the march plan to focus that energy.
Janaye Ingram was the head of logistics for the Women's March and joins us now. Welcome to the program.
JANAYE INGRAM: Thank you so much.
SHAPIRO: What do you envision for how you will use the energy of these millions of people around the world?
INGRAM: I think that's a great question. We have been encouraging women to march on. That's sort of been our slogan. But I think in order for us to actually achieve change, that will require us to ensure that we are talking to our elected officials, that we are advocating, that we are engaged civically in our communities. And I think all of that combined is really going to create a shift in what we've seen and what we know has been happening as it pertains to women's rights. And hopefully, as the saying goes, the future is female, and we'll see more rights achieved for women across the world.
SHAPIRO: I hear you talking about engagement but not necessarily about a specific issue. And with so many different issues on the table represented at these marches, do you fear that a lack of focus could dissipate some of this energy?
INGRAM: I don't think that a lack of focus will dissipate the energy. I think that there are a lot of issues for people to be passionate and concerned about. I think what we saw is a need to be intersectional in how we approach our advocacy. So it means that...
SHAPIRO: Intersectional meaning, black people advocate for LGBTQ people and...
INGRAM: Correct.
SHAPIRO: ...Immigrants advocate for women, et cetera.
INGRAM: Absolutely. Because together, if we're interwoven and interconnected in our fight for progress, it makes us stronger.
SHAPIRO: When you look at the protest movements of the last decade, from the Tea Party to the Occupy movement to Black Lives Matter, what lessons do you take away from those about what works and what doesn't work?
INGRAM: We, in some ways, are a leaderless movement because we have a whole group of women who had been leading this effort. But we've had to figure out what that structure looks like and how to make that work. I think that was sort of a lesson learned from the Occupy movement.
And I do think that this is different. We can't just say it's a cookie-cutter-type lessons that we can learn but really looking at - what is the reality of this political climate? And what is it that we are hearing from women about what they want to do and what they want to see changed and how we can make that happen?
SHAPIRO: What specifically is the next step?
INGRAM: Well, there are lots of next steps, and we encourage people to stay in touch with us. If they weren't able to come to the march, we definitely want them to be sure to check out our website because that's going to be the place where we continue to unfold all the various actions that we'll have from here on out.
SHAPIRO: But give us a preview. I mean, you've announced there'll be 10 actions in a hundred days. Specifically, what's the next step?
INGRAM: Well, I don't want to get out ahead of myself. And - since you've seen the website, you know that we have postcards that we are sending out to elected officials. And we're encouraging people to march on and to continue to advocate for whatever your issue is. Speak to your local elected officials. Speak to your state elected official, your governor as well as the president. We want people to connect and to advocate for themselves. We don't want to tell people what to do. We want people to find the issue that moves them the most and to do something about that issue in these next few days.
SHAPIRO: Ultimately, how will you measure whether this movement has been successful or not?
INGRAM: Well, I think it definitely is about engagement. I think we've clearly made history. And so that in and of itself, there's a place in the history books where this effort will be noted. But I think for all of us, we are committed to ensuring that that's just not the end of it - that there is some actual substantive change, that we move the ball for all of the people that we march for, whether it's our mothers, our grandmothers, our daughters, our sisters, our friends or the little girls that we don't even know yet. But we know we want to see a better future for them than the one that we're currently living in.
SHAPIRO: Janaye Ingram was head of logistics for the Women's March on Washington. Thanks for taking the time.
SHAPIRO: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We're going to take a closer look now at the science of counting crowds. Estimates for the Women's March and for the inauguration have varied widely. And NPR's science correspondent Jon Hamilton says that's not surprising.
JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: Scientists who count crowds say they expected to hear wildly different numbers coming from Washington. Dinesh Manocha of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill says if there were just a few people and they aren't packed together, it's as simple as taking a picture and letting a computer count the people. But when you have big crowds like those seen across the country in the past few days, it gets tricky.
DINESH MANOCHA: Especially a crowd of this scale when it is more than a hundred thousand, we just can't estimate right. We just don't have an answer today.
HAMILTON: Manocha says even professional cameras only capture about 40 million pixels. So if there are 1 million people at an event, that leaves just 40 dots to identify each person. Curt Westergard is president of Digital Design & Imaging Service, which is actually trying to make an estimate of attendance at the Women's March. They used their own equipment to take photos.
CURT WESTERGARD: We took our tethered surveillance aerostat balloon that takes up a big cluster of high-resolution cameras.
HAMILTON: But Westergard says he doesn't expect to get a precise figure. Clouds meant the company couldn't supplement their own photos with satellite images. And the number of people changed constantly throughout the day.
WESTERGARD: Our main goal, really, on this is just to ascertain a rough order of magnitude so if somebody says a million versus 100,000, we can easily prove one or the other.
HAMILTON: Westergard says his firm will share whatever it learns.
WESTERGARD: We can and do make all of our data transparent. We put it online. If you don't like what we said, count it yourself and here's the data.
HAMILTON: So anyone can make an estimate. Westergard says the company's headcount should be out by the end of the week. Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF JESSICA LEA MAYFIELD SONG, "OUR HEARTS ARE WRONG")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
False, fake, fabricated news - we'll look at the impact online fakery had on our recent election and what other countries are doing to prevent it from affecting theirs. It's All Tech Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIEGEL: There's been a lot of talk about whether those stories spread through social media helped Donald Trump win, one professional fake news writer said as much to The Washington Post. Well, economist Matthew Gentzkow of Stanford University has tried to fact check that claim. In a new working paper he calculates the influence that those stories had on the election. And, Matthew Gentzkow, welcome to the program, and what did you find?
MATTHEW GENTZKOW: We found that in order for fake news stories to have changed the outcome of the election, seeing one fake news story would need to be as persuasive, have as large a chance of changing people's votes, as seeing 36 TV commercials.
SIEGEL: Tell us about your methodology, then. After you had identified some headlines that had been called out as fake news, how did you measure what impact they had on people?
GENTZKOW: So we collect this database of as much fake news as we can find. We then use a new survey online to estimate how many people saw those fake news stories, and then putting that together we can benchmark the persuasive impact that fake news would have needed to have against something we do know something about which is the effect of television commercials in campaigns.
SIEGEL: Interestingly for this experiment you used placebo headlines, which is to say fake fake news, things that people couldn't have seen because you made them up.
GENTZKOW: So this - the question we wanted to ask people was, do you recall seeing a particular fake news headline prior to the election? We had the suspicion that if we did that, the number of people saying they had seen it would be inflated because people might misremember and say sure, I saw that headline, when in fact they didn't. So to try to guard against that possibility, we came up with a set of what we called placebo stories, fake fake stories that we invented that did not actually circulate before the election. And so by seeing how many people recalled seeing the placebo stories, we could get a sense of the size of that false recall and control for it.
SIEGEL: Yeah. The very odd finding that you made was that the same number of people who recalled reading the let's say real fake news stories and the fake fake news stories was the same.
GENTZKOW: Yeah. The number of people who saw them was almost the same. It was just about 14 or 15 percent of people recalled seeing the fake news stories, and just about 1 percent less recalled seeing the placebo stories. And if you just sort of, you know, read the news online or watch cable TV, you get the impression that we were inundated by a flood of fake news. And, you know, the fact that the average voter saw one of these kind of crazy made up stories during the election is still pretty striking, but it's way short of a world where this was a wave that crashed over everybody in advance of the election and we were all seeing dozens of these stories every day.
SIEGEL: Economist Matthew Gentzkow of Stanford University, thanks for talking with us.
GENTZKOW: Thank you so much.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Beyond the U.S., many countries are concerned that fake news stories could influence voters. The Czech Republic has elections later this year, and the country is so concerned about this problem that it has opened a new center against terrorism and hybrid threats. One of its key missions is to monitor social media and identify stories that it deems to be false. To talk about it, we are joined via Skype by Tomas Prouza, the Czech government state secretary for European affairs. Welcome to the program.
TOMAS PROUZA: Thank you very much for having me.
SHAPIRO: What is a specific concern that this center is trying to address?
PROUZA: What we have seen in the last two years was growing number of Russia-connected websites who've been reporting blatant lies. And they spread alternative versions on events to make sure that people have no idea what is true any longer, and they simply start doubting the very basics of democracy, and that is the key worry we have.
SHAPIRO: You say that these are connected to Russia, what evidence do you have that Moscow is behind this?
PROUZA: One is that many of these websites share stories that originally appear on Russia Today or Sputnik, which are the two key Kremlin propaganda tools. And we also been looking at financing of some of these websites, and some of the leads we have fall in towards financial sources from Russia.
SHAPIRO: Has Russia responded?
PROUZA: Well, not officially. Anytime we bring that up in the discussions with them they of course deny any involvement, but friends of Russia have been attacking this center from day one.
SHAPIRO: So when this new center against terrorism and hybrid threats identifies one of these fake news stories, what does it do?
PROUZA: It publishes the facts. It uses social media, primarily Twitter, to get things out as quickly as possible, and saying this is a story we have found, these are the facts so use your brain and compare these two. So it's not censorship, they're not trying to close the websites, but they're trying to show very clearly that these things are really false. It's not alternative truth, it's really a falsehood.
SHAPIRO: Should it really be the business of the government to determine what is fake news? I mean, here in the United States, President Trump has referred to unfavorable media coverage that is in fact grounded in facts as fake news. It seems as though this center could easily go from identifying fake news stories to limiting a free press and targeting unfavorable media coverage.
PROUZA: We've been very careful. The only mandate they have is to identify stories, verify the facts and publish that. And it's also only one piece of the puzzle. We of course have several NGOs that act as fact checkers. We have some of the traditional media who also cover some of these stories, and we felt that this government center should be part of it. It's not the only thing we do, but we still believe that government needs to defend itself. If we don't defend democracy, it will be gone very quickly.
SHAPIRO: You said that the center will not go after every fake news story that's out there. How large is the volume, and how many do you plan to go after on a given day or week?
PROUZA: There's about 40 websites that peddle these stories, so you have dozens of websites that appear. The goal is for them to pick up a few a week. One of the stories we've seen repeatedly was claiming that the migration away from Syria to Europe has been caused by American activities in Syria over the last year or so. That for me is one of these major stories we need to debunk. They're not American activities in Syria, they're Russian activities, Russian bombing in Syria that has been driving people out from their homes. So this is the type of the stories they will go after.
SHAPIRO: There's obviously an urgency in Prague to do this because the Czech Republic has elections this year, but are some of your European colleagues in other countries talking about doing similar things?
PROUZA: Very much so. Germany is now discussing how they should address that. For them one of the key areas to focus on so far has been trying to force Facebook and Twitter to go after the fake news themselves. Sweden has been one of the targets for Russia as well. Finland faces similar problems we have, and even the United Kingdom. Each country is trying to see how they can deal with this.
SHAPIRO: Tomas Prouza is the Czech government's state secretary for European affairs. Thanks very much for joining us.
PROUZA: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF DEATH IN VEGAS SONG, "ALL THAT GLITTERS")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In his inaugural address, President Trump said America would join with other countries to fight Islamic radicals like ISIS. As NPR's Lucian Kim reports from Moscow, that sounds exactly like what Russian President Vladimir Putin has been saying.
LUCIAN KIM, BYLINE: President Trump didn't talk a lot about foreign policy in his first speech as president. But what he did say was that when the interests of different countries overlap, they should join forces.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth.
KIM: The Kremlin is trying to show that it's already leading the way. Since Trump's inauguration, the Russian Defense Ministry has said long-range bombers flew missions against ISIS targets in Syria. Today the ministry claimed it received targeting information from the U.S. via the coalition command that enabled Russian and coalition aircraft to attack ISIS in Syria yesterday.
However, a senior U.S. defense official says there was no sharing of coordinates, no cooperation and no American aircraft involved in the operation. Also today, Syrian peace talks initiated by the Kremlin and organized together with Iran and Turkey opened in Kazakhstan. Russia has been working hard to establish itself as a Middle East powerbroker since September 2015, when President Vladimir Putin addressed the United Nations.
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PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: Putin proposed the formation of a, quote, "broad international anti-terrorist coalition" not unlike the alliance between the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and other countries that defeated Adolf Hitler in World War II. Two days after Putin's U.N. speech, Russian warplanes began flying airstrikes in Syria on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad, though critics say Russia has mostly been attacking rebels opposed to the Syrian government rather than ISIS.
Ignoring U.S. criticism, Putin was able to help Assad retake the key city of Aleppo. He then coaxed armed opposition groups to the negotiating table. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is keeping the door open for the Trump administration to come on board as a partner, not an adversary.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SERGEY LAVROV: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: "I don't know who would deny that the fight against terrorism is the main priority for all of us," he said. Lavrov said Trump's view of foreign policy - putting national interests before ideology or values - coincides exactly with Putin's view on how to deal with the world. And that's why the Kremlin is ready to make peace with Trump - to go to war together against ISIS. Lucian Kim, NPR News, Moscow.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Time, according to a couple of studies, is the most commonly used noun in the English language. I learned that from reading Alan Burdick's new book, "Why Time Flies," a study of time that he calls a mostly scientific investigation. Alan Burdick, thanks for joining us today.
ALAN BURDICK: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
SIEGEL: And this inquiry into the nature of time is, you should explain, mostly scientific because it's also philosophical and it's also a lot about watching your twin sons grow up.
BURDICK: Yeah, that's right. It - you know, something had to happen in this book, and what happened was a lot of time passing and watching my kids get older.
SIEGEL: You examine time in a very granular way, getting down to the shortest possible time spans we can imagine. But you're also talking about long spans of time and are trying to - you're trying to hold on to the times of dealing with your twin boys. Same thing - we're talking about time in both cases?
BURDICK: Yeah. You know, really one of the first things that I learned about time - I mean, I would go around to scientists and ask them - what is time exactly? And they would all turn it around on me and say, well, what do you mean by time? The point being that what we call time is actually a lot of different experiences. It's understanding what the time of day is, but it's also understanding the difference between before and after.
So watching my kids grow, I realized it was very much an experience of me educating them about what time is. Not just, you know, how do you tell time, but what does it mean to wait? What does it mean to hurry up? These are all experiences that we learn, that we exchange with each other and kind of convey as a culture to the next generation.
SIEGEL: One question that sums up much of what you write about is what is the meaning of now? Now that I've finished posing that question, it's already in the past. Your answer is about to depart the future and join it in the past. So after all of your investigations, what is the present? What is now?
BURDICK: If you were to ask St. Augustine, Augustine would say that there is only now. There's no past, present and future. There's only your current awareness of the past, which is your memory. And there's only your current awareness of the future, which is expectation. And there's only your current awareness of the present, which is your attention. Everything is present for him.
SIEGEL: Now, once we think we have a grip on what the present is, we then encounter some experimental work in psychology that's been done that challenges our very ideas. And there's experiment that I'd like you to describe. I found this fascinating. The subjects of the experiment struck a computer keypad to produce a flash in a box on a screen. And at some point, they experienced the illusion that the flash preceded their keystroke, that the cause actually came after the effect. Describe that.
BURDICK: You know, your brain - our brains do a lot of work to kind of hide what you might call reality from us. So, you know, every time you type, for instance, on a computer keyboard there's actually about a 35-millisecond delay between you pressing a key on the keypad and that letter appearing on the screen. But as far as your brain is concerned, it happens instantaneously. There's no gap. It's actually been shown that your brain can sustain about a tenth-of-a-second delay between your action and its consequence.
SIEGEL: You still think it's instantaneous.
BURDICK: You still think it's instantaneous. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist who's now at Stanford, rigged up this experiment where he had a mouse and you could move this mouse around to various spots on the screen. You'd click the mouse and it would move to the next spot. And what he did is he sort of trained you to expect a 100-millisecond delay between your click and the thing moving. And after a while, you just didn't notice it. And then he removed the 100-millisecond delay. And the weird thing is once that delay is removed, your brain is so expecting a 100-millisecond delay that it seems as though the cursor has moved before you've clicked the mouse.
SIEGEL: In effect, during that earlier clicking our brain is calibrating to make that feel like now, like instantaneous.
BURDICK: That's exactly right, yeah. And your brain is doing this calibrating all the time. And it can be fooled. And when I did it, I have to say it was funny and really eerie.
SIEGEL: I mean, clearly you write this book - this is a narrative, and your personal experience is interwoven with what you're learning about the study of time. Clearly, at some point, time became a - is obsession too weak or strong a word to use for you, or a preoccupation?
BURDICK: A preoccupation. It was a bit like peering into the bottom of existence. I mean, man, it got really existential (laughter) for a while. You can't really talk about the perception of time and the perception of now without addressing somehow consciousness. My ability to perceive a present is very wrapped up in my ability to perceive a self. And yeah, you know, I spent, like, 10 years peering into that well, and came out of it and felt like I had a long white beard and flying cars were flying through the sky.
SIEGEL: Alan Burdick. Thanks a lot for talking with us about time and about your book, "Why Time Flies."
BURDICK: Thanks for having me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today, a team of legal scholars and former government ethics officials filed suit in federal court alleging that President Trump's many business interests violate the constitution. We'll hear from one of those lawyers in a moment.
First, with an overview of the various allegations that continue to dog the new president, NPR's Jim Zarroli joins us now. Hi, Jim.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: Since the beginning of the campaign, really, ethics experts have warned that Trump's businesses create a thick web of ethics issues. So as of now, what has President Trump done to address those issues?
ZARROLI: Well, he has done different things at different times. I mean sometimes he says Presidents can't have conflicts of interest. Other times he said, you know, I'm going to make an announcement; I'm going to take care of this. On January 11, he had a press conference. You might remember. He stood next to a big pile of documents that he said severed ties between him and his companies.
You know, today, his spokesman, Sean Spicer, said Trump has actually taken steps to resign from his companies. And we are starting to see some evidence today that he is filing papers to do that to relinquish control of his companies. But I think, you know, even that doesn't go far enough to satisfy his critics on this issue. I mean what they want is to see him sell the properties altogether and then put the money that he makes in a blind trust. And he hasn't done that.
SHAPIRO: Instead he's given the company's charge to his sons. When the president says a president cannot have conflicts of interest, it's a little more complicated than that, right? Explain what the laws actually say in this context.
ZARROLI: Well, there is a statute that deals with conflicts of interest. And it says that employees of the executive branch can't profit from serving in office. And now it does exempt the president, so Trump is right about that.
But I think the counter-argument would be, you know, there are other things like the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution which bars presidents from taking money from foreign governments or entities. And you know, Trump does business with banks and companies that are, you know, partly owned by foreign governments, so - which means, you know, you have the prospect of Trump the businessman negotiating contracts with governments when he's also, you know, president and he's supposed to be acting in the best interests of the country.
You know, in those situations, even if a president is trying his hardest to act in good faith, I mean you can never really separate your own interests from those of the country as a whole. It's just too difficult. And that's the issue.
SHAPIRO: When we look at this overview of possible conflicts, there are also the various lawsuits that Donald Trump has faced. Where do those stand now that he's president?
ZARROLI: Well, you know, Trump has often said he doesn't settle lawsuits. But in fact he has. He settled a lawsuit over Trump University. He also settled a dispute with the National Labor Relations Board over unionization efforts at his - at hotels in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. And the timing of that suggests, you know, he understands this is - would be a distraction. He wants to get these cases behind him.
But he still faces other suits. You know, there's a celebrity chef that he sued for breach of contract. The chef was supposed to open a restaurant in his hotel in Washington, but he backed out after Trump made all those comments about Mexicans. And that suit is still going on.
SHAPIRO: One piece of the Trump business empire that's gotten a lot of attention is the Trump International Hotel...
ZARROLI: Right.
SHAPIRO: ...In a historic building in Washington. And people have said that the day he takes the oath of office, he would be in violation of the lease. Explain what has happened now that he is in office.
ZARROLI: Well, you know, the building is owned by the federal government, and the General Services Administration holds the lease on it. And the lease says it can't be held by a sitting politician. So Trump appears to be in violation of that.
But I think, you know, more than that, there is this issue of whether Trump is going to profit personally from the hotel, you know? Are foreign diplomats and companies going to use it because they want to curry favor with the president? And that really goes to the heart of this whole issue about conflicts of interest.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Jim Zarroli - thanks a lot, Jim.
ZARROLI: You're welcome.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The Trump International Hotel, along with Trump Tower in New York and many other of Donald Trump's business interests, all figure in a federal lawsuit filed this morning by a group called CREW. CREW stands for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. And the nonprofit claims President Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause when foreign entities book rooms at the D.C. hotel or lease Trump office space.
CREW wants a ruling on the meaning and requirements of the Emoluments Clause and an injunction that prevents President Trump from violating it. But what standing does CREW have to bring that suit, and what harm can they show? Well, I put that to CREW attorney Deepak Gupta.
DEEPAK GUPTA: The injury that we're alleging is that CREW has had to divert its own organizational resources, and so it's been financially harmed because all of the work that it would normally do it's had to put on hold because of these unprecedented conflicts of interest.
SIEGEL: Is there precedent for plaintiffs being granted standing based on the fact that they've had to shift their emphasis, especially nonprofits?
GUPTA: There is. The Supreme Court in the 1980s decided a case called Havens that involved housing discrimination organizations. And the idea of standing in that case was that if there is housing discrimination and an organization is combating it and they have to divert all their resources to address that discrimination, the organization itself is injured. And there's a line of cases since then that recognizes that kind of standing.
SIEGEL: So one could bring that capital punishment case by saying the end the death penalty groups have to work too hard in the state of Texas or Georgia. Therefore they have standing to sue under the undue harsh penalties clause.
GUPTA: Think there are limits to this theory of standing. There's got to be a close nexus between the violation that's being alleged and the organization and its injury. And so we're not saying that this will be a walk in the park. We will have to make our legal case.
And I also think it's important to recognize that there are other kinds of injuries that the Emoluments Clause violation causes, injuries to other hotels who may be competitors, consumers, all sorts of other people. And I think it's entirely realistic to expect that those kinds of theories will emerge as well.
SIEGEL: Trump's lawyer from the firm of Morgan Lewis - she had helped arrange his creation of a trust for his business interests - had said that paying for a hotel room is not a gift or a present, and it has nothing to do with an office - that's a word from the Emoluments Clause. It is not an emolument.
GUPTA: Well, the framers used two words. They used the word present, and they use the word emoluments. A present describes something that I give you without getting anything in return. And emolument describes a payment where maybe I expect something in return.
And the argument that the Trump lawyers are making is, well, this is OK as long as it's fair market value. That ignores the fact that built into the price is some profit that comes to Donald Trump. And this is not just some abstraction. It's happening already. And diplomats have told news organizations on the record that they are moving their business there because they want to curry favor with the president.
SIEGEL: Should your suit proceed, would it be right for it to gain access to Donald Trump's tax records, and would you as a lawyer favor the precedent that you should be able to pry open somebody's tax records for a lawsuit that some people might regard as a political lawsuit?
GUPTA: Well, there - so there are two questions there. First, let me address the concern that this is a political lawsuit because it's not. If Donald Trump were a Democrat and he had exactly the same extensive and secret financial holdings, we'd be bringing precisely the same lawsuit. This is a bipartisan group. This is not a political exercise. So that's point number one.
And point number two - the purpose of this lawsuit is not simply to get some documents in discovery. Although Discovery will be important because President Trump has been so secretive about his holdings. But this is not just about the tax returns. This is about testing the proposition that the framers really meant it when they said that the president has to have undivided loyalty to the American people and should not have financial entanglements with foreign governments.
SIEGEL: Deepak Gupta of CREW, thank you very much for talking with us about the Emoluments Clause lawsuit.
GUPTA: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Powerful storms struck the southeast this weekend, killing at least 20 people, 15 of them in Georgia. Georgia Public Broadcasting's Grant Blankenship reports from one city - Albany - that had already been hit by a tornado a few weeks earlier.
CHRIS COHILAS: Then you have other uninsured losses to timber and farmland and...
GRANT BLANKENSHIP, BYLINE: The day starts for Chris Cohilas the way most days in Albany, Georgia have started over the last month. Cohilas, chairman of the Dougherty County Commission, tells members of the media what a storm has done to his city. It's a mile-wide slash from the southwest to the northeast. Cohilas says his community can't recover on its own.
COHILAS: We're strong people, but we're really hurt right now, and we need a lot of help. It needed to be here three weeks ago.
BLANKENSHIP: That's because three weeks ago, the first tornado to destroy homes and displace people hit Albany. This past weekend, a mile-wide swath of the city from one end to the other got demolished again. In the aftermath, Cohilas pleaded on social media and the press for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
COHILAS: We're capable of seeing anything through if we have the resources.
BLANKENSHIP: There's a problem with all the volunteer help, though. The neighborhoods on either side of Radium Springs Road were hit hard. Police have a roadblock up, and people are anxious to get in and help. Brandon Sanders has to walk two cases of bottled water to his parents who are trapped in their home by trees.
BRANDON SANDERS: No electricity, no power. A lot of trees are down and stuff like that, so I'm just bringing them water.
BLANKENSHIP: A police officer carries one of the cases of water once Sanders gets to the roadblock. Volunteers are being registered and vetted in the parking lot of a vacant shopping strip nearby. But people here are clearly frustrated. Lane Rosen is here with a chainsaw. He's trying to strike a bargain with Shonna Wiggins to skip to the front of the line.
LANE ROSEN: But if you can get us through the checkpoints with our chainsaws, then we can help you and then somebody else.
BLANKENSHIP: Wiggins' mother-in-law is on the other side of the roadblock. She and her husband are turned away. This doesn't sit well with Rosen.
ROSEN: I'd be arrested if they didn't let me in. I don't know. What do you do? You got to go get your mama.
BLANKENSHIP: Eliza McCall from Second Harvest of South Georgia, a food bank, is waiting, too. She's worried. The tornado a few weeks ago and Christmas break meant a month away from school and regular meals for children in this city where 30 percent of people live below the poverty line. Now this latest storm means school is out again.
ELIZA MCCALL: And so it compounds an already existing issue of trying to get food to these families that don't have it even in the best of circumstances.
BLANKENSHIP: I hitch a ride with one of Lane Rosen's friends back to the disaster area. Trees are down everywhere, and the streets are busy with high-powered off-road vehicles usually used for hunting or on the farm. On a side street deep in one neighborhood, Torie Clemons hefts an axe. He's helping free a car trapped beneath a tree. The warehouse where he works had the roof blown away, so he's out of work for now, but he's not worried.
TORIE CLEMONS: What, me? God take care of it. He'll take care of it. I'm going to be all right.
BLANKENSHIP: What's more, Clemons says he has family and friends that are looking out for him. For NPR News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Albany, Georgia.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
One of Donald Trump's first official actions as president took aim at the Affordable Care Act. President Trump issued a sweeping executive order on Friday just after the inaugural parade. It directs heads of federal agencies to ease what it calls Obamacare's burdens on everyone from patients to medical device makers. NPR's Alison Kodjak reports that the order is so broad; it's left lawmakers and policy specialists wondering exactly what it might do.
ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: Trump's order tells the incoming secretary of Health and Human Services and all the other agency leaders to, quote, "waive, defer, grant exemptions from or delay," unquote, the implementation or enforcement of Obamacare rules. But what the order will actually do remains unclear, even to Republican lawmakers like Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
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SUSAN COLLINS: I think that the executive order is very confusing, and that we really don't know yet what the impact will be.
KODJAK: Collins spoke to reporters after she and Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy introduced their proposal to replace Obamacare. She says an executive order is not the way to fix the ACA. Still, the order could have an immediate impact on the health insurance markets depending on how aggressive Trump wants to be. And right now his intentions aren't obvious, says Joel Michaels, a partner at the law firm McDermott Will & Emory.
JOEL MICHAELS: It's not clear whether, you know, they'll use this to begin to actually implement destabilizing provisions.
KODJAK: Like deciding not to enforce the requirement that everyone buy health insurance. And if Trump does nothing, that could prove destabilizing too because it could make people think they don't have to buy health insurance and leave insurers wondering who their customers will be.
MICHAELS: Some would argue that the lack of clarity and the uncertainty in an already fragile health insurance market could have that effect.
KODJAK: Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, is confused by the order, too.
KAREN POLLITZ: Yeah. We're all, I guess, grasping on this one to figure out what could happen.
KODJAK: She says the order allows agencies to grant waivers from many of the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, so the government could give lots of people hardship waivers so they don't have to buy insurance.
POLLITZ: The departments could look at broadening what constitutes a hardship, and then granting those exemptions much more liberally than would have been the case under the prior administration.
KODJAK: Or it could go bigger, granting waivers to entire states. They could then trim the list of benefits insurance companies have to include in their policies. Maybe they won't cover childbirth, annual checkups or birth control. Or the government could allow people to buy old fashioned insurance, the stripped down policies that don't cover preventive care or pre-existing conditions. Right now those policies are available only to a handful of people who got waivers from the Obama administration years ago.
POLLITZ: That's just sort of another area where I think they might look to make other cheaper policies available that already exist at least for some people, and that are cheaper because they don't comply with all of the ACA consumer protections.
KODJAK: Hypothetically, Trump's new administration could go even further, but the new president has said he wants Republicans in Congress to come up with a way to guarantee health insurance for everyone before the current system disappears. Alison Kodjak, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
One idea that Republicans frequently mention as a cost-savings reform to Medicaid is to change it to what is called a block grant program. Medicaid funds health care for Americans with low incomes. It's funded jointly by Washington and by the states, and it's administered by the states.
Well, several governors of both parties have expressed concern about the consequences of block granting. The thinking is that Medicaid would change from an entitlement of health coverage to people at specific income levels to an extension of assistance to as many people as could be covered by a fixed amount of money.
One Democratic governor who opposes that change is Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, who joins us now. Welcome to the program.
TERRY MCAULIFFE: Robert, thanks for having me.
SIEGEL: In Virginia, the Republican legislature successfully opposed you on expanding Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act. But now, I gather, Republican legislators agree with you that Washington should not block grant Medicaid. Why? What's so bad about a block grant?
MCAULIFFE: So let's go to the issue - if you block grant us now - Virginia has a very efficient Medicaid system today. A lot of them say, well, if you block grant it, you can get rid of the inefficiencies. We already have the efficiencies. And what will happen, it will strap our state budget. It will reduce benefits. It will limit choices. And when people think of Medicaid, you know, they think it's poor, minority families. I mean, that's what a lot of people think. In the case of Virginia, it is those individuals with disabilities, and it's elderly.
SIEGEL: Yeah. But what I hear you saying is that if the block grant program - if that were to happen and if current federal contribution levels were the starting line, then you think Virginia would be penalized for being relatively efficient at the way that it runs Medicaid nowadays.
MCAULIFFE: We would be horribly disadvantaged because we have a very efficient system. We have, obviously, one of the lowest - unfortunately, one of the lowest eligibility rates in the country right now. I think for a woman with two children, the dollar amount is 30,000. So it's not like that we could go in and cut. We are already at the bare bones. What if prescription drug prices go up? We have no ability then. Or we'd have to do it solely from the state to increase those benefits. Or if - let's assume, Robert, we head into a recession or the stock market goes down dramatically. More people qualify to go into our limited Medicaid program. We, the state, have to absorb those costs.
SIEGEL: Do you accept that whatever Washington has to do with administering Medicaid costs some money and if there were block grants, there would be some reduction in federal overheads to this program?
MCAULIFFE: I'm sure. Sure, there would be some reduction. But in fairness, they are still going to have to have the folks in Washington to oversee the money that's being shipped out on a block grant. So I'm not sure, at the end of the day, that they do save much on administrative.
But the other big concern for Virginia and those other what we call non-expansion states, what is the threshold number they're going to use for block grants? We forfeit, in Virginia, $2.4 billion a year in Medicaid expansion that we did not take. Well, how about those 31 states that did take the expansion money, is their block grant number going to be the expansion number and their other number?
SIEGEL: So if I understand you, what you're saying is that if the Trump administration honors the principle that nobody who got coverage under the Affordable Care Act should lose it and that includes - let's say that is held to include the Medicaid expansion...
MCAULIFFE: Yeah.
SIEGEL: ...Then in fact, states that took the expansion would get larger block grants from Washington than states like Virginia that didn't.
MCAULIFFE: They will lock in the expansion number that they took. As I say, in Virginia, we have forfeited, unfortunately, 2.4 billion a year. So I do think the Republicans in my legislature who have fought me from day one on expansion are now realizing if President Trump moves ahead with this basic block grant with - in not including - the non-expansion states, not including that expansion number, you have really crippled Virginia's economy. It puts us in such a dire strait, and I think that's what the Republicans here have finally realized - that they really could have hurt themselves.
SIEGEL: That's Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic governor of Virginia. Governor McAuliffe, thanks for talking with us.
MCAULIFFE: Robert, thank you, sir.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Trump signed paperwork today formally pulling the U.S. out of a 12-nation trade deal that the Obama administration had negotiated.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Great thing for the American worker, what we just did.
SIEGEL: Congress had already refused to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership, making Trump's withdrawal largely symbolic. But it's also a signal of the new president's nationalistic ideology. If Trump continues down that path, it would represent a sharp break with more than seven decades of U.S. foreign policy. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Moments after he took the oath of office last Friday, President Trump announced what he called a new vision, one that he wanted heard in every city and every foreign capital.
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TRUMP: From this day forward, it's going to be only America first - America first.
HORSLEY: Foreign policy expert Daniel Drezner of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy says when Trump spoke those words, he heard the end of the international order that America has been working to build ever since World War II.
DANIEL DREZNER: The key word in that speech was only - America first. All presidents try to seek to advance the national interest. But Trump was explicitly saying we don't care if anyone else benefits. All we care about is if we benefit.
HORSLEY: The word only was not in Trump's prepared remarks. He added it at the last minute. But it's consistent with the view Trump often expressed during the campaign. The new president sees foreign policy as just another business transaction, and he believes America has been getting a raw deal.
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TRUMP: For many decades, we've enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry, subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military.
HORSLEY: Critics say Trump is viewing American interests through a too-narrow lens. From the Marshall Plan to NATO and the World Trade Organization, the U.S. has worked to promote peace and prosperity around the globe. But Matthew Slaughter, who worked in the Bush administration and now serves as dean of the Tuck business school at Dartmouth, says America didn't make those investments out of charity.
MATTHEW SLAUGHTER: There was clearly enlightened self-interest. It was to help make our country more secure, and it was to help grow good jobs at good wages.
HORSLEY: Supporters of that international order say it's worked around the world as well. It's lifted billions of people out of poverty, helped to combat infectious disease and prevented a third world war. But even defenders can see that order is being tested in the U.S. and elsewhere, especially by those who feel they haven't adequately shared in the fruits of globalization. Economic nationalism was a fringe movement in the U.S. when Pat Buchanan pushed it 20 years ago. Now Buchanan says it's put Donald Trump in the White House.
PAT BUCHANAN: He's speaking both for and to the Middle Americans who have been left out and left behind.
HORSLEY: Not everyone, even in Trump's own Cabinet, shares the president's narrow definition of American interests. Defense Secretary James Mattis, for example, has defended U.S. participation in NATO as enormously beneficial to this country's own national security. Dartmouth's Slaughter is waiting to see whether foreign policy in the Trump administration is actually guided by Mattis' brand of global bridge-building or the more populist wall-building of the president's inaugural address.
SLAUGHTER: That's the $64,000 question. All Americans are trying to understand how that narrative, which was remarkably dark - what that translates into in terms of policy, no one really knows.
HORSLEY: Slaughter says supporters of the international order have a limited window to find genuine answers to the populist backlash in the U.S. and elsewhere. Meanwhile, if America turns inward, as suggested by its withdrawal from the Asia Pacific trade deal, China is more than ready to take up the slack.
Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
China's president Xi Jinping gave some sign of how eager he is to take on a global leadership role. He gave a speech in Davos, Switzerland last week defending free trade and globalization. Robert Daly is a China expert at the Wilson Center. He told me Xi and other Chinese leaders are paying close attention to signals from the new U.S. administration.
ROBERT DALY: His speech was I think strategically very intelligent because he knew that the people at Davos, and especially people within China, had listened carefully to President-elect Trump's words about America first and saw an opportunity for China, which is already the world's leading trading nation, to step in and be seen as, if not actually to be, the defender of the global liberal trading order.
SHAPIRO: It goes far beyond trade though, there are issues of environmental policy, military policy, human rights where the U.S. has traditionally been a - or the - leader. On which of these do you see China trying to fill the space the most?
DALY: Xi Jinping went to Davos for the same reason that he was glad to lead the G-20 meeting in Hangzhou last summer. As China gets stronger, China wants to be seen as - and in fact to be when it's ready - the leader, the hegemon if you like, although China wouldn't use that word, in at least the Eastern Hemisphere. So in the strategic sphere, China wants to call the shots in the Western Pacific, in the South China Sea. It wants as the world's leading trading nation, as the world's largest market, as the world's largest consumer base to be able to shape the terms of global trade.
And as Donald Trump at least appears with America first to pull back and to talk about America winning, Xi Jinping is very happy to step forward and talk about win-win, to present himself as the benign leader of the liberal trading order and the liberal security order. The problem for Xi Jinping is that his practices in China itself are increasingly illiberal. China is preaching what it doesn't practice.
SHAPIRO: What do you mean by that?
DALY: I mean that while China says that it opposes protectionism, China is in fact far more protectionist than the United States. The barriers to trade are high. It imposes much higher tariffs than does the United States. And United States companies are not nearly as free to invest in China, and neither are European companies or companies from Japan, as China is to invest here.
So I think one of the things we'll see is more invocation of reciprocity in the United States, and the test will be the old Ross Perot test - I'll give you the same deal you gave me. China's Dalian Wanda, for example, owns a majority of the screens in American theaters. Question, would an American company be allowed to own the majority of screens in China? It is unthinkable, so why are we permitting that here?
SHAPIRO: If you were advising Chinese President Xi Jinping right now, what would you tell him to do?
DALY: In terms of China's own interests, I'd advise him to do precisely what he's doing. It's very smart strategically. His leadership is still largely symbolic in that he is not ready either to liberalize at home or to incur costs, but because China is bringing so much investment, China has the goods and it's playing big when America is retreating, preaching globalization, preaching civil society, but bringing very little to the table.
SHAPIRO: Why should this matter to most Americans?
DALY: It should matter to most Americans because even if we want to withdraw from multilateral organizations and multilateral trading agreements and renegotiate one-on-one as President Trump has said he wants to do, you cannot wish China away. Even when we negotiate one-on-one with Canada, China is very much at the table. They are the primary market for Canadian natural resources, for Canadian grains. And Canada, when it negotiates with us, knows it has China as the world's biggest investor, trading nation and market to play off against the United States.
We are 5 percent of the world's population, China is 20 percent and growing. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute here in Washington has said 1.3 billion times anything equals a whole hell of a lot.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
DALY: The law of large numbers means increasingly China is going to be number one in various ways. How will that sit with the United States as a cultural matter, as a strategic matter and as an economic matter? You can't ignore China.
SHAPIRO: Robert Daly is a China expert at the Wilson Center. Thanks for coming in to the studio.
DALY: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MINIATURE TIGERS SONG, "GOLDSKULL")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
As Republicans in Washington get down to the business of governing, Democrats are still trying to dig themselves out of a stunning presidential defeat. The party has no clear leader. People are pointing fingers in opposite directions.
In Ohio, some Democrats say Hillary Clinton's loss was not a surprise. They saw the warning signs, and they have solutions. So NPR's Asma Khalid traveled to Ohio.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Back in March, David Betras realized something was horribly wrong. Betras is the chairman of the Democratic Party in Mahoning County, an area that always goes blue. But during the primary, 18 of his own precinct committee people defected.
DAVID BETRAS: 'Cause Donald Trump - I don't get it, but amazingly, a man that [expletive] in gold-plated toilets was talking more to working people than the party's standard bearer.
KHALID: OK - quick fact check - while Trump Tower does have some gold-plated bathroom fixtures, there's no evidence of a gold toilet. But you get the point. Betras was frustrated with his own party.
BETRAS: Stronger together - that's real nice. Let's sit around and sing "Kumbaya." But that really doesn't get anyone a job, does it?
KHALID: He was so frustrated, he typed up a memo and sent it to the Hillary Clinton campaign.
BETRAS: I told the campaign they were in trouble with blue-collar workers and that if they didn't retool their message, that they were not only going to lose Ohio but that they were going to lose Pennsylvania and Michigan.
KHALID: He says no one ever responded to that memo. Betras is worried that his party has become too coastal, too elite. He told me, just listen to how Democrats criticize Trump because he exaggerated the number of jobs in that Carrier deal.
BETRAS: You know, I want to tell these elites, he was fighting for someone's job. That's what we used to do, (laughter) right?
KHALID: This area of Ohio is home to thousands of white, working-class voters. Leo Jennings III is a Democratic consultant and an old union organizer. In between bites of country toast and bacon, he told me he grew up in the shadow of the steel mills. But those days are long gone.
LEO JENNINGS III: There's no one around this area who believes for two seconds that the steel mills are coming back because we all watched them flatten. I mean they're gone.
KHALID: Jennings was a Bernie Sanders supporter, and he wants to see his party adopt a more progressive economic agenda. He says that's the only way to win around here.
JENNINGS III: If we don't start talking about the things that we can do to make it better for all working-class voters, we're bankrupt as a party.
KHALID: Jennings says the issues that affect working-class white folks and black folks are the same, and the Democratic Party needs to start talking about the economy that way. So I hopped in the car and drove about an hour and a half west to Cleveland where a group of young, black Democrats had gotten together to watch President Obama's final speech. And that's where I met Chinemerem Onyeukwu. He was an organizer for the state Democratic Party working to get Clinton into the White House.
CHINEMEREM ONYEUKWU: If the Democratic Party wants to be around in the future, they need to go left.
KHALID: Onyeukwu agrees. The party needs to focus more on the economy. He points out that's how a guy named Barack Hussein Obama won Ohio twice. But Onyeukwu is 23, and he says the other way the party could start winning again is by listening more to young voters. He's worried that Democrats are going to keep running '90s-style campaigns.
ONYEUKWU: The people that they're talking about running in 2020 - they need to be in a retirement home. And I don't say that to, like, be ageist. I say that in the fact that these people have sat at the top for so long; they don't even know what's going on in the rest of America.
KHALID: There is one other thing that bothers him about this moment of Democratic introspection - the idea that identity politics is increasingly taboo.
ONYEUKWU: I want to make sure that we do not abandon minority demographics to go and pander back to white Americans. I don't think there's anything wrong with identity politics. As a party, you should be robust enough to have multiple conversations with multiple groups of people at the same time.
KHALID: This debate over identity politics gets people like Jessica Byrd frustrated. She's an Ohio native leading a group called Democracy in Color that calls for Democrats to invest more in minorities. Byrd says Democrats need to figure out how to create the most inclusive party possible, and part of that is about looking internally. Byrd says black and brown voters are the most loyal Democratic voters, but they don't have much of a voice. And so she just wants more of a say in her own home.
JESSICA BYRD: In a time where we are rebuilding our home and we're, like, deciding what's going to go on the walls and what kind of couch we sit on, we want everybody to come to our housewarming. We just also want to be able to make some decisions about, you know, what that vibe is like.
KHALID: Byrd says the party doesn't need a huge overhaul. It just needs to do a better job connecting with the people already in the Democratic Party to make sure they show up on Election Day. And that is the crux of the debate. Democrats are trying to figure out in a post-Obama world how to balance race and an economic message. Asma Khalid, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The most sought-after lunch reservation in Spain these days is not at an expensive Michelin-starred restaurant. It's at a small, brick building in Madrid run by a priest. It's called the Robin Hood Restaurant, and here's its philosophy. Charge the rich to feed the poor. Reporter Lauren Frayer went there.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Maria Vizuete polishes silver for tonight's dinner service. She worked as a waitress at the luxury Ritz Hotel before becoming the maitre d' of this slightly simpler restaurant for the homeless.
MARIA VIZUETE: (Speaking Spanish).
FRAYER: She reads out tonight's menu, mushroom consomme, followed by roast turkey and potatoes. For dessert, there's vanilla pudding or yogurt. One of the homeless diners, Luis Gallardo, comes in wearing two coats. It's below freezing outside. But he says this meal reminds him of Christmas. He pulls out his cellphone...
LUIS GALLARDO: (Speaking Spanish).
FRAYER: ...To show me photos of a holiday spread at his home two years ago laden with sweets and a bottle of French wine. "We were just like any other family," he says.
GALLARDO: (Speaking Spanish).
FRAYER: Gallardo says he used to run an accounting firm with 60 employees. But it went bankrupt in Spain's economic crisis.
GALLARDO: (Speaking Spanish).
FRAYER: He had to sell his house to pay his debts. His wife left him.
(Speaking Spanish).
GALLARDO: (Speaking Spanish).
FRAYER: Gallardo lives on the street now, and so do all the other diners tonight at the Robin Hood Restaurant, which has a bit of a different business model. Paying customers at breakfast and lunch foot the bill for the restaurant to reopen each night as a soup kitchen for the homeless. The man behind all this is an 80-year-old Catholic priest, Angel Garcia Rodriguez, known as Padre Angel.
ANGEL GARCIA RODRIGUEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
FRAYER: "I want them to eat with the same dignity as any other customer," he says. "And the same quality, with glasses made of crystal, not plastic, in an atmosphere of friendship and conversation."
He smooths the tablecloths as he makes rounds of the restaurant, shaking hands with diners. He wants to bring in celebrity chefs to cook once a week. Padre Angel also says mass daily at the only church in Madrid that's open 24 hours a day, with free coffee and space for some of these patrons to sleep.
NIEVES CUENCA: (Speaking Spanish).
FRAYER: (Speaking Spanish).
CUENCA: (Speaking Spanish).
FRAYER: Back in the kitchen, the restaurant's dishwasher has just broken down. Nieves Cuenca, of the volunteers who helped run this place, is washing plates by hand.
CUENCA: (Speaking Spanish).
FRAYER: "Some of our diners are very educated, and some are a bit ashamed to be here," she says. "Volunteering here is the best thing I've ever done in my life."
CUENCA: (Speaking Spanish).
FRAYER: Spain's economy may be out of recession, but unemployment is still near 20 percent. And the Robin Hood Restaurant feeds more than 100 needy people each night. But for every mouth to feed, turns out there are even more people who want to help. Lunch reservations for paying customers are booked solid through the end of March. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Frayer in Madrid.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Obamacare has made a difference to kids in Arizona. It's helped that state pay for its Children's Health Insurance Program, which Arizona had put on hold a few years ago. Now some worry that a repeal of the law could undo Arizona's progress. Will Stone of KJZZ reports.
WILL STONE, BYLINE: Like any college student, Vanessa Ramirez never expected chemo would be part of her busy school schedule.
VANESSA RAMIREZ: I don't have any history of cancer in my family. So it wasn't something that I was on the lookout for.
STONE: Ramirez was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when she was 23. She's healthy now, and so are her children.
RAMIREZ: But there's also emergencies that happen. You know, I have two young kids who are running around. They're rambunctious. I have a daughter that loves to climb trees.
STONE: Overcoming her illness at such a young age, Ramirez doesn't take health care for granted. And the Affordable Care Act has given her that security. She bought insurance through healthcare.gov even with her pre-existing condition. And her children got covered, too.
RAMIREZ: I want them to be able to have health insurance and doctors to monitor them in case something unfortunate comes up.
STONE: Ramirez's kids are covered through the federal Children's Health Program, which is for working families who don't qualify for Medicaid. Here, it's called KidsCare. And until last year, Arizona was the only state without an active program. Lawmakers froze enrollment back in 2010. But Obamacare helped revive it by fully funding it, says Dana Wolfe Naimark with the advocacy group Children's Action Alliance.
DANA WOLFE NAIMARK: A lot of people don't realize that a repeal of the Affordable Care Act could wipe out KidsCare that we just got back.
STONE: The legislature here reopened it because of that federal funding for Arizona and a handful of other states. Now Naimark worries if the law is repealed...
NAIMARK: It would be up to the state legislature - whether they could invest state dollars to keep it going or whether the coverage would go away.
STONE: Arizona is one of the Republican-led states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA but only after fierce infighting about growing federal influence. The same was true for restarting KidsCare. Naomi Lopez Bauman is with the conservative Goldwater Institute, which is suing the state to stop Medicaid expansion. She spoke via Skype.
NAOMI LOPEZ BAUMAN: Whenever you take a look at some of these top-down Washington approaches, you really do lard up these insurance policies with a lot of benefits that individuals and families really would not go out and buy on their own.
STONE: One of the proposals favored by Republican leadership is giving states a fixed amount of money called a block grant and letting them have more say in who and what they cover, says Bauman.
BAUMAN: How do you make it easier and better for individuals and families to get the coverage and care that best meet their own needs and preferences?
STONE: But other conservatives say changing how these programs are funded could backfire. Heather Carter is a Republican state representative who voted for Medicaid expansion and KidsCare.
HEATHER CARTER: What I hope does not happen is that decisions are made nationally that actually penalize us for being efficient and effective.
STONE: Carter says Medicaid in Arizona is already one of the lowest-cost programs in the country. So a block grant could actually shortchange the state, especially because it's growing fast and has a large share of people living around the poverty line. And with less federal money...
CARTER: We will have to make very difficult decisions in Arizona on who will and who will not receive coverage.
STONE: It could cost Arizona hundreds of millions of dollars to keep everyone covered like they are now. And even Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs say it's not realistic.
KATIE HOBBS: I don't see anyone in the state coming forward and saying, oh, we'll cover this 'cause we don't have the money to do it.
STONE: Repeal without an equivalent replacement could put nearly 700,000 Arizonans' coverage at risk. And more than a quarter of those could be children. For NPR News, I'm Will Stone in Phoenix.
SHAPIRO: And this story is part of a partnership with NPR, KJZZ and Kaiser Health News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Trump is not shy about using his Twitter account to shame companies that do things he doesn't like. But he's also been quick to praise companies that fall in line. And, as NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports, the president's use of social media is creating a new kind of PR opportunity for some companies.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Rarely has a U.S. president been so willing to use his platform as both bullhorn and cudgel to exert public pressure on individual companies. Companies are adjusting, even trying to capitalize on Trump's tweets by touting their hiring announcements. Last week, Trump publicly thanked Wal-Mart for its big jobs push after the retailer released details of a hiring and capital spending plan that it had originally announced before the election in October. Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son has parlayed an early December meeting with Trump into several tweets favorable to his companies.
JONAH BERGER: They're using Trump as a marketing channel.
NOGUCHI: Jonah Berger is a marketing professor at Wharton. He says it's a new paradigm both for the office of the president and for major company brands.
BERGER: I think we're in an unusual situation. You know, companies didn't used to feel like they could curry favor with a president through making some moves like this. But in today's day and age, it seems like a possibility. And so companies are exploring it.
NOGUCHI: The prime focus for Trump has been the auto industry, where he has called out individual companies and brands as possible targets for higher tariffs on cars made in Mexico. On Monday at his first meeting with business leaders, Trump sat next to Ford CEO Mark Fields. Two weeks earlier, under pressure from Trump, Ford scrapped plans for a $1.6 billion plant in Mexico in favor of expanding in Michigan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Mark was so nice with the plant coming back, I wanted to sit next to him. I must be honest.
(LAUGHTER)
NOGUCHI: Trump criticized Ford's rival General Motors earlier in the month because it manufactured some Chevy Cruzes for U.S. sale in Mexico. But then last week, GM said it would invest an additional billion dollars in the U.S. And Trump tweeted a thank-you note. GM spokesman Patrick Morrissey declined to speak on tape but acknowledged that, with U.S. job creation in the spotlight, quote, "this was good timing for us to share what we are doing."
It's not yet clear how Trump's Twitter account might shape decision-making for companies going forward. Many of the investment plans Trump has tweeted were planned or even originally announced well before the election. Take for example Fiat Chrysler's announcement to increase its U.S. investment by a billion dollars, which garnered a thank-you tweet from Trump this month. CEO Sergio Marchionne told reporters that investment decision was made over a year ago and that the supportive backslap was unanticipated.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SERGIO MARCHIONNE: None of us have had a tweeting president before. And so if it's a new way of communication, then I think we're going to have to learn how to respond.
NOGUCHI: In most cases, companies are capitalizing on investment and hiring decisions that were set in motion well before Trump's election. Berger, the Wharton marketing professor, says it's not clear that companies will change investment decisions based on favorable tweets.
BERGER: Whether we'll see companies actually changing their behavior, you know, actually doing different things or moving jobs in one way or another because of him - that's a little bit more costly. And I think we will see some of that but not as much as firms taking advantage of old news and recycling it.
NOGUCHI: But the new president's approval ratings are already low. So could companies see a backlash for trying to curry favor? It's certainly possible, Berger says. So long as it's Trump endorsing the companies and not the other way around, there's less chance of that. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is coming back to life on Spanish-language television. A new series which will be aired in the U.S. this spring recounts how Chavez rose from obscurity to lead a socialist revolution and then how he set the stage for Venezuela's current political and economic crisis. Reporter John Otis has more.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking Spanish).
JOHN OTIS, BYLINE: At a Bogota studio, a TV crew shoots a scene for "El Comandante." It's a Spanish-language telenovela about Chavez, the firebrand leftist who ruled Venezuela for 14 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking Spanish).
ANDRES PARRA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: That Chavez-sounding voice belongs to Colombian actor Andres Parra. To prepare for the role, he listened to 400 hours of Chavez's speeches and worked with a voice coach. His bulky frame, curly haired wig and prosthetic chin make him a dead ringer for the Venezuelan strongman. Here's Parra mimicking Chavez's insults of former President George W. Bush.
PARRA: And then he says (speaking Spanish). The last - the last - you are the last, (laughter) Mr. Donkey, (laughter) Mr. Danger.
OTIS: In an earlier TV series, Parra played drug lord Pablo Escobar. But he finds Chavez even more fascinating.
PARRA: He made this speech. It was nine hours, 46 minutes speech - without peeing or drinking or anything.
OTIS: And that's when he was dying from cancer.
PARRA: Yeah. He was sick. It was a way, like, to show people - I'm here. I came back, and I'm strong.
OTIS: In "El Comandante," Parra first depicts the young, idealistic Chavez escaping poverty by joining the army and being elected president with the backing of Venezuela's poor. Then Chavez morphs into a power-hungry authoritarian. The series suggests his rule laid the groundwork for today's food shortages, hyperinflation and political polarization in Venezuela. Looking back on the Chavez years has proved highly emotional for Henry Rivero, the director of "El Comandante" who grew up in Venezuela.
HENRY RIVERO: It's been very hard for me. I cried a lot most of the times because, you know, you understand how tough were the situations that we went through during all those years.
OTIS: The 60 episodes are being filmed in Colombia due to the hardships of working in neighboring Venezuela. What's more, that country's socialist government has branded the project a hatchet job.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DIOSDADO CABELLO: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: In a recent speech, pro-government lawmaker Diosdado Cabello said, "they are going to emphasize the bad and make the world think that Hugo Chavez was a barbarian."
Meanwhile, Venezuelans who despise Chavez have come down hard on the actors. So says Vicente Pena, a Venezuelan who plays a military attache in "El Comandante."
VICENTE PENA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: "They say I should be ashamed of myself for acting in this series."
But his fellow actor Parra says that for him, playing Hugo Chavez is the role of a lifetime.
PARRA: It shows you so much things about the human tragedy of how we change. You see ambition. But at the same time, you see compassion. Everything - he has everything. For an actor, that's delicious.
OTIS: "El Comandante" premieres in Latin America this month and in the U.S. on the Telemundo network this spring. For NPR News, I'm John Otis in Bogota, Colombia.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Hundreds of people around the country are still suffering medical complications from getting injections of tainted steroids produced at a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy in 2012. The former head of New England Compounding Center is on trial in Boston facing federal charges that include racketeering and second-degree murder. The outbreak of fungal infections killed at least 64 people and sickened about 700 more. From member station WBUR, Lynn Jolicoeur reports on some of those who never fully recovered.
LYNN JOLICOEUR, BYLINE: Forty-six-year-old Angel Farthing is one of the younger victims of the 2012 fungal infection outbreak.
ANGEL FARTHING: I got very sick. I was vomiting all the time. I had horrible headaches every day.
JOLICOEUR: It started when she got an injection of a steroid medication that turned out to be contaminated with a fungus.
FARTHING: I had fungal meningitis. I was admitted to the hospital. And when I was released, I ended up having a stroke and developed a brain aneurysm. I was readmitted and I was there for almost another two months.
JOLICOEUR: Now the Maryland resident says she lives with a burning pain over the lower half of her body. Federal prosecutors say the steroids were mixed in unsanitary conditions with expired ingredients. The compounding pharmacy's former president, Barry Cadden, is on trial right now. His lawyer says Cadden didn't mix the drugs and is being blamed for the mistakes of others at the pharmacy. Bill Thomas of Michigan got one of the tainted shots. He told us about it over Skype.
BILL THOMAS: Before I even got home, I felt I didn't feel right. I felt sick.
JOLICOEUR: Then 58 years old, Thomas also contracted meningitis. And like many of the other patients, he had a severe reaction to the anti-fungal medications doctors used to treat his infection. And that made things worse.
THOMAS: I've gone from being a person who had extreme energy - I was active all day, every day from 6 a.m. till midnight. And now I'm always tired. I'm always in pain. I just can't really function. I can't think. I get confused easily.
JOLICOEUR: Thomas has waited years for his first compensation check from the court settlement with the compounding pharmacy.
THOMAS: I haven't seen a penny.
JOLICOEUR: His lawyer says he'll get a check this week. Many others are still waiting because negotiations with insurers to determine how much they will be reimbursed for the victim's care have dragged out the process. In the meantime, many of the victims are anxious for a conviction against the former compounding pharmacy president.
EVELYN MARCH: I hope he gets his butt burned.
JOLICOEUR: Evelyn March is 85. The Michigan resident was healthy and active before the injection that gave her a fungal infection in her spine. Since the infection, she's bedridden in constant pain.
MARCH: I don't understand why things could be allowed to happen like that. Getting old is bad enough, but then to put something else on to it?
JOLICOEUR: Angel Farthing says she feels like less of a person physically. She had to walk away from her business training dance teachers because of her pain. But her greatest loss was immeasurable. Her marriage collapsed in the midst of the medical ordeal, and then her husband took his own life.
FARTHING: He really suffered quite a bit when I was diagnosed. He had to take care of me. He had to bathe me. He had to change me. He had to do my IV. He was a recovering alcoholic. And unfortunately, he stopped going to AA meetings and he succumbed to his addiction.
JOLICOEUR: Farthing says part of what keeps her going is knowing so many victims in the outbreak didn't get the chance. She plans to go witness a portion of the trial in Boston next week. So does Bill Thomas, though he says just traveling to be there will be physically devastating. He hopes the case sends a message.
THOMAS: There's so much greed and carelessness and hubris involved. Tremendous harm was done to a great many people, and that should not be forgotten.
JOLICOEUR: Barry Cadden faces charges in connection with 25 deaths. Another supervisor from the compounding pharmacy will face trial on similar charges separately. For NPR News, I'm Lynn Jolicoeur in Boston.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
For those who've wondered how the Motown sound of the 1960s came about, a newly released live recording holds some clues. The recording's from 1968. It's guitarist Dennis Coffey and his trio playing a Detroit club.
(SOUNDBITE OF DENNIS COFFEY SONG, "THE BIG D")
SHAPIRO: Reviewer Tom Moon explains why this recording is so special.
TOM MOON, BYLINE: Detroit in the 1960s was alive with music. When the musicians of Motown finished their recording for the day, they could often be found performing in nightspots. Motown founder Berry Gordy has said that the city's musically diverse club scene was essential to the label's success. Musicians like Dennis Coffey used these recurring gigs to develop not just skills but also a sensibility.
(SOUNDBITE OF DENNIS COFFEY SONG, "FUZZ")
MOON: If there's a Detroit sound, it has to do with the way the rhythm players interact. They lay back. They follow each other's moves, even seem to breathe together. This approach didn't originate in the Motown studio. It developed over countless nights in small venues like Morey Baker's Showplace Lounge, where this was recorded.
(SOUNDBITE OF DENNIS COFFEY SONG, "THE LOOK OF LOVE")
MOON: Check out where the guitarist takes this version of "The Look Of Love," He's finished the melody. The tunes may be on the way out. But he's jamming away, coaxing the trio into another zone.
(SOUNDBITE OF DENNIS COFFEY SONG, "THE LOOK OF LOVE")
MOON: These live tracks are some distance from the highly polished Motown million sellers. Still, you can hear the shared DNA. As guitarist Dennis Coffey and his trio dig in and work the groove, they bring the energy that was expected in the Motown studio to an ordinary night in a club.
(SOUNDBITE OF DENNIS COFFEY SONG, "CASANOVA - YOUR PLAYING DAYS ARE OVER")
SHAPIRO: The 1968 recording by Dennis Coffey is called "Hot Coffey in the D." Our reviewer is Tom Moon.
(SOUNDBITE OF DENNIS COFFEY SONG, "CASANOVA - YOUR PLAYING DAYS ARE OVER")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In its first few days, the Trump administration has welcomed corporate leaders to the White House. Today it was executives of the three big automakers. Here's what President Trump told them during their meeting.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We're bringing manufacturing back to the United States big league. We're reducing taxes very substantially. And we're reducing unnecessary regulations.
SHAPIRO: The president said his administration will be among the most business-friendly in the world. At the same time, as NPR's John Ydstie reports, Trump is also threatening companies that move jobs and factories overseas.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: During the transition, President-elect Trump began singling out companies - from Carrier to Ford and GM - who were planning investments in Mexico that would involve moving U.S. jobs. In his GM tweet, Trump promised a big border tax on Chevy Cruzes shipped from Mexico into the U.S. He repeated that threat to corporate leaders yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: A company that wants to fire all of its people in the United States and build some factory someplace else and then thinks that that product is going to just flow across the border into the United States - that's not going to happen. They're going to have a tax to pay, a border tax, a substantial border tax.
YDSTIE: Trump has suggested the tax could be 35 to 45 percent of the value of the product. Exactly what form the tax would take is unclear. House Republicans have their own idea. They've talked about a steep border adjustment tax on all goods coming into the country, part of their plan to overhaul the tax code. But both Trump and his nominee for Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, have said that's not what they're contemplating. Here's Mnuchin at his confirmation hearing last Thursday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STEVEN MNUCHIN: What he's suggested is that for certain companies that move jobs - OK? - that there may be repercussions to that.
YDSTIE: But Steve Charnovitz, an international trade specialist at George Washington University Law School, says the Trump administration doesn't have the legal authority to do what it's threatening.
STEVE CHARNOVITZ: To impose a tax or a tariff on a company merely because it moves its production outside the United States and seeks to reimport goods or import goods would be illegal.
YDSTIE: Charnovitz says presidents do have authority to levy tariffs on individual nations and products, but not on individual companies. Trump might try to target a specific company without naming it by defining the offending product in detail - for instance, a 5-door, 3,200-pound four-cylinder car. But Charnovitz says that's not likely to work.
CHARNOVITZ: And I think if he tried it, it would get struck down by federal courts. And the bigger issue is it's a crazy idea. I mean, here's a president who campaigned on making America great again, and he's offering these counterproductive trade policies that can only make it worse for the U.S. economy and for American workers.
YDSTIE: That said, Charnovitz says he understands why some workers who lost their jobs to trade voted for Trump.
CHARNOVITZ: The Obama administration did a terrible job in trying to explain the benefits of trade.
YDSTIE: And Charnovitz says for decades, the federal programs that were supposed to help workers and communities hurt by trade have not done a good job. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The CIA has a new boss today. Mike Pompeo was sworn in last night. He went straight to CIA headquarters this morning. He's already sent a note to the staff telling them how excited he is to be on the job.
How he plans to carry out that job is not clear yet. As NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports, one question is whether the new CIA chief continues the agency's evolution from spy service to paramilitary force.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: At his confirmation hearing this month, Mike Pompeo laid out his vision for leading the CIA.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIKE POMPEO: It will be the CIA's mission and my own if confirmed to ensure that the agency remains the best in the world at its core mission - collecting what our enemies do not want us to know. In short, the CIA must be the world's premier espionage organization.
KELLY: The world's premier espionage organization - meaning old fashioned trade craft, stealing secrets. Pompeo went on at that hearing to describe the targets against which he hopes to do that, including Russia, Iran, ISIS. Pompeo's new boss has mostly focused on that last one. Here's President Trump addressing CIA officers at Langley headquarters over the weekend.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have to get rid of ISIS, have to get rid of ISIS. We have no choice.
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY: Trump promised no half measures. ISIS will be wiped out.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Just off the face of the earth. This is evil.
KELLY: Trump provided no details during his CIA visit as to how he plans to achieve this, but one likely possibility, says Joshua Kurlantzick of the Council on Foreign Relations, is pushing the CIA away from its espionage roots and towards a more aggressively military function with a central role in violent conflicts.
That trend is already underway. Think of the CIA's drone program of targeted killings, the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden. Under the past two presidents, Obama and Bush, you could track the blurring of traditional lines between soldiers and spies. Kurlantzick says watch for that trend to accelerate. He points to the influence of Trump's adviser General Michael Flynn.
JOSHUA KURLANTZICK: A new national security adviser has said that he wants to reduce the influence of Langley, but he also wants to dramatically step up the war on terror, which, given the constraints on a conventional war, likely means increased use of CIA paramilitary operations in the field.
KELLY: Kurlantzick, who's written a book on the CIA's secret war in Laos, says bolstering the CIA and military special operations forces fits the national zeitgeist under Trump, a zeitgeist that combines the desire to defeat ISIS with growing isolationism and distaste for waging war with boots on the ground.
Put that point to CIA veteran John MacGaffin, and he agrees. Paramilitary operations are likely to be the centerpiece of the Trump administration campaign against ISIS.
JOHN MACGAFFIN: But there are lots of parts of the U.S. government that can do the paramilitary type. But there's only one part of the U.S. government that can do espionage, human source collection.
KELLY: The CIA - MacGaffin is a 30-year veteran of the agency, the former No. 2 spymaster for clandestine operations.
MACGAFFIN: The secrets we're going to need, that President Trump and others are going to need going forward are going to be very much in the things that only espionage can give you - the plans and intentions of hostile governments and others. And to the extent we've put our emphasis on making CIA a centerpiece of paramilitary - as it's done - it's done very well before - we are by definition going to be neglecting the rebuilding of our espionage capability. To do so will be a terrible mistake.
KELLY: Former CIA spy John MacGaffin articulating one of the challenges that awaits Mike Pompeo as he settles in today behind his new desk on the seventh floor of CIA headquarters. Mary Louise Kelly, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The writer and activist Mark Baumer posted this thought about his 94th day crossing America barefoot. It's amazing how often we all forget this is the only opportunity we are ever going to have to live this life. Baumer was raising money to raise awareness about climate change. He blogged and posted videos talking about everything from canned beans to politics.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
On his 101st day, Saturday, January 21, he was killed when an SUV swerved off the road onto the shoulder and hit him. He was 33 years old.
SHAPIRO: Claire Donato was Mark Baumer's friend and fellow writer. They both received MFAs in writing from Brown University. Mark's unusual undertakings, like crossing the country barefoot, didn't surprise her at all.
CLAIRE DONATO: I was more amused and delighted I think then surprised, could just always expect very grand gestures from him. And that's what I loved about him.
SHAPIRO: She also admired the clarity of thought in his writing.
DONATO: I feel like there's a clearness that I think is tethered to his meditative practices. Mark meditated twice a day and did a lot of yoga. And I think that allowed him to really cut to language's root as part of his writing process.
SIEGEL: This was his second venture by foot across the U.S. His first was in 2010. He finished the whole trip in 81 days and wrote a book about it called "I Am A Road."
JIM BAUMER: It is a phenomenal book. I mean I read a lot of books. I read 50, 60 books a year. And it was one of the best books I've read in a long time.
SIEGEL: That's Jim Baumer, Mark's father.
BAUMER: The way he took that trip and sort of reframed it in his own unique way and in a narrative - it was just such a wonderful read.
SHAPIRO: Jim Baumer says since Mark's death, there has been an enormous outpouring of support from people representing every aspect of his eclectic life.
BAUMER: I guess is difficult, and as raw as this time feels, these, you know, just compassionate, empathetic things that people are doing to reach out to us as his parents just brings a little bit of light into a very dark time in our lives.
SIEGEL: Jim Baumer and his wife, Mary, lost their son Mark Baumer this past Saturday. He was 33 years old, a performance artist, writer and activist.
(SOUNDBITE OF ODD NOSDAM SONG, "ROOT BARK")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
As President Trump pushes forward with his agenda, taking several executive actions today, a statement he made last night suggests that he is still mulling over the past. At a bipartisan gathering of congressional leaders at the White House, Trump repeated a claim that he'd made on Twitter late last year, that he would have won the popular vote had millions of people not voted illegally.
Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by close to 3 million votes, and last night he suggested it was immigrants who were in the country illegally who had voted. That claim has been dismissed by elections experts. And for more, we're joined by Pippa Norris, director of the Electoral Integrity Project. Welcome to the program.
PIPPA NORRIS: Thank you, pleasure to be with you.
SIEGEL: And first, your response to President Trump's claim, now made twice, that millions voted illegally. What do you say?
NORRIS: I mean, it's very strange. In most cases, whenever you have an election the loser always says there's something wrong because it helps with their supporters. In this case it's the winner. And so understanding why he's making these claims repeatedly well into government now, well past the campaign is a puzzle that really needs to be explained.
SIEGEL: In the month after the election, you surveyed more than 700 election experts, covering every state in the country, on the fairness of the election. Are you confident that had there been large-scale voter fraud you would have heard about it?
NORRIS: Absolutely. The newspapers would have picked it up. The electoral officials, many Republicans, of course, who were running state elections would also have picked up on it. In our survey, when we looked at all the different stages and we asked experts across the United States, in all 50 states plus D.C., the vote count and the voting process actually turned out to be pretty positive in most states.
What was the real problem wasn't there at all. It was all about district boundaries. It was about campaign coverage in the media and campaign finance. So there were problems. Donald Trump is right if he says we need some reforms in American elections. But it's not about voter fraud or impersonation or problems of people casting their vote when they shouldn't be on the voter register.
SIEGEL: Were there, in fact, cases of what we might think of as a straightforward voter fraud? People voting twice, ballots cast in the names of dead people, for example?
NORRIS: If you think about millions of people voting across the country, there's always one or two cases. And those were picked up. But they're very rare. They're not about necessarily and primarily voter impersonation, i.e. people picking up a name and going to the polls and trying to cast a ballot.
Most of it was about unintentional mistakes - somebody, for example, who might be registered in two places or voted in two different areas. But it's not a massive effort, and it's nothing - obviously, if there were millions of these votes cast then Republicans across the country who were running elections in many, many states would have found that out and would have revealed it, as would the press.
SIEGEL: Of course, since the election, the intelligence community said it believes that Russia meddled in the U.S. presidential election, working to tilt the election toward Donald Trump. What was your reaction to that finding?
NORRIS: Well, of course, this actually hit home personally because the Russian hackers actually took one of my papers on electoral integrity from the Harvard research paper, put in malware and then sent it out under a false email which looked as though it came out from me or from Harvard. It's a real problem. And it's an increasing problem, of course, not just in the United States.
It's happened in the Bundestag, in the elections in Germany. And in France, people are very worried about this and are looking at what lessons can be learned from the United States. But it really is a wake-up call in this country to improve cybersecurity and to learn the lessons. And I think any prominent target which sends out information needs to really be aware of cybersecurity and spend more money on that, invest more time in that and really make sure that we have the highest standards.
SIEGEL: Pippa Norris, thanks for talking with us today.
NORRIS: Thank you very much, Robert.
SIEGEL: Pippa Norris directs the Electoral Integrity Project, which is housed at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the University of Sydney in Australia.
Today, White House press secretary Sean Spicer was asked repeatedly about President Trump's claim that millions of people voted illegally. Spicer confirmed that Trump does believe that and that voter fraud is a concern that he's had for a while based on studies and evidence that people have presented to him. Spicer mentioned a Pew report from 2008. When asked if the White House would seek an investigation into alleged voter fraud in last November's election, Spicer's response was, I think he won very handily with 306 electoral votes. And he said the president was - and this is a quote - "very comfortable with his win."
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Trump's nominee to head the White House budget office says Social Security and Medicare will have to change if they're going to be preserved for future retirees. That is not what Trump promised during the campaign. He said repeatedly he wants to leave Social Security and Medicare alone. Well, the gap between the president and his would-be budget director was on full display during the Senate confirmation hearing today. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: South Carolina Congressman Mick Mulvaney says if he's confirmed as White House budget director, his job will be to help navigate difficult decisions now to avoid nearly impossible choices later.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICK MULVANEY: It's the OMB director's responsibility to tell you and the president the truth, even, from time to time, when that might be hard to hear.
HORSLEY: In Congress, Mulvaney's established a reputation as a deficit hawk who's called for significant changes to Social Security and Medicare. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders asked how Mulvaney would square that working for a president who promised not to touch those retirement programs.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BERNIE SANDERS: Will you tell the president of the United States, Mr. President, keep your word, be honest with the American people, do not cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?
MULVANEY: The only thing I know to do is to tell the president the truth.
HORSLEY: Mulvaney says without reforms, Medicare and Social Security will both run short of funds in the coming decades. Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee like Debbie Stabenow of Michigan seized on Mulvaney's comments to suggest the new Trump administration is planning a bait-and-switch.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DEBBIE STABENOW: I think folks on Social Security and Medicare ought to be really worried. And that just demonstrated the difference between what President Trump has indicated he would do and what, in fact, you will be advising him.
HORSLEY: But if Democrats on the committee were alarmed by Mulvaney's answers, Republicans like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were heartened. Graham hopes Mulvaney can talk the new president into considering changes to the retirement programs.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LINDSEY GRAHAM: Isn't it true that if we do nothing we're going to have to either dramatically increase taxes or cut benefits in the next decade to 15 years?
MULVANEY: If we do nothing, then by the time I retire there will be an across-the-board 22 percent cut to Social Security benefits.
HORSLEY: Mulvaney insists he does not advocate any changes for today's seniors, but he supports raising the retirement age or means-testing Medicare benefits for future retirees. Trump has argued that faster economic growth will fix the problem, but Mulvaney told Graham even if the economy grew twice as fast as Trump is aiming for it wouldn't be enough.
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GRAHAM: Could you grow the economy at 8 percent and close the gap?
MULVANEY: No, sir.
HORSLEY: Mulvaney was also asked about his failure to pay taxes for a babysitter he and his wife hired help when their triplets were born. He says he discovered the error only after his nomination and has since paid about $15,000 in back taxes.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MULVANEY: We made a mistake in my family. And as soon as it was brought to my attention I did the only thing I knew to do, which was to take every step to fix it. I will pay any penalties, any interest, any late fees and abide by the law to the best of my ability.
HORSLEY: Senators seemed less concerned with Mulvaney's tax bill than his willingness to confront the new president with unpleasant information. To test that, Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley held up two poster-sized photographs, one showing the crowd at Trump's inauguration last Friday, the other the crowd at Barack Obama's swearing in eight years earlier. He asked Mulvaney which crowd looked bigger.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MULVANEY: From that picture, it does appear that the crowd on the left-hand side is bigger than the crowd on the right-hand side.
JEFF MERKLEY: Thank you.
HORSLEY: The crowd on the left is Obama's. Mulvaney says he'll be equally blunt in giving the president hard numbers on the federal budget. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Several American universities have been wrestling with their ties to slavery. The latest is Columbia. The school just put out a report today detailing how deeply rooted this history is. It stretches back to the earliest days at Columbia when it was known as King's College back in the 1700s. Historian Eric Foner led this research project and joins us now. Welcome to the program.
ERIC FONER: Yes, nice to talk to you.
SHAPIRO: I think many people associate slavery with the South. Describe how this University in New York benefited from the institution.
FONER: Well, of course you're right. Most people do not think about slavery when they think about New York City, but slavery was an important institution in colonial New York. King's College was founded in 1754. Most of the donors and early trustees were major merchants in the city. And where did their money come from? They either were dealing with the West Indies, with the products of slave labor - sugar, molasses, et cetera - or some of them were actually involved in the African slave trade, bringing slaves from Africa to the West Indies or sometimes to New York itself.
Most of the early presidents, treasurers, trustees, et cetera owned slaves, usually just one or two who worked in their household. This was not a plantation region. And probably most of the early students came from slave-holding families. So slavery was pretty deeply embedded in the life and culture of Colombia because it was part of New York City, and slavery was very embedded in New York City in the colonial era.
SHAPIRO: How did this first come to light?
FONER: I mean the first to really investigate this was Craig Wilder, a professor at MIT. He published "Ebony And Ivy," dealing with the colonial era, which had a good deal of information about Columbia as well as many other institutions from back then. And this really was the catalyst for us to say, well, we need to really investigate much more fully Columbia's historic connection to slavery as well as a connection to anti-slavery movements and also push the story well into the 19th century.
You know, the research was done by myself. It was done by students in a seminar that I led, 11 of them doing research papers. And so eventually that all produced this report that was released yesterday and today.
SHAPIRO: Could you tell us a particular story you uncovered that sticks with you?
FONER: Oh, there are a number. I mean there was the story of George Washington's stepson Custis who came to study just for a few months at King's College in the early 1770s, and he brought a slave along with him. And there were letters - we tell the story where the slave cooked his breakfast for him and sort of looked after him while he was here. So that's a slave living right in the college building working for one of the students.
But on the other hand, I'm also impressed by the fact that John Jay II, who was the grandson of the founding father John Jay, who was a graduate of Columbia, was a major abolitionist in New York City in the 1830s, '40s, '50s. He represented fugitive slaves in court. He fought against the racial exclusion policies of the Episcopal Church here.
So, you know, Columbia did have a little foothold in anti-slavery movements. But actually, most people connected with Columbia were not very outspoken about slavery even right up to The Civil War.
SHAPIRO: What questions are you still pursuing as a researcher here?
FONER: Well, this project is ongoing. This research seminar that I ran is being conducted this term by another professor called Jacoby, and there'll be more research done. I'm anxious to extend this past The Civil War. We now end with The Civil War, but I'd like to know about Columbia's racial policies in the late 19th century and into the 20th century.
What was being taught in the classrooms here about race in American society? Why was it that Columbia lagged behind many of our peer institutions in admitting black students? The first undergraduate - black undergraduate - did not graduate from Columbia College until 1906, and that's way after places like Dartmouth or Harvard or other, you know, Ivy League institutions. It's a little unclear to me why it was such an exclusionary policy for so long. So, you know, there are many, many aspects of this, which I think will continue to be investigated.
SHAPIRO: Professor Foner, thanks very much.
FONER: Pleasure to talk to you.
SHAPIRO: Eric Foner is a historian at Columbia University who researched the school's history with slavery.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHAKEY GRAVES SONG, "IF NOT FOR YOU")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It was another busy day at the White House. President Trump signed executive actions to try to make good on some of his campaign promises. The president is also facing questions about a bogus claim he first made last year and repeated last night. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins us again from the White House. And Mara, let's start with what President Trump did today.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: President Trump signed a number of executive actions including a memo that would revive the Keystone Pipeline project. That was something that the Obama administration opposed. He also took action to push the Dakota Pipeline forward.
He also said that on Thursday, he's going to meet with Republican lawmakers in Philadelphia at their retreat. They're going to talk about how to repeal and replace Obamacare. On Friday, he hosts his first world leader, the U.K.'s Theresa May.
And he also said he's going to name his first Supreme Court nominee next week. And he met with Senate leaders today to discuss that vacancy. This is a key campaign issue for him and of course a top priority for GOP lawmakers.
SHAPIRO: Since Republicans control the Senate, will the president have a pretty easy time getting his Supreme Court nominee confirmed?
LIASSON: Actually, this will be one of the harder things that he does because this is one of the few things that he needs 60 votes for. So he will need eight Democratic senators. And that suggests he might need to think about a nominee that could get Democratic votes, maybe not a super hardline conservative. But we'll find out next week.
SHAPIRO: Let's get back to this false claim that has come up again that harkens back to the election and the fact that the president lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. Explain why we're still talking about this.
LIASSON: We're still talking about it because last night at a congressional get together at the White House, Republicans and Democrats who were there said that Donald Trump said 3 to 5 million people who were not legally qualified to vote voted, and that's why he lost the popular vote. This is a claim that is not backed up by any evidence. Clearly it's something still on his mind. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about this a number of times at today's briefing, and here's some of what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Does the president believe that millions voted illegally in this election, and what evidence do you have of widespread voter fraud in this election if that's the case?
SEAN SPICER: The president does believe that. He has stated that before. I think he's stated his concerns of voter fraud and people voting illegally during the campaign. And he continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence that people have presented to him.
LIASSON: Spicer didn't say what that evidence was, except for at one point, he referred to a Pew study that actually is not about voter fraud. It's about irregularities in voter rolls, like the number of dead people on the rolls.
SHAPIRO: Mara, what are the implications of President Trump bringing this up again?
LIASSON: There are a lot of implications. He himself has now cast another shadow on the legitimacy of his win even though he won fair and square. He got 306 electoral votes. But the fact that he didn't win the popular vote is clearly something that continues to rankle him. He keeps bringing this up.
It also raises a lot of other questions. This would be the biggest voter fraud in American history. It would call into question the votes for down-ballot candidates, too. Maybe some Republican senators were elected fraudulently if what he says is true. How does he know that some of those allegedly fraudulent 3 million voters weren't cast fraudulently for him?
And if he believes there has been voter fraud on that scale, wouldn't he want to restore faith in our democracy by calling for an investigation to get to the bottom of this. Now, I asked Sean Spicer about that today, and he wasn't taking the bait. Here's what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
LIASSON: If 3 to 5 million people voted illegally, that is a scandal of astronomical proportions. Doesn't he want to restore Americans' faith in their ballot system? Wouldn't he want an investigation of this?
SPICER: Well, I...
LIASSON: I mean this is a huge, huge scandal.
SPICER: But Mara, you - as I've noted several times now, he's believed this for a long time.
LIASSON: I'm not (unintelligible).
SPICER: And I think he won fairly overwhelmingly, so he's not - and look; we'll work...
LIASSON: I'm asking you, why not investigate something that is...
SPICER: Well, maybe we will.
LIASSON: Maybe we will, but later he said an investigation was just hypothetical.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Mara Liasson, thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
As we mentioned, President Trump took action today to speed up permits for building the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipelines. The oil industry and its supporters are cheering the move. Opponents, including environmentalists, Native Americans, and landowners, have vowed to fight even harder to block pipeline construction. NPR's Jeff Brady reports.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: President Trump's directive today on the pipelines was not a surprise. He made a campaign pledge to do this. But another element of today's announcement is less clear. Trump directed the secretary of commerce to develop a plan that ensures new pipelines - that is the pipes themselves - are made in the U.S.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will build our own pipeline. We will build our own pipes. That's what it has to do with - like we used to in the old days.
BRADY: It's not exactly clear how this made-in-America directive will affect the two controversial pipelines, but TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL, says it is preparing a new application for a cross-border permit to build its pipeline. The Dakota Access Pipeline has been the focus of intense protests for months now. Activists have been camped out on a snowy prairie near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
The company building that pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, did not respond to NPR's interview requests, but it has already constructed more than 90 percent of the project. For the oil industry, this part of today's announcement is not as important as the overall message Trump is sending.
TOM PYLE: The Keystone Pipeline was tied up, was stonewalled, delayed, dragged out for seven-plus years.
BRADY: Tom Pyle heads the Institute for Energy Research, and he blames President Obama and his administration for those delays and for siding with the environmentalists. Pyle says Trump made it clear that permitting processes will be much easier now.
PYLE: The bottom line is that this president welcomes infrastructure projects, including projects that move our oil and gas resources around the country.
BRADY: And in TransCanada's case, that's moving crude from Alberta's oil sands south to refineries on the Gulf Coast. This does not mean TransCanada will have an easy path to approval because there's more than the federal government involved. Jane Kleeb heads Bold Alliance, the group that led a campaign to block approval of the pipeline in Nebraska.
JANE KLEEB: In Nebraska, there's still a two-year process just to review the pipeline route and go through the eminent domain process. So, you know, you're looking at late 2018 for even any construction to begin. And that's if everything goes TransCanada's way.
BRADY: And Kleeb says opponents will do everything they can to ensure it doesn't go the company's way. That's also true for those opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe says it will take legal action to block President Trump's directive, though the tribe wasn't specific. And Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network says the types of protests and clashes seen in North Dakota in recent months will intensify.
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: If this administration does not pull back from, you know, implementing these orders, it's only going to result in more mass mobilization and civil disobedience on a scale never seen by a newly seated president.
BRADY: For Dakota Access Pipeline protesters, today's development overturns a hard-won victory. When President Obama was in office, they felt like they had the backing of someone who understood their concerns, and there was a chance to stop construction. Under a President Trump, that's going to be a lot more difficult. Jeff Brady, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
NASCAR's latest revamping may or may not bring in more fans, but it will change how stock car racing fans watch. Races used to be one long event - 500 miles or so. You earned points. The higher you finished, the more points you won. And the top 16 point earners at the end of the season moved on to the post-season.
Well, now each race will have three stages. Essentially fans will have three races in one to enjoy, and drivers will have more opportunities to earn points. But will everyone enjoy the new system? Well, for that, we turn to Scott Fowler, sports columnist for the Charlotte Observer. Welcome to the program.
SCOTT FOWLER: Thank you very much. I'm a big fan.
SIEGEL: Why is NASCAR doing this?
FOWLER: NASCAR needs a boost. NASCAR was a very hot sport, Robert, in - 20 years ago, even 10 years ago. Now stadiums are half empty. Millennials don't want to sit around and watch a four-hour race. They're a little bit desperate here, but ultimately I think it's a smart move. They are trying to give you more of a reason to watch for a longer period of time.
SIEGEL: And the period of time at issue is really, say, the first hour of the race when now it's consequential. Somebody could earn some points by winning.
FOWLER: Exactly. There's something around here we call a NASCAR nap, which is what you could take after the start of a race for about three hours until the end of the race when all - everything was decided in the last 20 laps or so. Other than crashes or something, there wasn't a lot going on.
These races are long. The shortest ones usually are 400 miles. So think of driving, say, from Washington to New York and back. That's 400 miles. That's how long the shortest ones of these races are. So it's a long time to make people pay attention. And you know how attention spans are these days.
SIEGEL: Well, are the breaks after the first third and the second third of the race - are these going to be like periods in a basketball game or a hockey game? That is, will it stop and break for commercials and interview people?
FOWLER: Yes. It will be kind of pre-determined breaks much like almost two halftimes I guess you could say. They're shorter, but that will be the time where fans will naturally go to the refrigerator. Or if they're in the stands, hopefully they're going to go and buy some more concessions. I'm sure the track operators would like that.
SIEGEL: The first race of the season, the Daytona 500, is barely a month away. It doesn't seem like a lot of time for drivers and their teams to adjust to what sounds like a pretty radical change. Isn't that rather fast?
FOWLER: I think that's a fair statement, yeah. I think people who are doing this right now just went from taking algebra two to taking a graduate-level calculus class. I really think there's a lot of permutations that not everyone has thought of yet that will only become apparent when it happens.
But that's kind of exciting, and NASCAR, like I was mentioning, needs a jolt of excitement. Everyone knows what it's like to go in a car and punch an accelerator and go fast and that thrill. And they're trying to get back to that a little bit more opportunistically I suppose in this digital age where they really have to capture people's attention.
The other thing I should point out - one thing this sport doesn't have - and this will not change. There is no Dale Earnhardt Sr. coming back into the fore. I mean he was this sport's absolute superstar - died in 2001 in a last-lap crash at the Daytona 500. And in some ways, things have not been quite the same since. His son is a very popular racer in NASCAR but has not had the same level of success. And this sport is looking for that as well. It needs another superstar.
SIEGEL: That's Scott Fowler, sports columnist for the Charlotte Observer. Thanks for talking with us.
FOWLER: Thank you very much.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE LEISURE SOCIETY SONG, "JUST LIKE THE KNIFE")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Mansoor Shams is comfortable with a variety of labels. He's a veteran who served in the U.S. Marines from 2000 to 2004. He's a small business owner. He's a Muslim youth leader. And now he's an ambassador, self-appointed. Shams is traveling around the country with a sign that says, I'm a Muslim U.S. Marine, ask me anything. And he joins us now from Denver. Welcome to the program.
MANSOOR SHAMS: Thank you for having me.
SHAPIRO: What are the most common questions that you tend to get?
SHAMS: A lot of the questions are related to Sharia law, women's rights, ISIS, you know, homosexuality, Islamic stance on that.
SHAPIRO: Are these generally informed questions, or are these questions like, are you a member of ISIS or do you conform to Sharia law?
SHAMS: There's a combination. There's a lot of assumptions that are made, unfortunately, when people see a Muslim. But what I've found is that the conversation, the dialogue has most - for the most part led to something very fruitful.
SHAPIRO: You've been doing this all over the country. Today you are in Denver. What's a question that somebody in Denver has asked you?
SHAMS: I think the closest one that I got as a question was - she made a comment, something like as long as you don't bring Sharia law here. So I said, well, let's talk about that - great question. I want that, you know? So do you know what Sharia law is? So I told her, it's literally a path to life-giving water. It's like the Ten Commandments for Muslims. It's nothing to be enforced upon anyone. It's a moral code that I follow for myself as an individual.
SHAPIRO: Do you really think that having these one-to-one conversations can make a significant impact in a country of more than 300 million people?
SHAMS: Yes, I do, because to me even one person makes a big difference, because now when that person goes out to his circle of friends and if there is some anti-Islamic - Islamophobia sort of environment, I know that he will speak up at that moment and say, you know what? No. Let's not paint everybody with a broad brush. So I don't feel my efforts are wasted in any way. I think if I get to make a difference or change the thought process of one individual, I feel very satisfied.
SHAPIRO: Over the time you've been doing this, have you noticed changes as, say, Donald Trump was elected or inaugurated, particular moments that you seem to get different kinds of questions?
SHAMS: Well, I think that the Donald Trump presidency has definitely created a lot of stigmas. Regardless, I think, of what one says, we are not going on the bandwagon of saying not my president. In fact, our faith, my Islamic faith teaches me that loyalty to your country of residence is a part of your faith. So my...
SHAPIRO: But in terms of your interactions with people on the street, do you find that people are asking you different kinds of questions in the Trump era than they might have before?
SHAMS: Yes. For example, I am an owner of a store in the Baltimore area. And I've had a guy tell me - he's like, hey - you know, he walked in, didn't even really know me, just says, hey, you're Muslim, right? I don't have a problem with that, you know? But Trump going to make America great again, right? And until I told him that I had served in the U.S. Marine Corps, which he was totally taken aback by and shocked to the point that he kept staring at me and said, I'm going to go tell everybody I just met a Muslim Marine today, I realized that there is these things that are deeply ingrained within people. And the only difference now in the Trump era is that they have been empowered to say, I can say it without really having any trouble because our president, unfortunately, says certain things that are - I found very inappropriate sometimes.
SHAPIRO: To me, what you're doing sounds exhausting. How do you not just get tired of answering the same questions over and over and over again, especially when those questions may often be pretty ignorant?
SHAMS: Well, it is exhausting. But I feel like it's almost become my mission. Little did I know that when I joined the Marine Corps we would come into a time in an era where people would be questioning my loyalty to my country. And now, you know, the dots are being connected. I realize that, you know, my mission when I joined the Marine Corps was far greater. And today I'm getting to exercise that.
SHAPIRO: That's Mansoor Shams, who created the website muslimmarine.org. He's been traveling around the country, inviting people to ask him anything. He's in Denver now and on his way to Portland, Ore., next. Thanks a lot.
SHAMS: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Trump has put his signature on a lot of documents during his first few days in the White House, among them an executive order on Obamacare, presidential memos on controversial oil pipelines, freezing hiring in the federal government and formally withdrawing from a 12-nation trade pact. Some of these actions are symbolic. Others could be sweeping. None require anything from Congress. And joining me to discuss how presidents use executive actions is Cristina Rodriguez, who's a law professor from Yale. Welcome to the program.
CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ: Thanks so much.
SIEGEL: From the very beginnings of the Republic, presidents have been taking actions, executive actions, without Congress taking part. Historically, how have presidents used the - say, the executive order?
RODRIGUEZ: So the executive order is a specific form that allows the president to do two things. The first is to issue directives about how the executive branch is going to operate to manage the internal affairs of his department. The second form of executive order stems from statutory authority that's been delegated. In statutes, Congress often gives the president power to make certain decisions. In executive orders that are under this umbrella, the president is careful to cite that statutory authority in order to justify the steps that he's taking.
SIEGEL: Presumably within the limits of the law. They can't go outside...
RODRIGUEZ: Yes.
SIEGEL: ...The law, can they? Yeah. Can you walk us through some famous executive actions and some that accomplished things that we might be familiar with?
RODRIGUEZ: Well, there are, of course, the executive orders issued during times of war that, for example, ordered a curfew for Japanese-Americans on the West Coast or their internment in camps. Those are notorious uses of executive action. But they run the gamut from deciding we're not going to enforce the Voting Rights Act or we're not going to supervise police in local jurisdictions to more mundane things about how the executive branch should operate.
SIEGEL: President Trump signed an executive order directing government agencies to - and this is a quote - "ease the burdens of Obamacare" while the new administration and Congress work toward repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. He signed a presidential memorandum on having pipelines fitted with American materials. What's the difference between an executive order in one case and a presidential memorandum in the other?
RODRIGUEZ: There's not that significant a difference. I think that executive orders might generally be regarded as a matter of custom as having higher stature. But each of them goes through a process of vetting in the Department of Justice to ensure that they comply with law. They are parallel ways of the president announcing his policy agenda.
SIEGEL: Let me give you a not-so-hypothetical hypothetical about a presidential action. There's a provision in the Affordable Care Act that has been upheld by the Supreme Court that the government can impose a mandate on people to get health insurance. Can President Trump simply repeal that mandate and say, here's an executive action that no longer is government policy?
RODRIGUEZ: He can't repeal the mandate. That's in the statute, and Congress would have to redo that. What he could do is not enforce the penalties - or enforce the tax, I should say, associated with the mandate. He could direct the IRS not to impose that tax on people who don't buy health insurance. So that's another source of authority that I imagine the new president is going to try to use to decide what laws he thinks ought to be enforced vigorously and which ones are not. And presidents have a wide berth to do that.
SIEGEL: His Republican critics claim that Barack Obama did a tremendous amount through executive action rather than legislation and pushed the limits of executive action. Does that - is that true, or have all presidents done this quite a bit?
RODRIGUEZ: I think all presidents have done it quite a bit. I think you're likely to see presidents who have hostile Congresses using executive action more. And President Obama in particular sought to go through the legislative process to advance a lot of his agenda, but in the absence of traction turns to what he has the authority to do. But the number of executive orders doesn't tell you anything about whether those orders are lawful or whether the president has exceeded his authority. What matters is what he's doing in the orders. And so he could do a lot of things but do them all in an authorized fashion.
SIEGEL: Professor Rodriguez, thanks for talking with us today.
RODRIGUEZ: Thank you so much. It was my pleasure.
SIEGEL: Cristina Rodriguez, a professor of law at Yale University.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Four days after Donald Trump's inaugural address, another politician is laying out a very different agenda. California Governor Jerry Brown gave his State of the State address today, as Capital Public Radio's Ben Adler reports.
BEN ADLER, BYLINE: State of the States are usually like State of the Unions, filled with policy proposals and political agendas. This one wasn't. Instead, the 78-year-old four-term governor gave a pep talk to anxious Californians in a state Hillary Clinton won by 4 million votes.
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JERRY BROWN: This is a time which calls for courage and for perseverance, and I promise you both.
(APPLAUSE)
ADLER: Jerry Brown never mentioned Donald Trump by name, but the governor wasn't exactly subtle either. While acknowledging that the federal government sets immigration policy, Brown said he would oppose any Trump administration efforts to step up deportations of immigrants living in the state illegally.
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BROWN: And let me be clear. We will defend everybody, every man, woman and child who's come here for a better life and has contributed to the well-being of our state.
ADLER: And Brown vowed to do everything possible to preserve Obamacare and fight climate change, two areas where California has staked out aggressive policies. Brown also said he wants to work with the president on infrastructure projects. After the speech, the top Republican in the assembly, Chad Mayes, said he hopes the tone at the state capitol doesn't endanger federal funding.
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CHAD MAYES: I do fear that some of the caustic and abrasive rhetoric that is being used to try to incite folks against the administration could be harmful to that.
ADLER: Brown ended by quoting Woody Guthrie's progressive folk anthem, "This Land Is Your Land."
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BROWN: Nobody living can ever make me turn back. This land was made for you and me. California's not turning back. Not now, not ever.
ADLER: A defiant, albeit poetic tone from a state that plans to lead the fight against President Trump. For NPR News, I'm Ben Adler in Sacramento.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now let's talk about movies.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA LA LAND")
RYAN GOSLING: (As Sebastian, singing) City of stars, are you shining just for me?
SHAPIRO: Academy Award nominations are out today, and the musical "La La Land" sang and danced its way to 14 Oscar nominations, tying a record. "La La Land" will compete for Best Picture with "Moonlight," an intimate drama about a gay black man growing up in Miami...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MOONLIGHT")
MAHERSHALA ALI: (As Juan) Let me tell you something, Man. There are black people everywhere. Remember that, OK - no place you can go in the world ain't got no black people. We was the first on this planet.
SHAPIRO: ...Also the science fiction film "Arrival" in which a linguist introduces aliens to human beings...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ARRIVAL")
AMY ADAMS: (As Louise Banks) Louise - I am Louise.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) What is that? Is that a new symbol? I can't tell.
SHAPIRO: ...Along with six other Best Picture nominees. And joining us to talk about the nominations are Linda Holmes of NPR's pop culture blog Monkey See and our film critic Bob Mondello. Hey you guys.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Good to be here.
SHAPIRO: OK.
LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: First, what are the other six best picture nominees?
MONDELLO: Well, let's see. There's "Fences," which is Denzel Washington's adaptation of the August Wilson play - Pulitzer Prize-winning play - "Hacksaw Ridge," which is a World War II story about a conscientious objector; "Hell Or High Water," which is essentially a Western, although it takes place in cop cars and things like that; "Hidden Figures," which is the story of three African-American women who were in - or actually a whole bunch of African-American women who were in NASA's space program - "Lion," which is a story about adoption in India to Australia and "Manchester By The Sea," the cheeriest movie of the whole bunch.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
HOLMES: Bob's being sarcastic.
MONDELLO: I am being sarcastic. That is a really rough slog - but, oh, my God, what a movie.
SHAPIRO: So this time last year, we were talking about #OscarsSoWhite, and this year - not so white, Linda.
HOLMES: Yeah. I want to point out. We were not just talking about #OscarsSoWhite. We were talking about the fact that the Oscars were in fact...
SHAPIRO: Were so white.
HOLMES: ...So white.
MONDELLO: Two years running.
HOLMES: And I think that there is some progress, particularly in the acting categories here. You do have three black women nominated in best sporting actress. Ruth Negga was nominated in lead actress for "Loving." She's wonderful in that movie. That's the story of the Supreme Court case...
SHAPIRO: Loving v. Virginia, which legalized interracial marriage.
HOLMES: Interracial marriage - so I think there was some progress. Dev Patel is nominated for "Lion." You know, they're a bit less white, but you know, it's important in these kinds of things not to get too excited too quickly. Barry Jenkins from "Moonlight" is still only the fourth black director ever nominated in best director.
SHAPIRO: Beyond diversity, what stands out to you when you look at the entirety of these nominations, Bob?
MONDELLO: Well, what's intriguing to me is how these are not - especially the nominees for Best Picture are not big studio movies. These are movies that are essentially smaller pictures. The whole notion of doing ten nominees or as many as 10 - this year, there are nine - was to get more films into the mix. Well, we really got them into the mix this year because almost none of these are the big, splashy, big production movies that you'd expect.
SHAPIRO: Well, that's what strikes me - is that when I look at the list, they're all of these sort of, you know, socially conscious movies that make you feel like a better person when you leave, whether we're talking about "Hidden Figures" or "Moonlight."
And then there is the 800-pound gorilla of "La La Land," which is this splashy, vibrant, sunny musical that is not about social issues or making you feel (unintelligible).
MONDELLO: I'd like to point out that Ari was doing jazz hands when he was doing that.
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: It's true. It's true. I think that one theme for me in these nominations is you do see some more films here that have more moments of giving pleasure, which, for some people, that's not really what awards are about. They're about the art. But if you look at these films, it's not just "La La Land," which really takes pride I think in its ability to be aesthetically pleasing and in some places fun.
You also have films like "Hidden Figures," which in many places is a lot of fun despite having a lot to say. You have a film - even, like, you know, "Lion" has a lot of really upbeat, you know, kind of uplifting moments even though many parts of it are sad. I would say the same thing about "Arrival" - has some moments that are fun to watch even though it has a lot of sad themes. Now, you have your "Manchester By The Sea," which seriously is a...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) One in every bunch.
HOLMES: ...Very sad movie.
MONDELLO: It's so sad - oh.
HOLMES: But it - but there are some years when the Oscar films just feel like a grind, like you're...
SHAPIRO: Like you're rewarding suffering.
HOLMES: Like you're just being asked to be sad and miserable all the time. And I don't get that feeling from these.
SHAPIRO: Linda, give me your I'm-so-glad-this-made-the-list and really-this-made-the-list.
HOLMES: Yeah. My I'm-so-glad-this-made-the-list would be "Hidden Figures," which is a terrific, terrific film that I loved...
SHAPIRO: For Best Picture.
HOLMES: ...For Best Picture. The one that I would take back - and it's kind of a technicality 'cause I love it.
SHAPIRO: OK.
HOLMES: But the documentary project "O.J.: Made In America" was nominated for outstanding documentary feature.
SHAPIRO: Was it a movie?
HOLMES: To me, that's a television project. It was mostly watched on television. It was produced in chapters with the intention of it being on television. Although it qualified under the rules, I would have left that space open for something like perhaps "Wiener," which is the movie about Anthony Weiner's run for mayor of New York City, which is a crazy and fascinating film perhaps now more than ever.
MONDELLO: (Laughter).
SHAPIRO: Bob, give me your yes and your really.
MONDELLO: Well, my really is Viggo Mortensen, who I - listen. I am crazy about Viggo Mortensen, but "Captain Fantastic" is a movie that I just can't imagine getting nominated in any category. So I just - I didn't get that. My oh-I'm-so-pleased was "The Lobster" for best original...
SHAPIRO: Oh, yeah.
MONDELLO: ...Screenplay. And I - it's mostly because if you gave an award for most original screenplay, that would have to be it - a film about a guy who is on the verge of turning into a lobster. I - it's wonderful.
SHAPIRO: NPR's film critic Bob Mondello and Linda Holmes of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, thanks to you both.
HOLMES: Thanks, Ari.
MONDELLO: It's always a pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF LORD HURON SONG, "FOOL FOR LOVE")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A moment now to remember Mary Tyler Moore. The actress died today at age 80. Moore helped redefine women's roles on TV, first playing the earnest and stylish homemaker Laura Petrie on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and later playing Mary Richards, the single, young journalist on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Jesse Baker has this tribute.
JESSE BAKER, BYLINE: Mary Tyler Moore played the girl who could turn the world on with her smile.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVE IS ALL AROUND")
SONNY CURTIS: (Singing) Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
BAKER: Even 25 years later on WHYY's Fresh Air, Mary Tyler Moore clearly recalled the day she shot the scenes for what was to become that most memorable start to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MARY TYLER MOORE: It was freezing cold. It was in Minneapolis in January, I think. We didn't know what we were doing. We were just there to grab a lot of footage that shows a young woman's exuberance being in a new city.
BAKER: As Moore tosses her hat in the air, her character, Mary Richards, is tossing out all the baggage of her last life and starting anew in the newsroom of WJM-TV in Minneapolis. From the first episode, Moore plays Richards as young, polite and very determined. Here's her job interview with costar Ed Asner as the crotchety news director, Lou Grant.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW")
ED ASNER: (As Lou Grant) Look, miss, would you try answering the questions as I ask them?
(LAUGHTER)
MOORE: (As Mary Richards) Yes, Mr. Grant, I will. But it does seem that you've been asking a lot of very personal questions that don't have a thing to do with my qualifications for this job.
ASNER: (As Lou Grant) You know what? You got spunk.
(LAUGHTER)
MOORE: (As Mary Richards) Well...
ASNER: (As Lou Grant) I hate spunk.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ASNER: It was the most powerful moment in theater I've ever had because she played it so beautifully. The audience was going ooh-goo-goo (ph) at that moment.
BAKER: By the time she appeared in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" she was an experienced comedic actor and producer. Her production company, MTM Enterprises, was also responsible for sitcoms including "Rhoda," "The Bob Newhart Show" and "WKRP In Cincinnati." But Moore had learned her craft while playing homemaker Laura Petrie for five seasons in the 1960s on "The Dick Van Dyke Show."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW")
DICK VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) You're not - you're not going to fix me any breakfast, are you?
MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) But darling, I offered to fix you breakfast.
VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Well, all right, all right. Have your fun. Have fun. Enjoy yourself.
BAKER: Moore's chemistry with her onscreen husband, played by Dick Van Dyke, was so electric that CBS insisted her character had to be a single woman on her later show. CBS didn't want viewers to think they had divorced, and Dick Van Dyke cheerfully admitted this to NPR in 2011.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
VAN DYKE: Around the second season, we would try to rehearse and begin to giggle for no reason. And a psychiatrist said, you have a crush on each other. And (laughter) I realized that's true. And I think it showed on the screen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MOORE: Laura actually had opinions of her own. And while she was asserting herself, she also didn't make Dick Van Dyke look like a dummy. I mean, society's expectations at that point still said, hey, wait a minute, lady. You only go so far here. But I think we broke new ground.
BAKER: Broke new ground because Laura Petrie had opinions and she insisted on wearing capri pants in a time where skirts and heels were the height of TV fashion. Mary Tyler Moore proved she could wear what she wanted and also sometimes take the comic lead to Dick Van Dyke's straight man. Moore told Terry Gross she had always been a fan of the comedian Nanette Fabray and channeled her to conjure up those trademark comic tears.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW")
MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) And you said, don't do that. And you came down to breakfast in your yucky shirt. And...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MOORE: There was definitely a cracking in the voice and an inability to maintain a tone and a certain amount of verbal yodeling that took place. And from that came, oh, Rob.
BAKER: Moore herself was not a single, free-wheeling Mary Richards embraced by America. The real Mary was married by the time she was 18. And off the set, her life was a lot darker than the TV characters she portrayed. She was born in Brooklyn but grew up in Los Angeles with a mother who battled alcoholism, a problem that later afflicted Moore and both her siblings.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MOORE: I probably never was really out-and-out drunk. And I certainly never drank during the day time. But I wasted a lot of my time, and I forgot a lot because I didn't remember much of what had happened the night before.
BAKER: Moore channeled some of that unhappiness in a role that earned her an Academy Award nomination in 1980 as the icy grieving mother Beth Jarrett in "Ordinary People."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ORDINARY PEOPLE")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I didn't think it was a...
MOORE: (As Beth Jarrett) Not to mention a violation of privacy.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Whose privacy?
MOORE: (As Beth Jarrett) Our privacy. The family's privacy. I think it is a very private matter.
BAKER: To this day, however, it's her comedy that endures. In downtown Minneapolis, there's a statue of her as Mary Richards twirling her cap, a moment of hope and promise frozen in time. For NPR News, I'm Jesse Baker.
SIEGEL: Mary Tyler Moore died today after years of declining health. She was 80.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The highest court in the state of Massachusetts is considering roadside sobriety tests, specifically whether the tests that police use to determine drunk driving can also prove a driver is high on marijuana. As NPR's Tovia Smith reports, with more states like Massachusetts legalizing recreational marijuana, this question is becoming more pressing.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: The test has been used for decades to convict drunk drivers.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Go ahead and step out here in front of my car, please.
SMITH: Just like in this stop recorded by police in Tennessee, a driver has to stand on one leg, walk a straight line and recite the alphabet.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Q - R - S - W - T - S - T - U - V - W - H - Y - Z.
SMITH: The officer can then testify in court how the driver did to make the case for DUI, but defense lawyers argue science has yet to prove that flunking the test really means a person is high. So as attorney Rebecca Jacobstien argued to Massachusetts' high court, the tests shouldn't be allowed in evidence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
REBECCA JACOBSTIEN: If there's reliable science, reliable science gets to come in, it's just that unreliable science does not.
MICHELLE KING: Your Honor, that is clearly wrong.
SMITH: Attorney Michelle King - for the prosecutors - argued that rapidly advancing science does now prove field tests' reliability.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KING: Three investigations have come to light, and those are the most important for Your Honors to look at at this point.
SMITH: What makes the stakes so high here is that police do not yet have reliable roadside toxicology tests to say for sure if someone's too high to drive the way a breathalyzer or blood tests can show if someone's too drunk.
MARGARET HANEY: It's complicated. Alcohol is a breeze in comparison.
SMITH: Margaret Haney is a professor of neurobiology at the Columbia University Medical Center. Because marijuana is fat soluble, traces of its main ingredient - THC - can show up in blood, for example, long after a person has sobered up.
HANEY: That just tells you that somebody smoked, but you don't know if they smoked, you know, an hour before or if they smoked a week before or two weeks before.
SMITH: It used to be that police could always fall back on arresting a driver for possession, but with pot now legal, officers worry they'll be faced with more stoned drivers and fewer ways to stop them.
JOHN CARMICHAEL: It couldn't be at a worse time. It's really going to cause a problem out on the street.
SMITH: John Carmichael is police chief in Walpole, Mass.
CARMICHAEL: I mean, police officers know, you know, when there's something off, it's usually quite obvious. So if they take away the ability to do a field sobriety test, I don't know what the police officer on the street is supposed to do.
SMITH: As studies continue on standard field sobriety tests, efforts are also underway to design new ones to better weed out drivers high on weed.
MICHAEL MILBURN: So you can see it's a real app there.
SMITH: University of Massachusetts psychology professor Michael Milburn has invented an iPad test he calls DRUID that specifically measures symptoms of marijuana intoxication like slow reaction time, misperception of time passing and the inability to multitask.
MILBURN: So this says when the circle flashes on the screen, hit the screen where that - where you saw the circle appear. If the square appears, hit the white oval that's going to be on the top of the screen.
SMITH: OK. God help me.
It is not meant to be easy.
MILBURN: Right. 'Cause I figure someone who's stoned is going to go, all right, was it the circle or the square? (Laughter) You know...
SMITH: This is not your grandfather's old count backwards from 10.
MILBURN: (Laughter) Yeah. Well, if you're going to be driving a car, you should be able to perform at a fairly high level.
SMITH: Next, you have to balance on one foot while you hold the iPad in one hand...
Oh, my God.
...Where it records your every wobble.
I'm holding my microphone too, do I get extra points for that?
(LAUGHTER)
SMITH: After four different tests, instead of a police officer's subjective judgment of how you did, the iPad calculates a total score that could be used like the .08 legal limit for alcohol.
So I have...
MILBURN: Your impairment score was 48, which we'd estimate was equivalent to a blood alcohol of .06, so you are not legally drunk.
SMITH: But almost.
MILBURN: Well, you were getting up that there, yeah, yeah, yeah, but a cop would not say I'm taking you in based on what you just did.
SMITH: Milburn says research is just beginning on the reliability of his app. Experts say it won't be long before science validates a whole new generation of impairment tests, but they say they'll only stand up to court challenges when used in conjunction with new and better biological tests that can also prove that the person who was impaired recently used marijuana. Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID BYRNE AND ST. VINCENT SONG, "WHO")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A quick check-in now with the U.S. men's national soccer team. The team is trying to avoid a big step backwards on the world stage. America has played in every World Cup since 1990, but after two recent qualifying losses participation in next year's World Cup is not guaranteed. Well, now there's a new coach, and here's NPR's Tom Goldman on Bruce Arena's return for a second stint with the U.S. national team.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: It was one of those southern California days in January that laughs at the calendar - a blue, cloudless sky, the temperature creeping towards 70. On a lush green soccer field, a U.S. national team scrimmage was all chatter and speed and energy.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Come here. Come here, Jermaine. Right side, Jermaine.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Hold the line. Hold the line. Hold the line.
GOLDMAN: After those two qualifying losses in November, the Americans dropped to the bottom of the region's hexagonal. That's the six-country World Cup qualifying group. The U.S. men's team is not among the world's best, but this was dispiriting. The team didn't play like one. Two months later, at this U.S. practice in Carson, Calif., the ailing patient looked better.
BRUCE ARENA: I wouldn't say it's that bad. You know, we're not in triage right now. We're in maybe primary care.
GOLDMAN: That's coach Bruce Arena.
ARENA: Obviously it's not an easy situation being down at the bottom in the hex right now, but our aim is to make up for lost ground real quick.
GOLDMAN: The next qualifying matches against Honduras and Panama are two months away. Until then, Arena has a couple of priorities - defense. And he liked this defensive stand in practice.
ARENA: Pivot back. Pivot back. (Unintelligible). Guys, that was great. That was well done. You were really pulled in as a group, the integrity of line was there.
GOLDMAN: Probably his main priority is building a team. This has been one of Arena's strengths during a long coaching career. Michael Bradley is a veteran midfielder.
MICHAEL BRADLEY: Bruce has an aura. When he walks into a team, you know, he has a way about him and a way of working that I think engages everybody and motivates every guy to play for him and to really go after things.
GOLDMAN: I asked another midfielder, Graham Zusi, what specifically Arena does to create that cohesive feeling.
GRAHAM ZUSI: You know, every day he lets us know what the mission is for training. Every now and then we'll have a quick meeting after lunch as well just to kind of recap.
GOLDMAN: He's a good communicator?
ZUSI: He is.
GOLDMAN: Yeah.
ZUSI: Yeah.
GOLDMAN: Was that missing before?
ZUSI: (Laughter) I thought we weren't talking comparisons here (laughter).
GOLDMAN: Before camp started, players were told to avoid publicly comparing Arena and his predecessor, Jurgen Klinsmann. But comparisons are inevitable. Klinsmann, who played and coached in his native Germany, preferred players with international experience. Arena coached for many years in America's domestic league, MLS. He's been more open to having MLS players on the national team.
In fact, he brought to camp some MLS players overlooked by Klinsmann. According to a team official, Klinsmann also liked to make players uncomfortable. When they competed for spots, he didn't want them feeling like anything was guaranteed. Arena talks about relating to his players, although he's hardly an everybody-gets-a-trophy-and-a-hug kind of coach.
ARENA: Come on, too sloppy there, guys. Keep the ball on the ground.
GOLDMAN: A U.S. soccer official watching practice on that January day noted the players didn't look nervous. As they scrimmaged, Arena yelled, if you make a mistake, make a mistake. Make an aggressive mistake. In 2002, Bruce Arena led the U.S. to the World Cup quarter-finals. That was the team's second-best finish in history. Now, 15 years later, his mission simply is to get to the tournament. Tom Goldman, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump is spending his first week in office reversing Obama administration policies. He's already signed executive actions on health care, two controversial oil pipelines, and he is promising to undo President Obama's plan to reduce carbon emissions from power plants.
NPR's Jennifer Ludden joins us now with a couple of different stories about how this may play out around the country. Hey, Jennifer.
JENNIFER LUDDEN, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Where does this Clean Power Plan stand right now?
LUDDEN: It is on hold. It is tied up in court. So about two dozen mostly conservative states had sued the Obama administration to block the plan. We could have a decision on that any day now. But if it's upheld, the Trump administration would likely appeal. So practically speaking, for now, a lot of people already consider this Clean Power Plan dead.
SHAPIRO: This plan was supposed to be the main way that the U.S. carried out its commitment under the Paris climate deal. So if this is effectively dead, does that mean the U.S. just won't meet its commitment?
LUDDEN: Well, it's up now to each state. So each one had a target for how much it was supposed to reduce carbon emissions. We decided to look at two places that feel very differently about this plan and tackling climate change.
SHAPIRO: So you've brought us two stories. We're going to look at what's happening in North Dakota in just a moment. First, we have North Country Public Radio's David Sommerstein reporting from upstate New York.
DAVID SOMMERSTEIN, BYLINE: It's cloudy and slushy in Canton, hardly ideal solar weather. But when dairy farmer Rick Moore checks on his new solar array tucked by a slouching red barn, it's squeezing out power.
RICK MOORE: You still get rays that still help heat it up.
SOMMERSTEIN: The system harnesses the sun to heat water Moore uses to spray down milking equipment. It'll save him a thousand dollars a year and help reduce carbon emissions that Moore says are changing the climate.
MOORE: We had winters when I first started that (laughter) you had three feet of snow and cold for two weeks at a time. And you're not seeing that nowadays.
SOMMERSTEIN: New York state paid for almost the whole system. It sees Rick Moore as a tiny piece of a puzzle that adds up to getting half of New York's power from renewables by 2030 even without Obama's Clean Power Plan. In fact, Governor Andrew Cuomo is now doubling down on that goal.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANDREW CUOMO: And we are not going to stop until we reach a hundred percent renewable because that's what a sustainable New York is really all about.
(APPLAUSE)
SOMMERSTEIN: New York is pouring billions into everything from solar to smart power grids, huge offshore wind farms to electric car charging stations. The state already gets almost 25 percent of its power from renewables, mostly from hydropower dams. Critics say that next 25 percent is the big lift.
Cheap natural gas has driven down power prices so much, says Gavin Donohue of the Independent Power Producers of New York, that existing renewables like wind, hydro and biomass need more state help to stay in business.
GAVIN DONOHUE: What's guiding all of our policy development here in New York is not cost, not efficiencies, not reliability but what gets us to some magical CO2 number to show that we're a national leader.
SOMMERSTEIN: Another complication could be Cuomo's announcement to shut down Indian Point Nuclear Plant near New York City. But the state says it plans to replace that with another kind of carbon-free power. For NPR News, I'm David Sommerstein in Canton, N.Y.
AMY SISK, BYLINE: I'm Amy Sisk with Prairie Public Broadcasting in North Dakota, where coal produces three quarters of the state's electricity. Every day, thousands of tons of lignite coal are dumped onto trucks and carried to nearby power plants. But the Clean Power Plan would have required North Dakota to cut its carbon emissions more than almost any other state - 45 percent. Here's Randy Christmann with the North Dakota Public Service Commission.
RANDY CHRISTMANN: North Dakota had to be two-thirds of that way by 2022. That's only a few years away, and there's no way we were getting there.
SISK: North Dakota would likely have had to add hundreds of wind turbines and shut down coal mines and plants. Jason Bohrer with North Dakota's lignite coal trade group says it's great the Clean Power Plan is likely gone under Trump, but...
JASON BOHRER: Donald Trump is not the cure-all for the coal industry. This doesn't fix everything. It just gives us the opportunity to provide solutions.
SISK: He says Americans are demanding cleaner energy. Cheap wind power has grown into North Dakota's second-biggest electricity source. So even though the pressure's off to curb emissions, the state's looking to clean up coal as a way to save jobs.
The state and coal industry have sunk millions since developing a coal plant that reuses the carbon dioxide it creates. That would mean zero emissions. If it works, Dave Glatt with the state health department thinks this could bring the state close to that ambitious 45 percent reduction targets.
DAVE GLATT: We may not hit it necessarily on the exact timelines that the Clean Power Plan was looking at, but I do think that that's something that we should look at. Can we achieve that or even go beyond that?
SISK: This year, North Dakota will craft its own plan hoping coal and renewables can co-exist. For NPR News, I'm Amy Sisk in Bismarck.
SHAPIRO: And Amy Sisk comes to us from Inside Energy, a public media collaboration focused on America's energy issues.
NPR's Jennifer Ludden is still here in the studio. And Jennifer, it sounds like because of state initiatives and market forces, the U.S. might actually be able to make its Paris climate commitment even if the Trump administration doesn't push the country in that direction.
LUDDEN: Well, you know, it's hard to say. I mean some of these market forces might take a really long time to play out. But you know, Obama's Clean Power Plan is actually an easy lift, and there are a lot of states who are close to meeting their goals.
SHAPIRO: Now, I was at the Paris climate summit, and I remember everybody there saying the commitments countries made in Paris were not enough. So where do we go from there?
LUDDEN: That's right. That is the big question. The U.S. and other countries would have to do a lot more to keep emissions below the point where scientists say they will have disastrous consequences. And so far, we have not heard anything to suggest that the Trump administration plans to make that extra push.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Jennifer Ludden, thanks.
LUDDEN: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump took the first official steps today to deliver on his campaign promise to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: A nation without borders is not a nation. Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders, gets back its borders.
SHAPIRO: Trump was speaking at the Department of Homeland Security, where he signed a couple of executive orders. One's designed to beef up security at the border. The other aims to boost enforcement of immigration laws within the U.S. NPR's White House correspondent Scott Horsley joins us now. Hi, Scott.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Tell us a little bit more about what's in these orders.
HORSLEY: They're wide-ranging. They call for hiring 5,000 new Border Patrol agents, 10,000 new immigration officers. I'll just note that the bipartisan immigration bill that passed the Senate but died in the House back in 2013 would have gone farther, boosting the Border Patrol by about 17,000 officers.
Trump also wants to revive a program called Secure Communities that effectively deputizes local law enforcement to help in finding immigrants in the country illegally. Some local officials like that authority. Others worry it sows distrust between police and immigrant communities and makes it hard to investigate other crimes. Trump's order also seeks to cut off federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities that harbor immigrants in the country illegally. And of course he wants to build that wall.
SHAPIRO: I'll note that elsewhere in the program, we're going to hear from a mayor of one of those so-called sanctuary cities. That wall - it's expected to cost as much as $15 billion. Mexico insists it won't pay. Where will the money come from?
HORSLEY: Initially, it's going to come from the U.S. Treasury. Trump wants planning for the wall to begin immediately and construction to start within a few months. So he's asking Congress to allocate funds up front, but he insisted in an interview with ABC that America will get the money back.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Ultimately it will come out of what's happening with Mexico. We're going to be starting those negotiations relatively soon, and we will be, in a form, reimbursed by Mexico.
HORSLEY: Now, that's going to be a bone of contention when the Mexican president visits Washington next week for a meeting with Trump. Enrique Pena Nieto told Trump when they met last summer there's no way Mexico's paying for this wall.
One idea Trump floated during the campaign was to put a hold on remittances - that is money that folks here in the U.S. send to Mexico - until Mexico agrees to pay up.
SHAPIRO: So this was a largely focused on border security and immigration. But this morning, the president also took some time to tweet about suspected voter fraud. What did he say?
HORSLEY: Yeah. Remember that earlier this week, Trump told congressional leaders he would have won the popular vote in November were it not for millions of illegal votes cast, repeating a false claim he'd made during the transition. He really seems stuck on this.
You know, he won the Electoral College, but he seems irritated that he lost the popular vote. And today he tweeted he wants a major investigation into voter fraud, including those who are registered in multiple states, people who remain registered to vote after they died and people who vote illegally.
SHAPIRO: Given that this is a false claim, what's to investigate?
HORSLEY: Well, we have to make a distinction between, you know, outdated registration lists - that does happen - and actual voter fraud, of which we have very little evidence. When White House Spokesman Sean Spicer was pressed on this yesterday, he downplayed the idea of an investigation, but now that the president's tweeted, Spicer says there will be a probe.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SEAN SPICER: Look. Voting is the most sacred right that we have as Americans. This is what - it's the hallmark and the foundation of our democracy. And to ensure that we know that every person's vote counts equally as the next citizen is probably one of the greatest things that we can do.
HORSLEY: And never mind that in the Electoral College, citizens' votes don't all count equally.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
HORSLEY: But Trump tweeted that depending on what the investigation uncovers, he will strengthen voting procedures. Certainly there is room to clean up outdated voter rolls. The danger, though, would be if the government uses false fears about voter fraud as a pretext to impose new voting rules that make it hard for eligible voters to exercise their rights at the ballot box.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Scott Horsley, thanks very much.
HORSLEY: My pleasure.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
For more now on the president's executive orders on border security and how they might be implemented, we're joined by NPR's John Burnett, who covers immigration. And John, first, will anything happen immediately?
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Hey, Robert. Well, it's really the start of a long process. Most of this is going to play out over months and even years. The planning process for the wall needs to start now. Lots of things have to happen. They can't just start paving access roads and buying the steel down there in the desert - same thing with this call for 5,000 new Border Patrol agents that he's promised. That expands the force by 25 percent. In the past, agents have been hard to recruit. They have to pass rigorous vetting and academy training to wear the green uniform.
What he can do overnight are some administrative changes within ICE of who federal agents can detain and deport. He can boost deportations really starting tomorrow. The agency can redefine who's a criminal alien, not just a murderer or rapist or a drug dealer under Obama's DHS but a drunk driver or a domestic abuser or a shoplifter.
And likewise, ICE can start tomorrow putting asylum seekers in private prisons even more than they do now until their cases are resolved. But I can guarantee you there'll be lots of human rights advocates filing lawsuits on detention conditions.
SIEGEL: And, John, how would you say these measures would actually change the way that border patrol and immigration enforcement agents do their jobs?
BURNETT: Well, we heard the president say today he's asking agents to strongly enforce immigration laws. He wants to unshackle them. And after all, these are federal agents. They're cops. They have handcuffs and Tasers, and they want to do their jobs. They don't want to process asylum seekers all day.
I know the agents want to do more. They want to - for instance, Border Patrol wants to start patrolling transportation centers like bus stations and airports. ICE wants to go back to the old policy of workplace raids if possible.
But again, immigrant rights advocates are really going to be closely monitoring how these federal agents do their jobs. If they violate the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, there will be more lawsuits so they don't overstep their authority.
SIEGEL: In a congressional testimony, Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security, John Kelly - General Kelly, said that a border wall is not enough. What more does he have in mind?
BURNETT: Well, you know, I've talked to lots of these border agents since the election, and they know that a wall - this greatly touted wall - is not really a panacea for border security. The agents know their other measures are just as important - stadium lights, ground sensors, camera towers and, most of all, agents.
The wall is kind of symbolic language even though we heard it again and again and again. And it's likely to be a fence, not a wall. Even the language in Trump's executive order says, quote, "physical wall or other similar secure, contiguous and impassable physical barrier."
SIEGEL: Although...
BURNETT: So that leaves an option open.
SIEGEL: Although when he spoke of this, he very explicitly said today a wall, once again. But yes, go ahead, John.
BURNETT: Yeah, he did. But actually what they construct on the southern border are fences.
SIEGEL: What about funding for these fences (laughter) or walls or whatever they are?
BURNETT: (Laughter) Well, these are going to be expensive, significant expenditures. You know, the wall could be, you know, $5, $10, $15 billion. New agents are expensive. More detention space for deportees is expensive. You've got to sign those contracts with the private prison companies for tens of millions of dollars or build your own. So this will take an appropriation from Congress.
SIEGEL: Other things to expect from Trump on immigration...
BURNETT: Well, Robert, the big piece that he did mention is what happens with the dreamers, the DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. These are some 750,000 young people who were brought here as children by their undocumented parents. Obama gave them work permits and protection from deportation.
Trump said in the campaign he was going to cancel Obama's order on DACA, but now he's soft pedaling. Sean Spicer said at the White House briefing today, the president's still working on DACA. He's a family man. He's going after criminals, criminal aliens, not families.
SIEGEL: OK, that's NPR's John Burnett. Thanks.
BURNETT: You bet.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
What's old is new again in tennis. We've reached the semifinals of the Australian Open, and some of the sport's aging giants are still in the running. Venus Williams, 36 years old, is playing through an autoimmune disorder that causes fatigue. Her sister, Serena, is still alive in this tournament, too. And on the men's side, both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are through to the semis. Fans are crossing their fingers for a throwback final.
Jon Wertheim is a senior writer with Sports Illustrated and has been watching the first Open tennis season in person. Hi there.
JON WERTHEIM: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: In your coverage, you noted that the Williams sisters combined age is 71. Serena's been dominant in recent years. Venus has been struggling. How has she looked so far this tournament?
WERTHEIM: Venus has looked fantastic. The benefit for these major events, these Grand Slams is that you have a day off in between. You referenced the autoimmune disorder, and I think the fact that Venus has a day in between her matches has been a big benefit. It also hasn't been oppressively hot here the way it has in past years. But this - I mean it's just extraordinary. Six of the 8 players remaining as we speak are 30 or over.
SHAPIRO: What do you attribute that to?
WERTHEIM: The game has become so physical that I think durability and strength are absolutely essential. I mean the days of sort of the waifish teenage burnout candidate are laughably obsolete. I think these are pros' pros. These are professionals. They have nutritionists. They have teams.
And I also think these are just extraordinarily good tennis players. I mean Roger Federer could be, you know, 50 years old and still have terrific tennis talent and hand-eye coordination. I mean I think, especially in the case of Federer, Nadal and the Williams sisters, these are just extraordinary, extraordinary athletes.
SHAPIRO: So I'm trying to figure out whether we're looking at one of the greatest generations of tennis players of all time or a tennis game where now, for some reason, people in their 30s have the advantage over people in their 20s.
WERTHEIM: Why choose?
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
WERTHEIM: I think it's a little bit of both. I mean I think that, you know, we're going to be telling our grandkids about the Williams sisters, Federer and Nadal. I also think this is ultimately to tennis's virtue. I mean sports - we all like young and fresh and the new flavors.
But I think it also speaks really well of tennis that these careers now can span - you know, in Serena's case, she won her first major when Bill Clinton was president. We were joking. She's going for her Grand Slam title under her fourth different president. And you know, two of them in the middle had two terms. So I think it's great for tennis that these career shelf lives are so long now.
SHAPIRO: What do you think the chances are that we will see a throwback final between the Williams sisters on the women's side and between Federer and Nadal on the men's side?
WERTHEIM: I think in the case of the Williams sisters, the odds are pretty good. Both of them are playing opponents that are ranked lower than they are. I think we've still got a ways to go on the men's side - especially Federer plays Stan Wawrinka, (unintelligible), fellow Swiss player who's won three major titles of his own. It's a little bit I think hard overhead. I mean I think from a sentimental standpoint, we would all love to see both of those finals.
SHAPIRO: We, the older generation of tennis watchers (laughter).
WERTHEIM: Yeah, I was going to say. We don't root in the press box. We say this not out of partiality but simply rooting for the story. But no, I mean I think that it would be great for this event and great for tennis, but I don't want to diminish the other players remaining.
SHAPIRO: That's Jon Wertheim, senior writer for Sports Illustrated, speaking with us from Melbourne, Australia. Thanks so much.
WERTHEIM: Thanks, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHANNON AND THE CLAMS SONG, "OH LOUIE")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A red panda named Sunny has escaped from the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk. The search is under way as we speak.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In case you aren't familiar with red pandas, don't picture the roly-poly black and white giant pandas chomping on bamboo. These are little guys.
ASHLEY MARS: A red panda can kind of look like a fox, I mean, they're reddish brown in color. They have thick fur. They have large tails that kind of have like a stripe like a raccoon.
SIEGEL: That's Ashley Mars, the marketing manager at the Virginia Zoo. The zookeepers aren't sure how Sunny escaped her enclosure on Monday night, but they have some ideas.
MARS: It is red panda breeding season, so the animals can become a little bit more agitated. And Sunny is in an exhibit with a mate - his name is Thomas - and so he might have been chasing her. And it was raining Monday night in Norfolk, so the branches could have been slippery, and so Sunny may have, you know, fallen out of the tree while Thomas was pursuing her.
SHAPIRO: Sunny is far from the first red panda to disappear from an enclosure, turns out they have a bit of a reputation for escape. Zoos from Germany to Scotland have had red pandas sneak out. One named Rusty escaped from the National Zoo here in Washington a few years ago.
SIEGEL: And Sunny isn't even the first red panda escapee for the Virginia Zoo.
MARS: So in 2007 we had Yin escape, but he didn't leave zoo grounds, and he was found very quickly.
SHAPIRO: So are these little guys escape artists?
MARS: I don't think I'd necessarily say that they're escape artists. They are very playful. You know, you will see them running around their exhibit, but they also enjoy just sleeping on branches and watching people as they walk throughout the zoo.
SIEGEL: Ashley Mars says the Virginia Zoo set up a tip line. They're asking people within a mile of the zoo to keep an eye out. They're hoping Sunny the red panda can get back to sleeping on branches and watching people in her exhibit very soon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI SONG, "ESCAPEE")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Civil rights groups consider the U.S. Justice Department the most important government agency, and they're watching closely for changes under President Donald Trump. Here's what Kristen Clarke of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights said earlier this week.
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KRISTEN CLARKE: We are deeply concerned that this Justice Department is preparing to abandon its commitment to enforcement of our nation's federal civil rights laws.
SIEGEL: Well, here now to talk about this issue is NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Hiya.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hey, Robert.
SIEGEL: Who's minding the store of the Justice Department these days?
JOHNSON: Well, believe it or not, President Obama's Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates has agreed to stick around until a new boss at Justice is confirmed. Her top deputy's still in charge, and many of the U.S. attorneys and U.S. marshals are holding over from the Obama administration, but Donald Trump brought in a small team of political appointees right on Inauguration Day. These are people in jobs that don't require Senate approval, Robert, and they've also shifted around some career lawyers, too.
SIEGEL: What about the status of President Trump's nominee to be attorney general, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions?
JOHNSON: Jeff Sessions is likely to be confirmed, Robert, in the next couple of weeks, despite opposition from civil rights groups. And a bit of news here too, we're hearing that Rod Rosenstein, the top prosecutor in Baltimore, is in line to become the deputy attorney general. Rachel Brand, a veteran of the George W. Bush Justice Department, is a likely associate attorney general - number three there - but the administration has not yet formally nominated them to those jobs.
SIEGEL: We're less than a week into the Trump administration. Can you already see changes that have taken place?
JOHNSON: There are a few signals of change, particularly in the civil rights area. Already the DOJ has asked to delay a court hearing involving a settlement with Baltimore over discrimination and excessive force by the police department in Baltimore. That means it's possible the consent decree the Obama DOJ reached with Baltimore could change shape under the Trump DOJ.
In maybe an even bigger shift, the new Justice Department team has asked to delay a hearing in a case involving a voter ID law in Texas. Now, four courts have found that voter ID law in Texas discriminates against black and Latino people. The Obama DOJ put a bunch of lawyers on the case and enlisted a bunch of experts, but civil rights groups are really worried Justice may be preparing to switch positions in the case, and they say that the civil rights community will keep pressing ahead even if the Justice Department bails.
SIEGEL: Who's handling civil rights at the Department of Justice now?
JOHNSON: No nominee yet, but there are two political appointees already in place. One is Thomas Wheeler, a lawyer from Indiana with close ties to Vice President Mike Pence, and John Gore, a lawyer from private practice in D.C. who's worked on a lot of civil rights cases, but from a Republican point of view. He worked on the North Carolina HB2 bathroom bill. He also handled a lot of Republican redistricting cases in private practice. And let's be clear here, the Civil Rights Division changes dramatically - big shifts - depending on which political party wins the White House, and the Obama Justice Department was one of the most activist and aggressive on civil rights in the last 50 years. There are going to be major changes ahead, we're starting to see them now.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Carrie, thanks.
JOHNSON: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
In Egypt, it's the anniversary of the revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. The largely peaceful protests ended 30 years of Mubarak's repression. But there is still little freedom, and few celebrate the date. NPR's Jane Arraf went to Alexandria, Egypt, and found a mother who lost her son in that uprising six years ago.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Huda Saad turns the pages of a book of martyrs, 313 of the more than 800 Egyptians killed by security forces during the revolution.
HUDA SAAD: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: Her son is number 34. Ahmed Adel Ahmed al-Sayed was 18 years old. He was an assistant chef at a beachfront hotel in this Mediterranean city. For years, Egyptians had put up with oppression and poverty and police brutality.
Ahmed was one of those who went out in the streets in protest in 2011 after police beat to death another 18-year-old in Alexandria. Saad's only son was wounded when security forces opened fire on the protesters. He died in hospital.
SAAD: (Through interpreter) The officer saw him and shot him in the chest. The bullet went out of his back. The cheapest thing in Egypt is a human life.
ARRAF: Saad's apartment is up eight flights of unfinished, unlit concrete stairs. But inside, the apartment is immaculate. She and her husband used government compensation for Ahmed's killing to help fix it up.
SAAD: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: Thank you.
She brightens up as she takes me into another room to show me a collage of photographs of Ahmed. He's a baby in the first. In the last, surrounded by pictures of white doves, he has his arms outstretched on the beach. Saad says the revolution had to happen, but the freedom was short lived.
SAAD: (Through interpreter) Maybe in the days of the revolution, we could talk, and we could go where we wanted. But Egypt now is a country without freedom or justice.
ARRAF: Outside, the streetcar rumbles by the historic mosque where Ahmed was protesting. The square is empty except for vendors trying to sell prayer beads and people rushing to get home. The protesters wanted fair elections, jobs, freedom of speech and an end to corruption. Most Egyptians feel they haven't gotten any of that yet.
The Islamist government elected after Mubarak was overthrown was itself toppled in 2013 after more protests and a military coup. Egypt's current president is a former general, Abdul Fatah al-Sisi. His government has banned demonstrations and jailed thousands of political prisoners. Human rights groups complain his government still receives billions of dollars in aid from the U.S. and other countries.
Near Alexandria's ancient citadel, kids run along the promenade. Families and young people stroll by. There's a group of guys hanging out on the rocks. They're all second-year engineering students. I ask them if they'll celebrate.
AHMED: There's no reason to celebrate here.
ARRAF: That's Ahmed. No one wants to give his last name. His classmate Islam says the revolution was started by young people their age and then hijacked by officials. They all say no one will take the risk of demonstrating now.
HASSAN: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: Down the walkway, Hassan is renting out bikes for kids. There are more Syrians on the windy beach than tourists, refugees from a war that Egyptians see as a cautionary tale. And that's another reason why there are no demonstrations. It could be worse, Hassan says. We're still better off than other countries. Jane Arraf, NPR News, Alexandria, Egypt.
(SOUNDBITE OF PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS SONG, "ACID RAINDROPS")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today, one of the most notorious drug lords in the world sits in maximum security at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center. Joaquin Guzman, better known as El Chapo, was extradited to the U.S. just last week. This was after multiple prison escapes and recaptures in Mexico. El Chapo led the Sinaloa Cartel, Mexico's most successful and perhaps most violent drug empire. For a look at the state of the cartel in El Chapo's absence we're joined now by Mike Vigil, who spent more than 30 years as a DEA agent. Hi there.
MIKE VIGIL: Hi there. How are you?
SHAPIRO: Good. So when El Chapo was imprisoned, how did that affect the Sinaloa cartel?
VIGIL: It really didn't have an impact because the Sinaloa Cartel is very different than most cartels that operate in Mexico. Most cartels have a vertical structure, but the Sinaloa Cartel functions like a global corporation. It has a horizontal structure where they have subsidiaries throughout many parts of the world. And these subsidiaries are semi-autonomous. In other words, they have the ability to make decisions. And as a result of that, it's very difficult to dismantle a cartel like the Sinaloa Cartel. Secondly, they have great leadership. There's an individual by the name of Ismael El Mayo Zambada who has been running the Sinaloa Cartel during Chapo's incarceration.
SHAPIRO: I understand he's very different from El Chapo. Tell us what he's like.
VIGIL: He's an old-time capo. He's been around the drug world for many years. And then he is also very respected by the rank-and-file of the Sinaloa Cartel. He has never seen the inside of a prison cell simply because unlike Chapo, he has remained in the mountainous terrain of his home state of Sinaloa.
SHAPIRO: If it was so easy to replace Chapo, it sounds like there wasn't much of a turf war, other cartels trying to muscle in on Sinaloa's turf.
VIGIL: Well, there have been a lot of cartels that have been trying to take territory away from the Sinaloa Cartel. And we're talking about the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Zetas, the Tijuana Cartel, the Juarez Cartel. But Sinaloa continues to remain the primary and the strongest cartel in Mexico.
SHAPIRO: Has Chapo's extradition to the U.S. had any effect at all?
VIGIL: No impact. It's really a great moral victory, but it's not going to have any impact. President Felipe Calderon went after the leadership and he called it the kingpin strategy. And that really hasn't worked because he's taken down a lot of leaders, but these cartels fragment and you get more violence. And that is basically what's taking place in Mexico now.
SHAPIRO: When White House spokesman Sean Spicer today announced the start of Donald Trump's border wall expansion, he argued that it will help slow down the drug trade. Do you think that's true?
VIGIL: No. That's complete nonsense. They can circumvent that wall using medieval technology, you know, catapults. You know, they have these aircraft that look like flying lawnmowers. They call them ultralights. They can carry maybe 300 pounds of marijuana or cocaine or methamphetamine. And then through the use of tunnels - they can easily build a very nice tunnel for a million dollars, and the first load that they run through there will pay for that tunnel.
SHAPIRO: That's Mike Vigil, the former chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, also author of the novel "Metal Coffins: The Blood Alliance Cartel." Thanks for joining us.
VIGIL: Thank you so much.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Among the actions taken today by Donald Trump is an executive order that's aimed at sanctuary cities, cities where by policy or local law the police typically do not help federal agencies enforce the immigration laws. Trump is directing the secretary of Homeland Security and the attorney general to withhold grant money from those cities, and he's calling for restoration of cooperation between federal and local law enforcement to target criminal aliens.
This comes as no surprise, and many mayors have publicly pledged their cities will remain safe for immigrants who have no documentation. Among those, Mayor Javier Gonzales of Santa Fe, N.M, who joins us now. Welcome to the program.
JAVIER GONZALES: Thank you, Robert. Good to be with you.
SIEGEL: This month, your city council backed off a resolution that pointedly criticized Donald Trump. Is your city losing some of its conviction to be a sanctuary city?
GONZALES: Well, no. The word sanctuary city has been something that's just been adopted by Trump to push out some rhetoric. What Santa Fe has been is a city that has practiced as part of its values nondiscrimination.
SIEGEL: Not just where they come from, but whether they have a visa to be in Santa Fe, you don't discriminate on that basis.
GONZALES: We don't discriminate. We don't ask for status. We don't have a checkpoint coming into the city looking for papers because we do believe that every person deserves respect and dignity when they're living in our community peacefully, when they're contributing. And the issue of law enforcement resources needs to go towards community policing. And so the last thing that we are going to do is serve as an extension of the federal Immigration Services and begin to issue - through administrative warrants - detention orders.
SIEGEL: If, in fact, for pursuing those policies all federal funds from Justice and Homeland Security were cut off for Santa Fe, what impact would that have on your city?
GONZALES: I don't believe that there will be federal funds that will be cut off because I believe Santa Fe is fully compliant, regardless of his executive order - federal laws. And it's important to, one, recognize that we're on solid legal grounds, but, two, you know, there are people that highly depend on federal grants whether it's for warm meals, first time homeownership. There is nothing that this executive order can do that would compel us to have to change not only the values of our city, but certainly change the way service is being delivered through funds that are coming from the federal government.
SIEGEL: But a few years ago, it was reported that in Santa Fe the county jail barred immigration agents from interviewing inmates and didn't notify federal agents when it released people. Is that still the case? Will those policies continue, and are they compliant with federal law?
GONZALES: It is still the case. And, you know, that would be something that in terms of the county pursuing and holding onto those policies, I think it's important that they continue to do so. I hope they don't change them. And this act by President Trump unfortunately is an act of bullying, of trying to intimidate through the use of federal funds a change in values that have been all about nondiscrimination.
SIEGEL: But, Mayor Gonzalez, what do you say to a supporter of this move who says there was just an election? Cutting of sanctuary cities was a very frequently repeated campaign promise of Donald Trump's. There were polls that showed it was even popular with voters. He won, people who supported your side lost, give it up.
GONZALES: What I would say is first, the prioritization of this president needs to be about reforming a broken immigration system, that the reason so many cities across the country have had to step into this role of providing safe inclusive communities is because the federal immigration system has been broken.
He should propose and initiate efforts to work with the Congress in a bipartisan way that reforms an immigration system that will keep our border safe, develop more efficient processes to get work permits and visas, and then begin to work with local governments to go after all individuals, whether they're here lawfully or not, who want to commit crimes against our community. But he's chosen to take the political path, and I don't think that that's going to move us to being any safer than what we want to be.
SIEGEL: Mayor Javier Gonzalez of Santa Fe, N.M. Thank you very much for talking with us.
GONZALES: Thank you for having me, Robert.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Trump transition is off to a rocky start at the Environmental Protection Agency. Earlier this week, the transition team ordered a communications freeze at the agency, and this morning NPR reported that even academic papers by agency scientists will be subject to review. Joining us to discuss all this is NPR's science editor Geoff Brumfiel. Hi, Geoff.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: How unusual is it for things like press releases and blog posts to be halted during a presidential transition like this?
BRUMFIEL: You know, it's not all that unusual. I mean, what happens during a transition is political appointees sort to come in and take control of the top level of the agency. And while those appointees are literally arriving in Washington getting set up, they want to make sure they're in control of the agency, and so it makes sense that they would sort of tamp down on external communications during that transition period. It's happened before.
SHAPIRO: So it's not all that unusual for press releases and blog posts to undergo a review during a period like this, but scientific papers is a little different, and that was not a public announcement. How did NPR learn about this?
BRUMFIEL: That's right. Our reporter Nate Rott called the Trump transition team at EPA and spoke to a guy named Doug Ericksen who's running the transition team communications. And basically Nate called to confirm the freeze, but he also asked what about scientific papers, what about conferences if scientists want to go to conferences? And Ericksen said, somewhat to our surprise, that for now at least, even researchers will be subject to a case-by-case review for disseminating their scientific findings. Here's exactly what he said.
DOUG ERICKSEN: We'll take a look at what's happening so that the voice coming from the EPA is one that's going to reflect the new administration.
SHAPIRO: And, Geoff, explain why that might be more worrisome when it comes to scientific papers than when it comes to things like press releases and blog posts.
BRUMFIEL: So government scientists produce all kinds of data. And the way that data often makes its way to the public is first it goes and it's presented at a scientific conference or it's published in a peer-reviewed journal. That's just part of the way science works generally. As a result, many government agencies that employ scientists have scientific integrity policies designed to protect the sort of peer-review scientific process. In the case of EPA, the policy specifically prohibits - and I'm reading here - (reading) all EPA employees including scientists, managers and other agency leadership from suppressing, altering or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions.
SHAPIRO: Is that a policy that the Trump administration could change?
BRUMFIEL: It seems to me that - yes. I mean, it's not a law, and it's not a regulation. It is something that they could change if they want to.
SHAPIRO: Do we expect this to be a permanent policy, or is it just a temporary transitional thing?
BRUMFIEL: Well, Ericksen in his conversation to us emphasized that this was during the transition period, that that's what they were thinking about right now. And today during a press conference, White House spokesman Sean Spicer went even further and said there was no coordinated effort to gag government agencies by the Trump administration at all.
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SEAN SPICER: They haven't been directed by us to do anything. I think what they - what - from what I understand is that they've been told within their agencies to adhere to their own policies, but that directive did not come from here.
BRUMFIEL: So I think what we're seeing here is a transition process, maybe a little bit of a chaotic one. But I also think this sort of provides an insight into how the incoming Trump team sees the EPA and how they want to run the EPA, and what's clear is that they want control over the communications.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Geoff Brumfiel. Thanks.
BRUMFIEL: Thanks.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Today - a first for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It closed above 20,000. The stock market has been rising since Donald Trump's election. The Dow is up more than nine percent, and the broader S&P 500 is up more than 7 percent. As NPR's Chris Arnold reports, investors are betting that the Trump presidency will be good for big companies and for the economy as a whole.
CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: One reason investors keep bidding up stock prices seems to be that the president has said and done a bunch of things that the stock market likes. He's talked of cutting taxes, a big infrastructure program, less regulation. He's chosen top executives from industry and finance for Cabinet positions. Juli Niemann is an analyst with Smith Moore and Company.
JULI NIEMANN: What we have going on now is a huge optimistic rally that this is pro-growth, pro-USA. And money is just going to start pouring into the economy, so it's a tremendous amount of optimism. The only fudge factor, though, is a lot of unrealistic optimism out there as well.
ARNOLD: Other market watchers agree that investors are probably a bit over excited. David Kotok is chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors. He says, OK, let's take infrastructure spending. That could be good.
DAVID KOTOK: It's a great idea to rebuild airports like LaGuardia in New York and to fix bridges and fix roads and schools and sewer plants and so forth. No one objects to those issues.
ARNOLD: That could create a lot of jobs and get money flowing like Niemann was talking about. There's no lack of old, rundown bridges to fix, but...
KOTOK: How do you pay for them?
ARNOLD: Part of Trump's plan for how to pay for them is to lower corporate taxes. He wants to entice multinational corporations to bring more of their profits back to the U.S. and pay taxes here - that is, instead of stashing the money in tax havens around the world. But Trump can't do that by waving a magic wand. It very well could be a long, protracted debate in Congress.
KOTOK: So Trump is going to learn that when you govern as president, you're not the king and the czar, but you also have to deal with the United States Senate and the House of Representatives.
ARNOLD: But both Niemann and Kotok say investors are pricing stocks as if those pro-growth policies are going to get enacted quickly and spur bigger earnings.
KOTOK: What if that all doesn't come together? In that case, the market has gone too far too fast.
ARNOLD: OK, so what should the everyday investor do now that the Dow has crested 20,000? We talked to Daniel Egan, the director of behavioral finance and investing at betterment.com. It's an online financial adviser. We should also say they've been an NPR sponsor. And as the Dow approached 20,000, this supposed milestone, Egan was not on a trading floor. He was home giving his baby a warm bottle.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)
DANIEL EGAN: OK, come here. We're going to do this. Come here, you.
ARNOLD: Egan says all the hoopla could be used as a reminder of the importance of what's called rebalancing your portfolio. Say you have a long-term financial plan of holding 50 percent in stocks, the rest in bonds and real estate. When stocks surge like they just have, you might have 55 percent of your holdings in stocks, so you sell some stock to get back to your target 50 percent. That's the rebalancing part. Egan says, though, that people often don't like to sell stocks when they're rising.
EGAN: It's like taking your best football player off the field right after he's been doing amazingly well.
ARNOLD: But Egan says you want to buy stocks low and sell them high, and that's part of what rebalancing does. Egan recommends setting up automatic rebalancing four times a year so you can forget about the market and spend more time with your baby or your family. Chris Arnold, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF DEER TICK SONG, "TWENTY MILES")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Last night, President Trump tweeted about Chicago gun violence, saying he'll send in the feds if the city doesn't fix the horrible carnage going on. Two-hundred-forty-seven people have reportedly been shot since the first of the year, 44 of them fatally. And that's a jump from last year's numbers. NPR's David Schaper reports.
DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: There's no question the tragic and intransient problem of gun violence weighs heavily on Chicago residents.
KEITH MUHAMMED: This is nothing new in Chicago.
SCHAPER: But it is worse than it's been in nearly two decades, especially here in the West Garfield Park neighborhood where 45-year-old Keith Muhammed lives. However, when President Trump tweets that he'll send in the feds, Muhammed is skeptical.
MUHAMMED: That's not going to stop it.
SCHAPER: Why not?
MUHAMMED: Because he needs to address the underlying issue. The feds or the police has nothing to do why people are killing.
SCHAPER: Muhammed and others say there's a sense of hopelessness among many in communities such as this that leads young people in particular to engage in violence. Its cause stems from decades of poverty, entrenched gangs, easy access to guns and a lack of economic opportunity.
So if Trump is talking about more federal resources for education, job training and economic development, Muhammed would welcome it. And so too would 46-year-old Willie Turner.
WILLIE TURNER: See; if there was more jobs out there, there'd probably be less crime rate out here.
SCHAPER: At Chicago's city hall, reaction to the president's tweet is somewhat cautious.
SCOTT WAGUESPACK: Well, I think we welcome help, but it can't be done in the form of a shallow tweet.
SCHAPER: Alderman Scott Waguespack...
WAGUESPACK: You know, if he wanted to come here and sit down with people and talk through what the needs are - they've sent help before in the form of ATF agents, and I think that's appropriate.
SCHAPER: The feds already help fight violence in Chicago with the ATF, the FBI, the DEA and the U.S. Attorney's Office combating gun and drug trafficking among other crimes. Waguespack and other city officials say they welcome additional agents and prosecutors in those offices if that's what President Trump is suggesting in his tweet. Here's another Alderman, Anthony Beale.
ANTHONY BEALE: Is he posturing - absolutely. But if he's going to posture to help reduce the crime in my community, let him posture. Bring the resources in to help save our children that are being killed every single day.
SCHAPER: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel agrees. The city could use more federal resources to fight violent crime and to hire more police officers. But Emanuel rejects the inference that the city needs the National Guard to help patrol Chicago's streets.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RAHM EMANUEL: I'm against it, straight up.
SCHAPER: Emanuel says federal troops would undermine the city's efforts to restore the sorely lacking trust that is needed between Chicago police and many city residents.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
EMANUEL: It's antithetical to the spirit of what community policing is.
SCHAPER: And that does not appear to be what President Trump is suggesting. White House spokesman Sean Spicer says the president simply wants to start a dialogue with Mayor Emanuel. David Schaper, NPR News, Chicago.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Congressional Republicans have gathered in Philadelphia for the party's annual retreat. President Trump and Vice President Pence will join them tomorrow. Republicans say they'll use the meeting to decide the party's strategy to repeal and replace Obamacare. NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis has more on that effort.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Republicans have a plan to replace Obamacare. In fact, they have several. The latest came this week from Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. They say it meets the requirements for replacement outlined by President Trump. Here's Cassidy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BILL CASSIDY: That he wishes all to be covered, that he wishes those with pre-existing conditions to continue to have coverage, that there not be mandates and that we make it lower cost. I think - and I think Senator Collins would agree - that there's not many ways to get there, and as far as we know, none better than this.
DAVIS: The Cassidy-Collins plan would give states three options - keep Obamacare as is, enact their own insurance expansion or opt out of federal assistance entirely. It's unique in that it's the only plan so far that could keep Obamacare partially intact. Collins admits it's a work in progress. But she says Republicans need to nail down their plan to calm down the public.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SUSAN COLLINS: But if we do not start putting specific legislation on the table that can be debated, refined, amended and enacted, then we will fail the American people.
DAVIS: It's also a non-starter for many conservatives, who believe anything less than full repeal would be breaking a fundamental campaign pledge. A bloc of conservatives in the House introduced their own plan earlier this month. That one would repeal the individual mandate and replace it with a system that gives people tax credits if they choose to buy insurance. North Carolina Republican Mark Walker is a co-sponsor.
MARK WALKER: It's something that's a good base. I've said this the other day. It's round one of a 15-round engagement.
DAVIS: Other key players, like Senate Health Chairman Lamar Alexander, are taking things off the table. Here's Alexander in an exchange with Georgia Congressman Tom Price, Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, at a recent hearing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LAMAR ALEXANDER: Let me ask you this. Is this the bill - any effort to replace and repeal Obamacare - is this the bill to reform Medicare?
TOM PRICE: Absolutely not.
DAVIS: Medicare may be off the table, but Medicaid is on it. The health care program for the poor was expanded under Obamacare. Trump administration officials have said their upcoming plan will include a longstanding conservative proposal to overhaul Medicaid from a guaranteed benefit to a block grant system. That would give states authority on how to spend that money.
But that plan would likely run into a democratic blockade in the Senate, where Democrats oppose pretty much everything Republicans are trying to do to repeal Obamacare, which means Republicans are also strategizing on how to go it alone like Democrats ultimately did seven years ago. Here's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MITCH MCCONNELL: We anticipate no cooperation from the other side. And so it - you know, it would be incumbent upon us, us meaning Republicans, to come up with a replacement.
DAVIS: All of these concerns will be aired out at the retreat by key stakeholders, says House speaker Paul Ryan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAUL RYAN: We're going to work with all of our committees that are in charge of health care legislation - the Education and Workforce Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Commerce Committee - and we're going to have a full, exhausting conversation at our retreat to go through all of these things.
DAVIS: And Walker, a sponsor of the House conservatives' plan, says Republicans are acutely aware of the challenges presented by their repeal and replace plans.
WALKER: This is something that I believe if we don't get right Democrats will do their best to make the key focal point in the 2018 elections. So there is some motivation. It's not just the fact - we want to do the right thing. This is something very sensitive when it comes to people's health care. But from a political side, there's a benefit to get it right as well.
DAVIS: And huge political risks if they don't - just ask Democrats. Susan Davis, NPR News, the Capitol.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now to Vermont, and a town where the mayor is seeking Syrian refugees. Just last week, the first two of possibly 25 refugee families arrived in Rutland. It's a blue collar town of about 16,000 people. Refugee advocates worry that the Trump administration could suspend refugee programs at any time, just as Trump promised to do during his campaign. Some in Rutland would favor that, while others say the town needs the infusion of diversity. Vermont Public Radio's Nina Keck reports.
NINA KECK, BYLINE: The first two families arrived quietly at night - four adults, five kids, all exhausted - we're told. The media was not invited, and reporters were asked to be sensitive to the family's privacy. Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras, who's been a champion of resettlement, helped both families move in.
CHRISTOPHER LOURAS: As our new neighbors - fleeing for their lives, coming to a new home a half a world away to rebuild those lives - they needed to understand that they were welcome.
KECK: Louras applied on behalf off of Rutland to receive refugees, beating out several other Vermont towns to do it. The local high school is planning a Syrian dinner to help introduce the families, but there remains an uncomfortable divide over bringing Syrians to town.
(SOUNDBITE OF FIDDLE PLAYING)
LOURAS: You get a sense of it at the local farmer's market, where vendors sell everything from kombucha and winter vegetables to steaming mulled cider. Some worry about the vetting process and the cost of resettling refugees. Fifty-one-year-old Michael Spafford took a break from selling fudge to admit he's torn by the issue.
MICHAEL SPAFFORD: I get that America is open arms to all the people from different countries and that's how we're a melting pot. What I'm concerned about is I know people who are living in the woods because they're poor and they're homeless, and I know veterans who aren't getting proper care. Something Donald Trump did say the other day - America is giving money out to so many other countries. I can't help but think we should be taking care of our own first.
KECK: Refugee proponents, and there are many in Rutland, counter that it's not an either or, but it's a debate that's been raging for months. Back in April, when Mayor Louras announced the plan, many were surprised - Rutland hasn't taken in refugees before. The mayor said helping Syrians was the right thing to do, but he also believes refugees could help solve a problem. Rutland's population is shrinking. Lyle Jepson, director of the Rutland Economic Development Council (ph), says the city's population is expected to decline another 10 to 16 percent by 2030. Even more worrisome - most of that drop will be among those under age 50.
LYLE JEPSON: What that means is we're entering a crisis period. We're aging, we're retiring, we're living much longer, and there are fewer people coming in to replace us.
KECK: Jepson points to data gathered by the Vermont Chamber Foundation that says the entire state will need nearly 11,000 new employees a year until 2040 to replace retirees and fill new jobs.
JEPSON: We hear people say our children are leaving because there are no jobs here. We need to change that narrative because there are jobs here.
KECK: He says young motivated refugees would be a welcome part of the talent pool in Rutland. The first newcomers include people who are multi-lingual, one has a degree in French literature. Depending on their skills, he says they could find work with local hotels, nursing homes, the nearby Killington Ski Resort or local GE plant.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: OK, dill pickles. Thank you.
KECK: Back at the farmer's market, Josh Squire wraps up a sale. The 32-year-old moved to Rutland from Delaware, which he describes as much more culturally diverse. Rutland, he says, needs more of that.
JOSH SQUIRE: Different ideas can spur a new business, and that new business brings in money for the economy. So having, you know, even a couple more hundred people in our little town, it's going to make a big difference for us.
KECK: But he worries that if the U.S. scales back its refugee programs, the first two Syrian families here could be the last. For NPR News, I'm Nina Keck in Rutland, Vt.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS SONG, "TILTED")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Trump says he plans to call for a major investigation into voter fraud. His tweet today followed widespread repudiation of his claim that millions of people voted illegally in November, keeping him from winning the popular vote. The president has provided no evidence of such massive fraud, and the overwhelming majority of election experts say that's because it doesn't exist. NPR's Pam Fessler reports.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: Part of the controversy is President Trump's use of the word fraud. In his tweet, Trump says he'll ask for a major investigation into voter fraud, including those who he calls illegal, as well as those who are dead but still registered to vote, and those who are registered in two states.
DAVID BECKER: That's not voter fraud. That's just people moving and never thinking to cancel their voter registration in their old state.
FESSLER: David Becker says it's a problem, but not evidence that people are voting illegally. The same is true of all those dead people still on the rolls. Becker's the author of a 2012 Pew report about the need to clean up state voter registration lists.
Trump and the White House have cited his report repeatedly to back claims that fraud is rampant, but Becker says that's not what his study found at all and neither have numerous other investigations, including one by the U.S. Justice Department under George W. Bush.
BECKER: We know the answer to the question is there widespread voter fraud in the country, and the answer is no.
FESSLER: Still, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer today defended the need for a new investigation. He said it would help to ensure that everyone's vote is counted equally.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SEAN SPICER: I think we have to understand where the problem exists, how deep it goes and then suggest some remedies to it.
FESSLER: And he said one of those remedies might be more voter ID requirements. Spicer didn't say who would conduct the inquiry, and that more details will be available later this week. All of this has the people who run elections - and think they're already doing a pretty good job - extremely unnerved. Denise Merrill is Connecticut's secretary of state and president of the National Association of Secretaries of State.
DENISE MERRILL: I can tell you that as a nonpartisan organization, I think there's pretty uniform sense that any federal intervention into essentially local elections would not be welcome.
FESSLER: Especially, she says, because there's no need. The secretaries group, which includes Republicans and Democrats, issued a statement yesterday saying that it has no evidence to support the president's claims of fraud. Merrill also notes that states are constantly working to update their voter rolls and that there are protections in the law to make sure that no legitimate voter is accidentally removed. She worries that Trump's remarks undercut public confidence in a system that for the most part works very well.
MERRILL: I think it's very dangerous to start claiming with no evidence that our elections are illegitimate.
FESSLER: Voting rights advocates are even more alarmed. They worry the investigation will be used to justify new voting laws that they believe will restrict access to the polls. Judith Browne Dianis is executive director of Advancement Project, one of several groups that have spent the last few years fighting such laws in court.
JUDITH BROWNE DIANIS: This is a setup for a few things, one of which is potentially moving a federal bill on voter ID or proof of citizenship in order to vote. It could be also an opening for attacking the National Voter Registration Act.
FESSLER: Also known as Motor Voter, a law that makes it easier to register when getting a driver's license. Some Republicans, including some in the Trump administration, think that long-standing law has helped to facilitate voter fraud. Pam Fessler, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Lately the Amazon bestseller list has become something of a political barometer. Congressman John Lewis' memoir "March" rose to the top after President Trump criticized him for questioning the legitimacy of the election. Since the election, "Hillbilly Elegy" - a memoir that's become a guide to working-class America - has been at or near the top of the list. And now the classic dystopian novel "1984" is number one, as NPR's Lynn Neary reports.
LYNN NEARY, BYLINE: The Amazon bestseller list is updated hourly, so it can swiftly track a surge in the book's popularity. A spokesman for Signet Classics, which currently publishes "1984," said sales have increased almost 10,000 percent since the inauguration and moved noticeably upwards on Sunday. That's when Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway appeared on "Meet The Press." When host Chuck Todd challenged the Trump administration's assertions about the size of the Inauguration Day crowd, Conway responded with a phrase that caught everyone's attention.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MEET THE PRESS")
KELLYANNE CONWAY: You're saying it's a falsehood. And they're giving - Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that, but...
NEARY: Later that day on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty mentioned "1984" author George Orwell while discussing the phrase alternative facts.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "RELIABLE SOURCES")
KAREN TUMULTY: It's a George Orwell phrase.
NEARY: Tumulty says it's been a long time since she read "1984," but she couldn't help thinking of it when she heard what Conway said.
TUMULTY: It just immediately reminded me of doublethink, and war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. There's really no alternative to the facts.
NEARY: CNN tweeted Tumulty's remark, and other journalists also made the connection. Yesterday, The New York Times' influential book critic Michiko Kakutani tweeted excerpts from the book, including this one.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Newspeak was designed not to extend, but to diminish the range of thought.
NEARY: For her part, Karen Tumulty says she's more concerned where all this is leading.
TUMULTY: Unless you can have pretty much everybody agree to precisely what the truth is and what the reality is, it really - it's hard to imagine a situation where people then can sit down and negotiate and figure their way towards solutions.
NEARY: Earlier this week, Signet ordered a new printing of 75,000 copies of "1984" and is considering even more. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL #1, HOST:
The new film "The Founder" tells the story of Ray Kroc, played by Michael Keaton. Kroc was a hard-luck salesman when he saw a hamburger stand in California and eventually pitched Dick and Mac McDonald on letting him franchise it. He tells them at one point that their golden arches can become as common as crosses on church steeples in every town in America.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE FOUNDER")
MICHAEL KEATON: (As Ray Kroc) It could be said that that beautiful building flanked by those arches signifies more or less the same thing. It doesn't just say, delicious hamburgers inside. They signify family. It signifies community. It's a place where Americans come together to break bread. I am telling you, McDonald's can be the new American church, feeding bodies and feeding souls. And it ain't just open on Sundays, boys. It's open seven days a week.
SIEGEL #1: And we all know the rest. Here to talk about the film is the screenwriter who wrote "The Founder" and with the interesting name of Robert Siegel. Robert Siegel, welcome to the program once again.
ROBERT SIEGEL #2: Hello, Robert Siegel.
SIEGEL #1: Now, Ray Kroc sees how the McDonald Brothers figured out the idea of a very small menu, very fast service, no plates, no flatware to wash. He takes those ideas big-time. How do you see him? Somebody who stole a good idea or somebody whose business sense was a form of creativity in itself?
SIEGEL #2: What's the saying about mediocre artists borrow and great artists steal? Do you know that phrase? You could look at him as a thief. But you could also look at him as a visionary of sorts. Not a creative visionary, but certainly saw something in this company that the company itself didn't see, which was just to go absolutely enormous with it. The brothers thought big, but he thought huge.
SIEGEL #1: That speech that we heard a bit of, is that attributable to Ray Kroc or did you write that?
SIEGEL #2: It's actually attributable to my wife, Jen Cohn.
SIEGEL #1: This was just at home? Or was she actually working on the movie with you?
SIEGEL #2: Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. We - I'd just show her pages and I'd talk it through. And she kind of had this idea for this crosses-arches-courthouse thing. You know, I'm writing a movie about a guy who steals someone else's idea and takes credit for it. And every time that clip is aired I'm enormously tempted to do the same. But that would be rather ironic and extremely hypocritical if I didn't give her credit.
SIEGEL #1: A problem that you face in writing about a guy trying to take this business idea and vying with the two guys who originated the first example of it is that we know how it's going to end. When it's McDonald's, we understand that there are going to be a zillion McDonalds all over the world and Ray Kroc is going to become fabulously rich as a result of it. How do you deal with that problem and trying to invest this with some suspense?
SIEGEL #2: Well, it's like "Titanic," right? You knew eventually there was going to be an iceberg. It is a challenge. Rather than focus on plot, you just kind of pay attention more to character. If you make sure your character is interesting and engages the audience all the way through then, you know, even if you know kind of where it's going you're invested and you're interested in the movie, hopefully.
SIEGEL #1: Your previous films - this is, I should say, Robert Siegel's second career after editing The Onion for a long time - you wrote "The Wrestler" and "Big Fan," both sports movies.
SIEGEL #2: Yes.
SIEGEL #1: Sports, hamburgers - a very different subject for you to look at.
SIEGEL #2: Well, they're all - I mean, it's all pop culture. They're all character - they're all depressing character studies, guys on the outside looking in to some aspect of American pop culture, sports and hamburgers. I don't think it's that different. They're all about America and winning and losing and fame and capitalism and...
SIEGEL #1: And men.
SIEGEL #2: Yeah. Yeah. I write about men.
SIEGEL #1: Guys.
SIEGEL #2: Yeah.
SIEGEL #1: How would you describe the research you put into your study of Ray Kroc and McDonald's?
SIEGEL #2: I was handed a giant stack of transcripts and archival material, and then I just kind of didn't look at it. You can get really lost in research. It's a great way to procrastinate. In this case I just read - I read Ray Kroc's autobiography. And then there was an unauthorized autobiography.
SIEGEL #1: I think you mean biography.
SIEGEL #2: Unauthorized - did I say unauthorized autobiography?
SIEGEL #1: Yeah.
SIEGEL #2: That would be weird.
SIEGEL #1: Yeah.
SIEGEL #2: No, an unauthorized biography of him. So it's kind of the, you know, warts and all behind-the-scenes thing.
SIEGEL #1: Did you come away from researching Ray Kroc and then writing the screenplay liking the man?
SIEGEL #2: I still don't know. I've seen the movie seven times now, probably, in different stages, and I still don't really know how I feel about him. Sometimes I watch it and all the way through I kind of strangely admire him and I find myself frustrated with the brothers. And then there are times when I watch it and I just think he's a complete bastard. So I think the truth is probably both.
SIEGEL #1: Well, Robert Siegel - Robert D. Siegel. I'm sorry about that.
SIEGEL #2: Yeah. It's sad when I Google myself and all that comes up is you.
SIEGEL #1: (Laughter).
SIEGEL #2: Damn it.
SIEGEL #1: Robert Siegel, screenwriter, writer of "The Founder," the story of Ray Kroc. Thanks for talking with us.
SIEGEL #2: Thank you, pleasure.
SIEGEL #1: And one note - in her will, Ray Kroc's widow, philanthropist Joan Kroc, left over $200 million to NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH'S "BLUE TURNING GRAY")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
When a Vermont mayor's sought to make his town a home for Syrians fleeing their country's war, he drew opposition from national groups that say Syrian refugees could be dangerous. Well, those opponents have gained traction under President Trump. This week, he told ABC News he would make deep cuts in the U.S. refugee program.
Trump's message is reverberating in little Rutland, Vt. It has just received two Syrian families, and they might be the last. NPR's Deborah Amos reports.
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: Usually we'd start a story like this on the streets of Rutland, and we'll get there in a moment. We start this story in Washington at the offices of the Center for Security Policy to meet director Frank Gaffney. He's published books and policy papers that supply some of the talking points for a national anti-refugee campaign and was cited by Donald Trump when he was a candidate. Here's Gaffney.
FRANK GAFFNEY: I think you are going to see a very different attitude towards the whole program, the whole problem.
AMOS: He's talking about refugees, Muslim refugees.
GAFFNEY: They have to share our values.
AMOS: Gaffney insists many Muslims who come here want to impose Islamic law or Sharia in America, views that others, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, describe as paranoid fantasies. Gaffney is on the group's hate watch list.
What do you say when they say, you are a hater; you are Islamophobe?
GAFFNEY: I say the Southern Poverty Law Center is being used to suppress people who are telling the truth. We're simply going to be saying the same things we've always been saying. It's just that they're going to, at this point in the dynamic, be policy.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOGHORN)
AMOS: And now to Rutland, Vt. I'm standing in front of the fire station where that foghorn goes off every night at 10 minutes to 9. It's a signature of the city, and so are the darkened storefronts here and the light traffic. It's where Frank Gaffney's views played out locally as this town divided over resettling 25 Syrian refugee families.
As word spread that President Trump was going to scale back the refugee program, something that Frank Gaffney had promoted, it was bad news for Rutland's mayor, Christopher Louras.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Say this again.
CHRISTOPHER LOURAS: We are done.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: OK.
LOURAS: (Unintelligible). It's done.
AMOS: At a local cafe, the mayor explains to his supporters that the two Syrian families that have arrived are probably the last. Sandy Gartner breaks down in tears.
SANDY GARTNER: There are some of us want them.
AMOS: She was part of a volunteer group - Rutland Welcomes - that made elaborate plans to assimilate the 25 families into this blue-collar town. The mayor is devastated, too.
LOURAS: Better they heard it from me than read about it in the newspaper.
AMOS: People were crying.
LOURAS: People should be crying for humanity's sake, for the community's sake.
AMOS: Louras says he wanted Rutland to host the Syrians to do the right thing, but he also wanted newcomers to boost a community that's rapidly losing population and needs workers. Rutland was built by immigrants a hundred years ago. Now Syrians could inject new energy.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America...
AMOS: And here's where the national campaign comes back in the picture. At Rutland's library, national anti-refugee activists came to speak. One was James Simpson. His book "The Red-Green Axis" charges that the American left and Muslim extremists are working together to undermine America. It's the same message he delivers on a radio show run by Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy.
JAMES SIMPSON: And it's a duty of Muslims according to the Koran to settle, populate and take over the places that they immigrate to.
AMOS: The man who invited Simpson to speak here is Dr. Tim Cook. I meet him at his medical clinic. He says he agrees with Simpson's message that Muslim newcomers are different than previous immigrants.
TIM COOK: We have a community that is steeped in 250 years of Eurocentric culture.
AMOS: He points to a vacant storefront outside his clinic. He knows Rutland needs an economic boost but declares refugees are not the answer.
COOK: It just seems - I mean I'm trying to be polite about this. But it seems a little delusional.
AMOS: In the end, Rutland didn't say no to Syrian resettlement, but President Trump seems poised to close that door. Back at Rutland's Speakeasy Cafe, Peg Andrews, a former member of Vermont's legislature, says the fight isn't over.
PEG ANDREWS: I think there are a lot of people who really feel very strongly that this is the right thing for us do and it's the right thing for the community.
AMOS: For now, she and others in Rutland are trying to find a way to keep the refugees coming. Deborah Amos, NPR News, Rutland, Vt.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEBASTIEN TELLIER SONG, "FANTINO")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
More than a century ago, a series of drawings transformed how scientists understood the brain. Spanish scientist and artist Santiago Ramon y Cajal captured the anatomy of nerve cells in unprecedented detail. Many of Cajal's images are so beautiful that an art museum in Minneapolis has organized a traveling exhibition of his work. NPR's Jon Hamilton reports.
JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: What Einstein did for physics, Ramon y Cajal did for neuroscience.
LARRY SWANSON: Before Cajal, it was just completely different.
HAMILTON: Larry Swanson is a brain scientist at the University of Southern California.
SWANSON: Most of the neuroscientists in the mid-19th century thought that the nervous system was organized almost like a fishing net.
HAMILTON: They thought it was a single, continuous web, not a collection of separate cells. Swanson says Cajal's vision of the brain challenged the conventional wisdom.
SWANSON: Cajal looked under the microscope at different parts of the brain and said, you know what? It's not like a fishing net. There are individual units called nerve cells or neurons that are put together in chains to form circuits.
HAMILTON: Cajal didn't just take notes about what he saw. He made sketches, extraordinary sketches. As a young man, Cajal had planned to be an artist. His father, who was a doctor, wanted his son to study medicine. So Cajal did, but he also began sketching what he saw during dissections and autopsies and later through the lens of a microscope. Swanson says when Cajal began to focus on the brain, he discovered a whole new world.
SWANSON: There are hundreds of different shapes, like trees, like plants, and so they have really beautiful designs.
HAMILTON: Cajal won a Nobel Prize in 1906. His work later helped scientists figure out everything from how neurons communicate to how diseases like Alzheimer's disrupt the brain. And Swanson says Cajal's drawings are so clear and accurate that they still appear in neuroscience textbooks.
SWANSON: The model of the nerve cell that everybody still learns is the one that Cajal laid out in the 1890s.
HAMILTON: Even so, Cajal is relatively unknown outside of scientific circles. Lyndel King, director of the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, says she'd never heard of him when she was approached by two brain scientists from the University of Minnesota. King says the scientists proposed an exhibition of Cajal's drawings.
LYNDEL KING: I looked at some of them in books and I said, wow, yes. We are going to do this. They're beautiful, beautiful drawings. They're scientific drawings, but they're art at the same time.
HAMILTON: It took years to arrange the event with the Cajal Institute in Madrid and the Spanish government. And King says choosing the drawings was hard because artists and scientists see things differently.
KING: They might say oh, this drawing is absolutely really important scientifically, and I would say, yeah, but it's really dull visually. It's not aesthetically appealing.
HAMILTON: Eventually they agreed on 80 drawings for an exhibition called "The Beautiful Brain." There's a companion book with the same title. King says Cajal's images evoke much more than brain anatomy.
KING: I particularly like one of the glial cells of the cerebral cortex of a child. And to me, it looks like fireworks, the Fourth of July, all the little cells with all their dendrites.
HAMILTON: King says the drawings offer an example of how art contributes to science.
KING: Drawing is a way of thinking, and Cajal made these drawings as part of his thinking through his theories about the brain.
HAMILTON: Theories that were shown to be correct decades after his death. The Cajal exhibition opens this weekend in Minneapolis and will eventually travel to other cities. Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MELODIUM SONG, "BIDUAL")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of a tragic moment for America's space program - the Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts. The fire erupted on the launch pad during a routine test. The accident shocked NASA just as the agency was ramping up to meet President John F. Kennedy's challenge of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Brendan Byrne of member station WMFE looks at how lessons from the Apollo 1 tragedy paved the way for successful trips to the moon.
BRENDAN BYRNE, BYLINE: The test was a dress rehearsal for the Apollo 1 crew - Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. The ultimate goal was to check out the command module, NASA's first three-manned spacecraft that would take astronauts to the moon. The crew was rehearsing the real launch about a month away. They were suited up and in the capsule running through checklists and testing equipment, but something sparked the oxygen-rich environment. Within seconds, the capsule filled with flames, smoke and toxic gases. NASA engineer John Tribe was working in the control room when it happened.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN TRIBE: It was incomprehensible to us how on earth we could have a fire in the cockpit.
BYRNE: The astronauts were killed almost instantly, and the entire incident lasted less than five minutes.
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TRIBE: We had imagined the worst. We'd hoped for the best. It was not to be. We'd lost three of our team.
BYRNE: The accident halted the Apollo program as NASA scrambled to figure out what went wrong. Reporter George Alexander was 1 of only 3 journalists allowed to visit the capsule after the fire.
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GEORGE ALEXANDER: What burned? I'd have to say just about everything that was in there, except for these few odd bits and pieces, like a page which had only its edges - a page about this size - it had only its edges slightly browned - and this bit of parachute harness, but everything else burned in there.
BYRNE: The capsule was pressurized with a hundred percent oxygen. In that environment, something not considered a fire hazard was extremely combustible. The hatch of the capsule opened inward, making it difficult for the crew to open it. After the accident, there were hundreds of significant changes to the capsule and safety procedures. The redesigned capsule would use a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, reducing the fire risk, and a new hatch was designed that could be opened in just five seconds.
Only 21 months later, NASA sent humans back into space aboard Apollo 7. And less than a year after that, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed Apollo 11 on the moon. Astronaut Michael Collins was also on that mission. He says if the fire on Apollo 1 hadn't happened, it's likely a similar action would have occurred in space, and that could have led to the program's cancellation.
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MICHAEL COLLINS: Without it, very likely we would have not landed on the moon, as president had wished, by the end of the decade.
BYRNE: The successes of the Apollo lunar program overshadowed the loss of the crew. For 50 years, NASA kept the Apollo 1 command module locked up until now. Beginning tomorrow, the hatch from the burned capsule will be put on public display as a tribute to the sacrifices of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. For NPR News, I'm Brendan Byrne at the Kennedy Space Center.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The CW TV network has a lot of shows that appeal to teenagers. The new show "Riverdale" tells the story of some teenagers who have been around for more than 75 years.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "RIVERDALE")
KEVIN KELLER: (As Casey Cott) Oh, my God.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) What?
KELLER: (As Casey Cott) Archie got hot. He's got abs now - six more reasons for you to take that Ginger bull by the horns tonight.
SHAPIRO: Archie is the famous redhead Archie Andrews. His best friends are Betty and Veronica. Yes, "Riverdale" is the latest incarnation of the all-American "Archie Comics." As you can tell from that clip, the show the premiered tonight has none of the aw-shucks innocence of the original. This town is full of forbidden love, secrets and murder.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "RIVERDALE")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Riverdale police dragged Sweetwater River for Jason's body, but never found it.
SHAPIRO: Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa is the chief creative officer for "Archie Comics" and a producer on the show. Welcome to the program.
ROBERTO AGUIRRE-SACASA: Nice to be here. Thank you.
SHAPIRO: I understand you grew up reading the "Archie Comics." Why were they so important to you as a kid?
AGUIRRE-SACASA: You know, when I was really young, before comic book shops opened up as specialty shops, I would go to the 7-Eleven and off the spinning rack, I would buy comic books - superhero, horror comic books. And I kind of a look back on that time a lot and try to analyze why I became so obsessed with these characters. And at the time, it was because I really wanted to be friends with these kids.
I went to kind of an all-boys prep school in Maryland, but my desire had been to go to a public school like Riverdale High and to be friends with people like Archie and Jughead and Betty and Veronica. And, you know, I kind of expressed this to my parents, and they were like, well, if you go to a public school in D.C., it's probably not going to be like Riverdale High.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Maybe it'll be more like the Riverdale of the CW, which is much more racially diverse than the Riverdale of the original "Archie Comics."
AGUIRRE-SACASA: Exactly, exactly. And kind of the older I got, you know, it was sort of - it became very in vogue for comic book superheroes, especially, to be really dark and brooding. There was something, again, about the "Archie" characters that was inherently optimistic, inherently innocent and comforting. So I think that's why kind of they always had a warm spot in my heart.
SHAPIRO: OK. So how do you strike the balance between, on the one hand wanting to maintain the innocence, the joy, the love that people feel for these sort of all-American characters and, on the other hand, wanting to bring it into this dark place of sex and murder.
AGUIRRE-SACASA: Kind of the guiding principle for us is that we maintain the absolute core of the characters from the comics - from, you know, the 75-year canon of "Archie Comics."
SHAPIRO: So Betty is sort of the sweet, blonde girl next door. Veronica remains the kind of spoiled, entitled rich girl. Jughead is always the outsider.
AGUIRRE-SACASA: Yeah, and Archie is sort of, like, a good kid who always tries to do the right thing and help his friends, kind of screws up, but then his - ultimately comes through. And we take those archetypes, exactly as you just said. And we put them in much more morally complex, adult, even criminal situations, and we see what they do.
SHAPIRO: So I'm imagining a young Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the child of a Nicaraguan diplomat, living in Washington, D.C., reading this pretty lily-white comic book. And you've now created a show where Josie and the Pussycats are black. There's an openly gay character. Veronica's Latina. And yet, at least in the first four episodes that were made available to us, race and diversity are not plot themes.
AGUIRRE-SACASA: You know, I think it's a little bit more about class, and we definitely play the right and the wrong side of the tracks. We definitely play characters who are affluent and some characters who are really, really struggling. Their parents are struggling financially. They're struggling financially.
SHAPIRO: Archie just celebrated his 75th birthday last year, and for a while, it seemed like the comics were becoming less and less relevant. Does the fact that Archie was sort of persona non grata for a few decades mean that you were able to do some of these crazy things that you wouldn't have been able to do if it remained this cherished property sitting on a high mountain that nobody could touch?
AGUIRRE-SACASA: Well, there definitely had to be people in charge of Archie who were willing to take risks. The other thing that really allows us to take these different takes - the noir crime take of Riverdale - is that the characters, when they were conceived, were so strong. They're such archetypes that they really can carry - you can throw a lot of stuff at them, and the archetypes hold. There was something - there's something very flinty about the character, something very steel-like, and I think that's what allows us to imagine these different scenarios.
SHAPIRO: Well, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, thanks so much for talking with us about your new show "Riverdale."
AGUIRRE-SACASA: Thank you so much.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Trump administration put new restrictions this week on government scientists' freedom to communicate. Administration officials say those restrictions are temporary. In fact, some have already been lifted. Scientists are still on edge, though, because the federal government generates a huge amount of climate data. Here's NPR's Christopher Joyce with what's at stake.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: Data is the brick and mortar of science. With good data, you can say things like this.
DEREK ARNDT: 2016 was the warmest year on record, beating 2015 by a few hundredths of a degree. And together, those two years really blow away the rest of our record.
JOYCE: Derek Arndt is a climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He knows how warm it was because NOAA operates 17 satellites that, among other things, take the planet's temperature along with myriad instruments that do the same on land and in the oceans.
When you add NASA's satellites and instruments and scientists and those at other agencies, you get the country's biggest source of climate data by far. And researchers like Greg Asner say it's the main way we know what's going on with the climate. Asner studies forests at Stanford University.
GREG ASNER: Without it, we will go blind. It's like turning off the lights. We're not going to know what's happening at the Earth scale.
JOYCE: It doesn't stop with just collecting data. Government scientists analyze it and eventually release it to the public in reports like the National Climate Assessment. There have been three of those so far. A fourth is due out next year. The assessments are required by law. Scientists from several federal agencies write them. They summarize the latest consensus on climate science. Ocean scientist William Sweet at NOAA is writing a section on sea level rise.
WILLIAM SWEET: Sea level rise is already happening, and the impacts can be felt.
JOYCE: But those impacts are not the same everywhere.
SWEET: The ocean is not a bathtub. It may rise in one place. It may drop in the other.
JOYCE: Ocean currents, wind patterns, even sinking or rising land determine who's going to get wet and when. Research prepared for the latest assessment says the East Coast and parts of the Gulf Coast, for example, will experience even higher sea levels than the world average. And that world average - it could be eight feet higher than it is now by the end of the century. That's the worst-case scenario. It probably will be less. A lot depends on how much more carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere.
Sweet says in the short term, the assessment provides news you can use. For example, there has been an uptick in abnormally high tides, tides that cause so-called sunny day flooding even when there's no storm.
SWEET: At what point do these damaging, disruptive tidal flood events become the new norm?
JOYCE: Sweet says the latest Climate Assessment will answer that question so that coastal towns and cities can prepare, deploy pumps, buy sandbags or even build seawalls. That's just a small part of the assessments. They also cover everything from drought to extreme rainfall.
So what happens if the Trump administration tries to censor this huge scientific enterprise? Peter deMenocal is dean of science at Columbia University. He says there just isn't any substitute for what federal climate scientists produce.
PETER DEMENOCAL: The United States I think has the best organized and some of the top talent in climate science and engineering in the world. You know, the concern is that that brain trust, that amazing compendium of knowledge that we have right now is going to disappear because it's really hard-earned.
JOYCE: Knowledge that informs not just research but weather forecasting, farming, public safety, the insurance industry, air travel, in fact just about everything we do. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
And now a peek into the most isolated country in the world, North Korea. Its highest ranking defector in decades says getting more information into the country is key to toppling Kim Jong Un's regime. NPR's Elise Hu reports.
ELISE HU, BYLINE: You hear a lot about the North Korean elite. Thae Yong Ho actually was one. He served as North Korea's deputy ambassador in London for 10 years before defecting last summer with his wife and two sons.
THAE YONG HO: And when we got out of the embassy, I told them that now I'm going to cut the chain of slavery, and you are a free man.
HU: The family now lives in South Korea, where his 19- and 26-year-old sons' first concern was whether they could freely browse the Internet.
THAE: You can go to internet. You can do Internet game what - whenever you like. You can read any books. You can watch any films.
HU: That's not life in North Korea. Outside books, films and information are banned. Fewer than 1 percent of North Koreans have access to the Internet, and breaking down the censorship and surveillance state from within, Thae believes, is the only way to bring down the nuclear-weapons-obsessed leader Kim Jong Un. He says with information comes knowledge, and that can lead to a popular uprising.
THAE: Once they are educated to that level, I'm sure that they will stand up.
HU: On the second floor of a multipurpose building just outside Seoul is one effort to educate the north, a shortwave radio station called Free North Korea Radio.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking Korean).
HU: Since 2005, it's been broadcasting across the border into the north for whoever can get its signal past jamming efforts.
SUZANNE SCHOLTE: The power of radio has been huge in advancing the cause of freedom and human rights.
HU: Suzanne Scholte is head of a private U.S. organization that helps fund the station. The station puts out at least an hour a day of programming produced by North Korean defectors for their fellow North Koreans to hear.
SCHOLTE: This is a critical way for them to understand that the source of their misery is Kim Jong Un and their true ally is the people of South Korea and the people of America.
HU: This kind of tactic is far more effective than any military action, the high-ranking diplomat defector says. And that's why the regime is so resistant to South Korean moves like loudspeakers on the border.
THAE: Kim Jong Un regime is trying every possibility to stop the influx of outside information.
HU: He argues information from the West into the former Soviet Union was key to bringing it down and that the many tactics used to spread information into the north these days are working.
THAE: The leaflets and USBs with films can be introduced to North Korea. So the ways of educating North Korean people for people's uprising is also evolving.
HU: Despite the total surveillance state, those with the means simply pay off the officers who catch them watching or listening to outside information.
THAE: So even this surveillance system getting more and more corrupted.
HU: Giving information an opening to get into a notoriously closed country. Elise Hu, NPR News, Seoul.
(SOUNDBITE OF BLOCKHEAD SONG, "CARNIVORES UNITE")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
On ABC tonight, a show returns to complete its 13th season. That is an impressively long run for any show, and just as impressive is the fact that lots of people are still tuning into this one. We're talking about "Grey's Anatomy."
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SHAPIRO: And our pop culture correspondent Linda Holmes is here to talk about why this TV drama has stuck around so long. Hi, Linda.
LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: So first remind people who haven't watched this show what it's all about.
HOLMES: So "Grey's Anatomy" is a medical drama. It takes place at a Seattle hospital. And it follows a group of doctors and some of their friends and romantic associates as they, you know, battle against the demands of being a doctor and also, of course, kiss and do other things, you know. It's one of several shows running on ABC that's under kind of the umbrella of Shonda Rhimes, who's one of the most powerful producers in television now.
SHAPIRO: She also does "Scandal" and other shows. Lots of hospital dramas have come and gone from television. What's the secret sauce for "Grey's Anatomy?"
HOLMES: Well, the easy answer is that the secret sauce is blood...
SHAPIRO: Ew (laughter), ew.
HOLMES: ...And, you know, any other bodily fluid that you might want to name because they do have a lot of fairly gory scenes and things like that, so the medicine is very exciting. They have a mix of kind of medical stories and personal stories. They have such a big cast that it's been able to kind of rotate through. They can survive people leaving. And Shonda Rhimes has been merciless about being willing to get rid of characters in a wide variety of reasons, to the point where if this were a real hospital, the title of the - of any article about it would be, like, "Doctors Meet Catastrophes Endlessly At Cursed Hospital."
SHAPIRO: You would never go to the hospital because so much bad stuff happens there.
HOLMES: You would - it's cursed. They have had shootings at the hospital. They've had natural disasters. They have had, you know, car accidents of very strange kinds. People get impaled with all sorts of objects - with antlers and poles and all kinds of things. It's very gory at times.
SHAPIRO: So you asked on Twitter why people are still watching this show after 13 seasons, and what did they tell you?
HOLMES: The things that I heard about the most were - one is the diversity of the cast, both in the sense that there's a lot of racial diversity among this cast, but also in the fact that there have always been a lot of LGBT characters, and they've been treated with a lot of respect. The other thing that people talked about the most with this show is this undercurrent of friendships among, particularly, the women characters on the show.
So where you have these catastrophic, kind of crazy external events and you have these very dramatic romances that are very changeable, the constant all the time is these deep friendships among these women doctors. And that is really the touchstone for a lot of people. They consider the - you know, the accidents and the disasters to be unbelievable and dramatic, but they consider the friendships to be deeply believable and real and relatable.
SHAPIRO: I know you haven't watched every episode for the last 13 seasons, but when you do come back and watch it, do you still find it appealing, even all this time after it started?
HOLMES: I do. It is a strongly written and acted show. And as with a lot of things that are part of a genre - right? - in this case, a medical - kind of a medical drama - so much depends on execution. I think that if you look at the times that networks have tried to duplicate the Shonda Rhimes formula and failed, you can see how good she is at what she does and how carefully she sets up those characters and balances that reality and unreality.
SHAPIRO: That's Linda Holmes, host of the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, on the return of "Grey's Anatomy" in its 13th season. Thanks, Linda.
HOLMES: Thanks, Ari.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We're now going to hear from another scientist who used to work for the federal government. Tracey Woodruff spent 13 years at the Environmental Protection Agency. She was a senior scientist and policy adviser starting in the Clinton administration, and she stayed through the George W. Bush administration. The focus of most of her research was air pollution. Dr. Woodruff, welcome to the program.
TRACEY WOODRUFF: Thank you.
SIEGEL: Earlier this week, the Trump transition team barred the EPA from communicating with the public - no blog posts, no social media postings, no press releases. That's been described as a temporary freeze, and it applies to scientific research papers, too.
You went through a transition from a Democratic administration to a Republican one. Is what you're hearing familiar, as par for the course or something unusual and different?
WOODRUFF: Well, I would say that actually during the transition between Clinton and Bush, there wasn't a general announcement that people should not put out scientific information, but we did actually experience some questioning about some work that we were doing related to children's health and the environment. And we actually got a lot of pushback from the White House about some information that we had been trying to publish.
So I don't think it's unusual that the administration might take a look and see what the scientists are doing at EPA, but I think the experience makes some of the scientists worried at EPA that they might see a return to that.
SIEGEL: I mean I think there's a difference between science and policy that's in some way related the science. I mean if you were asked to do a particular project, were you to say, no, that's a minefield; I don't want to do that; I know it's going to happen to it?
WOODRUFF: Yeah, that's a really good point because we have science, which is the pursuit of information, whereas public policy is really about taking the science we have at hand and then using it with the other factors that are important for making a decision. How do people feel about the decision? What are the costs and benefit? Who's going to be impacted? The policymaker should factor in those other factors in addition to the science when they make a decision.
But I think sometimes what ends up happening is science becomes a crutch in making decisions in terms of, well, we're going to wait until we have the absolute definitive proof from the science before we make a decision. The challenge with that for an agency like EPA is that, for example, in air pollution, people will be continued to be exposed to air pollution while we're waiting for more and more science to come in.
SIEGEL: As a former EPA scientist, are you pretty confident in the future of research at EPA, or are you concerned about its future?
WOODRUFF: I'm concerned. I think the statements about climate change being a hoax are concerning. Scientists around the world agree that climate change is important and that human activity is contributing to climate change. I know scientists who have been retiring or are thinking about retiring because they're worried about what's going to happen with their science or what's going to happen to them if they speak up about their science in the new administration.
SIEGEL: Given that you did research on air pollution - and I know your special interest. You're now at the University California, San Francisco OB-GYN department. You're interested in effects - environmental effects on prenatal and early life health. How significant was EPA's contribution to information in that field as opposed to, say, big university departments or other laboratories?
WOODRUFF: Oh, I think EPA's contribution to understanding the role the environment and health is critical. Actually some of the early studies that were done on the links between air pollution and mortality, which went to lead to a lot of the rule making that EPA has subsequently done, were done by EPA scientists.
And yet I think very few people think of EPA as an agency that's directly related to health. Not having EPA at the table in terms of talking about the science related to environment and health would be a big loss. And I think their contributions cannot be overestimated enough.
SIEGEL: That's Tracey Woodruff. She's a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She was a senior EPA scientist and policy adviser under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Tracey Woodruff, thank you for talking with us.
WOODRUFF: All right, thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Is there any reason for liberals to feel optimistic after a year of political disasters? Is there even a shred of silver lining to be found in the tatters of Brexit, Donald Trump's election and European disunity? Well, those are two questions posed by Ian Buruma in a recent article. Mr. Buruma is a human rights and journalism professor at Bard College who has written extensively about European history. He's a liberal who's writing recently looks at how Donald Trump's presidency might alter international political alignments. Ian Buruma, welcome back.
IAN BURUMA: Thank you.
SIEGEL: First, what do you see as the threat to international politics posed by Donald Trump's presidency?
BURUMA: Well, in short, the whole world order set up largely by the United States - at least in the West - after World War II to make sure such catastrophes would never happen again based on internationalism and cooperation and social equality and so on are now under threat because Donald Trump has said he wants to dismantle it. He's very suspicious of NATO. He doesn't really believe it's in the American interest to have allies except if they pay the United States and so on. So everything we looked up to in the West after the war seems to be unraveling.
SIEGEL: How well-positioned is Europe - at least the NATO part of Europe - to keep the peace in the region if indeed U.S. policy were to be that Washington regards NATO as obsolete?
BURUMA: They're very, very unprepared. One of my fears is that talk about not defending the Baltic states, for example, could tempt Vladimir Putin to try it on in a place like Latvia, which is NATO member. If NATO doesn't respond, that's really the end of NATO's credibility. If it does, it's war. And if it - if NATO loses its credibility, Europe is essentially defenseless.
SIEGEL: What do you think of the argument - perhaps not a very encouraging one - that the age of the U.S. leading NATO and playing a major role in the Pacific is today as antique as the European empires were a century ago. Inevitably, the post-World War II era would have to change and have to come to an end.
BURUMA: That may be true in the long run, but I don't see any alternative at the moment. The only two other major powers, apart from Europe, which is, of course, not really a unified power, are China and Russia. Neither of them seem to me to be desirable alternatives as regulators of the world order to the United States.
SIEGEL: In an article, you have warned against the idea that perhaps one lesson of the contemporary politics is that political parties are obsolete and really not that important. You would say no, they're very - they're very necessary. Why?
BURUMA: I think they're absolutely necessary to a liberal democracy because the road to dictatorship almost always starts with movements - movements that are set against parties that represent conflicting interests. And movements usually pretend to represent the people, as though the people speak with one voice and all those who disagree are not really part of the people. And so in order for politics to function and democracy to function as a way to deal peacefully with conflicts of interests, you need parties to represent those interests.
SIEGEL: What about the argument that the rise of populist movements is, well, it can be blamed on the political parties - that they just haven't delivered and too many people feel ill-served, their problems unsolved by the conventional parties.
BURUMA: Yes, but I think a lot of the anxieties and discontent of people cannot simply be solved by political parties. They have to do with technological change, with global finance, with robots working instead of human beings in factories and that kind of thing. Governments can't solve all those problems. And also the world is not quite in such a bad shape as people like Donald Trump would have us believe. In fact, the U.S. is now in better shape than it was in 2008.
SIEGEL: You know, I find myself saying this often to younger friends and colleagues - people alive today in America are the first generation in centuries to not have lived through a continental bloodbath in Europe - something that just might have been expected every 30 or 40 years until the end of the Second World War. Has the success of NATO been its undoing, perhaps - that indeed it just doesn't animate people anymore to prevent the great war in Europe? Where is the great war going to happen?
BURUMA: I think that something else that plays a role in this - which is that people forget, and collective memory fades. And people don't really know what happened in the '30s and '40s. And so it's no longer the warning that it was for previous generations, and people don't really realize and can even get bored with peace.
SIEGEL: Ian Buruma, a writer and professor at Bard College, thank you very much for talking with us.
BURUMA: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The State Department is seeing a lot of turnover this week. That's always the case when a new president comes to office, but this time, even career diplomats in management jobs are retiring early or being nudged out. That means whenever President Donald Trump's secretary of state is confirmed, he will have lots of vacancies to fill, as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: The undersecretary of state for management, Patrick Kennedy, told his staff he's leaving. So, too, did the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, Michelle Bond. The head of Diplomatic Security retired earlier this month, and those are just a few of the departures. A former State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, says some of this is to be expected, though he was surprised to see such quick changes among career diplomats in management positions. Boucher sums up the mood at the department this way.
RICHARD BOUCHER: Nobody's quite sure where the policy's going to go. Nobody's quite sure if the president and the new secretary know how to use the diplomatic apparatus that they've inherited.
KELEMEN: And Boucher, who's now with Brown University, says there's a lot of concern that the National Security Council at the White House is being staffed mostly by military and intelligence officials, not diplomats. He jokes that he should be the last one to complain about that, having been spokesman for Secretary of State Colin Powell, a retired general.
BOUCHER: The military uses terms - probably the ones that appeal to the president. You know, we're going to dominate the situation. We're going to conquer this problem. We're going to eradicate the bad things. And diplomats don't do that. Diplomats have to sort of deal with the messiness of the world and manage it.
KELEMEN: Boucher says the new secretary will have to depend on career diplomats who have served in both Republican and Democratic administrations - the kind of people that have been retiring this month.
BOUCHER: To lose a chunk of them at the transition and not have a new team ready to go is troublesome.
KELEMEN: The Trump administration has not yet filled many posts, from deputy secretary of state on down. Most of the career diplomats who are leaving are close to retirement age. A thirty-nine-year-old diplomatic security agent was a rare younger official who decided to quit for what he calls moral reasons. T.J. Lunardi sees some of Trump's views as against the U.S. Constitution, which he took an oath to support.
T J LUNARDI: I think the type of resistance that this administration is already proving itself to require and, in my opinion, before it even started, would require is not the kind of thing you can or frankly should do from inside the government.
KELEMEN: Lunardi is still in Kiev, Ukraine, where he was serving as a diplomatic security officer. He doesn't know what's next for him career-wise.
LUNARDI: This wasn't a career choice. It was a matter of principle and conscience, so I'm now just trying to find something that will keep me, my husband and our two dogs in dog food and vodka for a little while longer until we figure out what we're going to do.
KELEMEN: Lunardi says he got a lot of positive feedback when he posted his resignation letter on Facebook. He says he hopes he will be proven wrong and that Trump will govern wisely and lawfully, but he didn't want to be in a position where he'd have to carry out Trump's foreign policy. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump has brought back an old idea about intervening in the Syrian civil war. Here's what he told ABC News in his first TV interview since the inauguration.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'll absolutely do safe zones in Syria for the people.
SHAPIRO: Safe zones to protect civilians in Syria - Trump says he is planning to ask the Pentagon and State Department to come up with recommendations for how the U.S. could do that. Joining us now to go over this idea is NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman here in the studio. Hi, Tom.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: And also NPR's Middle East correspondent Alice Fordham on the line from Beirut. Hi, Alice.
ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: Hello.
SHAPIRO: Tom, first describe what exactly these safe zones would be.
BOWMAN: A safe zone is what it sounds like. It's a piece of land that would be protected by U.S. soldiers or someone else. And you would also have to guard that piece of land from people coming in. You would also have to protect it from the air, so you would have to have a certain number of U.S. aircraft.
Now, this was raised back in 2013 by the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. He estimated it would cost about a billion dollars a month to create this safe zone in this piece of land somewhere in Syria.
SHAPIRO: So if this would require many more troops, aircraft, drones, that sounds like a much bigger military commitment than the U.S. has been willing to make in Syria so far.
BOWMAN: Absolutely. Right now in Syria, you have a certain number of trainers, hundreds of special operators in Syria helping the Syrian Arab rebels and also the Kurdish fighters push toward the city of Raqqa in Syria. They've been there for months now. But of course this would be a much, much larger operation, thousands of troops.
SHAPIRO: Alice, you've spent a good bit of time in Syria. Can you tell us about where these safe zones might be and how they would actually work on the ground?
FORDHAM: Sure, Ari. Well, as Tom says, this has been under discussion for many years. And as versions of this have been raised, the areas of Syria that they usually talk about are the northern strip along the border with Turkey and then the chunk in the south on the border with Jordan that is also held by rebels.
Now, in terms of how acceptable a safe zone might be to the regime and to its Russian and Iranian allies and to Turkey, which generally backs the rebels but has better relations with Russia, particularly, than it has done, there are some places where this might be more feasible than others.
For example, Turkey has already intervened in the Euphrates River Valley. It's conducted military operations there, cleared ISIS out of a few towns. And now it has Turkish-backed militias and police running a few places there. That's unlikely to have happened if Assad and his backers were really opposed to it, so a safe zone in that area might be feasible without really having to take on Russia, Iran and Assad.
But then there's other places where it's a very different story, like the province of Idlib, for example, which has some very extreme jihadi rebels fighting there and where the regime and its backers have shown no interest in pursuing anything really other than a military solution in that place.
SHAPIRO: We should say that because Donald Trump has not put out any formal guidance on this, we don't know exactly what he has in mind. Tom, when the Obama administration considered this, what did they conclude?
BOWMAN: Well, they concluded it was very difficult to do. The Pentagon, again, pushed back on this. They said it would cost billions of dollars. It would take thousands of troops. People like Senator John McCain really wanted to do this, was leaning forward on this, but the Obama administration decided it was too difficult to do. So they kind of scrapped it.
And this has been discussed really, again, for the past three and a half years. It keeps coming up every few months. It came up during the campaign. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump suggested safe zones, no-fly zones. But again, it hasn't happened yet because of the difficulty.
SHAPIRO: One thing that I don't understand, Alice - if these safe zones might well be on the border of Turkey or the border of Lebanon or Jordan, why can't the Turks, the Lebanese, the Jordanians do this? Why do the Americans need to get involved in such a large way?
FORDHAM: Well, to a certain extent, they already have, Ari. Actually, over the past year or so, Turkey and Jordan have really closed their borders much more tightly to refugees in a way that has been criticized by some people as being rather inhumane. But that does mean that actually the flow of refugees out of these countries is much lower.
In fact, if the goal of this exercise is to reduce the number of Syrian refugees that exist in the world outside Syria, you'd have to create zones that are so safe that people who are currently Syrian refugees would be happy to actually go back inside Syria. And speaking to refugees who are very afraid of the situation there, that would require a real sea change in what's happening in Syria.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Alice Fordham speaking with us from Beirut and also Tom Bowman here in the studio. Thanks to both of you.
BOWMAN: You're welcome.
FORDHAM: Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF EMANCIPATOR SONG, "NEVERGREEN")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Trump is shaking farm country to its core with his executive order to build a border wall and ramp up immigration enforcement. The federal government estimates about half of the nation's farm workers are here illegally. Farm groups say it's actually much more in some states. We're going to hear now from one state - New York - where dairy farmers and their employees fear that a crackdown is coming. North Country Public Radio's David Sommerstein reports.
DAVID SOMMERSTEIN, BYLINE: We're about to meet a man who's worked on a huge dairy farm in rural New York state for nine years. We're not using the name of the farm or his name because he fears being deported. Today's his day off, and he's lounging on a couch in a trailer hidden from the road behind the barns in the manure storage pit. His brothers is frying up chicken wings for lunch.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking Spanish).
SOMMERSTEIN: He's 36 with three kids and a wife back home in Guatemala. He says over and over, he doesn't need citizenship, just legal working papers. He can't understand why President Trump has been calling people like him criminals.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Through interpreter) Sure, some people have committed crimes. But the majority of us came here to work - not to steal, not to kill, nothing like that. We came here to scrape together a living.
SOMMERSTEIN: And dairy farmers need people like him as much as he needs the work. The fact is, many milk parlors at dairy farms around the country sound like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF MEXICAN MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing in Spanish).
SOMMERSTEIN: Mexican boleros blaring in rhythm to the hiss of milking equipment. See; dairy farmers don't control the price of their milk. The federal government does that. Cornell University's Thomas Maloney says at the minimum wage they can afford to pay, farmers are resigned to hiring foreign workers to do this dirty, physically demanding work.
THOMAS MALONEY: They are convinced most Americans do not want to do the kinds of jobs that they have available on their farms.
SOMMERSTEIN: But here's the thing. There is no legal agricultural visa for the year-round work of dairy farms. Steve Ammerman, spokesman for the New York Farm Bureau, says President Trump and Congress have to change that.
STEVE AMMERMAN: If it's strictly an enforcement-only, build the wall and deport all of our farm workers, then we're going to have serious problems when it comes to growing food and providing enough food to feed ourselves in this country.
SOMMERSTEIN: Everyone who drinks milk or eats yogurt or cheese should be worried, says Rebecca Fuentes, an advocate with the Workers' Center of Central New York. She says undocumented farm workers have always been vulnerable to deportation or wage theft or human trafficking. Now Trump's presidency is telling them they're the criminals.
REBECCA FUENTES: And that sends a message. We are saying, we want your labor, but we don't want you here. I mean what is going to happen?
SOMMERSTEIN: Many Trump supporters say the workers here illegally should be deported. As president-elect in December, Trump himself softened his tough talk when it came to agriculture.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: People are going to come through on worker permits to work the fields. We're going to have people - a lot of people are going to come through, but it's going to be done through a legal process.
SOMMERSTEIN: But so far, he's offered no details, leaving farmers and farm workers to square that President Trump with the one issuing executive orders this week. One of them makes it a priority to deport non-citizens who have defrauded a government agency, and that could include people who have fake working papers like the farm worker we met from Guatemala. For NPR News, I'm David Sommerstein in upstate New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN FAHEY SONG, "SLIGO RIVER BLUES")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
It is the town where Mickey Mantle played his first season of professional baseball in 1949, the hometown of one of the first monkeys to be sent into space, Miss Able, 1959. It is Independence, Kan., a town with a rich past and an uncertain future.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
And that's where we find our colleague Melissa Block today. She's on a road trip that is taking her around the country. She's going to communities large and small, asking how people's identity is shaped by where they live. We're calling the series Our Land.
SIEGEL: In Independence, Melissa wondered what keeps a small town hopeful when many of its good jobs are gone.
MELISSA BLOCK, BYLINE: If you're in Kansas on a Saturday night in January, you can bet you'll find some basketball.
UNIDENTIFIED CHEERLEADERS: Offense, offense.
BLOCK: Tonight we're watching community college ball. It's archrivals the Independence Pirates going up against the Coffeyville Ravens.
UNIDENTIFIED CHEERLEADERS: Defense, defense.
BLOCK: Independence, Kan. - population below 9,000 and dwindling. We're in the southeast corner of the state not far from the Oklahoma border. If you're from Independence, you wear that name with pride. People here are especially proud of their annual Neewollah Festival held every October, the oldest and largest festival in the state. They're proud to be the hometown of playwright and novelist William Inge, who wrote "Bus Stop" and "Picnic."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PICNIC")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) She's the prettiest girl in town. I bet you they announce tonight she's going to be queen of Neewollah.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Nee-what-ah?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Neewollah, Neewollah - it's Halloween spelled backwards.
BLOCK: Their hometown author is celebrated in the annual William Inge Theater Festival. It's attracted marquee names as honorees - Stephen Sondheim, Neil Simon, big city folks plunked down in rural Kansas.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: And then they marvel at cows as you bring them back (laughter) into town.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: At Ane Mae's Coffee Shop, we sit down to chat with a group of women who walk together early every Saturday morning - Sarah Wilson, Kym Kays and Sheri Hesse. In a town like this, they tell me you tread carefully when talking politics.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: I mean we do express our opinions, but then we kind of back away politely like...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: We are Kansas polite.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: We are a Kansas polite community (laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Good old Midwest.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Right, right.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: It's kind of like, yes, I feel this way, but I understand...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: That's OK.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: ...How you feel, you know. It's like - because we're a small town, and we all have to get along.
BLOCK: A couple of blocks away - most things in Independence are just a couple of blocks away - we stop in at the storefront office of the weekly Montgomery County Chronicle. Editor Andy Taylor is going over the sports schedule with reporter Brian Thomas.
ANDY TAYLOR: Then the game time's earlier. Is it 4 and 6?
BRIAN THOMAS: Yeah, they changed it, 4 and 6.
BLOCK: This is a tiny operation. Andy Taylor reports and edits and shoots pictures. At 5 in the morning, he's the guy who picks up the papers from the print shop and delivers them. If you get the Chronicle, chances are Andy has touched your paper.
THOMAS: Okie doke.
ANDY TAYLOR: So lots of sports this week.
BLOCK: Taylor's a fifth generation Kansas newspaper man.
ANDY TAYLOR: There's ink in the blood. That's for sure. That's for sure. And I still love going in the press room at night and just smelling it. It's just - there's something about it.
BLOCK: Well, I was hoping you could walk us around.
ANDY TAYLOR: Yep, we can do that. We can do that.
BLOCK: Great.
ANDY TAYLOR: Can I bring my wife with me?
BLOCK: Sure.
ANDY TAYLOR: Amy...
(SOUNDBITE OF DOGS BARKING)
BLOCK: We head out toward the main business street in Independence, a shadow of what it used to be.
ANDY TAYLOR: We used to have a J.C. Penney department store over here. That's now gone. We had a furniture store - it's gone - a Hallmark store - it's gone. We had a clothing store, department store. It's gone.
BLOCK: But the biggest body blow - that came in October 2015.
ANDY TAYLOR: We're the first town in Kansas in well over 25 years to lose a hospital.
BLOCK: Andy Taylor recalls the meeting where he heard the news that Mercy Hospital would be shutting down.
ANDY TAYLOR: Oh, my gosh.
AMY TAYLOR: It was a complete shock.
ANDY TAYLOR: And there were 18 mouths in that meeting. They all dropped to the floor - like, you're closing down the hospital?
AMY TAYLOR: I don't think people believed it would ever happen.
ANDY TAYLOR: No.
AMY TAYLOR: It's sad. That's where our daughter was born.
ANDY TAYLOR: Yeah.
BLOCK: Really?
ANDY TAYLOR: Yeah.
AMY TAYLOR: Yeah. So when that's gone, you know...
ANDY TAYLOR: It's not just that, but it was a great, great company. And it just - it still kills me.
BLOCK: The hospital and the oil pipeline company that shut down here in the '90s - these were pillars supporting the community. Philanthropy flowed through them. They sponsored events, pumped money into schools and churches. And the jobs - they were high-paying, professional positions.
ANDY TAYLOR: We've evolved downwardly I guess, backwards.
BLOCK: And has anything replaced those jobs?
ANDY TAYLOR: No, no. Once all that old money dies off and leaves town, then that's - that really hurts. Again, there's that old theory that when Grandma and Grandpa die, the funeral's at 2 o'clock; the family's at the bank at 3 o'clock, and they're out of town with that money at 4 o'clock. And I've seen that happen many times.
BLOCK: That's a problem facing so many rural towns where opportunities are slim. The best and brightest leave and don't look back. For Independence to thrive, I figure it has to find a way to hang on to kids like sixth grader Gabe Schenk.
What you got?
GABE SCHENK: Probably the best homemade taco soup.
BLOCK: We meet Gabe at the Valley Victors 4-H club's annual soup supper - 32 Crockpots all in a row. The secret to cooking, Gabe tells me - you have to talk to your food.
GABE: I had a very long, philosophical talk to the chili.
BLOCK: Yeah. What'd you say?
GABE: What is the meaning of a chili's life?
BLOCK: (Laughter) And did you get an answer?
GABE: He's the strong, silent type.
BLOCK: I see. I see.
Gabe's dream is to be a storm chaser or meteorologist. When he was younger, a tornado came through and ripped the roof off his house.
GABE: And I thought it was kind of, like, scary but then amazing at the same time. If I'm going to study the big storms, this is the place to be.
BLOCK: Meantime, Gabe is working on getting straight As and memorizing the periodic table.
GABE: Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron...
BLOCK: Melissa Block, NPR News with Gabe Schenk in Independence, Kan.
GABE: ...Gallium, germanium, arsenic, selenium...
(SOUNDBITE OF PEARLS SONG, "FLOATING LEAF")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Buckle up. We're ready to get to work. That's what Vice President Mike Pence told congressional Republicans in Philadelphia today. GOP lawmakers are holding a retreat to plot out an aggressive agenda for the next few months. They want to repeal Obamacare, pass a replacement plan and at the same time overhaul the tax code. They also want to fulfill President Trump's pledge to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump came to the congressional retreat today, and NPR's congressional reporter Scott Detrow is also there. Hi, Scott.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: This is more power than Republicans in Washington have had for a long time. How are they planning to approach this very full to-do list?
DETROW: They are very eager to make up for lost time. It's been a decade since they've had control of the House, the Senate and the White House, and that's something President Trump joked about during his speech today, pointing to Paul Ryan who was on stage with him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He is writing his heart out, right? And we're actually going to sign this stuff that you're writing. You're not wasting your time.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: He would write it. He'd send it up, and nothing would happen. But now it's going to happen.
DETROW: So Ryan and other leaders are really anxious to pass laws, not just bills that get vetoed. They're talking about a really aggressive schedule - repealing Obamacare and putting a replacement plan in place by April and then overhauling the tax code, major tax cuts by the end of August. Add to that a Cabinet that needs approval, hundreds of other executive appointments that need approval and, oh, yeah, a Supreme Court pick that's coming in the next weeks. It's...
SHAPIRO: Right, that too.
DETROW: ...Pretty busy schedule.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. With such a busy schedule...
DETROW: That other thing.
SHAPIRO: ...And Republicans controlling the White House, the House and the Senate, though not by a filibuster-proof margin, how much can Democrats actually do to slow this down?
DETROW: Democrats can slow it down, and there's a few things that they will need to have a say on. But Republican leaders are trying to do their best to work around that. Take a listen to Mitch McConnell speaking this morning.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MITCH MCCONNELL: You know, the two biggest issues we're moving forward with the first half of the year obviously are repeal and replacing Obamacare and tax reform. Both of those we anticipate having little or no democratic cooperation. So we are working with the House to make sure these measures are reconcilable.
DETROW: Reconcilable - that's Congress-speak for using a procedure where you only need 51 votes to pass a bill in the Senate, not that 60-vote threshold that means you need some Democratic support. That's limited to things that affect the budget, though, and you still can't create a new health care plan through reconciliation. So Republicans do still need some Democratic votes to do a lot of their agenda.
It's interesting. Today, President Trump showed some frustration already with the pace of Congress. He made several comments about wanting his commerce secretary confirmed, wanting other members of his Cabinet confirmed. So far he's only had four nominees be approved by the Senate.
SHAPIRO: There are so many moving pieces. Today, another one is that Mexico's president canceled a trip to Washington, saying that Mexico will not pay for a border wall as Trump insisted it will. What did congressional Republicans have to say about that?
DETROW: Yeah, whether or not Mexico ultimately pays for this wall, everyone agrees that Congress is going to have to front the money to pay for it, and everybody agrees it's going to be expensive. The figure that McConnell was using today was $12 to $15 billion. That would be in a spending package that's coming in the next few months.
You know, for years, Republicans have insisted on finding funding for every spending project or cutting the same amount of money from somewhere else, but Speaker Ryan said this morning he's expecting the White House to make what's called a supplemental funding request. That's the kind that's normally used for emergency defense spending, to fund wars overseas.
But you know, you have the wall. You have other big spending projects. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and President Trump all like to talk about how much they're on the same page, but there could be some tension coming down the line here because Trump wants to spend a lot of money, and that really goes against the traditional Republican approach.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Scott Detrow speaking with us from the Republican congressional retreat in Philadelphia. Thanks, Scott.
DETROW: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The British prime minister, Theresa May, is visiting the U.S. Tomorrow, she'll meet with President Trump at the White House. They will likely agree to increase trade between their countries, but there might be some friction about NATO. Trump sees the alliance as a way for weak nations to freeload off America's military. May told congressional Republicans today American leadership of NATO is vital to the defense of the West. NPR's Frank Langfitt has more from London.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: During the presidential race, Donald Trump routinely described the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a Cold War relic.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think NATO may be obsolete. NATO was set up a long time ago - many, many years ago when things were different. Things are different now. We were a rich nation then.
LANGFITT: That's how he put it on Bloomberg TV.
TRUMP: So we're the ones always fighting. We're the ones putting up a lot of the money for NATO, disproportionately - a lot.
LANGFITT: And then at last week's inauguration, as the world watched, President Trump said this.
TRUMP: We've defended other nation's borders while refusing to defend our own.
IAN BOND: I think the message that Europeans will hear from that is - we don't care about your security any longer.
LANGFITT: Ian Bond is director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, a think tank in London. He served for nearly three decades as a British diplomat.
Have NATO countries ever heard a message like this from an American president before?
BOND: Certainly not for as long as far back as I can remember.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: On April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed by Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands...
LANGFITT: ...And, of course, the United States. The purpose - deter the Soviet Union. The USSR is long gone, but Russia isn't. In fact, under President Vladimir Putin, it's been increasingly aggressive, invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea in 2014. The world has changed, but Bond says NATO remains vitally important.
BOND: There's no question that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine had already been a NATO member and benefiting from NATO's defense guarantee.
LANGFITT: President Trump, though, sees NATO as more of a burden than a benefit, as he explained on Bloomberg last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: It doesn't really help us. It's helping other countries, and I don't think those other countries appreciate what we're doing.
LANGFITT: In fact, NATO has sacrificed a lot for America.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: It was one of the worst ever single instance involving British troops in Afghanistan when a massive roadside bomb exploded under a warrior armored vehicle on patrol in Helmand.
LANGFITT: This is from a report by Britain's Channel 4 about six soldiers who were killed in 2012 while fighting alongside American troops as part of the NATO force there. More than 450 British personnel have died in Afghanistan. The U.K. joined the NATO force that went to war there after the attack on the Twin Towers. Dana Allin thinks President Trump doesn't quite get it. Allin is a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London think tank.
DANA ALLIN: He says, for example, that NATO is obsolete because it's not fighting terrorism. It's not clear that he understands that many NATO countries sent troops to Afghanistan to help the United States there after 9-11 and lost lives.
LANGFITT: Earlier this week, Secretary of Defense James Mattis called Michael Fallon, his counterpart here in the U.K., to reassert America's, quote, "unshakeable commitment to NATO." Allin hopes General Mattis rubs off on Trump, whose position is wildly at odds with American military leaders.
ALLIN: We have a Pentagon and a huge military establishment that is committed to the defense, for example, of the Baltic states.
LANGFITT: That's Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania - fellow NATO members which all have borders with Russia. And observers of NATO say some of Trump's criticisms are reasonable.
BEYZA UNAL: To be fair, there are things that he said that was quite right - the defense spending in NATO, which is below 2 percent.
LANGFITT: Beyza Unal is referring to a longtime complaint that most NATO countries don't spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense like they're supposed to. Unal's a research fellow at Chatham House, a policy institute here.
UNAL: Rather, he should have, I think, said that NATO needs transformation, and that is what everyone agrees at the moment.
LANGFITT: If Trump's criticisms lead to reform of NATO, Unal says all the better. That would probably make lots of people happy, including U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, London.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Moscow has flatly denied any interference in the U.S. presidential election. The Kremlin says a recent U.S. intelligence report that accuses Russia of hacking political networks proves absolutely nothing. Journalist Andrei Soldatov has been investigating Russia's intelligence services for almost two decades, and he told NPR's Lucian Kim the U.S. report missed the real story.
LUCIAN KIM, BYLINE: I meet Andrei Soldatov in a cultural center named after the Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov. The center has become one of the few places in Moscow where opponents of the Kremlin still gather. Soldatov was presenting his latest book about the Russian surveillance state which was first published in English under the title "The Red Web." When asked about the recent U.S. report on alleged Russian hacking, Soldatov agrees with the view that it was short on detail.
ANDREI SOLDATOV: For months, we expected the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to provide something new, something which would point out to a particular agency and to provide some hard evidence about how the whole thing was organized.
KIM: That's not to say Soldatov doubts that the Russian government was behind the hacking, but he thinks U.S. intelligence is overlooking what he calls the murky world of informal actors.
SOLDATOV: It's a very murky world with lots of actors, some of them formal actors, like security agencies, intelligence agencies and the military. But also, we have lots of informal actors. And these people - well, they tend to be much more dangerous. They enjoy direct access to the Kremlin. And sometimes the Kremlin uses these people, not the formal actors, to do the most sensitive operations.
KIM: Using hard-to-trace freelance operatives, Soldatov says, helps the Russian government deny involvement in covert operations. He says the freelancers infiltrate servers and email accounts over many months, collecting potentially damaging information which can then be released when it's politically expedient.
SOLDATOV: It’s about a very interesting phenomenon that the information is not only stolen but also made public, which is a very Russian way of doing these things.
KIM: Soldatov and his partner, the journalist Irina Borogan, say they have faced harassment because of their work investigating the Russian security services.
SOLDATOV: It’s absolutely impossible for us to be hired by Russian media for many years. And now if we need to - or we have something sensitive, first, we need to find a Western publication to get it published.
KIM: Soldatov and Borogan signed copies of their book under a large photograph of dissident Andrei Sakharov, who suffered repression under the Soviet Union. They say that Russia's new cyber-warriors are following in the tradition of the Soviet secret police, only now their weapons are passwords and computers. Lucian Kim, NPR News, Moscow.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONSTER RALLY SONG, "ORCHIDS")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A meeting in Washington next week between President Trump and his Mexican counterpart has been called off. Mexico's president said in a tweet he is the one who canceled it. Trump had suggested the idea of canceling in an earlier tweet. This tweet-for-tat is the latest sign of rising tensions between the U.S. and Mexico. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports from Mexico City where people are stunned and indignant.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Early this morning, Trump tweeted, if Mexico isn't willing to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting. The tweet seemed to double down on pronouncements Trump made in a televised interview insisting that one way or another, Mexico will pay for the wall.
That left little room for president Enrique Pena Nieto, who as late as last night, despite pressure from lawmakers here at home, had said he hadn't decided whether to go to Washington or not. But today, he said enough is enough. Vanessa Rubio Marquez, an administration official, told reporters that he had canceled the visit and continuing to insist that Mexico pay for the wall is absurd.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
VANESSA RUBIO MARQUEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "Mexico will doggedly defend its sovereignty because the sovereignty of Mexico is not up for negotiation." Not long after that comment, Trump told Republican leaders gathering in Pennsylvania that both he and Pena Nieto canceled the meeting and that unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless. End quote, "I want to go a different route," said Trump. Reaction in Mexico was swift and angry.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VICENTE FOX: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "We cannot cower before this dude even if he is a white guy, a strong man," said former President Vicente Fox, one of Trump's loudest critics and ferocious Twitter trolls. During what was a 12-minute rant on a national television program, Fox called Trump's threats a declaration of war.
ENRIQUE KRAUZE: This is not the way you treat your neighbors.
KAHN: Historian and Mexican writer Enrique Krauze compared the rapid deterioration of U.S.-Mexican relations to a time when the two countries were at war.
KRAUZE: I don't remember a crisis so acute, so serious as this one in 170 years.
KAHN: Both men and lawmakers are urging Pena Nieto to make stronger pronouncements against Trump. Former Mexican ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhan says the U.S. is not looking at the big picture. Speaking on CNN today, he says Mexico may not be as mighty as the U.S., but it does have cards to play. And he insinuated that it could decide not to be so cooperative in issues as important to the U.S. as immigration and security.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ARTURO SARUKHAN: With a relationship as complex, as rich with so many moving parts as this one, if you try and apply a chainsaw to it, you're going to end up cutting off your own foot.
KAHN: That threat doesn't seem to be resonating with Trump. Later today, his spokesman said the administration is considering calling for a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports as a way to pay for the border wall. Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Mexico City.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The confirmation hearing for President Trump's nominee for secretary of labor has been delayed a second time. Fast food executive Andrew Puzder's hearing will now be held on February 7. This comes as current and former workers file complaints alleging employment law violations at his company, CKE Restaurants. CKE is the parent company of Carl's Jr., Hardee's and other restaurants. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Ceatana Cordona says she was sexually harassed when she worked nights running the cashier at a Hardee's in Tampa, Fla.
CEATANA CORDONA: When I was one and a half months pregnant with my youngest child, he asked me for a kiss. I refused and began to walk away, but he grabbed me by the collar and, inches from my face, said, if you don't start giving me what I want, I'm going to have to start taking it from you.
NOGUCHI: Cardona says after she complained to another supervisor, she was given fewer, less desirable hours. She eventually left. Now Cordona is filing a sexual harassment claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington. She's one of 33 workers filing complaints so far this year detailing allegations of wage theft, harassment and discrimination at CKE Restaurants and their franchises. She says she holds Puzder ultimately responsible.
CORDONA: I'm holding him accountable for the harassment I experienced.
NOGUCHI: But the industry stands behind their man. Puzder is credited with helping manage the restaurant chain through financially troubled times in the 1990s. In a statement, the National Restaurant Association defended Puzder's business record, saying the unions publicizing the workers complaints are misrepresenting his record. The Trade Association cited a recent survey showing 92 percent of employees at CKE called it, quote, "a good place to work."
But the nominee finds himself defending his outspoken objection to minimum wage increases, advocating automation, as well as his company's record with regulators. Washington Democrat Patty Murray, the ranking member of the Senate committee hosting Puzder's hearing, criticized him for not submitting required paperwork. Cathy Ruckelshaus is the litigation director for the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group. She says over the last decade, over half of labor and workplace safety investigations at CKE found violations.
CATHERINE RUCKELSHAUS: The U.S. Senate has all the reason it needs to reject this nomination and demand a labor secretary who will look out for working Americans, instead of one who looks for ways to keep them down.
NOGUCHI: CKE Restaurants did not respond to requests for comment. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
More now on today's diplomatic dustup with Mexico. President Trump was supposed to host Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto at the White House early next week. Now that meeting is off. And to explain why, NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins us from the White House. Hiya.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Robert.
SIEGEL: What's going on with the U.S. and Mexico, Mara?
LIASSON: Well, this was Donald Trump's first foray into international diplomacy, and it hasn't started out very well. The Mexican president says he canceled the meeting because he's angry that Donald Trump just this week announced his plans to build his long-promised wall with Mexico and insists that Mexico pay for it.
And Trump said today that they agreed mutually to cancel the meeting, and when he spoke to Republican lawmakers in Philadelphia as you just heard Scott talking about, he said unless Mexico treats the U.S. fairly and with respect, the meeting would be fruitless. So I guess the definition of treating U.S. - the U.S. fairly is paying for a wall on the U.S. side of the border, which Mexico says it will never do. And Trump in essence portrayed the U.S. as the victim of its poorer, smaller, less-powerful neighbor to the south.
SIEGEL: Well, today the Trump administration floated an idea of how a wall actually might get built and paid for. Can you tell us about that?
LIASSON: Yes, and this was really interesting. The White House press secretary said that Trump is considering an import tax from all goods imported from Mexico to the U.S. to pay for the wall. Now, this is already part of the House Republicans' comprehensive tax reform plan. They want to tax imports instead of exports. And Trump hinted at this idea when he talked to the Republican Congress members today.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, we're working on a tax reform bill that will reduce our trade deficits, increase American exports and will generate revenue from Mexico that will pay for the wall if we decide to go that route.
LIASSON: So a border adjustment tax or a tax on imports, not exports, is like a tax on the trade deficit. It's something that over 160 countries already do, including Mexico. But it's something that just two weeks ago Trump criticized as being too complicated. Now it sounds like Trump is admitting that the Mexican government is not going to pay for the wall, and Paul Ryan's plan is a way to get himself out of that box. So score one for Paul Ryan and the Mexican government.
SIEGEL: Yeah. How exactly would this work? Would - I mean if Americans bought goods that had been taxed at the border coming in from Mexico, then American consumers would be paying more for the things that they're buying here.
LIASSON: Yes, presumably any company that produces something in Mexico and sends it to the U.S. would be subject to this tax, and they presumably would pass the cost of that onto the consumer. So yes, they - the consumers would probably bear the brunt of this tax. That is why so many interests in the United States' retailers, agriculture, oil refiners don't like this. And many Republican senators have a lot of questions about it. This is very preliminary. The White House is emphasizing that nothing is settled. This is one idea they're looking at.
SIEGEL: Yeah.
LIASSON: But if the president is looking for a creative way to fund the wall and if he admits that the Mexican government won't, this shows that he's flexible; he's a flexible negotiator even when he's negotiating with himself.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) But just to be clear, if in fact there were to be a new tax imposed at the border on things coming in from Mexico, that's not an executive action. That would have to be...
LIASSON: No, absolutely. That would...
SIEGEL: ...Part of a law passed by the Congress.
LIASSON: ...Need legislation. And that's why even though the House Republicans, Paul Ryan are gung ho about this, there are many Republican senators who are not crazy about it. And as I said, there are many, many companies and industries in the United States that don't want a border adjustment tax, don't want a tax on imports. But it's definitely part of the House comprehensive tax reform plan.
SIEGEL: OK. That's NPR's Mara Liasson at the White House. Thanks, Mara.
LIASSON: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Tomorrow is the Lunar New Year. And for the first time, Kat Chow of NPR's Code Switch team is struggling with a dilemma. How can she honor the customs her family brought all the way from China when she doesn't fully embrace them?
KAT CHOW, BYLINE: First, let me clear something up.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CHOW: I'm guessing these drum beats and cymbal crashes are sounds most people imagine when they think of Lunar New Year, sounds from a lion dance, a parade in some Chinatown. That's not really the Lunar New Year I grew up with. The holiday was much more intimate, kind of serious and religious even though my family wasn't really.
I never bought into these customs because I didn't understand them. My family would pray and burn incense and paper money in honor of our dead relatives. We'd eat symbolic foods like fish for prosperity, noodles for longevity or chicken for more prosperity. For my parents, this was the only time they made my sisters and me do these Chinese rituals, and still, I never cared about them.
Testing, testing.
I called my dad to ask how he feels about it.
Can you hear me now, Daddy?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah, yeah, I can hear you.
CHOW: For the first time, I'm hosting him for a Lunar New Year celebration. It feels like a big deal. I'm worried, but my dad says it's OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It's like that you're growing up, becoming an adult, you know?
CHOW: Thanks, Dad. I'd like to think of myself already as an adult, but I can get where he's coming from. When you're growing up in America like I did, it's hard to hold on to things from your family's culture. I called a bunch of experts who study families like mine, and they all said this is totally normal. U.S. culture makes Chinese customs seem old and weird, and it's hard for parents to translate their meaning to their Americanized children.
Still, I'm not sure if any of that makes me feel better. I still feel like I'm diluting a culture, my dad's culture - things like how eating fish brings prosperity or noodles brings longevity or chicken, more prosperity. I asked my dad if even he completely buys all that.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah, you know, sort of.
CHOW: My dad fessed up. It's not easy for him to hold on to these traditions either. Most places in the U.S. do not recognize Lunar New Year as an official holiday or give a day off for it, so making time and getting everything done is stressful. But my dad still sticks to the tradition, and he coached me through my first Lunar New Year meal.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: You don't have to make something difficult, you know? Just simple one will be fine, you know?
CHOW: Fish for his request and chicken for more prosperity.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: ...And then you can just cut them and get the scallion and then the...
CHOW: For my dad, the important part of Lunar New Year is about honoring the dead, including my mom, who died 12 years ago. For me, it's about honoring both of them. Kat Chow, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE FLAMING LIPS SONG, "ARE YOU A HYPNOTIST??")
SIEGEL: Kat Chow's essay, "My Menu For Lunar New Year: Guilt, Confusion, With A Side Of Angst," is at npr.org/codeswitch.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE FLAMING LIPS SONG, "ARE YOU A HYPNOTIST??")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Most of the refugees arriving in the United States are resettled here by faith-based organizations. These groups see this work as a kind of ministry. And as NPR's Tom Gjelten reports, they are not happy with President Trump's plan to suspend the refugee programs.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: In Judeo-Christian scripture, God's commandments on the treatment of foreigners and strangers could hardly be more clear. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament to Christians, the Israelites are reminded they were themselves aliens once in the land of Egypt.
From the Book of Leviticus, (reading) the alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you. You should love the alien as yourself. That guidance continues in the New Testament. In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells his followers, (reading) I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
Linda Hartke is president of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which, over the years, has resettled a half million refugees and migrants here.
LINDA HARTKE: It is deeply ingrained in our faith and our understanding of the Bible that we're called to welcome the stranger, to love and serve our neighbors - not the neighbors that we choose but the neighbors that God gives to us.
GJELTEN: Whether Christian or not, the idea of prioritizing Christian refugees as President Trump plans to do does not come from her church or from most other Christian groups, for that matter. Hartke says since word leaked that Trump wants, at least temporarily, to close America's doors to refugees, her phone has been ringing off the hook.
HARTKE: Those are hard calls to take, to have to tell people that the president's decisions will likely mean that there won't be refugees that they can be welcoming in the months and perhaps years ahead.
GJELTEN: The faith groups active in refugee resettlement have been, in Hartke's words, strategizing in recent days over how to respond to the president's executive order. Sean Callahan, president of Catholic Relief Services, thinks they need to make more clear to Americans that the refugees have been carefully screened.
SEAN CALLAHAN: We have found that the refugees who have come to the United States have been thoroughly vetted and that they have been placed in homes. And actually, it's been an enriching experience as opposed to a threat.
GJELTEN: How much resistance to President Trump's refugee ban might we expect? Here's Mark Hetfield, president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
MARK HETFIELD: The faith groups are going to kick and scream and object to every aspect of this disgusting, vile executive order which makes America out to be something that it is not. You know, we are a country that welcomes refugees.
GJELTEN: Though, as Hetfield points out, there have been interruptions in that history, as when Jews fleeing Nazi Germany were turned away.
HETFIELD: Those are periods that we now look back upon with horror and shame. And what is particularly offensive to me, leading a Jewish refugee organization, is that he's signing these executive orders on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
GJELTEN: Many Evangelical Christians are in town this week for what they're calling the March for Life rally, making known their opposition to abortion. A majority of evangelicals voted for Trump in part because of his promise to appoint judges who will take a strong stand on abortion.
But many say their broader concern is human dignity. While there is more sympathy among these evangelicals for Trump's decision to halt the refugee flow, it's not absolute. Jim Daly is president of the Focus on the Family.
JIM DALY: If it's a temporary pause to create a screening process that helps find people that are trying to get in to do harm to this country, I understand that. But I would also support a robust program to re-establish immigration because that's what this country is built upon, and it's a great Christian tradition to bring people in who are hurting.
GJELTEN: Within the evangelical world, there are dissenting voices. Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, told The Huffington Post this week that the refugee question, in his view, is not a Bible issue. Tom Gjelten, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPOON SONG, "INSIDE OUT")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Today, we got an early glimpse of President Donald Trump's America-first approach to foreign policy. Trump spoke by telephone with Mexico's president. It was a makeup session after the two leaders engaged in an angry back and forth yesterday. And he held his first face-to-face meeting with a foreign leader at the White House, a largely friendly get together with the prime minister of the United Kingdom. NPR's Scott Horsley has more.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: President Trump posed for photographs today alongside two prime ministers - the current U.K. leader, Theresa May, and a bust of Winston Churchill that Trump put back in the Oval Office when he moved in a week ago.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is the original, folks. This is the original in many ways.
HORSLEY: Trump, whose mother is from Scotland, was eager to talk about what's often described as the special relationship between the U.S. and the U.K., especially now that Great Britain is divorcing itself from the rest of the European Union.
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TRUMP: I think Brexit's going to be a wonderful thing for your country. I think when it irons out, you're going to have your own identity, and you're going to have the people that you want in your country. And you're going to be able to make free trade deals without having somebody watching you and what you're doing.
HORSLEY: The Brexit vote, like Trump's own victory here in the U.S., can be seen as a rejection of globalization. But while Trump championed that change, May is carrying it out reluctantly. She remains far more invested in European institutions than Trump is. Trump, for example, has questioned the relevance of NATO, though May says she did get a commitment from him.
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PRIME MINISTER THERESA MAY: Mr. President, I think you said you confirmed that you're 100 percent behind NATO.
HORSLEY: May is also more suspicious than Trump of Russia and more committed to maintaining sanctions against Russia until it lives up to its promises to stop interfering in Ukraine.
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MAY: We have been very clear that we want to see the Minsk agreement fully implemented. We believe the sanctions should continue until we see that Minsk agreement fully implemented.
HORSLEY: A big part of the British prime minister's purpose on this trip is launching trade talks with the U.S. to replace the free market the U.K. is losing in Europe.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAY: And I'm convinced that a trade deal between the U.S. and the U.K. is in the national interest of both countries and will cement the crucial relationship that exists between us, particularly as the U.K. leaves the European Union and reaches out to the world.
HORSLEY: The U.S. already trades more than $100 billion a year with the U.K., but that's dwarfed by America's trade ties with Mexico, a relationship that Trump rattled this week with his order to start work on the border wall and his public spat with the Mexican president over who would pay for it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: The United States cannot continue to lose vast amounts of business, vast amounts of companies and millions and millions of people losing their jobs. That won't happen with me. We're no longer going to be the country that doesn't know what it's doing.
HORSLEY: Trump spoke for an hour this morning by telephone with Mexico's president, and the leaders agreed their teams would keep talking. A statement from the Mexican side says they also agreed for now to hold off making public comments about how the wall will be funded. Trump described it as a friendly call. After a first week in the White House that was often unpredictable, the president hinted there's more of that to come.
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TRUMP: I've had many times where I thought I'd get along with people, and I don't like them at all.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: And I've had some where I didn't think I was going to have much of a relationship, and it turned out to be a great relationship.
HORSLEY: A big question mark remains - Trump's relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two are set to talk by telephone tomorrow. Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Well, today marks the end of Donald Trump's first full week in office. And we have a much better idea now of how Trump the president compares with Trump the candidate. The answer seems to be, there is not that much difference. He continues to pick fights on Twitter. And through executive actions, he has more or less kept many of his campaign promises on health care, that border wall with Mexico, refugees and more.
Joining us to discuss the new president's first week is E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution and David Brooks of The New York Times. Good to have you both here in the studio.
E J DIONNE, BYLINE: Good to be here.
DAVID BROOKS, BYLINE: Good to be here.
SHAPIRO: Let's start with the executive actions that Donald Trump has signed this week. David, what do they tell us about the kind of president he's becoming?
BROOKS: You know, E.J.'s colleague Mike Gerson said it well. My expectations are never low enough.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
BROOKS: No matter how low you start, he exceeds them. And I would say, in the first week, he's first of all erecting walls all around America, all around the world with trade in the Pacific. And he's picked a fight with our neighbor and second-largest export market in Mexico. And he's done it in the most annoying and frankly incompetent way - through a tweet, through a plan that would actually tax Americans to build the wall. And then the plan is maybe not going to happen, maybe is going to happen. And so the combination of bad strategy with bad implementation is so far the hallmark for me.
SHAPIRO: E.J., there are so many things to choose from here. As we were saying, there are six items a day that could have been a front-page (laughter) headline each day. Out of these executive actions, what stands out to you?
DIONNE: Well, I think the wall and also the attack on sanctuary cities, which - cities that decline to deport people who are here illegally - but I think what you saw - I think the key of the week is governing by impulse, which is a pretty scary way to govern because you've seen Trump kind of back into policies or the administration announce policies because of something Trump said off the top of his head.
As David mentioned, you suddenly - he said Mexico is going to pay for the wall. The next day, the administration is pressed on how. Sean Spicer says, oh, a 20 percent tax on imports. Whoops, that's really on Americans. The president says on David Muir interview, 3 to 5 million people voted illegally. There's no evidence...
SHAPIRO: This is on ABC News, yeah.
DIONNE: ...For that - on ABC News. And suddenly, we're going to have an investigation of a phantom fact - a fact that is not a fact.
SHAPIRO: There do seem to be two tracks here.
DIONNE: It's a very odd way to run the country.
SHAPIRO: There's the policy priorities, and then there are the things like the false claims of fraudulent voting, the crowd size at the inauguration, threatening to send the feds into Chicago if Mayor Rahm Emanuel doesn't get things under control. David, are these things going to undermine his presidency?
BROOKS: I think lying tends to undermine your presidency. But there are two explanations which I've been reading about. One is what you call the Orwell explanation, which is that it's part of an authoritarian move to upend categories, upend objective truth like in 1984. The other is what you might call "The Madness of King George" explanation - is that just he's very egocentric. He needs facts that'll flatter his ego, that he had the biggest crowd and the biggest ratings.
And I'm going with "The Madness of King George" explanation because so far, the big untruths are about his narcissism, not about American policy. And so they tend to - his need to be the - have the longest standing ovation since Peyton Manning is the general twist of the things he really is not truthful about.
DIONNE: I think the...
SHAPIRO: So, E.J., where does that lead us?
DIONNE: Well, I think if - we think we learned the following this week, although you never know what next week will bring. It sure seems like the primary mover of policy in this administration is Steve Bannon with his nationalism, with his views on immigration, with his views on trade. He was it looks like the principal author or a principal author of the inaugural address, which was very hard and very pessimistic. The moves Trump has made this week are very Bannon-esque. And Bannon...
SHAPIRO: Bannon also gave this very striking interview to The New York Times yesterday where he said the media should keep quiet. He called the media the opposition.
DIONNE: Right. I guess I should just sit here and shut up and not say another word. And that was a really striking thing. The notion of turning the free press into the opposition is really unusual, where - yeah, conservatives have always said the press leans liberal. No one has ever said that we won't deal with the free press as an institution. The press - we're going to deal with them as the opposition.
And so I think that Bannon, again, was echoing Trump, and Trump was echoing Bannon. So so far, this is the presidency of Trump and Bannon, not Trump and Priebus or Trump and anybody else.
SHAPIRO: In so many ways, we do see Trump diverging from standard Republican norms and governing as more of a populist. He's doing things other Republicans didn't do, whether it's taking on the media or so on. And yet we don't seem to see Republicans in Congress standing up in large numbers and saying, this is not what we stand for. Do you expect we will see that, David?
BROOKS: I think so. You know, I've been caustic about Trump. But I guarantee you - I know from firsthand experience. I reflect the private views of a lot of congressional Republicans. And so far, they've made a Faustian bargain. And they've said, we're going to tolerate the mess that he creates, the disorder, but we think we can pass some things that we think are valuable, whether it's a tax reform or whether it's a more competitive health care plan, et cetera, et cetera.
I think they're going to get to the point where the Faustian bargain doesn't seem to make sense because the chaos he sows is greater than the policy benefits they can hope to arise. And it's not going to happen this week, but somewhere down the road when he picks a fight with Mexico, I think you'll begin to see Republicans saying, you know, let's take a congressional delegation to Mexico. Let's have our own policy here, and let's establish our own form of congressional governments. I do think that will happen.
DIONNE: But here's what...
SHAPIRO: I should say, we do hear from one of those Republicans elsewhere in the show today who is from the congressional district that shares an 800-mile border with Mexico. But, E.J., you were about to say...
DIONNE: I am concerned that Trump's more bizarre or colorful actions will distract us from where he really does agree with Republicans in Congress. We could be looking at, from everything that's been leaked so far, enormous budget cuts, particularly in programs that serve low-income people, coupled with enormous tax cuts.
And Trump has said that his tax cuts are going to be huge, that he's going to slash regulation by 75 percent or more. And we will have our eyes on the bizarre behavior, and we won't notice that these are revolutionary policies far beyond anything Ronald Reagan pursued. And I think the Republicans in Congress are going to stick with him at least as long as they can get the big budget cuts and tax cuts.
SHAPIRO: I want to end with the opposition that we have seen this week, whether it was millions of people in cities around the world marching last Saturday in the Women's March or states and cities that have said, we plan to be an opposition or even some Twitter accounts of federal government offices that seem to be renegade accounts tweeting facts about climate change and so on. David, where do you think the opposition is going to come from?
BROOKS: I'd pay attention to those Twitter accounts. Governing and implementing policy is really hard. Government has a lot of passive aggressive behavior. And so what you see among the civil service is a lot of people resigning and a lot of people who just won't do anything. I would go back and watch a BBC show called "Yes Minister," which was a British show about how the civil servants...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Worth watching whether or not it has anything to do with today.
BROOKS: Exactly, it can upend the political appointees. We're going to see a lot of that.
DIONNE: I agree. And I think the Women's March was really important because it was not only something right out of the box, but there was a very kind of peaceful and determined spirit to that. It wasn't sectarian. And I think a lot of that energy is going to go back to the states. And we're going to see something like the Tea Party on the left.
SHAPIRO: We'll leave it there. E.J. Dionne and David Brooks, thanks very much.
BROOKS: Thank you.
DIONNE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF RHYE SONG, "FALL - INSTRUMENTAL")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The Trump administration's bold talk of a big border tax on imports from Mexico has deepened a growing rift between the U.S. and its neighbor to the south. A meeting between President Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto scheduled for next week was canceled, but the two leaders talked by phone this morning. Donald Trump has said the border tax would be one way to make Mexico pay for his border wall. The Mexican president rejects that. NPR's John Ydstie joins us now to talk about just what form the tax might take and how it might affect American and Mexican consumers and producers. Hi, John.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: Hi, Robert.
SIEGEL: So a day after lots of confusion yesterday about just what form the border tax might take. President Trump's chief of staff said the administration is still looking at a buffet of options. What's on offer on the buffet, John?
YDSTIE: Well, let's start with the cherry dessert, shall we, in which the president cherry-picks which companies imports get taxed. For instance, he's talked about taxes of up to 35 to 45 percent on specific products, like GM's Chevy Cruze hatchback made in Mexico.
SIEGEL: Obviously that would hurt GM, probably hurt a lot of its Mexican workers, and also consumers in the U.S. would have to pay more for the Chevy Cruze hatchback. But can a president actually single out a specific company like that?
YDSTIE: Well, no, not according to trade lawyers I've talked to. The president does not have the authority to single out companies like GM and penalize them in that way. But this is the tax that until yesterday the president and his treasury secretary nominee seemed most interested in.
SIEGEL: John, does the president have legal authority to impose tariffs or boarder taxes without action by Congress?
YDSTIE: Well, Article I Section 8 of the Constitution says Congress has the authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations. But over the last century, Congress has ceded a lot of that power to the president. One example is Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. It allows presidents to slap tariffs on countries that discriminate against or take unjustified measures against the United States. In Trump's view, Mexico surely meets that standard. President George W. Bush used that law to boost tariffs on some fancy French cheeses during a dispute about hormones in U.S. beef exports.
SIEGEL: Just can't get away from the buffet, can we?
YDSTIE: No, we can't.
SIEGEL: This is the cheese course. But then yesterday, we began to hear talk from President Trump about another option for paying for the border wall through broad tax reform. Here he is talking to Republican lawmakers yesterday in Philadelphia.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, we're working on a tax reform bill that will reduce our trade deficits, increase American exports and will generate revenue from Mexico that will pay for the wall if we decide to go that route.
SIEGEL: And after that, Sean Spicer, the president's press secretary, said that it would be, quote, "a border adjustment tax" of 20 percent on all imports or at least countries with whom we have a trade deficit. What is a border adjustment tax?
YDSTIE: Yeah, that got a lot of attention because it would be a huge change in U.S. tax policy, and it got walked back by the president's chief of staff who, as we said, described it as just one in a buffet of options.
SIEGEL: Yeah, here's where the buffet comes in. And this would be the very complicated - the gumbo on the buffet.
YDSTIE: The gumbo course, right. A border tax adjustment is straightforward in description but complicated in its effects. It would charge a 20 percent tax on imports and there would be no income tax paid on goods that U.S. companies exported. And the benefit of this tax, according to House Republicans, is that there would be a massive flow of revenues into the Treasury - more than a trillion dollars over 10 years. That would help pay for a huge reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent in the House proposal.
SIEGEL: But wouldn't it also mean consumers, Americans, ending up paying more for imports?
YDSTIE: Well, that's what South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham was worried about. In a tweet yesterday, he said, put simply, any policy which drives up the costs of Corona, tequila or margaritas is a big time bad idea. Mucho sad.
SIEGEL: Graham moved us from the buffet to the bar.
YDSTIE: Yes (laughter).
SIEGEL: John, thank you.
YDSTIE: You're welcome, Robert.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
If you've bought milk since 2003, you might be entitled to part of a $52 million class action lawsuit. It's the result of a battle between an animal rights group and the dairy industry over price fixing. Here's Elizabeth Kulas of our Planet Money podcast.
ELIZABETH KULAS, BYLINE: Joe Soenneker was born into dairy farming.
JOE SOENNEKER: I took over from my dad. I think 1889 - that's when Grandpa came here.
KULAS: His farm is in Minnesota, and for 40 years, Joe made a steady living selling milk. Then in 2009, the price of milk fell - like, really fell. That year was the toughest year for dairy farmers since the Depression. Joe is coming on 62, and he started to think about getting out of the business. And then one morning in early spring, Joe was out milking, and he heard something on the radio.
SOENNEKER: Well, I think it was one of them dairy programs that they were coming out with another whole-herd buyout.
KULAS: A whole-herd buyout - a dairy organization was going to pay farmers like Joe to stop producing milk. They were going to pay him to take his 40 dairy cows and sell them for beef.
SOENNEKER: And it just gave me an extra opportunity to get some extra money.
KULAS: The group behind the buyout is called Cooperatives Working Together. It's an umbrella group whose members produce around 70 percent of U.S. milk. Between 2003 and 2010, when the price of milk got too low, they offer another round of the buyout program. They figured by cutting the supply, they'd drive up the price.
For the dairy industry, this was no secret. It was just part of a larger effort to stabilize milk prices in times of oversupply. But on the other side of the country, there was a woman who heard about this program and thought, this is a terrible deal for consumers and for cows.
CHERYL LEAHY: My name is Cheryl Leahy. I am general counsel at Compassion Over Killing.
KULAS: As the name suggests, Compassion Over Killing is an animal advocacy nonprofit. Cheryl spends a lot of time trying to get the dairy industry to be nicer to cows. When she found out about the herd buyout program, she thought, hey, by paying to kill these cows, they're reducing the supply of milk and raising prices. That sounds a lot like price-fixing.
LEAHY: It raised questions for us about antitrust laws. And the especially outrageous part to us was that this was all done by killing over 500,000 young cows.
KULAS: Which might sound like a lot to Cheryl, but to dairy farmers, that's almost nothing.
BOB CROPP: There is anywhere from 50,000 to 55,000 dairy cows removed from the dairy herd every given week.
KULAS: Bob Cropp is a professor emeritus of dairy marketing. He was also an expert witness for the dairy industry in this case.
CROPP: And when that dairy cow's milk production drops to a certain level, it's more profitable to sell that cow for meat than to retain it in the herd for producing milk.
KULAS: Bob says the dairy industry relies on killing cows. About 30 percent are retired each year. Animal activists might not like it, but it's totally legal. The basis for this class action was that the killing was being used to restrict supply, not to increase it. So when Cheryl brought her suit against the dairy farmers, they decided, you know what? It's not worth the legal battle. Let's settle up.
And with that, they agreed to cut checks to milk drinkers all over America. Anyone who's bought milk or yogurt or cream cheese in 15 states since 2003 can apply for a rebate - 3 and a half million people already have. Milk drinkers have until the end of the month to file a claim. Elizabeth Kulas, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI, "DO THE WHIRLWIND")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump has scored his first success in his effort to get more local authorities to cooperate with immigration enforcement. The jail in Florida's Miami-Dade County will now honor federal requests to hold inmates suspected of being in the country illegally. The mayor made the change in response to Trump's Wednesday executive order which threatens funding cuts to sanctuary cities.
In a moment, we'll hear from NPR's Greg Allen in Miami. First, Martin Kaste joins us from Seattle to talk about the administration's broader effort. Hi, Martin.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: We've been talking about sanctuary cities all week. How are they technically defined in this context?
KASTE: Well, there isn't a set legal definition here. This is more of a label. It's sort of political marketing. Both sides use this phrase. It generally describes places where the local officials are perceived to be shielding people who are in the country illegally. In practice, that can mean everything from the very street level, where cops are just told not to ask people about their immigration status, all the way up to official policies at the county jails, where they refuse to honor requests from the federal immigration authorities to hold people who are suspected of being in the country illegally.
Those are called detainer requests. And that's what was at issue in Miami-Dade. The jail there had stopped honoring those requests a few years ago. Now the mayor there told them to go back and honor those requests and hold those people until federal authorities can come get them.
SHAPIRO: So when we look at what kind of definition of sanctuary city the Trump administration is planning to use, do you think that that's it - failure to honor detainer requests?
KASTE: It might go beyond that. This executive order gives the Secretary of Homeland Security the discretion to designate which jurisdictions are sanctuaries. And the order focuses on this 1996 federal law which forbids local officials from putting gag orders on jails and on police departments when it comes to people's immigration status.
Basically, the law says you can't hide information you have about people's immigration status. The Trump administration seems to think a lot of places are clearly violating that law, but some legal experts I've talked to say that's going to be hard to prove because a lot of these places are purposely not collecting that information about immigration status. So if that's the case, they can't be accused of withholding that information.
SHAPIRO: I think a fear that a lot of activists have is that local police will just start asking people their immigration status. Is that something Washington can demand police officers do?
KASTE: No. Really in our system, I mean every constitutional expert I've talked to says the federal government can't require local police to do the federal government's job. Barry Friedman's a constitutional law scholar at NYU. He specializes in policing. And he says the feds can't require local cops to do this because federal and local authorities operate in what he calls different spheres.
BARRY FRIEDMAN: Each is free to go about its business in its own sphere, not interfering with the other. And it's kind of a noninterference rule that we have, which, again, doesn't mean that there isn't cooperation. There's very often cooperation, but the cooperation is voluntary.
KASTE: And I should note here that this is really very American. In other Western countries, national governments have a lot more power to compel cooperation from the local police, and cops often do help with immigration enforcement. In our system, the president's leverage is really just money. And that's why the Trump administration is threatening to cut funding.
SHAPIRO: Federal funding comes to cities in so many different ways. When we talk about cutting off funding to a sanctuary city, what kind of money is at stake here?
KASTE: Well, we really don't know yet. There's another legal problem here for the Trump administration. The courts have generally found that the federal government can't just penalize, can't be coercive to local cities and states when it comes to withdrawing money. They can't use it as a bludgeon. So what the Trump administration may do is be more targeted - say, cut money related to this, say, for police programs or for courts - that kind of thing.
SHAPIRO: What are you hearing from police about this sort of confrontation with federal authorities?
KASTE: Well, I think police feel kind of ambivalent about all this. There was a recent Pew Research Center survey of cops across the country. And there, a slight majority - 52 percent - said they thought that local police should have an active role in helping to identify people who are in the country illegally. But really what they want is flexibility.
When I talk to cops even in some of the sanctuary cities, they say they don't want to be dragooned into enforcing federal immigration law, but they also still want to keep the option of calling in immigration enforcement on people who are serious offenders or violent criminals. So what they're worried about now is that with this line in the sand being drawn between their cities and the Trump administration, they may lose that flexibility.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Martin Kaste. Thanks a lot.
KASTE: You're welcome.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: I'm Greg Allen in Miami. This was the scene outside the government building in Miami-Dade County today.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Hey, Gimenez, shame on you. You are an immigrant, too.
ALLEN: More than a hundred immigration activists gathered outside to deliver a message to Mayor Carlos Gimenez. Gimenez, who arrived from Cuba in 1960, yesterday reversed a long-standing county policy. He instructed county officials to begin honoring all requests from federal authorities to detain inmates on immigration charges.
In the past, Miami-Dade County refused to hold inmates with detention orders because the federal government wouldn't guarantee reimbursement. Here's Gimenez in an interview with Miami's CBS4.
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CARLOS GIMENEZ: Now, today my order says, don't worry about the guarantee. If the federal government wants us to hold an individual immigration - you know, illegal immigrant, et cetera, we will hold them for the federal government.
ALLEN: Gimenez's order last night brought an immediate reaction from President Trump. In a tweet yesterday evening, Trump said, Miami-Dade mayor dropped sanctuary policy - right decision, strong - with an exclamation mark.
That label - sanctuary community - is one Gimenez has long resisted. Last year after the Justice Department included the county on a list of sanctuary communities, Gimenez asked them to review that designation. He says Miami-Dade's policy was put in place for economic reasons. Facing the potential loss of millions of dollars in federal funds, Gimenez said, now that policy no longer makes sense. Gimenez was out of town today. At Miami-Dade's county administration building, protesters banged on the doors after staff locked them out.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Hey, Gimenez, shame on you. You are an immigrant, too.
ALLEN: One of the organizers, Jonathan Fried with We Count, said this action undermines the tenuous relationship police have with Miami's large immigrant community both documented and undocumented. And he says Miami-Dade's mayor is signing on to an executive order rejected by other big-city mayors, one Fried worries that will lead to mass deportation.
JONATHAN FRIED: We are outraged that Chicago, New York and Boston mayors, for example, have done the right thing and at the first hint of a threat of taking away federal funds from the county, he gives up.
ALLEN: For protesters like 20-year-old Diego Ramirez (ph), Gimenez's decision is personal. Ramirez is an immigrant here illegally from Mexico but, at least for now, is covered by DACA, an Obama executive action that allows young immigrants without papers to stay in the country temporarily. Trump promised during the campaign to undo it. Ramirez is also worried about Trump's promise to triple the number of federal immigration agents.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Shame on you. Shame on you.
DIEGO RAMIREZ: Deportation has continuously going on a daily base. And now by tripling the agents, it will be more - it will be triple the amount of deportation. So therefore, we all will be affected by this order.
ALLEN: Gimenez says his order only affects inmates already in custody on other charges. He says Miami-Dade's police won't be enforcing immigration laws or asking people for their papers. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Team USA won the prestigious Bocuse d'Or cooking competition in Lyon, France, this week. It was the first time the USA has won in the contest's 30-year history. It's like the World Cup for chefs, bringing together teams from Guatemala to Singapore to Iceland. Winner Mathew Peters used to be the sous chef at the well-known New York City restaurant Per Se. He and his team made 14 dishes in the big Bocuse d'Or finale.
MATHEW PETERS: We started off with a vegan dish with cremini-mushroom-wrapped asparagus thinly sliced and kind of shingled over the top with a fork-crushed potato...
SIEGEL: And there was much more, from lobster with Meyer lemon mousse to braised chicken wings, foie gras, corn custard and toasted pistachios. All of this was prepared in a kind of stadium with cheering crowds and announcers, cameras, music, coaches. I asked Mathew Peters what it was like to cook in an environment like that.
PETERS: I mean it's exhilarating. You have this passion and devotion from all of our fans that ended up showing up and traveled thousands of miles just to come and represent America. It gave us the energy, you know, in the kitchen, which was fantastic, and I think that really drove us to do what we needed to do.
SIEGEL: How much time did you take off from work to prepare for this competition?
PETERS: We've taken off the entire year for training purposes.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) Describe - how do you - what's your training regimen for a year...
PETERS: (Laughter).
SIEGEL: ...Of training for a cooking competition?
PETERS: You're working on food. You're perfecting it. We had a great designer from Crucial Detail with Mark Kastner that developed all the tools that allowed us to get the timing and the execution that we wanted and the design that we were looking for, so...
SIEGEL: You're talking about knives and other kitchen utensils that were specially designed?
PETERS: No, we're talking about reinventing, you know, cooking equipment in general, whether it was a potato press that he was able to create that gave us a specific form and shape that we were able to execute out of, as well as sharpening tools that we were able to get the perfect carrot size and shape.
SIEGEL: OK, so this year sounds in part like it's training for a space shot or something like that.
PETERS: (Laughter).
SIEGEL: And then what do you do? I mean do you run to keep up your strength? What do you do with all those...
PETERS: Yeah, I mean working out is a huge part of it. Five and a half hours on your feet cooking and turning and bending - and it's wear and tear on your body, so you know, it's good to stay fit. It's good to stay strong.
SIEGEL: Now, as appetizing as your champion dishes sound, I read in the very critical review that The New York Times did of Per Se, the restaurant where you were a sous chef...
PETERS: Right.
SIEGEL: ...That it could set back a party of four $3,000 to have dinner.
PETERS: (Laughter).
SIEGEL: Are you considering some budget lines so that somebody of average means might be able to sample your dishes?
PETERS: You know, it's not my decision on, you know, the price of food. You know, the dishes that we do, we do it for us.
SIEGEL: If you're throwing in the overhead for the blacksmith who's making the...
PETERS: (Laughter).
SIEGEL: ...The tools in the kitchen, I begin to see how you can...
PETERS: Right.
SIEGEL: ...Rack up a bill after a while.
PETERS: Right, well, people have to understand that for the high quality of food, it's very expensive. The execution, the team, the people that go behind it - it's all accounted for at the end of the day.
SIEGEL: This was the first win for America in this competition, in the Bocuse d'Or. Is it a big step, do you think, for American high cuisine?
PETERS: I think it's huge. You know, it's exciting. It's an exciting moment for, you know, America. It's an exciting moment for the cuisine in America to be able to have this much attention around it.
SIEGEL: That's Chef Mathew Peters, the winner of this year's Bocuse d'Or competition. He joined us via Skype from Paris. Thank you, Matthew, and congratulations.
PETERS: Thank you very much.
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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This week Oscar nominations came out and, like many years, several of the films had something in common. "Arrival," "Jackie," "Manchester By The Sea" and "Hell Or High Water" all appeared on Hollywood's Black List. This Black List is actually a good thing. It's an anonymous survey, and Alex Wagner writes about it in The Atlantic. Hi, Alex.
ALEX WAGNER: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Briefly explain what this Black List is.
WAGNER: Well, so The Black List is not the blacklist that a lot of Americans may be familiar with, a sort of witch hunt that took place in Hollywood in the '40s and '50s. It is the...
SHAPIRO: The anti-communist - yeah.
WAGNER: Exactly. It is the invention of a former - young - film industry executive named Franklin Leonard, who on a whim decided to ask his Rolodex the central question that is asked in Hollywood - what scripts have you read that are good? It doesn't mean the most bankable scripts in Hollywood, but the scripts that had the most compelling character-driven plots, the ones they couldn't put down, and the ones that also weren't yet being made into movies.
SHAPIRO: To what extent can this list really be an antidote to the overwhelming flood of blockbuster, action, comic book, superhero, sequel-based, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera movies?
WAGNER: A surprising number of scripts from The Black List actually get made into movies, about a third of them. And a lot of the Oscar nominees that we see every year come from The Black List, so it's definitely a talent clearinghouse, if you will. But the thing that I realized in the course of reporting this story, Ari, is that this does not account for the majority of Hollywood's output.
In this day and age, the lion's share of films made by Tinseltown are tent pole franchises that will do well overseas, but The Black List is really powerful and can change the careers of young writers or people who are new to Hollywood. Once you have a script on The Black List, even if that script isn't turned into a movie, your writing career definitely has juice. And that's an important thing as we talk about the American narrative and who gets to tell these stories and the ways in which we bring people into the Hollywood talent pool.
SHAPIRO: Right, there has been so much conversation about diversity in Hollywood. And to some extent I'm sure the scripts in The Black List do better than Hollywood in general, and yet the people vetting those scripts on The Black List are still, you know, the agents, the managers, the Hollywood people. Is it really a solution to the problem?
WAGNER: Yes and no. So Franklin Leonard set out to hopefully grab a more diverse pool of writers on The Black List, that hasn't really been the case. Sort of as a rejoinder to that or maybe to compliment the survey itself, he's developed a Black List screenwriting - scriptwriting service, and that allows anybody anywhere in the world to post their screenplay to the website for a small fee and have it reviewed by a number of industry professionals. In that way it sort of changes the power paradigm, it changes the gatekeeping.
And more fundamentally, it doesn't necessitate that screenwriters move to Los Angeles and work in an industry mailroom. That is a livelihood and a move that very few Americans can make, and they tend to be wealthier and better educated Americans that have either the family resources to support their meager salaries or the networks to get in with the studios.
SHAPIRO: She did a ton of interviews for this piece in The Atlantic, people on the inside and the outside all over Hollywood, and I wonder if at the end of the day you took away that The Black List is a good solution to the problems that plague Hollywood or just evidence of how huge those problems are that even something as influential as The Black List really can't change the direction of this massive steamship?
WAGNER: So I guess I was a little bit heartened and a little bit despondent, if you will. It's - Hollywood's a huge machine, and the people that are still greenlighting the majority of films tend to be overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male. "The Hunger Games" almost didn't really get made because people didn't believe in a film that had a female teenage protagonist. "The Butler" barely got made, it was basically crowdsource funding from 40 people because no studio would fund it.
SHAPIRO: And that was even after Oprah was on board. This was not some little-known project.
WAGNER: Exactly. I mean, "Slumdog Millionaire" very nearly went straight to DVD because the people who are deciding whether to get behind a movie are coming from a very specific place, and that is problematic and that requires systemic change. And as far as anyone in the industry being really very invested in creating that change and that disruption and allocating resources towards it, I just didn't see it.
SHAPIRO: That's Alex Wagner of CBS News and The Atlantic. Her new article is called "The Hollywood list Everyone Wants To Be On." Thanks, Alex.
WAGNER: Thanks, Ari.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Donald Trump signed an executive order this week to make his promise of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border a reality. Much of the talk since has been about the logistics - where would it go exactly? Who would pay for it? Well, writer Peter Behrens has been mulling over other questions. What does a border wall mean for America as a country and for America as an idea? Behrens is an immigrant. His father was an immigrant, too. And this week's news had him thinking back to a conversation he had with his own son over the Christmas holiday.
PETER BEHRENS: We were flying back to West Texas. My son, age 10, claimed a window seat. And as we angled down over that sere and wrinkled landscape west of the Pecos, another river spun into our view - our Rio Grande, their Rio Bravo. And my son, looking down, said, is the wall there? Can we see it? At school, he'd been hearing a lot about the wall. As a part time West Texan, he'd been across the river a few times and was aware what an insensible notion the wall was and how rank with meanness.
But a lot of strange things have happened lately. He hadn't been in Texas since the election and figured the wall might have gone up in the meantime. I reassured him it had not. We are both anti-wall people instinctively, my son and I. And I believe we inherited that attitude from my father, who fled Frankfurt in late August 1939 courtesy of a British passport, and crossed the un-walled Dutch frontier, heading for Rotterdam and eventually a ship for New York. My father died in Montreal one year before the Berlin Wall came down. The day it did, I watched those events on television, and I wept thinking of him and how much he would have enjoyed watching a wall tumble, a wall disrespected, a wall instead of the people it contained being for once and forever humiliated.
I grew up in Montreal. The Canadians aren't talking of a wall, maybe they should be. Maybe they'll need one. With an unusual degree of restlessness here, with fierce language on all sides, ferocious inequalities and a social contract that sometimes seems to be disassembling, perhaps the Canadians will decide they need a wall of their own. And if they do, and if we allow the president to build his wall, we'll all be trapped inside with him. And the United States, concreted up on both frontiers, will be a nation stopped in its tracks. The day America is at last secured behind its wall on permanent psychic lockdown is the day when the American story, apparently up until now unbounded and open-ended becomes, at last, a narrow one.
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SIEGEL: That commentary by writer Peter Behrens. His most recent novel is "Carry Me."
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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Donald Trump closed out his first full week in office with a visit today to the Pentagon. Mr. Trump issued new executive actions concerning national security, watched his vice president swear in the secretary of defense and had his first full meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
NPR's Tom Bowman joins us now. And Tom, what did we learn today about Donald Trump's plans for the war against ISIS?
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Well, we didn't learn too much about his plans for the war against ISIS. We do know that he met with the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon in a secure conference room called the Tank. And we're told that what they talked about was how to accelerate the war against ISIS. But we have no details on that yet.
But what I do know from talking to defense officials is that they may remove some of the restrictions put in place by the Obama administration. And that could mean U.S. troops could be closer to the front lines to help Iraqi forces and Syrian rebel forces fight ISIS. It could be more airstrikes. There was a great concern with the Obama administration about having no civilian casualties. So they could relax those restrictions on the fight against ISIS. That's what we're hearing.
In addition, they could offer more support to Iraq. We're hearing about perhaps more trainers, American trainers, more special operators and, again, more airstrikes to help in the fight against ISIS in Iraq.
SHAPIRO: The president issued a lot of executive actions this week, and today there was one about immigration from mostly Muslim countries, putting the refugee program on hold. Tell us more about what it says.
BOWMAN: Well, we just got it tonight, and what they talk about is more strict regulations on immigration, talks here in the executive order about a list of countries that do not provide adequate information on people coming into the country. It wants the secretary of homeland security as well as the secretary of state and the director of national intelligence to do a review of the countries that don't provide adequate information.
It talks about having a more uniform screening standard that includes in-person interviews, a database of identity documents. And it also talks about coming up with a biometric entry-exit tracking system. Biometrics of course would be the person's fingerprints. It could be a retina scan to see if this person is who he or she says they are. So that's something we're looking at now in this executive order - more stringent regulations here than what we have now.
SHAPIRO: Tom, it's still early in the administration, but after one week, what have we learned about the relationship Trump is going to have with Defense Secretary James Mattis and the rest of the Pentagon?
BOWMAN: Well, we're told that it was a pretty good meeting at the Pentagon with the Joint Chiefs. He seems to have a certain comfort level with Secretary Mattis, who was a four-star general and who led troops in Iraq. What's interesting is that Donald Trump said he believes torture works. Mattis completely disagrees with him. Mattis says, give me a pack of cigarettes and two beers; I can do a better job with - than any kind of torture.
And the president today said he would actually defer to his Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, on the issue of torture. If Mattis doesn't think it works, that's OK with President Trump.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Thanks, Tom.
BOWMAN: You're welcome, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump has signed more executive orders and presidential memoranda in his first week in office than any of his recent predecessors - 14 so far. That's one more than Barack Obama. As NPR's Tamara Keith reports, there is a glaring omission from Trump's directives. Breaking with the precedent set by the last three men to occupy the Oval Office, there is nothing about ethics for the executive branch.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: In their first two days in office, Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama all took executive action to send a signal to the American public about their commitment to ethics. For Bush, it was a presidential memo about the standards of official conduct - no conflicts of interest, no soliciting gifts and a reminder of laws that say senior government employees can't immediately lobby the agencies they worked for. President Obama in his second day on the job made a show of signing his executive order on ethics for administration officials.
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BARACK OBAMA: In a few minutes, I'm going to be issuing some of the first executive orders and directives of my presidency. And these steps are aimed at establishing firm rules of the road for my administration and all who serve in it.
KEITH: With cameras flashing, he signed an order, saying it was about restoring Americans' faith in their government.
President Clinton's first executive order, signed January 20, 1993, said that senior executive branch employees couldn't lobby their former agencies for five years. And it said they couldn't ever engage in activity on behalf of a foreign government or political party. If that sounds vaguely familiar, there's a reason.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: On ethics reform, as part of our plan to drain the swamp, we will impose a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration and a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.
KEITH: That was President-elect Trump in a video released in late November.
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Drain the swamp. Drain the swamp.
KEITH: His pledge to drain the swamp became a rallying cry in the final weeks of the campaign.
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TRUMP: Drain the swamp. We're going to drain the swamp of Washington. We're going to have fun doing it. We're all doing it together.
KEITH: But now, a week into his presidency, Trump still hasn't made his swamp-draining policies official. Though his transition team did announce that people serving in the administration would have to sign a strict ethics pledge, it's not clear whether that has happened.
When asked whether President Trump had plans to sign an executive order on executive branch ethics, an administration spokeswoman said she had nothing to announce at this time. Instead, it seems Trump and his team have placed a higher priority on showing he's keeping his other campaign pledges.
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REINCE PRIEBUS: All right, we're going to sign three memorandums right now. The first one is a withdrawal from the United - of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
TRUMP: Everyone knows what that means, right? We've been talking about this for a long time.
KEITH: In his first week, Trump has also moved to undermine Obamacare, temporarily halt refugee resettlement in the U.S., revive the Keystone Pipeline and build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, among other things. The language in his directives has been more bold than typically found in these sorts of documents, says Phillip Cooper, a professor of public administration at Portland State University.
PHILLIP COOPER: And if you look at that language, right after the first paragraph or so when it gets into the policy stuff, you can see that this is right out of the campaign.
KEITH: Executive actions in the early days of an administration, Cooper says, are to be expected.
COOPER: In terms of the scope and content, the first few things he's done are pretty dramatic. In some of the previous administrations, we've seen a lot of symbolic things happen right away, responses to campaign promises. But in this case, clearly he's going after some of the most controversial issues.
KEITH: But just because a president signs an order on something he pledged during the campaign doesn't mean it will become a reality. President Obama never was able to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay despite signing an order to do so in his first week. And on those ethics directives, presidents can and have granted waivers. Tamara Keith, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST SONG, "LUCK OF LUCIEN")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Anti-abortion activists held their annual March for Life in Washington today. As NPR's Sarah McCammon reports, this year many of them are optimistic about their cause.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: As the march kicked off near the Washington Monument, the vibe was part protest, part Christian rock concert.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Over loudspeaker) In Jesus' name, we can't do this without you.
MCCAMMON: Each year since 1974 after Roe versus Wade legalized abortion, activists have flocked to Washington to call for an end to abortion. But this year, for the first time ever, organizers say, the vice president made an in-person appearance.
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: You know, life is winning in America.
(CHEERING)
PENCE: And today is a celebration of that progress, the progress that we've made in this cause.
MCCAMMON: Vice President Mike Pence pledged that he and President Donald Trump will work with Congress to end taxpayer funding for abortion. In most cases federal funding for abortion is already banned under current law, but many anti-abortion activists want to block Planned Parenthood from receiving federal dollars for any women's health services.
VERONICA MCDERMOTT: I don't want my money going to kill the unborn. You know, if people want to do that, they can write their own check. We should not have to pay for babies to die.
MCCAMMON: Veronica McDermott came from Maryland to the march. She wore a red making America great again hat - in present tense - and a button that said defund Planned Parenthood. The organization receives about half a billion federal dollars a year to provide services like contraceptives and STDs screenings mostly through Medicaid. McDermott says she doesn't want her tax dollars paying for that, either.
MCDERMOTT: The Lord says we should not have sex until marriage, first of all.
MCCAMMON: For low-income women who can't afford contraception, McDermott says...
MCDERMOTT: They have Obamacare. Yeah, you can go to the health clinic and get it free. We don't need Planned Parenthood.
MCCAMMON: McDermott says she'd like to see more affordable care for everyone. That's something candidate Trump promised on the campaign trail when he vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, though President Trump and Republican leaders in Congress have yet to outline a detailed plan. Some speakers at the March for Life also took jabs at last weekend's Women's March, whose platform was supportive of abortion rights.
ERIC METAXAS: (Over loudspeaker) I have not thought a lot about blowing up Madonna's house, and the reason is because the Lord I follow commands me to love my enemies.
MCCAMMON: Conservative radio host Eric Metaxas referred to Madonna, who took a lot of heat and later had to backtrack for her comment on stage at the Women's March that since Trump's election she'd thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.
METAXAS: (Over loudspeaker) Madonna, Jesus loves you, and we're going to pray that his love be revealed to you and everybody that was at the Women's March.
MCCAMMON: Brian Kiernan of Charlottesville, Va. said he had friends, family members and coworkers at the Women's March, but he wanted to come to the March for Life because he opposes abortion.
BRIAN KIERNAN: I certainly understand they appreciate that perspective of cherishing and defending the rights of those who are - have less or who are disadvantaged, and that's really what this march is about, too.
MCCAMMON: A few groups who label themselves as pro-life feminists took part in both marches, saying they shared some goals like equal pay and ending violence against women. But whatever common ground some marchers at the two events may find, their policy goals on abortion remain sharply divided. Sarah McCammon, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We're going to hear now from someone who knows the U.S.-Mexico border better than almost anyone else in Washington. Congressman Will Hurd represents a district that includes an 800-mile stretch of border. He is African-American, Republican and just won re-election in a district that is 70 percent Latino that went for Hillary Clinton. Congressman Hurd joins us from his district in Texas. Welcome to the program.
WILL HURD: Thanks, Ari.
SHAPIRO: So that district where you are right now includes more of the border than any other congressional district, and you've put out a statement saying that Donald Trump's proposal for a wall is what you called the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border. Why is that?
HURD: Because having a one-size-fits-all solution to border security is the wrong way to do it. What you need in San Diego is very different than what you need in El Paso or Harlingen, and it's also the most expensive. During the campaign, our president suggested that this was going to cost $9 billion. MIT did a breakdown on the cost, they think it could be anywhere between 27 and $40 billion. And to just give some context of that number, the entire U.S. intelligence budget is $53 billion.
SHAPIRO: Well, what do you think would be more effective and cost-effective?
HURD: Let's use a mix of technology. It's going to be significantly cheaper than building a wall. Let's focus on drug traffickers, you know, kingpin human smugglers. Let's increase the operations that the NSA and the CIA are doing to collect on those organizations, and work with our Mexican partners to stop the problem before it actually gets to our border.
SHAPIRO: So are you saying do basically what we've been doing but more of it, or are you saying do something completely different from what we've been doing the last five, 10 years?
HURD: So the last eight years we have had kind of a one-size-fits-all solution to border security. We don't have enough border patrol officers. We haven't been giving them the resources that they need to do their job, that we need to allow them to adjust their tactics, techniques and procedures as they see fit based on the unique realities on the ground.
In some parts of my district we need horses and TVs rather than a wall. I have the Big Bend National Park in my district, the highest peak is 8,000 feet. All right, are you going to build a wall in the middle of the Rio Grande River and then on top of a mountain peak? That doesn't make sense.
SHAPIRO: But it sounds like what you're suggesting is going to be a lot harder to point to, take a photograph in front of, talk about in a pithy soundbite than a great big beautiful wall might be.
HURD: I spent nine-and-a-half years as an undercover officer in the CIA, protecting our country is not easy because we also have to remember that our adversaries are going to do a counter move every time we make a move. And that's why our response to folks that are trying to do us harm or coming across our border has to be a multi-disciplined flexible approach.
SHAPIRO: I'd also like to ask your take on the Russia relationship. President Trump is scheduled to speak with Vladimir Putin this weekend. As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, you're involved in the investigation into Russian hacking. Do you fear that President Trump will be too soft on Russia?
HURD: So I've - I learned something in my time in the CIA. Be nice with nice guys and tough with tough guys. Vladimir Putin and Russia are not our friends, they are our adversary. It was very clear that Russian intelligence were behind the hacking of the DNC - the Democratic National Committee - and the DCCC When...
SHAPIRO: We should also say DCCC is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
HURD: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
SHAPIRO: Go on, yeah.
HURD: This would be going down in history as the greatest covert action because it created a wedge, whether real or perceived, between the chief executive, the intelligence community and the American people.
SHAPIRO: And do you think President Trump understands that?
HURD: I am confident that his team around him like Mike Pompeo and Gen. Mattis understand that. And I think President Trump has a unique negotiating style, and I cannot comment on whether this is part of a broader negotiation or not, but I think we're going to find out in the next couple of days.
SHAPIRO: Congressman Will Hurd, thanks for your time.
HURD: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Congressman Hurd is a Republican who represents a Texas district that includes 800 miles of border with Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEACH HOUSE SONG, "MYTH")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump has followed through on a campaign pledge to cut the flow of Syrians entering the United States. He signed an executive action that he says will impose new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States.
NPR's Deborah Amos has been covering this refugee issue for us and joins us now. Deb, we have seen the president sign this executive action. We have not read the document. What are we hearing might be in it?
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: Exactly. We really don't have the text. But from what we know from a Fox interview last night, an interview with a Christian broadcaster today and a leaked document earlier in the week, it's been widely reported that he will halt refugee admissions for 120 days, cut the number of refugees admitted this year by 50 percent and indefinitely stop the admission of Syrian refugees. It - this is really a shake-up of how the United States welcomes the world's most vulnerable people.
There's already been some immediate consequences. Today, the dean and the faculty at John (ph) Hopkins Bloomberg International School sent a letter to the president asking him, urging him to reconsider. They're offering scholarships to Syrian medical professionals to help them rebuild Syria, and they say they're not going to be able to get in.
SHAPIRO: Now, the U.S. has taken in something like 70,000 refugees a year globally but only about 10,000 Syrian refugees over the last five years. President Trump says those Syrians pose a security risk, but they go through a very long vetting process. Remind us what sort of security checks are included at this point.
AMOS: They do. We have to separate what we see of the refugees in Europe - there's hardly a process there at all, but it's very tough to get into the U.S. You don't even choose to do it. You get chosen. They are screened. It's about 20 steps. It includes intensive interviews, biometric checks, DNA, fingerprints, iris scans.
You know, they are vetted by U.S. security agencies, counterterrorism specialists. You get additional checks with the security agencies of American allies. All of that continues until the day they land. And even after, Syrians have more rigorous checks than any other refugees.
SHAPIRO: Beyond Syrian refugee resettlement, President Trump talked a lot during his campaign about a ban on Muslim immigration. He later referred to extreme vetting. You've spoken with some of the people who influenced his thinking on this. What is their case?
AMOS: You know, the opponents say, we don't know who they are. You've heard the president say that, too. What they mean is we don't know their ideology, and their suspicion falls heavily on Muslim refugees. So groups that oppose admitting Muslims are convinced without any evidence that many Muslims want to impose Islamic law. They want to undermine the U.S. Constitution. So these groups want some kind of ideological test of religious beliefs. Now, we don't know if the president has that specifically in this administration action - administrative action, so we have to look.
SHAPIRO: There has been some talk about a provision that would allow Christians from some of these countries to come into the U.S. What could that involve?
AMOS: Well, the president and his supporters have long charged that Muslim refugees have been favored over Christians. Most people are fleeing wars in Muslim-majority countries. And the second problem is that many of the Syrian and Iraqi Christians are in Lebanon and in Erbil. This is in northern Iraq. And because of security problems, the State Department doesn't do very many interviews in those places, so we would have to change where the interviews are taking place.
But he did say that he is going to favor religious minorities, and by that, he does mean Christians. He said it in the campaign. His supporters want him to do it. And that is very likely to be part of this new policy about...
SHAPIRO: All right.
AMOS: ...Bringing in refugees.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Deb Amos, thanks very much.
AMOS: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
One of the most influential people in the White House has gone out of his way to attack the media. President Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon told The New York Times the media is, quote, "the opposition party." And as NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik reports, news executives are trying hard not to take the bait.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: What a way for the new administration to end its first full week in office - the media denounced in terms ranging from distrust to criticism to explosive anger, all from top officials. Now comes chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, perhaps the most severe to date. I'll let Ainsley Earhardt, a host of the morning show "Fox & Friends" on the Fox News Channel, capture just what Bannon said to The Times.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AINSLEY EARHARDT: He said the media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.
FOLKENFLIK: Bannon didn't stop there.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
EARHARDT: The media here is the opposition party. They don't understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.
FOLKENFLIK: The eternal campaign, as though it never ended.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEFF ZUCKER: It is incredibly inappropriate to try to delegitimize media and journalism the way they're doing it.
FOLKENFLIK: CNN chief Jeff Zucker spoke last night at an event at the University of Chicago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ZUCKER: You know, listen; this is the most contentious relationship between an administration and the media since Richard Nixon. If they want to have that kind of relationship, OK. You know, that's certainly their prerogative.
FOLKENFLIK: Zucker said Bannon was trying to knock the press off balance.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ZUCKER: As happens in newsrooms everywhere, The New York Times story comes out today, and all the journalists are, you know, emailing this story around and saying, you know, oh, my God, oh, my God. And then, you know, the key thing that I said was just do your job. Just do your job.
FOLKENFLIK: News executives say they aren't the opposition but the watchdogs, that their job involves holding politicians accountable for their actions. CBS News President David Rhodes appeared at the same event.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVID RHODES: I mean, look; as management in these things, you're kind of the police officer, the police line with the burning building telling people to remain calm.
FOLKENFLIK: Rhodes says the media has to hold to the same principles and standards as ever.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RHODES: There's always a tendency at the start of an administration - and this one I think in some ways is actually no different - to try to take messages directly around the press.
FOLKENFLIK: As president, Trump's tweets are being treated as breaking news by cable channels. No new administration has had so many ways to circumvent the media, and none in recent memory has criticized journalists so bluntly and so routinely. Here Trump was Wednesday with ABC's David Muir.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: ...Pro-life people, and they say the press doesn't cover them.
DAVID MUIR: I don't want to compare crowd sizes again.
TRUMP: No, you shouldn't.
MUIR: I...
TRUMP: But let me just tell you. What they do say is that the press doesn't cover them.
FOLKENFLIK: The Republican public relations consultant Kurt Bardella says Bannon concluded that the media would be a perfect foil for Trump. Bardella worked daily for Bannon as a consultant for Breitbart News.
KURT BARDELLA: What they're really doing is trying to set precedent for how they will deal with tough questions and potential investigations.
FOLKENFLIK: The White House will deal with it, Bardella says, by dismissing the media.
BARDELLA: They're laying the groundwork so that when those questions come or those reports come or those facts come, that they can say, of course they're writing that; they're the opposition. Of course they're writing that; they're fake news. They're laying the groundwork to try to discredit any type of negative press that could be damaging to the administration in the future.
FOLKENFLIK: The White House's routine denunciation of the media, Bardella says - a marriage of conviction and convenience. David Folkenflik, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BLOW SONG, "TRUE AFFECTION")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A police department in Georgia is taking a hard look at its past in an effort to strengthen its relationship with African-Americans. Last night, the police chief made a public apology for his force's role in a lynching that happened more than 75 years ago. From Georgia Public Broadcasting, Sam Whitehead reports.
SAM WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: In 1940, a mob came to the city jail in LaGrange looking for 16-year-old Austin Callaway, a young black man accused of attacking a white woman. Police officers didn't stand in their way. Last night, members of that same police force stood with the community at the Warren Temple United Methodist Church to remember him, and to hear Police Chief Lou Dekmar deliver a message.
CHIEF LOU DEKMAR: I sincerely regret and denounce the role our police department played in Austin's lynching, both through our action and our inaction, and for that I'm profoundly sorry. It should never have happened.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes, yes.
(APPLAUSE)
WHITEHEAD: Dekmar, who is white, also apologized for the failure of local law enforcement to ever investigate the murder, but the night wasn't just an occasion to atone for sins of the past.
DEKMAR: This acknowledgement and apology is a further opportunity to build trust, but it must also be accompanied by a commitment to never again tolerate a climate of injustice.
(APPLAUSE)
WHITEHEAD: Then came the response from a relative of Austin Callaway, leaders of the local and state chapters of the NAACP and LaGrange Councilman Willie Edmondson.
WILLIE EDMONDSON: From this public apology tonight, we can now start the healing process and come together as a community in love and forgiveness.
WHITEHEAD: But healing isn't easy.
KRISTEN REED: I mean, apology is never enough. I don't think an apology is ever enough for a murder or for a lynching and for the injustice that followed.
WHITEHEAD: After the service, Kristen Reed said it's not often law enforcement apologizes for mistreatment of communities of color.
REED: And for Lou Dekmar to stand up there and say I'm sorry for something he didn't do and no one did who was here, nobody's alive from that time, or if they are alive they're not a part of the police department. They had nothing to do with it, and for them to feel the need to say they were sorry I think sends a message, especially in a climate like this.
BENITA EPPS: It's a start, a good start.
WHITEHEAD: Benita Epps says one apology doesn't erase decades of division. Still, she's hopeful this is a sign of things to come in LaGrange.
EPPS: Because that's history, and if you don't recognize your history, you're not going to be able to move forward I don't think.
WHITEHEAD: There's a lot of that history to sort through, but Epps says open discussions about the mistakes of the past will lead to more productive conversations about the future. For NPR News, I'm Sam Whitehead in LaGrange, Ga.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
It has been said that the best things in life are free, and that thought is the inspiration behind our Commercials for Nicer Living Project version 2-0-1-7. We asked you to tell us some of the things that make life just a little bit better, things that money cannot buy, and then we asked you to write ads for those things in 120 words just like you'd hear on the radio. More than 2,000 of you took up our challenge, and from your suggestions we picked just five to produce like commercials. Susan Stamberg is here to present two of them. Hiya, Susan.
SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE: Hi.
SIEGEL: This is an updated version of a project that you came up with. I want you to remind us of the original Commercials for Nicer Living Projects.
STAMBERG: OK. In 1972, which was before you were born, Robert, for our non-commercial radio program we asked listeners to write ads not for toothpaste, deodorant, toilet bowl cleansers, but for things that really mattered to them, experiences or ideas, people, and we call them Commercials for Nicer Living. We produced some favorites, and we played them on the air just for fun. And it was so much fun that our program librarians got to thinking let's bring it back.
SIEGEL: So that's where we are, and what were some of the ads that people wrote this time around?
STAMBERG: Well, I'm going to go alphabetically - babies, balmy breezes, birds, bonfires, books, burnt toast, coffee, clothes fresh out of the dryer, generosity, laughter, letter writing and it goes on.
SIEGEL: Wow. And I understand that you had a team of judicious NPR staff to winnow through the submissions, but you, you alone, Susan Stamberg, cast the deciding vote. What did you pick?
STAMBERG: Well, I can't tell you. You have to hear one.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Hi, your dog here. I see you're sitting down reading a magazine. Have you given much thought lately to ear scratches? Here, let me help you by nosing aside that distraction and positioning my head right under your hand. There, isn't that better? Ah, my silky fur and the way I'm closing my eyes right now have been clinically shown to bring down your blood pressure and add years to your life. Wait, no, don't pick that back up. To get the full benefit of ear scratches, doctors recommend continuing for 90 consecutive minutes. Oh, all right, how about three? Ear scratches, yeah, that's the spot.
(LAUGHTER)
STAMBERG: That doggy ad, yeah?
SIEGEL: Of all the bodily sensations that we could come up with, that's the one that we're advertising right here.
STAMBERG: And it was written by listener Carrie Ghose in Columbus, Ohio. Now, here is a clue to the next one.
SIEGEL: OK.
STAMBERG: What do you call the silence after a commercial about dogs?
SIEGEL: I give up.
STAMBERG: The pause.
SIEGEL: Oh, my gosh, Susan.
STAMBERG: I'm sorry (laughter).
SIEGEL: All right, I've recalibrated my standards for the next item.
STAMBERG: OK, you ready?
SIEGEL: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Are plain old knock-knock jokes just not funny anymore? Is the classic why'd the chicken cross the road not getting laughs like it used to? If so, try puns.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Yay.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Puns come in all types, such as what do you call an alligator in a vest? An investigator.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGH TRACK)
STAMBERG: Oh, God.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: If a friend starts telling bird jokes, remind him toucan play at that game.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGH TRACK)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: So try puns.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Side effects may include groaning, your friends getting annoyed, wanting to make more puns, making puns in random conversation, forgetting other kinds of jokes existed and people judging you. Ask your common sense before trying puns. If the situation does not call for them, it may result in many disgusted looks.
STAMBERG: If you're in need of a new kind of joke, try puns. They may be cheesy, but the results are grate.
SIEGEL: Oh, they're not great, but they were grated is what he means.
STAMBERG: Grated, yeah.
SIEGEL: I see.
STAMBERG: It's the highest form of humor.
SIEGEL: It really is the lowest form of humor, isn't it? Yes.
STAMBERG: Maya Khurana in Chicago wrote that. Robert, you want to hear some more? I have 2,000 of them.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) No because we don't want to squander all the joy at once, so we're going to reveal the other three commercials for Nicer Living next week on the program. Susan, thanks for joining us and for exposing us to these Commercials for Better Living.
STAMBERG: You're most welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF VAMPIRE WEEKEND SONG, "OXFORD COMMA")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump has followed through on a campaign pledge to stop the flow of Syrian refugees to the U.S. He signed an executive order that he says will impose new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States. NPR's Deborah Amos covers this issue for us and joins us now with more. Hi, Deb.
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: Hi there.
SHAPIRO: So what is in this executive order that President Trump signed today?
AMOS: Ari, this really shakes up how the United States welcomes the world's most vulnerable people. We now have the text. The entire refugee program is suspended for 120 days. Syrian refugees are declared detriment to the interest of the United States, they will be barred. When the programs resume, the numbers go down by 50 percent. The U.S. has taken in 30,000, so we're only talking about another 20,000, 50,000 in all. For the first time, the U.S. will prioritize Christian refugees, claims made by individuals on the basis of religious persecution. And the U.S. will collect data on those who get radicalized here, engaged in gender violence, honor killings. No one's allowed in the country that bears hostile attitudes.
Now, this is already having consequences. I spoke to a woman in Spokane today who's with a Lutheran refugee agency. She runs a program for unaccompanied minors. An Afghan 17-year-old was supposed to come in on Monday. They have a foster home for him. Whether he can get off that plane or whether he will be turned around after one year of work, they really don't know.
SHAPIRO: Now, Donald Trump during the campaign used the phrase extreme vetting a lot. This executive order put some meat on those bones. There was a pretty robust vetting process before this executive order was in place, remind us what it was.
AMOS: Well, that's right. And, you know, I have to remind you that it's different than the process or lack of process in Europe. Here, refugees can't decide to come to the United States, they are chosen to do so. And they are heavily screened, more than 20 steps that includes extensive interviews, biometric checks, DNA fingerprints, iris scans. They're vetted by U.S. security agencies, you know, counterterrorism specialists, then they get additional checks with security agencies from American allies. And all of that continues - the whole while they're going through their medical checks and all the other things that they have to do - continues until they land. And even after that, Syrians have the most vigorous checks of any other refugees.
SHAPIRO: And Syrians have not been responsible for terrorist attacks within the U.S. despite the language of this order which talks about preventing terrorist attacks. You've spoken with some of the people who encouraged Donald Trump to go down this path, what is the case that they make?
AMOS: The opponents say we don't know who they are. You've heard the president say that, too. What they mean is we don't know their ideology, and for them suspicion falls heavily on Muslim refugees. Groups who oppose admitting Muslims, they're convinced without any evidence that many want to impose Islamic law to undermine the Constitution, so they want some kind of ideological test - a religious belief test. And, you know, we heard some echoing of this in the comments that Donald Trump made today about we only want people who love our country and who love our people.
SHAPIRO: Is a religious belief test something the U.S. has any recent experience with? It seems pretty extraordinary.
AMOS: No. And there may be some, you know, challenges. I'm sure that there will be legal challenges. You can already see that there is opposition building. One group, Mercy Corps, had a petition 20,000 people signed within 24 hours. There was a big demonstration last night in New York. There's been lots and lots of statements made by people who say this doesn't reflect American values. They're very, very upset about this dramatic change in the refugee program.
SHAPIRO: Thanks very much. That's NPR's Deborah Amos.
AMOS: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We'll start with a look at a very busy week in Washington punctuated by President Trump's executive directives on everything from the Affordable Care Act and abortion to a promised border wall with Mexico to calls to restart two controversial pipeline programs. And then there is that ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries signed yesterday.
We're going to drill down on that story today because there has been tremendous reaction to it both here and abroad. To talk about all this, we've called NPR's Scott Horsley, who covers the White House. Scott, welcome back.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
MARTIN: Also on the line with us is NPR's Aarti Shahani from San Francisco. Aarti, welcome to you, too.
AARTI SHAHANI, BYLINE: Hi.
MARTIN: And I'm going to start with you because you've been getting reaction all day on this story. What are you hearing at the borders and from people trying to get into the country?
SHAHANI: What I'm hearing is there is confusion. People have been stranded, detained at airports across the U.S. We don't know exactly how many, but we do know it's not just refugees coming here for the first time. Green card holders, too, people with what is termed lawful permanent residency have also been pulled aside, have their status in question, if - from the designated predominantly Muslim countries.
NPR has also obtained an internal email circulating over at USCIS, the immigration agency that processes immigrant applications. The guidance says officers can keep interviewing people but cannot approve any application. That could affect people, you know, originally from those countries who are preparing to take the U.S. citizenship oath.
MARTIN: Now, I understand you've spoken with somebody who had a difficult time getting into the country.
SHAHANI: That's right. I interviewed a woman named Nisrin Elamin. She's a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at Stanford University. She's had a green card for five years. She's originally from Sudan, and she was doing dissertation research there. She heard about the executive order and made a pretty last-minute decision to come back to the U.S. to avoid problems. She landed at JFK last night around 10 p.m. She still got pulled aside. Elamin said the officer dealing with her just seemed to be making it up as he went along.
NISRIN ELAMIN: The officer who was questioning me told me that they had just gotten word about this executive order 20 minutes before we arrived. So they were so confused about what to do, and they were waiting on Washington to give them more direction on what to do. And when I asked him - you know, I told him I'm a permanent resident - could I be sent back? And he said he didn't know. So he told me to just - he said it's probably going to be a long night so just kind of sit tight.
SHAHANI: Elamin was held until about 3 a.m. Homeland Security decided to stamp her in after asking her a bunch of questions about her take on radicalism and Sharia law, asking her for her Facebook account and handcuffing her. She says one of the officers told her it would not be a good idea for her to travel abroad again, even though she has a green card.
MARTIN: I understand that there are some legal challenges already in the works.
SHAHANI: Yes. The ACLU with other advocates filed a habeas petition, saying that the executive order violates the Constitution and laws passed by Congress. The position focuses on two men from Iraq, one of whom helped the U.S. military in Iraq. ACLU attorney - ACLU attorney here, Cecillia Wang, describes him.
CECILLIA WANG: One of our clients, Mr. Darweesh, served as an interpreter and worked for the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division and has been targeted by threats because of his connections with our U.S. Army in Iraq.
SHAHANI: Now, Hameed Darweesh's wife and child were admitted while he was detained. Wang says that decision was arbitrary. They were all coming in from the same country, same visa. This afternoon, by the way, he was released into the U.S. But the other man, Heider Al-Shawi is still in custody.
MARTIN: Well, let's go to Scott Horsley now. Scott, we don't have time to address all of the executive actions that we've talked about over the course of the week, so let's just focus on this again. Remind us again exactly what yesterday's executive action on immigration said.
HORSLEY: Well, Michel, it closes the door to all refugees for four months. It closes the door to refugees from Syria indefinitely. It cuts, by more than half, the total number of refugees the United States is expected to take in this year, giving priority to Christian refugees from the Middle East. And it puts a 90-day hold on all visitors from the seven countries with predominantly Muslim populations - Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan.
In signing this order at the Pentagon yesterday, President Trump described it as a way of keeping would-be terrorists out of the United States. But critics say it's a step towards that Muslim ban that the president talked about during the campaign, and they say it's a violation of America's commitment to religious freedom and the Constitution.
MARTIN: Well, Scott, stick with that idea for a moment there. You just heard reports that then - we've been hearing reports all day from critics who say that this is heavy-handed, that it's inhumane and that this is a backdoor ban on Muslims. Has the White House offered any reaction to this?
HORSLEY: Yes. The White House has been pushing back on the idea that this is a backdoor Muslim ban. A White House official noted there are a lot of Muslim countries that are not on that list of seven. And certainly, that's true. For example, Saudi Arabia, which was home to most of the 9/11 hijackers, is not on the list. Pakistan, which is home to one of the San Bernardino shooters, is not on the list. The countries that are on the list were actually put together - this list dates from the Obama administration.
And its original purpose was that people who were from those countries and - or who had traveled to those countries were required to get some extra scrutiny before they came into the United States. The critics of this new policy say there's a big difference between asking for that kind of individualized scrutiny and a blanket 90-day ban that President Trump has now ordered.
MARTIN: And what about all these reports about chaos and confusion at the borders? What are you hearing? What is the White House saying in response to that?
HORSLEY: Well, it's not terribly surprising. There was confusion about this. Let me just walk you through the timeline here. President Trump signed the executive order yesterday afternoon about 4:30 p.m., Washington-time. But the White House didn't actually release the text of the order for more than two hours, And even then, those of us who were working at the White House had trouble getting clarity from the White House press office about which countries were actually going to be shut off by that 90-day travel ban.
Now, the White House insists it was communicating for, quote, "many weeks" with relevant officials at the State Department and the Homeland Security Department, although that might be an exaggeration since President Trump was sworn in just over one week ago. But a White House official said today, quote, "everyone who needed to know about this order was informed."
MARTIN: Scott, just very briefly if I could - apologies for interrupting...
HORSLEY: Sure.
MARTIN: ...Any other reaction from lawmakers for and against? One assumes that there is.
HORSLEY: Yes. There has been some praise for this order. The GOP chairman of the House Judiciary Committee called it a sensible pause on the entry of refugees. But a lot of Democrats have been critical. And Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska also went on record tonight saying this order is overly broad.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Scott Horsley. He covers the White House. And NPR's Aarti Shahani joins us from San Francisco. Thank you both so much for speaking with us.
HORSLEY: You're welcome.
SHAHANI: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now, we've been talking about how President Trump's new ban on refugee resettlement and immigration from certain countries is playing out across the U.S. That order, as we are hearing, is adding a new layer of uncertainty for U.S. green card holders traveling abroad. At a briefing today, a senior official on the Trump administration said green card holders from the seven banned countries would need a case by case waiver to return to the U.S.
That worries American citizen Solmaz Sharif. Her mother is an Iranian citizen, who holds a U.S. green card. Her mother flew to Iran a few weeks ago to visit family, and now the two are unsure if they can reunite in New York in early April as had been originally planned. Solmaz Sharif is president of the New York Persian Cultural Center. We reached her via Skype in New York earlier today, and I began by asking her about her first thoughts when she heard of this executive order.
SOLMAZ SHARIF: My first thought was this is so un-American. And I'm not putting that very loosely. There is this idea of America and the freedoms that it provides. And that's main reason so many people leave their family and home and everything behind and come and start a new home. And this is exactly an example of an inquisition.
MARTIN: Your particular concern is that you feel that this kind of puts your mother in this odd limbo situation now. She left in January to visit Iran for the Persian New Year. She was planning to come back in April. But under the existing rules, what? She should be back within six months, is that right?
SHARIF: Exactly. So any green card holders can not be out of country more than six months. And with this new 90-days ban, if anyone fall out of that six months, my question is what would happen then? My mother was planning to come back in April. She'll still have time until June, but it's still - we don't know if she can come back or not.
MARTIN: How does this make you feel?
SHARIF: I should say angry, but it's not enough of a good word of my emotion because she is only one of the other stories that I hear.
MARTIN: Have you been able to talk to your mother since this...
SHARIF: I have.
MARTIN: ...New order came down? What is her reaction to all of this?
SHARIF: Yes, I have talked to her, and she's also very disappointed and angry and on limbo. She doesn't know what would happen. But then, you know, for me as a proud American, I kept bragging in sort of way that what America is. And now she's asking me, well, you tell me what's the difference between Iranian government and American government? And it's such a hard feeling for me. It's just very disappointing.
MARTIN: Well, the administration is saying that these are steps that are necessary to protect Americans like yourself from the threat of persons who may use this refugee resettlement or immigration process to do harm to Americans. I mean, how do you - and they also say that there is no right, there is no absolute right for a non-U.S. citizen to enter the United States. So what do you say to that?
SHARIF: I have plenty to say about that. Among the countries that are on this list, Iran and Iraq both are pretty famous on fight against ISIS. We don't really have any record of showing dangers for American citizens from Iranian citizens. I just don't see any logic, legal analysis and any of American values into this order.
MARTIN: That's Solmaz Sharif. She's the president of the New York Persian Cultural Center. She is a former journalist. She's also a real estate agent and an entrepreneur, and her mother is a U.S. green card holder and is unsure of whether she'll be able to return to United States because of this temporary ban. Solmaz Sharif, thank you so much for speaking with us.
SHARIF: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We are continuing our coverage of the Trump administration's executive orders implementing a permanent ban on those coming from Syria and a temporary ban of citizens coming from six additional Muslim-majority countries - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan.
Now, one aspect of the new policy that has drawn notice are countries that are not on the list, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. And those are the countries of origin of a number of people who carried out terrorist attacks in the U.S. starting with September 11, 2001. Those countries also happen to be places where President Trump and his family have business interests.
That's one reason ethics experts continue to raise questions about how President Trump is addressing potential conflicts or even the appearance of them. NPR senior business editor Marilyn Geewax is heading up our coverage of this issue, so she is with us now to talk us through it.
MARILYN GEEWAX, BYLINE: Hi, Michel.
MARTIN: So can you give us an example of what business deals Mr. Trump has in the Middle East?
GEEWAX: He has a lot of properties, mostly golf courses in the United Arab Emirates. He has luxury towers in Turkey. In recent years, he's also formed companies in Egypt. And in 2015, his daughter, Ivanka, who's had a very prominent role in the Trump Organization said that she was looking at what she called opportunities in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The Trump Organization has all kinds of operations in other Muslim-majority countries outside of the Middle East like Indonesia, Azerbaijan. But those places were not added to his list of places that need extra restrictions.
MARTIN: So are the countries Mr. Trump has singled out places in which he has done or has pursued business deals?
GEEWAX: Well, according to his campaign financial filings, he does not have business interests in those countries where he's imposing these new restrictions. Now, it's fair to point out that these countries do have very serious problems. They've had civil wars. They have extremist groups there, and that raises concerns. And those are reflected in U.S. Immigration vetting systems that we have in place already.
So that list has raised the hackles of ethics experts. They fear that this list was shaped at least in part by Trump's desire to remain on good terms with the governments where he is doing business.
MARTIN: Tell us a bit more about what these ethics experts are saying.
GEEWAX: One of them, for example, spoke with NPR. That's Norm Eisen. He's a former ethics adviser to President Obama, and he's a fellow now at Brookings Institution. He says that it looks to him like Trump was singling out countries that did not pay him tribute. That was his words.
You know, it's very hard to get into the head of the president to know what he's thinking, but that's exactly the point about having conflicts of interests. It makes people question your motives. In fact, Eisen says this is the kind of thing that could even lead to a constitutional crisis.
MARTIN: Well, those are very strong words. What does this have to do with the Constitution?
GEEWAX: There's this thing called the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution. That's a kind of strange word, but it means gifts or bribes from foreign governments. The Founding Fathers were very clear that they did not want a president enriching himself from foreign governments, so there are a lot of people who are questioning whether or not allowing some Middle Eastern countries to have people enter the United States while putting other people on a banned list reflects more the president's interests rather than the best interests of the country.
MARTIN: That's NPR's senior business editor Marilyn Geewax joining us once again from our studios in Washington, D.C. Marilyn, thank you.
GEEWAX: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we'd like to talk again as we do periodically about media standards and President Donald Trump's relationship with the media. Well, it's hard to imagine, but that relationship grew even more tense this week after White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon said in an interview with The New York Times that, quote, "the media should keep its mouth shut," unquote. This in a week when both Bannon and the president himself describe the media as the opposition party. And another top adviser, Kellyanne Conway, used the term alternative facts to describe the White House press secretary's insistence on defending inaugural crowd sizes with no basis in fact.
That triggered a debate among major media organizations about whether or not to call such things lies. Earlier today, I spoke with John Daniszewski. He's vice president for standards at the Associated Press, Liz Spayd, public editor for The New York Times and Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for The Washington Post. And we started the conversation about the standard - what the standard should be for using the word lie when covering President Donald Trump. NPR has been criticized about our standard for using the word. The AP's John Daniszewski started the conversation off.
JOHN DANISZEWSKI: There has to be a pretty high bar to call something a lie, and it does denote not only stating a falsehood, but having an intent to deceive. So we do not ban the word lie. We have used it on rare occasions, but we set a very high bar for the evidence for using that word.
MARTIN: Liz Spayd, what about you? Where should the bar be?
ELIZABETH SPAYD: I also think the bar should be very high. The Times has used it in I believe two occasions. What I worry about is that as time goes on that bar starts to drop, and I have a feeling that Trump's comments are more apt to get the badge than someone else's. And I think that some politicians are a lot more sophisticated and savvy than Trump when it comes to twisting the facts. And that is pretty dangerous for public information, too. And I think that The Times and all media needs to really pay attention to that and not get sidetracked on the is-it-a-lie-or-isn't-it-a-lie debate.
MARTIN: Margaret Sullivan, what are your thoughts about this, recognizing that your job is not to speak for the newsroom or to address complaints to the newsroom, but your job is to address the media more broadly?
MARGARET SULLIVAN: I think we need to be very clear in calling a lie a lie when the circumstances warrant it. So I think that we need to be brave about this because it matters. Words matter. It took the media too long to start calling torture torture. We used words like enhanced interrogation techniques. Well, that's a way of allowing a euphemism to exist, so I think we need to be pretty upfront about this and use the right words.
MARTIN: I want to also raise an issue which is not so much a present issue for the people gathered here because live coverage is not so much the meat of our work. We did reach out to major television networks for this conversation - ABC, NBC and CNN, our own ombudsman Elizabeth Johnson - they all declined to participate in this conversation.
But the reason I wanted to ask about this - this is a whole question of what should the standard be because there is this disagreement about whether this information is factually correct and contextually fair? But what do you say? You know, how do you defend that in an era when the president is very disposed to make his own communications directly without the benefit of the media? Margaret Sullivan, what are your thoughts about this?
SULLIVAN: Well, we have to get better at fact-checking in real time. And actually NPR did a fantastic job of that during the debates, and The Washington Post is doing more of it, and, you know, many media organizations are to their credit. We need to be able to bring our experts, have them involved in the coverage of these events as they're happening to provide context as we're going. And, you know, I think that it may well be acceptable to broadcast something live and in its entirety.
MARTIN: I wanted to ask each of you how you see this era. Many people are calling this kind of unprecedented. Many people are calling this new territory, and other people are saying actually it isn't. It's just new to people in this era. It's new to us in the United States, in the current environment, so I wanted to ask each of you how do you see this as a historical moment? Liz, I'll start with you.
SPAYD: Well, it certainly is an incredibly important test for the media of how they conduct themselves and how they spend their time and their researches during this period. I happen to think that some of these issues, particularly this past week around the media are kind of red herrings. They're exactly what the Trump administration wants the media to do is to get into a battle with him. It's what Bannon said or, you know, like, come on, like, publish this, like, we want you to tell the public that we're in this fight.
That's exactly what they want, and there are so many critical issues out there that I think the media ought to be so aggressive on. For me, the single biggest one is to continue to investigate whether there was or is some kind of a link between the Trump campaign and a foreign adversary in Russia. There are just yuge (ph), yuge issues. There are any number of things that are going on with our policy right now - foreign policy and domestic. And I hope the media doesn't get distracted by things that are less important.
MARTIN: John Daniszewski, final thought from you please.
DANISZEWSKI: I think that one point to make is the media is not a monolith. It's pluralistic. We have a very broad spectrum of media in this country. To use the media as a scapegoat for criticism or opposition to certain policies, it's deceptive because the criticism and opposition is out there. And the media functions as a referee, an umpire and in fact-checking says when one side is right or when the other side is right. But the media is not a party to battle against this administration or any other administration.
MARTIN: That's John Daniszewski. He's vice president for standards at the Associated Press. Liz Spayd is public editor at The New York Times. They were both with us from our bureau in New York City. With us in our studios in Washington, D.C., is Margaret Sullivan media columnist for The Washington Post. Thank you all so much for joining us today.
SPAYD: Thank you.
SULLIVAN: Thanks, Michel.
DANISZEWSKI: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Let's turn for a few minutes to tennis where history is being made at the Australian Open. All four of the women and men that made it to the singles finals are in their 30s. That's an age that used to mean retirement was at hand if you were still playing at all, and the finals rekindled two historic rivalries. Early this morning, Venus and Serena Williams faced off in a Grand Slam final for the ninth time in their careers. It was 36-year-old Venus Williams' first major championship finals appearance since 2009, but it was the younger Williams sister Serena who took the victory and broke records.
At 35 years old, Serena became the oldest woman to win a Grand Slam singles title in the modern era. The win also marked her 23rd Grand Slam title, the most in the modern era. But there's nothing but love in this rivalry. In her championship acceptance speech, Serena made sure to thank her sister.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SERENA WILLIAMS: She's my inspiration. She's the only reason I'm standing here today and the only reason that the Williams sisters exist, so thank you, Venus, for inspiring me.
(APPLAUSE)
MARTIN: Tomorrow morning, the men's final. That will bring Roger Federer, who is 35, and Rafael Nadal, who is 30, back together for the - get this - 35th time since 2004.
To talk about all this, we're joined now by Courtney Nguyen. She's a senior writer for WTA Insider. That's a website that covers women's tennis. She's with us now via Skype from Melbourne, Australia. Courtney Nguyen, thanks so much for joining us once again.
COURTNEY NGUYEN: Happy to do it.
MARTIN: So, first of all, were any of these four finalists expected to make it this far?
NGUYEN: Well, I think the only one that really was expected and was a pre-tournament favorite was Serena Williams. She was the number-two player in the world. Now she's the number-one player in the world by winning. But the other three, especially Venus Williams, really were unexpected storylines. Again, with Roger and Rafa turning back the clock - definitely not a final we expected on the men's side either.
MARTIN: Is this showing at the Australian Open Finals something unique - we're talking about age here - or are we seeing this elsewhere in professional tennis?
NGUYEN: Well, I think that the sport in general is aging, and it's the best thing about - that could happen to the sport. You cultivate these stars, and it's good business to kind of make sure that these stars stay in the game as long as possible. This is a trend that has been happening for a while, particularly spearheaded by Serena.
MARTIN: Is this about older players hanging on longer, being better able to preserve their bodies, you know, for whatever reason getting better training, better guidance about conditioning or is it - is there - are there a lack of younger stars coming up the ranks?
NGUYEN: I think a lot of it is the aspect of endurance. You know, tennis is a sport of teenage prodigies. It's what we've always been used to from the '70s and '80s. We haven't seen that very much in the 2000s, and I think the big reason why is because an 18 year old - it's tough for them to transition onto the pro tour and really be able to compete physically with the likes of, you know, these strong 30 year olds who get, as you said, the training and the conditioning.
MARTIN: As I mentioned you are in Melbourne covering all this, how are the fans taking all this in? Is this exciting? What are you hearing? What's the vibe?
NGUYEN: It's pure excitement. And I think that goes hand-in-hand with the nostalgia and the wistfulness of it all. I mean, these are four champions in Federer, Nadal and Serena and Venus who just have so much history down here in Australia, have so much history in the game. And this is a sport where we like to see our champions as much as we love to see that break-out ingenue start, you know, come through and make a name for themselves. These four names in particular are the ones that really tug at the heartstrings of tennis fans.
MARTIN: That was Courtney Nguyen. She's a senior writer at WTA Insider. She joined us via Skype from Melbourne where she is doing hard duty covering the Australian Open. Courtney, thanks so much for joining us.
NGUYEN: Always a pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We try to present the sweet with the bitter, which is another way of saying the news is not all doom and gloom. But we're going to really lay into the doom part for the next few minutes because on Thursday, the world ticked half a step closer to Armageddon - that at least according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Doomsday Clock. Every year since 1947, a board of scientists has considered the year's developments in politics, energy, weapons, diplomacy and climate science. They determine how imminent the end of civilization appears to be with the end visualized as midnight on a clock. For the last two years, the clock has been set at three minutes to midnight. But this week, the clock moved to two and a half minutes to midnight.
Here to talk about that decision and all that goes into it is Lawrence Krauss. He's a theoretical physicist at Arizona State University. He's a prolific science writer, who often weighs in on public policy issues. And he is chairman of the board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which decides the Doomsday Clock. And he's with us now. Thank you so much for joining us.
LAWRENCE KRAUSS: It's great to be with you virtually.
MARTIN: So what are the factors that went into deciding to move the clock this year?
KRAUSS: Well, as usual, we look at many different factors from the likelihood of nuclear war, the tensions around the world through climate change and even looking at new emerging technologies. When it comes to nuclear weapons, in the last year, there's been a lot of saber-rattling, in particular a lot of irresponsible statements from the new president of the United States, but equally vitriolic statements, in some sense, by the president of Russia as well.
There is the fact that we haven't moved towards reduction of nuclear weapons and there, in fact, has been discussion of the possible increase in nuclear weapons, at a time when, in fact, we signed a treaty many years ago called the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which not only required other nations not to obtain nuclear weapons but the nuclear nations to try and disarm. And we're essentially violating that treaty.
MARTIN: When was the last time the Doomsday Clock was this close to midnight?
KRAUSS: It's been 64 years. The last time the clock was closer than this was in 1953 when the then-Soviet Union exploded its huge hydrogen bomb for the first time. And that really began the modern arms race. And so in the lifetime of many of the people listening to you and me today, the clock has never been closer. And that certainly is a cause for concern.
MARTIN: Now, we should mention that the clock has moved further from midnight. In 2010, for example, it moved from five to six minutes. But that's what leads me to ask you - you know, if you ask many Americans of a certain age, especially people who live through it, the closest that they remember the world coming to nuclear catastrophe was in 1962 during the Cuban missile...
KRAUSS: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...Crisis. But that year, the clock stood at seven minutes to midnight. The year after that it moved to 12 minutes to midnight. So why are we so much closer to midnight in the Doomsday Clock than in a year when school kids were doing duck-and-cover drills in class?
KRAUSS: (Laughter) Let me just say, first of all, we try not to respond to individual events. We try and take a global view. And so the Cuban Missile Crisis, the group at that time felt that their concerns about nuclear weapons were existing before that and they didn't want to move it in response to a crisis that had passed.
But what's important with the clock is not so much its absolute position as much as which direction it's going. And so if we're going to step back from the brink, be it nuclear weapons or climate change, it won't happen unless the public tries to push leaders in the right direction.
MARTIN: Well, you know, that really leads me to my final question. Are you concerned at all that moving the clock so soon after the election of Donald Trump will cause many Americans who already have a very polarized view of politics to view this as yet another partisan attack, at least to his supporters to view this as part of a partisan attack? Are you at all concerned about that?
KRAUSS: Well, yeah, I'm concerned. But the important thing is the clock has always been moved in January. We try, as I say, to make our statements in response to the developments of the world over that year. And like it or not, the statements that he has made, in particular about expanding our nuclear weapons systems of potentially having a new arms race, potentially using nuclear weapons and encouraging other countries from Japan to South Korea to get their own nuclear weapons, are very disturbing.
MARTIN: Professor Krauss, thank you so much for joining us.
KRAUSS: It's been a pleasure as always. Thanks.
MARTIN: That was Lawrence Krauss. He is a theoretical physicist and chairman of the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the Doomsday Clock. He is also a science writer and author. His latest book "The Greatest Story Ever Told - So Far" comes out this March.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now we want to take a few minutes to talk about why people seem willing to believe or at least tolerate assertions that may or may not be grounded in truth. Social scientists call this confirmation bias. That's when we are drawn to information that aligns with our world views and when we hold onto these beliefs, even in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary.
To hear more about this, we called Jonathan Ellis, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He researches confirmation bias at the Center for Public Philosophy, and we reached him in Santa Cruz. Professor Ellis, welcome.
JONATHAN ELLIS: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: I understand that you prefer the term reasoning with an agenda. But either way, tell us more about this subject of confirmation bias or reasoning with an agenda.
ELLIS: Well, first of all, it's worth pointing out that human beings have been doing this forever. So Thucydides, an ancient Greek historian, wrote that it's a habit of human beings to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy. And what he was describing, and in fact what countless playwrights, philosophers and novelists have described ever since, are these human tendencies towards confirmation bias, rationalizations, self-deception. And I think this is the same problem that we're observing in our political culture today.
MARTIN: Well, you know, to that point, I was going to ask you this - do we all engage in this or are there certain times when we are more disposed to this? Are there patterns here?
ELLIS: Well, that's a good question. And there's a lot of research going on about that. When we have a lot at stake, we find that these subconscious processes distort our reasoning. One thing that we all need to do is to acknowledge that we're all susceptible to it.
MARTIN: What about this phenomenon that we are now hearing about called alternative facts?
ELLIS: Well, there's - I think there's an important distinction to make here between two things. And it's not easy to know which is going on in many instances. In one case, the person doesn't really believe what they're saying. In the other case, you really do believe what you're saying. Your mind has found a way to make that conclusion seem the right one. Do they really believe that these are facts and these are correct, or are they simply a political move in a political chess game?
MARTIN: But the question I have is what's the chicken and what's the egg here? I mean, are people seeking out the new sources that confirm their biases? Are news organizations feeding those biases because they think that's what their audience wants? I mean, do you have an opinion about that?
ELLIS: I think all of it is going on. And I'll add a third one, which is that because people have beliefs, certain positions, they're also going to be more inclined to see those media outlets as more trustworthy. But then, the other way is that we are polarized, as you're pointing out, in the media that we take in.
MARTIN: If that's a business model that works for you, where you confirm the biases of your viewers and they are satisfied with that and continue to support you because you do that, why would you change it?
ELLIS: One of the reasons that motivated reasoning and rationalization evolved is that it, actually, in the short term and sometimes in the long term serves our individual interests. But it doesn't serve us as a democracy. Democracy depends on that. And in the long run, perhaps the consequences are not in our best interests.
MARTIN: That's Jonathan Ellis. He's a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Professor Ellis, thank you so much for joining us.
ELLIS: Thank you so much for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally today, we wanted to spend a few minutes talking about a new translation of a novel by a Russian writer who's literature has won rave reviews in his home country, including from such luminaries as the late Vladimir Nabokov. But many people thought this particular novel, his second, would never be read in English. The novel is called "Between Dog And Wolf." It was written in 1980 by Sasha Sokolov, who has spent the past four decades living in exile, mostly in Canada and the U.S. The title of the book comes from a Latin idiom about twilight, that time of day when a shepherd could confuse the dog guarding his herd to the wolf stalking it.
The novel drew acclaim in its Russian form for Sokolov's linguistic gymnastics. He experiments with puns, syntax, double negatives, incomplete sentences and even purposeful misspellings, all for literary effect. But those techniques are exactly what made it difficult to translate. However, Professor Alexander Boguslawski of Rollins College in Florida figured out a translation that satisfies author Sasha Sokolov. We reached both at WUSF in Tampa. And I asked Mr. Sokolov to tell us about his new book.
SASHA SOKOLOV: It's about life on the upper Volga River. A old sharpener who is living there in one village or a small town - he's an invalid. He has only one leg, and he uses crutches. And those crutches were stolen by the local game wardens one day. And he's writing a letter to an investigator. He's complaining that his crutches disappeared and tells his own life story, and he describes a lot of interesting things around him.
MARTIN: And it alternates with different narrative voices. There are three different kind of narrative...
SOKOLOV: Right.
MARTIN: ...Voices, you know, in the novel.
SOKOLOV: Right. Another voice is the voice of a game warden, supposedly his son. And he's a game warden and a poet. In the book, there are 37 poems. They were penned by this guy Yakov, by name. And the third voice is the voice of the author - actually, it's my voice - just telling different but parallel stories.
MARTIN: When you finished the work, did you have a hope that it would be translated? Or did you just think, well, you know, no (laughter), it's too much?
SOKOLOV: I lost hope after a few years abroad because my first book was accepted and translated - accepted very well. And it made me kind of famous, at least in Russian circles.
MARTIN: I should have mentioned that, that your first novel "A School For Fools," which was - if you have studied Russian literature at a certain level, then you will have encountered "A School For Fools." So when you encountered, professor, I'm going to ask you this now, "Between Dog And Wolf," what did you think?
ALEXANDER BOGUSLAWSKI: From the very beginning when I read it for the first time, I knew what kind of a masterpiece it was. But, initially, there was not even a thought that I could translate it. "Between Dog And Wolf" takes some time, first of all, to do it justice. But what was the problem, you know, that I read it very early, and my English wasn't good enough.
MARTIN: Sasha Sokolov, there are so many beautiful things about this book. I mean, the poetry is beautiful. Getting into Ilya's mind and what his life is like is so beautiful. Why did you feel it - all - you all - had to cram it all together in this one book? I guess what I'm asking is why did you make it so hard for us?
SOKOLOV: I think it's just the way I think. I try to analyze my own way of thinking, of course, many times. And then I realized that that's how I was born, I think. My - let's say my grandfather was a phenomenal mathematician, they say. Maybe it's just because I have such genes.
(LAUGHTER)
SOKOLOV: It's difficult, yes, but I felt like I wouldn't be able to write just simple texts. I like dense texts.
MARTIN: Do you mind reading a bit of - this is note five, October.
SOKOLOV: (Reading in Russian).
BOGUSLAWSKI: (Reading) Is it really October? Such a balmy air that if not for the rustling of leaf fall one could simply forget about everything and for hours stare into far nowheres.
MARTIN: Very nice. Sasha, how does it feel to hear your words in English?
SOKOLOV: It's strange. I understand. When I read any text in English, I understand everything, but I cannot appreciate the style. When I read my own, of course, poems or prose, then I appreciate my own. That's - it's very funny sometimes. It's...
MARTIN: Sure.
SOKOLOV: ...More interesting than rereading your own text in Russian. It's strange. I think...
MARTIN: It's - there's a level of trust involved, isn't there?
SOKOLOV: Yes.
BOGUSLAWSKI: I think if he could feel all this, he would be translating his books into English. I think our collaboration was based on more than just business. We like each other. We've known each other for over 30 years. We are friends and thus, we can discuss problems of translation, which sometimes make us laugh, sometimes make us cry, you know, when we discover that we cannot render something really exactly. Translation is a very strange beast.
MARTIN: That was translator Alexander Boguslawski. He's a professor at Rollins College in Florida. Author Sasha Sokolov whose novel "Between Dog And Wolf" is now available in English. And they both joined us from member station WUSF in Tampa.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're turning back to the story we're covering throughout the hour, those executive actions signed yesterday by President Trump blocking residents from six countries from entering the U.S. for the next 90 days and an indefinite ban on those coming from Syria. There are scenes of protests and confusion at airports around the U.S. and elsewhere around the world.
NPR's David Schaper is at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago where a handful of people are being detained under the president's new executive action. David, thanks so much for joining us.
DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: Tell us about the scene there at O'Hare.
SCHAPER: Well, you know, where I'm sitting right now (unintelligible) is in an area where there's a bunch of pro bono attorneys who have come out to O'Hare. A lot of them practice in immigration law. And they're huddling with people who had been waiting for their sisters, their brothers, their husbands and wives, their children to get off of a plane, people who had boarded a plane not knowing that there was going to be an executive order signed prohibiting them from getting off a plane once they landed here at O'Hare.
So it's a bit of a - not a chaotic scene, but there is a lot of concern, a lot of consternation. A lot of people really anxious about not knowing if they're going to be able to see those family members they came to pick up.
MARTIN: Now, I take it you've had a chance to meet some of the people who are waiting for relatives. What are they telling you?
SCHAPER: I did. I met one gentleman who's here to pick up his sister and his brother-in-law and their new baby girl. The girl born here in the U.S. - they're both - she's a U.S. citizen. The brother and sister are both U.S. citizens. The baby, obviously, is born here - is a U.S. citizen. And her husband is a British citizen, but also originally from Iran. So they went back to Iran for a couple of weeks to introduce the new baby to the rest of the family.
They boarded a plane, you know, before 5 o'clock Central Time last night before that executive order was signed. And because he's a green card holder, he's not - he's being detained. And they just don't - they're trying to find out answers. And the anxiety on his face was really troubling. He showed me his phone, and it's just blowing up constantly with family members here in the Chicago area texting him and calling him as well as those who helped them get on the plane also concerned about whether or not they're actually going to be able to go back home to their home right here and to their jobs right here in Chicago.
MARTIN: Have customs and border officials said anything to these family members or to their attorneys?
SCHAPER: The attorneys are trying to get through, and they're talking with people. And the understanding on the ground here is that there is a waiver process, and that they're trying to help navigate their way through getting a waiver for some of the families because most of the folks here are those who have green cards, who are legal to be in the U.S. And so they're trying to navigate it.
But one customs official I talked to was kind of troubled by what was going on, too. He wouldn't give me his name, but he said it's quite a confusing situation for them and quite frustrating for what they have to deal with. They're trying to help these families get through it, but in a lot of cases, the executive order limits exactly what they can do and who they can allow to go through.
MARTIN: That's NPR's David Schaper. He's at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. David, thanks so much for joining us.
SCHAPER: My pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to spend the program today focusing again on President Trump's executive order temporarily barring any refugees from resettling in the U.S. and barring people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for the next 90 days. Those from Syria are banned indefinitely. Throughout the day, protests continued around the country.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #1: (Chanting) Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here. Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here. Say it loud, say it clear...
MARTIN: That was the scene outside Los Angeles International Airport earlier this afternoon. Here in Washington, D.C., crowds gathered outside the White House and the Trump Hotel.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: (Chanting) Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back.
MARIA ILINGWORTH: I believe that it's essential for the rest of us who can speak, who are not scared for our own personal rights and our safety, for us to speak out. This is what I served for, is to represent all Americans, not just a certain few.
POOYA ASALE: I'm Muslim. I'm an immigrant. I'm a citizen. I live in America. I came to build a life here. But now, you know, not allowing my family, my friends to come here, it's wrong.
AMIR BARATE: And if someone has a green card and has a life here and has traveled for business and all of a sudden they caught them by element of a surprise and can't come to their families or children - what kind of justice is that? What kind of presidential start is this?
MARTIN: Those were the voices of Maria Ilingworth (ph), Pooya Asale (ph) and Amir Barate (ph). In the next hour, we're going to hear a range of views from protesters and supporters of the executive action and people who are directly affected by it. But first we turn to NPR's John Burnett, who covers immigration, and NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Thank you both so much for being with us.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good to be here.
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Hi, Michel.
MARTIN: So, John, let's start with you. What's the latest on the administration?
BURNETT: Well, we have some news late today. We got something from General John Kelly who is homeland security secretary. He clarified that the president executive order exempts green card holders from these seven mainly Muslim countries. These are lawful permanent residents, many of whom have been in the United States for years. And they are just on vacations, and they are traveling in their home countries and they want to come home. So they have to apply for a waiver if they want to return to port of entry in the U.S. and so far Homeland security says they've received 170 of these waiver requests.
MARTIN: Well, speaking of ports of entry, though, you know - we know that there have been – protests as we've mentioned at airports around the country. What's been the scene at the airports today, John?
BURNETT: It's been chaotic. It's been crazy. There are lawyers who are looking for some of these bereaved clients. There's lots of protesters. But what we've been hearing is that the enforcement of this executive order has been very uneven between the different ports of entries at these airports, for instance, Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta Hartsfield, agents released detainees last night. At LAX and San Francisco, there were some that were still detained as of midday today.
So it could vary sort of immigration agent to agent. They have a lot of discretionary authority about how they can handle one traveler to another. A spokeman with Customs and Border Protection insists that they're honoring these new judicial orders with clear direction from headquarters, but at the same time we know the executive order remains enforced.
MARTIN: Mara, what are you hearing from the White House today?
LIASSON: Well, now that we know that green card holders will come in, that's kind of settled a conflict between DHS and the White House because we heard when this order was being drafted, DHS wanted green card holders exempted. The White House overrode them. So we're – also know that the president issued a statement today where he said that this wasn’t a Muslim ban and the media was falsely portraying it that way. He said this has nothing to do with religion, even though the executive order did say that religious minorities would be prioritized and, of course, that means Christians coming from majority Muslim countries.
So there was a lot of confusion. There were a lot of criticisms of the process, criticisms that the white house didn’t reach out to experts in the agencies because either they were in a rush or they were afraid that long-time civil service would sabotage their policy. A lot of confusion - but now it seems like some of that is being cleared up.
MARTIN: What about the political fallout from this? We've seen a - quite a few political leaders come out today, mainly Democrats very strongly initially, but then some republicans. And I take it that, you know, President Trump did not particularly appreciate the criticism from his Republican colleagues. What's been some of the political response so far?
LIASSON: Well, on the one hand, it did galvanize the opposition - Lots of spontaneous protests, Democrats holding a big demonstration at the Supreme Court today. On the other hand, most Republicans were silent, but you had some prominent voices like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, who the president criticized in a tweet - said they were very weak on immigration and they were trying to start World War III.
But you also have people like Bob Corker Center for Foreign Relations Committee chairman and Lamar Alexander saying this order was wrongly drawn - in other words, it shouldn't have ensnared green card holders. And they criticized the process and the fact that it was confusing and chaotic.
MARTIN: John, one more question for you. Whats next? Where does this go from here?
BURNETT: Well, there's a lot that starts to happen now. Really this is kind of the beginning of things. So we know this executive order is supposed to be temporary, meaning the admission of all the refugees from anywhere in the world is suspended for four months. In three months, the ban on travelers from those mostly Muslim seven countries expires. And that would cover students and visitors and no longer green card holders.
And in the meantime, we're going to see more lawsuits on behalf of some of these individual travelers that are arriving in these airpots. There are different deadlines for the federal court stays on the travel bans. The U.S. government has to respond in about two weeks to the New York order. They’ll be progress on that front. And then theres the constitutional question whether this travel violates the due process clause, and that has to be argued between the government and probably the ACLU. So, again, it's going to take some time to play out. And in the meantime, this chaos and confusion and the protests at the nation's international airports is bound to continue.
MARTIN: That's NPR's John Burnett, who covers immigration, and NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. John, Mara, thank you both so much for speaking with us.
LIASSON: Thanks for having me
BURNETT: It's a pleasure, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're focusing much of this hour on President Trump's executive order on immigration and refugee resettlement, but President Trump also made another big move on Saturday that we want to highlight for you. President Trump released an executive memo laying out the role and structure of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.
Now, every president decides what kind of organization will serve him best. But what makes this particular movie stand out is that White House chief strategist and senior counselor Steve Bannon is invited to attend all National Security Council meetings. He will also be a member of the Principals Committee, which puts him on par with the secretaries of State, Defense, Homeland Security and Treasury.
We wanted to find out more about this, so we called John Bellinger. He served as the legal adviser for the National Security Council, the NSC, during President George W. Bush's first term. He's a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. We caught him at his home in Virginia. Mr. Bellinger, thanks so much for speaking with us.
JOHN BELLINGER: Of course. Hi, Michel.
MARTIN: Well, thank you so much again. And for those who have not heard of these groups before, could you just briefly describe what the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council do?
BELLINGER: Of course. The National Security Council is the group that advises the president on national security decisions. And that was first created by statute in 1947 and has existed in various forms since that time. After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush created an additional council called the Homeland Security Council, which is a similar group of advisers - and largely overlapping - that advises the president on homeland security issues, which are really just threats to the homeland as opposed to more international issues, which may involve foreign policy and may not involve threats to the homeland.
So yesterday, the president issued a national security presidential memorandum, which defines the functions and structure of these two councils and the membership on them.
MARTIN: And why does Steve Bannon's position on this council stand out to you?
BELLINGER: Well, the president can, of course - there's no law against it - take advice from anyone he wants on either his National Security Council or his Homeland Security Council. Both have traditionally included the vice president, secretaries of state and defense and attorney general, secretary of the Treasury. But presidents have historically not involved members of the political side of the House at the White House.
So, for example, in the Bush administration, Karl Rove was specifically not included in National Security Council meetings or the meetings of the group just below that, the Principals Committee meeting, which are the same Cabinet secretaries but meeting without the president. And the reason President Bush did that and, I think, presidents generally have not wanted to include domestic political advisers is they want to send the signal that national security decision-making is not based on domestic political concerns.
MARTIN: Now, there's one other thing that you said you feel perhaps many people may have overreported, if I can use that term. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been - his role in - his role - it is a him - has been described differently in this new memorandum. Is that a significant change?
BELLINGER: That's right. I do think, actually, the press has gotten this part wrong, at least so far. We'll have to see what happens. The memorandum issued by the president yesterday creates a Principals Committee below the National Security Council. And the Principals Committee, rather than always including the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says that they shall attend where issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.
Some have suggested that that seems to be excluding them from some meetings and that perhaps the president specifically doesn't want to hear from his director of national intelligence or chairman of the Joint Chiefs. I read that differently. Since the Principals Committee reports to both the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, it does seem that the Principals Committee could be covering issues like hurricanes that - where those two would not need to be involved.
MARTIN: OK, well, thanks for clarifying that for us, more to come if warranted. Thank you. That's John Bellinger. He served as legal adviser to the National Security Committee during former President George W. Bush's first term. He's now a senior fellow at the International and Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Bellinger, thanks so much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're spending the hour talking mainly about the reaction to President Trump's executive order on refugee resettlement and immigration. Starting on Saturday, attorneys filed legal challenges to the order, calling on judges to order the release of those detained and also asking judges to prevent the deportation of those who may have been detained.
Lee Gelernt is the deputy director of the Immigrants' Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. He was one of the attorneys who argued on behalf of those detained in federal court. Last night, a federal judge granted the ACLU's request to temporarily halt the deportations. I reached Mr. Gelernter (ph) and I asked him if the order affected people in airports across the country.
LEE GELERNT: There is a lot of confusion. Our case in New York is a nationwide case, so it bars the government from removing anybody nationwide who has been stopped and detained, according to the Trump executive order.
MARTIN: How long does this injunction last?
GELERNT: The injunction lasts until the judge decides the ultimate merits of the case. And so what she said is look, there's going to be too much harm if I allow these people to be removed. There's not going to be harm to the government because all these people were extensively vetted beforehand. I want to have time to figure out whether this executive order is lawful.
MARTIN: And I do want to emphasize that we are reaching out to the White House and to other agencies within the federal government to get their perspective on these issues as well. Do you have any idea how many people are actually still detained in U.S. airports under these conditions?
GELERNT: Yeah, that's really one of the stories going on, is that the government has not supplied information. There's chaos. We don't know the full numbers. I represent to the court that we have been hearing stories of 100 to 200 people, maybe more. And so we asked the court to order the government to provide us a list of all the people who were detained around the country. The court agreed and ordered the government to turn over a list of all the people who are being detained, and we expect that list shortly. But I think that's a critical aspect of this, is that people are languishing in airports all over the country. We don't know if they have counsel. Most likely most of them don't have counsel. And we need to reach these people.
MARTIN: I'm assuming here that the ACLU is actually seeking a - kind of a broader rejection of this executive order. Would that be fair to say?
GELERNT: That's absolutely right. The ultimate goal of this litigation is to challenge the legality of the order. The one thing I want to make clear is this particular initial litigation applies only to people who have made it to U.S. soil. You know, there may very well be subsequent challenges to how the order affects people who are still overseas.
MARTIN: And then the next question would be - what is the legal basis for challenging it? I mean, the Constitution gives the president broad authority in matters of national security. The president says that this is a temporary measure to assure that proper vetting is in place. What is the legal basis for challenging it?
GELERNT: The one thing I would say is we do not actually believe this kind of blunderbuss approach is necessary for national security. That's a critical aspect of the legal challenge. Just stepping back, I think there's, you know, a lot of talk about how the president can do whatever he wants in the immigration area as long as he asserts national security, and it's just absolutely wrong.
For one thing, anybody who reaches U.S. soil has the right to apply for asylum. That is grounded in our immigration laws. The president cannot ignore it. There are a variety of other constitutional challenges. But, you know, at bottom, it's simply wrong for people to argue the president can do whatever he wants as long as it's in the immigration area and he asserts national security.
MARTIN: That's Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants' Rights Project. He was with us from New York. Mr. Gelernt, thanks so much for speaking with us.
GELERNT: Oh, thank you for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We go now to David French. He is a staff writer for the National Review, the conservative journal. He is an attorney. He also served as a lawyer in Iraq in the Army Reserves. And he's with us now via Skype. David French, thanks so much for joining us.
DAVID FRENCH: Well, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
MARTIN: Yesterday you wrote a piece about the executive order, which you said separates fact from hysteria. And you said the hysterical rhetoric about President Trump's executive order on refugees is out of control. Just give us a sense of what you meant by that.
FRENCH: Yeah. You know, you began to see, starting on Friday night and early Saturday morning, you know, comments like, the Statue of Liberty is weeping from Senator Schumer and from Nancy Pelosi, for example, images of the Statue of Liberty upside down and things that I think were out of proportion to what the executive order actually did. I think there were some good things about it, some bad things about it that are now - even now being corrected, and some of it that was just actually kind of normal.
MARTIN: You argue that these are actually fairly moderate restrictions on refugee resettlement and, in fact, that this actually brings refugee resettlement down to historical levels.
FRENCH: Right. If you look at the rate of refugee resettlement in the United States during the eight years of the Bush administration, Trump is actually bringing it to a number higher than the average of the eight years during Bush's terms. And if you compare it with the average of President Obama's years, with the exception of 2016, it's actually not far from that. So that's not a number out of line with the experience of the 15 of the last 16 years.
MARTIN: Let's talk about the way that this order was rolled out and implemented. For example, two of the men detained at JFK last night, who've since been released, were former contractors with the U.S. government in Iraq. And there are credible reports that people with green cards are being detained or being removed from planes and not being allowed to return to the United States. Do you agree with that?
FRENCH: Oh, absolutely not. I mean, you know, I said there were some parts that were good and then some parts that were bad. This was bad not only in substance but in implementation. It was incompetence. You know, a green card holder is a legal permanent resident of the United States. They've been through round after round of vetting and security checks. If you talk to anyone who's received a green card, you can't help but be impressed at the level of scrutiny that they've been through and passed. So to apply it to green card holders is madness. It's also, I think, deeply immoral to apply it to allies and friends overseas who have sacrificed, serving as interpreters, serving beside American troops as allied soldiers.
You know, there was a way to do this very simply and easily, where green card holders, those in transit and interpreters and proven allies of the U.S. are allowed to come back into the country in the normal process that would have been minimal disruption. And that's part of the just grotesquely incompetent rollout that we saw that I think was deeply damaging, not just to our relationships with our allies overseas, but also to the body politic here at home because those terrible mistakes are part of the reason why people got so angry. And I can understand and sympathize with the anger, if you're a green card holder trying to come back into this country and you're blocked. That was inexcusable.
MARTIN: That's David French. He's a staff writer for the National Review. We're talking about his piece, "Trump's Executive Order On Refugees - Separating Fact From Hysteria." He was kind enough to join us via Skype. David French, thanks so much for speaking with us.
FRENCH: Thanks so much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Throughout the hour, we're getting reaction to the spate of executive orders signed by President Trump in his first week in office. But first we return to our focus on the immigration order limiting refugee resettlement and banning entry to citizens of certain countries.
We want to hear now from the Iranian-American scholar Reza Aslan. He's an author and scholar on the subject of Islam and Christianity, as well as a television producer. We wanted to get his take on recent events as a U.S. citizen with family members in one of the countries now banned from entry. Reza Aslan, thanks so much for joining us.
REZA ASLAN: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: When you first heard about the executive order, do you remember what your reaction was?
ASLAN: I wasn't surprised. I mean, the fact of the matter is that President Trump has made it very clear throughout his candidacy precisely what he was going to do. He has talked about putting together an all-out Muslim ban. He's talked about creating a database for Muslims in the United States. He has threatened to send American citizens to the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He has stacked his Cabinet and his advisers with avowed anti-Muslim zealots, some of whom are - belong to actually officially designated hate groups. This is part of a process that he has vowed to put in place as president.
MARTIN: Do you feel that it will affect you or relatives of yours?
ASLAN: It has already affected me and my relatives. I have numerous relatives in the United States who are green card holders. They are in a state of confusion, unsure whether they can leave the country and come back, visit family. And then, of course, I have family in Iran, including an uncle who has a visa, who was on his way to the United States, who cleared all of the legal hurdles necessary to reunite with his family here in America, and who is now stuck in limbo, unsure whether he'll be allowed in or not.
MARTIN: How do you feel that persons of like minds such as yourself should address this, given that a number of people do support him, given that he is the president of the United States, given the fact that many people think he's right?
ASLAN: I think first and foremost, we need to respond to those people with the facts of the situation. You have almost zero chance of being killed by a refugee in this country. That you have almost no chance of being killed in a terrorist attack by an immigrant - by any kind of immigrant, let alone an Islamic immigrant. But more importantly than that, we need to actually address the fear that is at the heart of President Trump's support. You know, authoritarians tend to consolidate support by using fear, but more importantly by driving a wedge among the people that he wants to control.
And we can't allow that. We have to remember that the United States has certain principles, certain values that bind us all together, that make us all American. And if we allow those values, those rights to be rescinded for one group of individuals, then we are essentially opening the door to having all of our rights, all of our privileges rescinded. The values that we hold dear are being trampled upon by the man whose entire job is to enforce those values.
MARTIN: That was Reza Aslan. He's a professor and author on the subject of Islam and Christianity. He's also host of the upcoming CNN original series "Believer," which explores religious communities around the world. We reached him in Los Angeles. Reza Aslan, thanks so much for speaking with us.
ASLAN: Thank you, Michel, my pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we're going to hear perspective from some of the Syrian citizens newly banned from entering the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees live in neighboring Lebanon, where NPR's Alice Fordham has their reaction to the news.
ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: I'm in a poor neighborhood of Beirut on a cold day, sitting on plastic chairs with a young man named Omar Awadh. He's one of about 1,000 Syrians who lives around here, and he reminds me why they came.
OMAR AWADH: (Through interpreter) People fled Syria under terrible circumstances. There was shelling, destruction, burning, arbitrary arrests.
FORDHAM: He says there were atrocities committed by the Syrian government, the rebels opposing it and by an affiliate of al-Qaida. It's hard to resettle in Lebanon, which has problems of its own, and he says America is where many people want to get to.
AWADH: (Through interpreter) It's the dream of every youth who lives in an Arab country to get to the USA.
FORDHAM: Awadh cites good education, health care, the chance to work as reasons to go to the U.S. He adds proudly that Syrians are raised well and contribute to American society. We talk about the language of the executive order which says that the entry of Syrians as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the U.S., which really stings Awadh.
AWADH: (Through interpreter) First of all, any person who describes an entire population of 23 million people as detrimental must be detrimental himself. Secondly, it's America's loss.
FORDHAM: Of course, it's not just Syrian refugees who can't enter. It's people coming in with visas, too, from seven countries, including Syria and also Iraq, where the ban seemed to come as a particular shock because the U.S. works so closely with the government there to fight ISIS. NPR spoke with Iraqi lawmaker Razak al-Haidari.
RAZAK AL-HAIDARI: (Speaking Arabic).
FORDHAM: He says Trump is dealing with Iraq as if the two countries had no connection. But in fact, the U.S. is leading a coalition rebuilding Iraq's security forces, and there's thousands of American soldiers, diplomats and advisers there. Some influential Iraqi voices are calling for Americans to be banned from Iraq. In addition to anger, there's also disillusionment about the country so many dream of getting to. Back in Beirut, I speak to another Syrian refugee, Karam Ghannem, who was about to start a political science degree when he had to flee and now works in a factory. He tells me he, too, dreamed of America, and I ask why.
KARAM GHANNEM: (Speaking Arabic).
FORDHAM: "Because," he says, "they have democracy and they're living in freedom. This was our dream for Syria. We wanted to learn from the U.S." He says, though, now he's changed his mind about some Americans, the ones who voted for Trump. He said they chose a policy that's simply racist. Alice Fordham, NPR News, Beirut.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump's executive order is also making waves in the business world. Industries that include tech and travel are reacting strongly, and to learn more about this, we called NPR business reporter Jim Zarroli. Jim, thanks so much for joining us.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: You're welcome.
MARTIN: So we've had some sharp statements this weekend from the heads of Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter. What are they saying and where does this opposition come from?
ZARROLI: Well, you know, the tech sector relies on a lot of immigrants. The chief executive officer of Microsoft was born in India, so it was Google's CEO. And there's just, I think, culturally a very strong belief that immigration is one of the things that makes the tech sector prosper. The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, said in a statement this weekend - he said Apple would not exist without immigration, let alone thrive and innovate the way we do.
And remember, Michel, Steve Jobs' biological father was a Syrian immigrant. The president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, said we believe in the importance of protecting legitimate and law-abiding refugees whose lives may be at stake in immigration proceedings. And then just, you know, in practical terms, there are a lot of people who work in the tech sector, you know, who have dual nationals or, you know, they have some kind of work visa. And this really throws their status into some confusion, and it's a problem for their employers.
MARTIN: But what about companies in other industries? Have we heard leaders in other sectors - spoken out? Have they spoken about the ban either for or against?
ZARROLI: Well, they're starting to. I mean, one of the interesting things is the Koch brothers' network which is, of course, not a business, but a very powerful right-wing political fundraising network. It doesn't - it's not a business, but it consists of a lot of business people and represents business interests to some degree. They issued a statement saying the travel ban is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive. It said our country has benefited tremendously from a history of welcoming people of all cultures and backgrounds.
Then, you know, the travel industry isn't happy about the ban, largely because it's, you know - it's never good for them to have this televised chaos that we've seen at the airports. The head of BMW's North American operations spoke out this weekend. The chief executive of General Electric, Jeff Immelt - very important person in the business world - said GE has many employees from the named countries, and they are critical to our success. And they are our friends and partners. He said that in a - in his staff email. And that...
MARTIN: (Unintelligible).
ZARROLI: ...That's really the thing. I mean, this ban is going be a disruption to a lot of companies, and I think they're still trying to figure out where it's going.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, Jim, we have about a minute left. Why do you think more companies have not spoken out one way or the other about this?
ZARROLI: Well, I think one thing was the timing. I mean, this happened late on a Friday, so they maybe haven't had time to respond. But also, you know, President Trump is still very new in office, and I think people are still trying to decide what to make of him. He's, you know, of course, very unpredictable which is scary to a lot of business people, but he's also saying things the business world wants to hear. He wants to do infrastructure spending, cut corporate taxes, get rid of regulations.
I mean, if you're in the oil business, he's promising to do all kinds of things that you want. And also, you know, honestly, Trump has shown he can strike back pretty hard against companies when they do or say something he doesn't like. I mean, look at what happened with Carrier. So I think a lot of companies are just not sure what to say, and they're reluctant to come out and oppose him too much.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Jim Zarroli. Jim, thank you.
ZARROLI: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We've been reporting on the protests that have sprung up around the country against President Trump's executive order curtailing refugee resettlement and barring entry to the U.S. for citizens of certain countries. NPR's Kirk Siegler is at a protest at Los Angeles International Airport. Kirk, welcome. Thanks so much for joining us.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Glad to be here, Michel.
MARTIN: So can you tell us what the scene is like there?
SIEGLER: Well, it's been steadily growing throughout the afternoon. In fact, protesters arrived here several hours before the scheduled time when this was to begin. They've now streamed out outside of the arrivals hall where they had been chanting and cheering at folks coming into the country. Now they're all standing out on the side. You can hear probably in the background people chanting no fear, immigrants are welcome here.
It's a very peaceful protest. And there are a lot of folks - it's interesting - talking in the crowd, milling around the crowd. A lot of folks say that they just felt compelled to come out, and they, you know, haven't always been engaged in protest before - until now. One woman I spoke with her name is D'nai Kingsley. She's Korean-American, and she told me why she came out here, so let's hear a little bit of that tape now.
D'NAI KINGSLEY: I never really consider myself an activist, but these sorts of things that are happening right now - we have to stand up. And if we don't stand up, then it normalizes.
SIEGLER: There are folks, Michel, out here chanting and holding signs saying immigrants are welcome, keep refugees safe, and so it's quite a dynamic scene now here in LAX.
MARTIN: Do you know if there are any people detained at that airport because of the executive order that was signed on Friday? And if so how many?
SIEGLER: We don't know the number. We do know that there have been people in here - and I'm told unofficially that there are still people inside behind the wall behind us here. There have been a number of folks coming in from Iran and Europe. There were reports of some being held. These are permanent residents with U.S. green cards.
I'd say it's a very fluid and sort of chaotic situation almost in the sense that there's really no information or no official information that we can really get at this time, at least from my vantage point. It's just clear that the protesters are here demanding that those - assuming there are people behind us - still being detained in the Customs and Border Patrol with Customs and Border Patrol officials they want them out.
MARTIN: Elsewhere at airports around the country, immigration lawyers have come out to make themselves known to family members and to support and offer counsel to those who may be detained. Are you seeing that at LAX?
SIEGLER: I am, Michel. There are attorneys everywhere here holding signs saying please come talk to me, talk to me with help. I just spoke with one not too long ago who told me that they were just, you know, trying to mill around this crowd and find family members of loved ones behind the barrier there who they believe were trapped back there. And some people have lost contact with them.
One woman, in fact, told me that she was so frustrated that the information that she's getting is actually coming from the Los Angeles Police Department and airport police officials here about how many people may be detained back there. And they're not getting anything from the Customs and Border Patrol officials who are actually in charge and the Department of Homeland Security.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Kirk Siegler at the international terminal of Los Angeles International Airport. That's where protesters have gathered to register their objections to the Trump administration's executive orders regarding immigration and refugee resettlement Thanks, Kirk.
SIEGLER: Thank you. Glad to be here.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We wanted to get additional legal perspective on the big news stories of this weekend, so we reached out to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He led the Justice Department during the administration of George W. Bush. He's also a former White House counsel in that administration and a former Texas Supreme Court judge. He's now dean of the law school at Belmont University School of Law in Nashville. He happened to be traveling in Utah, and we reached him there. Judge Gonzales, thanks so much for speaking with us.
ALBERTO GONZALES: Always a pleasure.
MARTIN: So I wanted to first get your take on President Trump's reorganization of the National Security Council. The president's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, is now to be a regular member of the Principals Committee. How unusual is that to have somebody from the political side on equal footing with secretaries of Defense, State, Homeland Security and Treasury?
GONZALES: You know, I really can't speak to what it was like in previous administrations that they've gone by. I can tell you that Karl Rove was never in any meeting in the situation room. I would say it was really different to what we did in the Bush administration. I will say that as a general matter, you know, the president is entitled to seek advice from wherever he chooses.
But this is - relates to issues of the highest intelligence importance and involving our national security. And you want to have your advisers there who have some level of expertise and experience in that arena. I don't know what Steve's experience is in the area. And so I would certainly say would be unusual vis a vis my own experience in working in the Bush administration.
MARTIN: Did President Bush have a philosophy about this? I mean, he was known to be very close to Karl Rove. Was there a particular reason he didn't have somebody from the political side involved in these discussions? Was in part to avoid the appearance of political involvement in affairs of national security?
GONZALES: I think it was more a function of you were only at meetings or events where you were needed. For President Bush, his decision relating to national security - we're going to be governed by politics. We're not going to be governed by polls. He was going to do what he thought was best for this country based upon the advice given to him by the national security experts. Obviously, I'm not part of the Trump administration, so I don't know what is motivating this particular change. All I can say is it's certainly different than the way we operated in the Bush administration.
MARTIN: Let's talk about the executive order on refugee resettlement and the new limits on immigration. States attorneys general are having a very strong reaction to the president's executive order. In fact, a group of 16 of them are battling whatever legal assistance they can provide. You can see that there are demonstrations popping up at airports around the country. Can I get your reaction to this?
GONZALES: Well, you know, I haven't seen the order. Obviously, there's been a lot of reporting about it. There's also been some, I think - I've seen some reporting that, perhaps, the order wasn't properly vetted. I hope it's not the case that the lawyers of the Department of Justice, particularly the office of legal counsel that they - I hope that they were involved because that's a role that is delegated to them by the attorney general who is charged by statute to advise the executive branch. So I don't know how the executive order came to be - who signed off on it, but, obviously, it's generated a great deal of confusion and opposition.
MARTIN: Anything else that I didn't have the wit to ask you?
GONZALES: You know, I think with respect to these orders, we need to remember this is a very important balancing act for the country and that we are a nation of immigrants. We are a compassionate people. We have historically had open arms with respect to refugees and people in trouble.
On the other hand, we live now in a very dangerous world, and we need to make sure that only people that have good intentions are coming into our country. And if we don't have a process in place to ensure that, then that argues for beefing up those inspections. And that's a very delicate balance for our country, and I'm assuming that President Trump is trying to achieve that balance and, perhaps, that balance wasn't properly reached in this particular instance. So we'll have to wait and see how it all progresses.
MARTIN: That's Alberto Gonzales. He was attorney general in the administration of George W. Bush. He's currently serving as dean of the law school at Belmont University School of Law in Nashville. His latest book is "True Faith And Allegiance." And we reached him in Utah. Judge Gonzales, thanks so much for speaking with us.
GONZALES: Thank you again.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We have another story now about how one family has been affected by President Trump's executive order. Sarah Assali and her father were expecting to meet Syrian uncles, aunts and cousins at the Philadelphia International Airport on Saturday. But on their way, they got a call from U.S. Customs and Border Protection telling them to stay home. Their family members who are Syrian Christians were heading back to the Middle East. Sarah Assali joins us on the line now from outside of Philadelphia. Sarah, thanks so much for speaking with us.
SARAH ASSALI: No problem. Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: I know it's been a tough day.
ASSALI: It definitely has.
MARTIN: I understand that your family's been working to bring your aunts, uncles and cousins over for 14 years now. Why did they want to leave?
ASSALI: Well, my dad originally came, you know, for a better future, for his children, for his family, and he just wanted to bring his brothers and sisters over to have the same opportunities that he had to attend better schools, have, you know, more opportunities.
MARTIN: What happened when they arrived?
ASSALI: According to my family, they were taken from the gate of the airplane and taken to a holding cell eventually and told that - they were handed tickets, and their luggage was waiting for them there. And they were told you have to either go back or we're going to invalidate your visas, and you won't be able to return for five years. At that point, they did - were not offered a translator, and their English was very weak. They asked to make phone calls, but they were denied telephone use to reach out to us.
At that point, my uncle had essentially begged the officials to please call my father to let him know not to wait outside. And that was all the information we got. My dad got a phone call from a restricted number, and all they said was don't bother coming. We're not letting your family out. They're being sent back. They told us the information was confidential and that our family could call us and reach us when they're in Syria and let us know.
MARTIN: And have they reached Syria yet? Where are they now? Do you know?
ASSALI: They just got to Damascus about two hours ago.
MARTIN: How are they? How are their spirits?
ASSALI: They actually had no idea that this much of an uproar had happened over this executive order. So, at first, I think all of us felt very hopeless, but now that they know that, you know, a lot of things are in the works, there's protests going on and that the American people do support them, I think they're a lot more hopeful.
MARTIN: How are you doing?
ASSALI: I'm OK. It's - I haven't processed it all yet.
MARTIN: How is your dad?
ASSALI: He's upset. He's angry. He's frustrated, but he just wants his family to come here.
MARTIN: I understand that he's even bought - he even bought a second home in Allentown for them to help them get settled. That's quite a commitment. And I also understand that...
ASSALI: Yeah, they...
MARTIN: ...That your family members in Syria had also liquidated their assets, so they've basically already sold everything that they own there in preparation for the move. Do I have that right?
ASSALI: Yeah. They sold their cars, so they could afford plane tickets to come here. They got, you know - they sold all of their gold and any valuables that they had. They didn't expect to have to go back. I mean, luckily, they did have a home to go back to still. But they don't have anything else.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, is there anything else that you would wish people to know about this that, perhaps, they might not know if they're not as close to it as you are?
ASSALI: I guess my advice would be just to read - read everything, learn as much as you can before you jump to any - jump, you know, conclusions or judgments on any of the situations, you know, whether it be the situation in Syria or anywhere else worldwide because a lot of these policies are very emotionally driven. And they are not based on reality, and a lot of people who are making these judgments - it's not - it's all emotional.
So I would suggest everyone, you know, to go out and read and learn and try to come up with the most well-rounded response to what's happening in the world.
MARTIN: Well, I understand that you're a medical student. You're in the middle of - what? - your rotations, I understand. So we wish you the best with that, and good luck with that.
ASSALI: Thank you.
MARTIN: And I hope you'll be able to concentrate. That's Sarah...
ASSALI: Thank you.
MARTIN: ...Assali. She's a medical student. Her family members were sent back to Syria by President Trump's executive orders.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And, finally today, as we've been hearing, President Donald Trump's first week brought controversy and ferocious headlines, huge marches and legal battles. So we thought we'd end the program today in a quieter place in a small town that voted heavily for the new president. We sent North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann out this morning to gather some first impressions.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Outside a little diner in Elizabethtown, N.Y., I meet the Jackson brothers. They grew up on Long Island, but for decades they've lived here in Essex County, a deeply rural corner of the Adirondack Mountains where the small towns voted for Donald Trump. When I ask about the new president's first week in office, they jump at the chance to talk about it.
TIM JACKSON: The guy's just got in there. He needs a chance. You know? I mean, it's only been - everybody - he signed this, he signed that, he's done this, he's done - it's only been a week.
MANN: That's Tim Jackson, the younger brother. He wears a black leather jacket and Harley Davidson cap. His brother, Bill, wears a winter hat with ear flaps and kind of a "Duck Dynasty" beard. He says Donald Trump has captured some of his own spirit.
BILL JACKSON: But I'm also a rebel from way back, and I'm sick of people who just stand by. And now someone's gone in there and stirred the waters up. Boy, them Democrats are pissed, and they're trying to come up with every way they can to push him down.
MANN: I ask about one issue in particular - the new president's executive order temporarily banning refugees from seven Muslim countries. Bill Jackson says it's common sense. He thinks there's good reason to keep Muslims out of America.
B. JACKSON: I feel the same way. I feel that if a Muslim woman wants to move into this country, she needs to leave her towel home because the reason this country is here and safe today is because of Jesus Christ. We were one nation under God. The Muslims are into Allah. They can't live there anymore because all the turmoil and unrest. Here, we still have somewhat peace, so if you're going to come here to enjoy this peace, follow our rules and be one nation under God.
MANN: What about the idea of religious liberty that this is a nation where you can worship whatever god you want?
B. JACKSON: That is something that I believe has come along with political correctness and all this other garbage.
MANN: This is the moment when the conversation takes a surprising turn. Tim Jackson, the younger brother, chimes in again. He says he actually has big reservations about Donald Trump and his ideas.
T. JACKSON: I wanted Hillary in the worst way. I wanted Hillary. I just thought she was a strong woman. I believe she helped him, Bill, run a lot of this stuff.
MANN: But it turns out Tim didn't vote. He stayed home Election Day, and Donald Trump won the White House. So he thinks the millions of people like him who didn't cast ballots in November missed their moment and now should give the new president and his supporters their shot at running the government.
T. JACKSON: You had the chance to vote, and that's where - with me, it's like I just - I feel I don't have a say - you know? - in it.
MANN: So after week one, these brothers say they are paying attention, discussing, debating, even fighting over where the new president is taking the country. But for now, they're both with President Trump - the one watching guardedly, the other with real excitement. For NPR News, I'm Brian Mann in Essex County in Northern New York.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The executive order banning visitors and refugees from seven majority-Muslim nations is having some unanticipated effects in Hollywood. "The Salesman" has an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film. Its director, Asghar Farhadi, is from Iran and subject to that temporary ban.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Yesterday, Farhadi issued a statement saying he will not attend the Academy Awards ceremony even if he were granted an exception. He said, the similarities among the human beings on this earth far outweigh their differences.
CORNISH: We have a review of "The Salesman" from our movie critic Bob Mondello. He says the film makes Farhadi's point in an intriguing way. It uses an American stage classic to comment on a marriage in Tehran.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: The first thing on screen could be a spread in House Beautiful - a sofa, a table and chairs, a bedroom suite all arranged just so, lit to a fare-thee-well. They are, in fact, part of a stage set. Real life is messier. High school teacher Emad and his wife Rana, who've been rehearsing "Death Of A Salesman" on that stage set, are awakened in the middle of the night in their own place by shouts that their apartment building is falling apart. Cracks open up in walls. Gas is leaking. Clearly they need a new place to live.
So it's a relief at rehearsals when a cast member mentions a just-vacated apartment - as it happens, not entirely vacated. A woman's cat and belongings are still there, a woman who neighbors tell them had many male visitors. Still, they're desperate enough to move in anyway. Rehearsals go on, as do their lives. About a week later, Rana hears the intercom and buzzes in someone she assumes is her husband. Emad comes home hours later to find bloody footprints on the stairs.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SALESMAN")
SHAHAB HOSSEINI: (As Emad Etesami) Rana? Rana?
MONDELLO: It's at this point that the film becomes morally complicated. That's something you'll expect if you've seen filmmaker Asghar Farhadi's other films - his Oscar-winning "A Separation," say, which also puts characters in impossibly uncomfortable situations and then settles back to watch what they do.
"The Salesman" is centrally about an invasive act that shatters a marriage, much as the apartment was shattered at the film's beginning. It has a lot of twinned notions like that. And possibly because Farhadi majored in theater in college, it's also savvy about the intersection of stage and screen, fiction and reality, how the formal beats of tragedy in "Death Of A Salesman" contrast with the messier beats of life for the people performing "Death Of A Salesman" to the point that Emad, playing Willy Loman, erupts in unscripted fury onstage at the man who rented them the apartment.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SALESMAN")
HOSSEINI: (As Emad Etesami, speaking Persian).
MONDELLO: In the play, Willy worries about being able to provide for his family. Emad, playing Willy, worries about being able to protect his family, connections that tell you attention has been paid and that there's what you might call universal value to what Farhadi's "The Salesman" is selling. I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAMIAK SONG, "ESTE ES MI SECRETO")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today scientists announced that they have discovered a new animal. Actually, a very old one. It is a fossilized sea creature that once lived in what's now central China. NPR's Rachel Ellen Bichell reports that the tiny organism could provide clues about how some modern animals evolved.
RAE ELLEN BICHELL, BYLINE: When scientists like Simon Conway Morris discover a new animal, they get to name it. But when he and his colleagues in China found this 540 million-year-old fossil, they decided to skip the compliments.
SIMON CONWAY MORRIS: We arrived at the word Saccorhytus, which basically means a wrinkled bag.
BICHELL: Actually, this thing is a lot uglier than a wrinkled bag. It's basically a giant gaping mouth with spikes and some extra holes, probably for oozing waste.
CONWAY MORRIS: (Laughter) Yes, doesn't sound too appetizing, does it?
BICHELL: Fortunately, it was only the size of a grain of rice.
CONWAY MORRIS: It has a very small body. It doesn't have a tail. It does not appear to have eyes.
BICHELL: It sounds primitive, but compared to the other life in that area this slithering, clambering little blob of an animal was on the cutting edge. This was a time in Earth's history when algae was just about the most exciting thing floating around. Conway Morris of Cambridge University in the U.K. described the ancient sand dwellers in the journal Nature. He and his colleagues think it's a really important find.
CONWAY MORRIS: So what we have here is an animal which we would suggest is, in fact, the earliest known deuterostome.
BICHELL: Deuterostomes are a huge group of organisms that over millions of years would come to include starfish, sea squirts and anything with a spine, including us. This critter represents a surprising and not very attractive beginning to the huge diversity of life we see today. For example, those holes for using waste - structures like those may have eventually evolved into gills.
CONWAY MORRIS: I think what is really exciting about the fossil record is that it shows us, in a sense, what the missing links actually look like.
BICHELL: Half a billion years ago, life on Earth was getting interesting. And some of that action was happening on a tiny scale, hidden between grains of sand. Rae Ellen Bichell, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Twenty-seventeen is shaping up to be another tough year for organized labor. The year started with Republican lawmakers in Kentucky passing so-called right-to-work laws that affect how labor unions collect dues. That made Kentucky the 27th state with right-to-work laws. Missouri and New Hampshire could be next in line. Todd Bookman of New Hampshire Public Radio reports that if the bill passes in his state, it will be the first in the northeast to rollback union rights.
TODD BOOKMAN, BYLINE: Union leaders have successfully fended off right-to-work bills in New Hampshire for decades, so it wasn't a surprise when hundreds of rank-and-file members, many in red T-shirts, filled the statehouse during a recent public hearing. State Senator Dan Innis held the gavel, but at times struggled to handle the crowd.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAN INNIS: Let me first ask those in attendance if we could please refrain from applause and other activities so we can continue to move this forward...
(BOOING)
INNIS: ...Including booing - I would greatly appreciate it, as would your fellow folks who are here today. So please...
BOOKMAN: While opponents were fired up, their preferred candidates didn't fare as well during the November elections. Republicans now control the New Hampshire House, Senate and governor's office, and they've made passage of right-to-work a priority. Broadly speaking, these laws prohibit unions from forcing non-union members to pay fees to cover the cost of collective bargaining. For State Senator Andy Sanborn, that policy is a natural fit for New Hampshire, where about 10 percent of the workforce is unionized.
ANDY SANBORN: This is the Live Free or Die state, so we're about personal freedom. We're about personal liberty. And what makes a stronger statement than reaffirming the fact that you're not being compelled to have to pay into a union if you don't want to pay into it?
BOOKMAN: But for opponents, the laws create what's called a freeriding problem. Bobby Jones is with AFSCME Local 3657, which represents public safety and corrections workers. He says employees who don't chip into the union still get the advantages of collective bargaining, like higher wages and benefits.
BOBBY JONES: So it's just like you and I want to go out one night for a couple of beers. I choose the bar. We go out. We both have a couple of drinks. We're talking about whatever the topic is - the Patriots going to the Super Bowl. You know, when the bill comes out, I pull out my wallet, and you don't reach for yours.
BOOKMAN: Both sides of this debate toss around competing statistics. Backers say it will draw jobs and investment to New Hampshire, while opponents call it right-to-work-for-less and say that workers will lose bargaining power and see their wages erode. But in the end, it's become less of an economic argument and more of a purely partisan fight - one aimed at weakening unions, which generally back Democratic candidates with campaign cash and volunteers.
DEAN SPILIOTES: Some people do view it as kind of Republican payback against the role of unions in elections.
BOOKMAN: Dean Spiliotes is a political analyst with Southern New Hampshire University. He says right-to-work laws are a central part of the conservative platform, even if it's not an issue that gets lots of attention from most voters.
SPILIOTES: From time to time, you have these issues that kind of transcend the impact that they may have on an individual state and become kind of a litmus test for where you are ideologically.
BOOKMAN: After years of trying, New Hampshire Republicans are turning that ideology into action. The bill cleared the state Senate by a single vote and now heads to the House, where the GOP holds a 50-seat majority. For NPR News, I'm Todd Bookman in Concord, N.H.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It's become sort of a January tradition for us to look ahead to some of the most anticipated jazz albums of the year, so we want to welcome back our favorite jazz guide, composer and bassist and host of NPR's Jazz Night in America, Christian McBride. Hey there, Christian.
CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE, BYLINE: How you doing, Audie? Great to speak with you.
CORNISH: And I understand you brought a special guest with you this time around. Introduce us.
MCBRIDE: Yeah. We would like to welcome to the family Mr. Nate Chinen, who's a former jazz critic at The New York Times. And now he is the newly appointed director of editorial content at WBGO here in Newark, N.J.
CORNISH: Nice. How you doing, Nate?
NATE CHINEN: Good. It's great to be here.
CORNISH: Are you just saying that because you are a former jazz critic sitting next to a musician?
(LAUGHTER)
CHINEN: Actually...
CORNISH: No pressure.
CHINEN: ...Christian has tied me to this chair.
(LAUGHTER)
CHINEN: And you know, I'm reading something he wrote for me.
(LAUGHTER)
CHINEN: No, it's really fun to be sitting across the table from Christian. And every time we have a conversation about the music, it's always a blast.
MCBRIDE: Yes, it is.
CORNISH: And I hear that you guys have actually brought some albums to look forward to in 2017. Nate, what went into these picks?
CHINEN: You know, the main thing for me was sheer enthusiasm. I've got a big stack of albums on my desk, and I go through them. And these were three of the albums that I was really excited about and also thought that Christian might respond that way.
MCBRIDE: Absolutely.
(SOUNDBITE OF MIGUEL ZENON SONG, "TIPICO")
CORNISH: One is a multiple-Grammy nominee, Miguel Zenon. He's Puerto Rican saxophone player. Tell us about him.
CHINEN: Well, he's a - an alto saxophonist and composer who is one of those musicians who's always brimming with ideas. You know, he's done a lot of work taking this sort of folkloric music of Puerto Rico and putting it into a jazz context and sort of interrogating different aspects of the form. But on this new album, "Tipico," what it really boils down to is a vigorous, really well-tested and really agile working band that he has.
(SOUNDBITE OF MIGUEL ZENON SONG, "CORTEZA")
CORNISH: Christian, I'm such a sucker for, like, opening solo notes (laughter).
MCBRIDE: Yeah. In listening to this track and some other tracks from this new recording, I almost get a sense that Miguel's music - I almost feel like jazz is sort of where jazz was in the early '70s in terms of we're getting out of this sort of traditional way of thinking. We're getting into more world influences.
CHINEN: Taking all of these all of these elements from Puerto Rican culture, from, you know, Afro-Cuban culture.
MCBRIDE: Right.
CHINEN: And it - he doesn't have to sort of check the box or flip the switch. It's just all in there.
(SOUNDBITE OF MIGUEL ZENON SONG, "CORTEZA")
CORNISH: It's interesting hearing a music critic and a musician in the same space. We often think of these voices like people who are at odds with each other.
MCBRIDE: (Laughter).
CORNISH: Do your tastes align in some ways?
CHINEN: Well, you know, I chose these albums for us, and I really had no agenda other than enthusiasm here. They're all pretty different aesthetically, but they all sound like the work of, you know, musicians who have a real bond together. And that was one thing I thought Christian would respond to.
MCBRIDE: Yeah. And they - there was sort of end game in mind when they made these recordings. I loved everything that Nate picked. And just to backtrack a little bit, I think critics kind of hide in the walls. And then they write what they want to write, and they - you never get to speak to them about what they write. But Nate is one of the few that - he will be more than happy to speak to you about anything he's written, and he's fair. That's the main thing. He's fair.
CORNISH: Well, that's a very good start (laughter).
CHINEN: I feel like I need to get those comments printed on a T-shirt.
CORNISH: We will.
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: Well, you talked about these artists kind of having a goal. And I want to bring in another - a composer and pianist, Craig Taborn. And his new album is called "Daylight Ghost." This is another one you guys chose for us. And let's just start with the song, the title track.
(SOUNDBITE OF CRAIG TABORN SONG, "DAYLIGHT GHOST")
CHINEN: Craig Taborn is a pianist and composer that I admire greatly - fantastic improviser. And he happens to be a musician that you, Christian, recorded with very recently.
MCBRIDE: Yes, yes.
CHINEN: An album that came out last year.
MCBRIDE: Playing John Zorn's music. Two things I'd like to say about Craig Taborn. One - I instantly loved this recording. Knowing Craig as a person and admiring him also as a musician, I think what I love about this recording is this there seems to be no pretense. I don't get the sense that Craig is vehemently trying to show us what a clever musician he is. There's something very organic, yet very thought out. His compositional skills are incredible. His musicianship skills are incredible. He can fit in many different situations. He's a musician's musician.
(SOUNDBITE OF CRAIG TABORN SONG, "DAYLIGHT GHOST")
CORNISH: And finally, one other album you want to highlight coming up this year from guitarist Kevin Eubanks. Our listeners might know him from his days as leader of the "Tonight Show" band with Jay Leno. I did not expect this name. Is this, like, a comeback of sorts, Christian?
MCBRIDE: I'm not sure if it's a comeback. I think Kevin didn't do a lot of recording while he was on the show, but all of us in the jazz community for years have known that he's one of the titans of jazz guitar. And if you lived out in Los Angeles, and you got to sort of be on that scene, you got a chance to jam with Kevin. You got to see Kevin play a lot more then sort of the audience at large did. So I guess maybe you could call this a comeback, but not really.
CHINEN: I'm going to call it a comeback.
MCBRIDE: Really?
CHINEN: I'm going to call it a comeback.
(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED KEVIN EUBANKS SONG)
CORNISH: So, Nate, you are calling this a comeback.
CHINEN: I would say so only because those things that Christian said about if you live in Los Angeles and got a chance to hear him in clubs. You know, I'm a New York jazz critic.
(LAUGHTER)
CHINEN: So, you know, Kevin Eubanks was frustratingly off the scene...
MCBRIDE: Off the scene - yeah.
CHINEN: ...During all those years that we saw him on TV. And he's released a few albums before this one, you know.
MCBRIDE: Right.
CHINEN: But this album, I feel, especially with this band, I mean...
MCBRIDE: Can't go wrong.
CHINEN: That is - that is, you know, a wrecking crew.
MCBRIDE: (Laughter).
CHINEN: And that's a band deserving of Kevin's talents.
MCBRIDE: Right.
CHINEN: He knows how to work with them and how to really sort of bring out the fire.
MCBRIDE: Yeah. I hope Kevin goes on the road with this group or any group, for that matter. But, yeah, I really hope I see Kevin on the festival circuit and reclaiming his throne.
CORNISH: Well, Christian McBride, host of NPR's Jazz Night in America, thank you so much for coming back to the show.
MCBRIDE: It's always a pleasure, Audie.
CORNISH: And Nate Chinen is director of editorial content and member station WBGO. You'll also be hearing him more on NPR. Nate, thanks for joining us.
CHINEN: It's been a pleasure. Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ MUSIC)
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
President Trump is promising to give priority to Christian refugees fleeing persecution, yet some of the strongest criticism of his executive order is coming from Christian leaders themselves. Some say the temporary ban on refugees challenges the Christian ethic of welcoming the stranger. Others worry that favoring Christians over other immigrants could actually backfire. Here's NPR's Tom Gjelten.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: Among the Christian groups criticizing President Trump's executive order are some who've been generally friendly to him. Eight evangelical leaders, including one who prayed at his inauguration, sent Trump a letter yesterday asking him to reconsider his suspension of refugee resettlement. Another clergyman who prayed to Trump's inauguration, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, told reporters yesterday that the executive order at first blush causes us some apprehension.
TIMOTHY DOLAN: But we're looking forward to studying it, and we look forward to hearing the experts who work for us in the next couple days to say, here's what it says; here's the trouble it's going to cause, and here's what we need to do about it.
GJELTEN: Dolan is a longtime Trump friend. Other Catholic leaders were much harsher in their assessment of the executive order. That criticism from the Christian world is notable because President Trump said he'll give special attention to Christian refugees. The executive order itself doesn't mention Christians by name, saying only that members of religious minorities will be given priority treatment. But in an interview last week with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Trump specifically said he sees Christians as a priority because they've been horribly treated.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If you were a Christian in Syria, it was impossible, very, very - at least very, very tough to get into the United States. If you were a Muslim, you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible.
GJELTEN: Actually, now it'll be completely impossible. Under Trump's executive order, all refugees from Syria including Christians are barred from the United States indefinitely. As for refugee law generally, it's not as though someone can qualify for refugee status simply by being a Christian.
PAUL ROSENZWEIG: The core of being a refugee is having a reasonable fear of persecution.
GJELTEN: Paul Rosenzweig is a law professor at George Washington University and an official in the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush.
ROSENZWEIG: If you cannot demonstrate that then you're not entitled to get any status at all.
GJELTEN: It's a case-by-case determination, a Christian who wants to come to the United States but cannot demonstrate that he or she faces persecution back home will not get special treatment. Christians have been persecuted widely in the Middle East, especially in areas under the control of ISIS. But even those organizations most supportive of beleaguered Christians have mixed feelings about prioritizing them over others facing persecution. David Curry, president of Open Doors USA, worries that putting Christians in a favored category could actually make things worse for them.
DAVID CURRY: What might exacerbate the challenges is if this is seen and interpreted as a religious test to get into America, they'll use that as an excuse to attack Christians even further.
CURRY: Curry's organization advocates giving priority simply to those people most in need of refuge, whether Christians or minority Muslims or Yazidis. Andrew Doran, senior policy adviser for the Organization in Defense of Christians, thinks the priority should be on preserving Christian communities in the Middle East. He'd like to see more of an effort to protect them where they now live.
DOLAN: It's very important for these Syrians to be safe, protected, and the best way to this is for a U.S.-led international coalition to establish protected zones.
GJELTEN: As recently as last week President Trump was saying he'd support the establishment of safe zones in Syria, that proposal was in an earlier draft of his executive order but it was omitted in the final version. Tom Gjelten, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
CT scans can help identify lung cancer early when it's more treatable, but for every cancer found these tests produce dozens of false alarms. That's led researchers at the Veterans Health Administration to weigh the overall costs and benefits of cancer screening. NPR's Richard Harris reports.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: Federal health officials and other medical groups recommend low-dose CT scans to help detect lung cancer, specifically in older people who have smoked the equivalent of more than two packs a day for 15 years. The procedure typically costs $300, and it involves a quick trip to the radiologist.
LINDA KINSINGER: I have heard people say, you know, what's the big deal? It's just a CT. And I think what we tried to show is it is a lot more than just a CT.
HARRIS: Dr. Linda Kinsinger wanted to know how challenging it would be for the Veterans Health Administration to offer this to its clientele, so she coordinated a study involving eight VA hospitals. It turns out that it wasn't even simple to identify the heavy smokers or to convince eligible vets to take the test even though it was offered at no cost.
KINSINGER: We didn't record their reasons for why they declined, but just a little over half actually accepted screening. That was kind of a surprise to us.
HARRIS: About 2,100 people ultimately took the test, and of those, 1,200 were told they had suspicious nodules in their lungs. The study found twice the rate of false readings from previous studies, and people who had lung nodules needed follow-up exams, scans and sometimes even biopsies. From that massive effort, they found about 20 treatable cancers.
From your experience, do you think this is a good idea?
KINSINGER: I think it's a close call.
HARRIS: It was certainly worth it for the 20 people who were sent on to get therapy for their cancers.
KINSINGER: But that has to be weighed against the amount of effort on the part of both patients and staff and the anxiety, the worry that a false alarm will cause among patients.
HARRIS: Kinsinger's study is published in JAMA Internal Medicine. It's accompanied by an editorial by journal editor Rita Redberg, who spoke via Skype.
RITA REDBERG: I think a lot of people have a much rosier view of screening in general than the facts bear out because very few people are actually helped by screening, and a lot of times there are a number of harms.
HARRIS: Dr. Redberg notes that in addition to all the false alarms, lung cancer screening programs also draw in many people who are at low risk for lung cancer in the first place.
REDBERG: Once the center has the ability to do the screening, they'd like to use their technology to do as many people as possible and it seems that low-risk people who are really unlikely to get any benefit and are more likely to get harmed are getting screened in bigger numbers than the high-risk people who are supposed to be screened.
HARRIS: That may make sense for certain people given their individual circumstances, but overall it isn't a good use of health care dollars. Richard Harris, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF TALKDEMONIC SONG, "MOUNTAINTOPS IN CAVES")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In the State Department, there is an easy and usually private way for employees to register their concerns about U.S. policy. It's called the Dissent Channel. Today, an unusually large number of Foreign Service officers are using the channel to protest Donald Trump's executive order on visas and refugees. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports that scores of officers have signed a dissent cable that says the order, quote, "runs counter to American values and could be counterproductive."
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: The White House says it consulted for, quote, "many weeks" with the State Department before issuing an executive order temporarily banning visas for citizens of seven mainly Muslim countries and suspending the refugee resettlement program. Officials who were involved in the refugee program deny that. And one retired ambassador, Laura Kennedy, says the executive order did not read like it was reviewed by State Department lawyers, consular or refugee officials.
LAURA KENNEDY: It is just, as the dissent message, I think, makes clear, inconsistent with values, with security aims of the administration, with process, with any number of things.
KELEMEN: During her 40-year career at the State Department, Kennedy never signed a dissent cable herself. She remembers one time in the 1990s when more than a dozen diplomats raised concerns about U.S. policy in the Balkans. Last year, about 50 Foreign Service officers criticized the Obama administration for failing to do enough to protect civilians in Syria. But this Trump executive order is generating much more attention, according to Kennedy.
KENNEDY: I know that many, many serving officers were horrified by this message.
KELEMEN: That is the message the White House was sending in its executive order titled "Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry." The draft dissent cable, which was published by the Lawfare blog, points out that the overwhelming majority of attacks on U.S. soil are committed by native-born or naturalized U.S. citizens. Those are individuals who have been living in the U.S. for decades or since birth. And it says terrorist attacks that were carried out by foreign nationals entering the U.S. on visas came from countries that were not included in the ban, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Asked about those who signed the dissent cable, White House spokesman Sean Spicer was dismissive.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SEAN SPICER: I think that they should either get with the program, or they can go.
KELEMEN: All of this comes at a time when the Trump administration has cleared out top management positions at the State Department without naming anyone new. Secretary of state designee Rex Tillerson is still awaiting confirmation. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Trump administration is defending its controversial order that temporarily bars refugees from coming to the U.S. as well as citizens of seven largely Muslim countries. Friday's order brought lawsuits over the weekend and protests at airports around the country. Even some of the president's fellow Republicans are criticizing the order, saying it is too broad or poorly executed. We'll hear from one in a moment.
First, NPR's Scott Horsley joins us from the White House. Hi, Scott.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: There's lots of confusion about this order over the weekend. Lawyers went to court, as we said. The early rulings did not go the president's way. Is the White House offering any kind of apology or introspection about the way this was handled?
HORSLEY: Not at all, Ari. The order was issued late Friday, and that meant there was little time to spread the word to those who were charged with enforcing it. There was confusion over how to deal with green card holders. Some of those early legal challenges concerned what to do with travelers who did make their way to the U.S. But the White House is minimizing all of that.
The president tweeted out this morning, everything's going well. There have been very few problems. The president does have broad authority in this area, and it's not at all clear that future lawsuits against this policy will go the protesters' way. White House Spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters, Trump is simply doing what he said during the campaign he would do, and Spicer insisted Trump is not changing course.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
SEAN SPICER: The American people support what the president's doing. Everyone in here needs to get out of Washington once in a while and go talk to people throughout America that are pleased that this president is taking the steps necessary to protect this country.
SHAPIRO: You know, the White House keeps framing this as making Americans safer. Does this order actually make Americans safer?
HORSLEY: Well, the administration says it does. But you know, there are critics like Michael Hayden, the former CIA director, who told NPR this morning, this could very well make the country less safe by playing in the jihadi narrative of a war between the West and Islam.
That said, though, Sean Spicer might be right about Americans' attitudes towards this order. There was a new poll out today that asked people, would you support suspending travel from, quote, "terror-prone regions" even if that meant closing the door to refugees? And by a narrow margin, more people said they would support it than oppose it.
SHAPIRO: Of course the specific countries on that list are up for debate. We're going to talk a little bit more about that in a moment. But also interestingly today, former President Obama spoke out for the first time, putting out a statement. Tell us what it said.
HORSLEY: Yeah, he basically is encouraging the demonstrations against this travel ban that we've seen around the country. He said those demonstrations are, quote, "exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake." Obama also took issue with Trump's plan to give preferential treatment to Christian refugees. The former president says he fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.
SHAPIRO: President Trump is also getting some pushback from members of his own State Department. What are they saying?
HORSLEY: There is a memo circulating through what is called the dissent channel at the State Department. That's an established way for career diplomats to raise concerns about U.S. policy. And several hundred have endorsed a memo which says the travel ban, quote, "stands in opposition to the core American and constitutional values we as federal employees took an oath to uphold." Sean Spicer, however, was not moved by that diplomatic criticism.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
SPICER: I think that they should either get with the program, or they can go.
SHAPIRO: Well, Scott, last thing I want to ask you about - the travel ban was not the only executive action by the president that generated some controversy this weekend. He also reorganized the National Security Council. Tell us about that.
HORSLEY: Yeah, he changed the makeup of what's called the principal's committee. And he appeared to de-emphasize the role of the nation's top military officer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the director of National Intelligence. Now, the White House is downplaying that. Sean Spicer says those folks are still welcome to attend any NSC meeting they want to.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
SPICER: However, if the issue is on, you know, pandemic flu or other domestic-type natures that don't involve the military, it would be a waste of time to drag the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over. If he wants to attend, he's part of the committee. He can come anytime.
HORSLEY: A bigger concern for critics is not who was taken off the list but who was put on - Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart executive who is now a senior White House strategist. Bannon is one of the architects of Trump's America-first strategy, and foreign policy critics are nervous to see someone who's basically a political adviser playing such a big role in the NSC.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Scott Horsley at the White House, thank you.
HORSLEY: My pleasure.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
During the presidential campaign, Eliot Cohen helped lead a group of Republican foreign policy and national security veterans warning about the dangers of a Trump presidency. During the George W. Bush administration, Cohen was a top adviser to the secretary of state, and now he writes in The Atlantic that Trump's first week in office confirmed his worst fears, and he warns that it will get worse.
Eliot Cohen, welcome to the program.
ELIOT COHEN: Good to be with you.
SHAPIRO: I'd like to start with the reorganization at the NSC. Why is the cast of characters here so important?
COHEN: Well, there are a couple of things. One is, there's a very powerful symbolic message that's being sent particularly by putting Steve Bannon as a member of the Principals Committee. I mean that's - that is - to put a political adviser there no matter who it would be would be troubling. That was certainly not the practice, for example, in the administration that I was part of. And actually, President Bush was very careful to keep say, Karl Rove - people like that out of those sorts of positions.
SHAPIRO: But explain why. I mean if this is somebody who's president for so many senior policy meetings at the White House, why should this person be kept out of the National Security Council?
COHEN: Because I think decisions about foreign policy and the national security of the United States or at least the formulation of those decisions before they go to the president should not have a large domestic, political component to them at all.
SHAPIRO: So you're saying - just to give a hypothetical - whether to go to war or not should not be decided on based on how it will influence the president's re-election prospects.
COHEN: Absolutely. But there's a lot more to it than that. There's a particular problem I think with Bannon, who is not just a domestic political adviser, clearly does have strong foreign policy views. And I think most of us, certainly those of us who signed those letters - and I helped organize those letters as well as signing them - think has dangerous views and will be in a position to push those.
SHAPIRO: I want to ask you about this piece you wrote for The Atlantic, which is pretty dire. And in it, you emphasized your greatest concern comes not from Trump's policies but from his temperament and character. Are you saying that programs like the Muslim immigration ban or the wall with Mexico might have been all right if they had been executed and implemented differently?
COHEN: Well, you know, in principle, am I against having a control of our own borders - of course not. In principle, do I believe in the careful vetting of immigrants - yes, within reason. But you don't do it in this kind of blanket way, and you don't do it in this way that's going to disrupt lots of people's lives. One of the things you learn in government is the way you handle things can be absolutely as important or indeed more important than the things you actually do.
SHAPIRO: This piece that you've written has some language that is incredibly dark. You warn that the Trump administration will probably end in calamity, substantial domestic protest and violence, you write, a breakdown of international economic relationships, the collapse of major alliances or perhaps one or more new wars. Do your friends typically think of you as a Cassandra, a worst-case-scenario person? Or is this pretty unusual for you?
COHEN: They think of me probably as more of a glass-half-empty kind of guy...
SHAPIRO: OK.
COHEN: ...Than a glass-half-full kind of guy.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) All right - so context here.
COHEN: But this is a very dark picture, but I think it is the realistic picture. And that is why with a lot of friends and colleagues, we were willing to go out there and do some things that did not come naturally, which was to write these - and circulate these two letters denouncing the candidate of the party I belong to.
SHAPIRO: But then you also warn experts within that party not to join the government, that it will only harm them in the long run. And I wonder; if people with experience and smarts steer clear, won't that make all the problems worse, if you just have unintelligent, unqualified, inexperienced people filling the ranks of government?
COHEN: I think there can be some cases where, say, if you're working for Secretary Mattis, who I know quite well...
SHAPIRO: The defense secretary...
COHEN: ...Defense secretary - then I think that is one thing. But I think if you go work in the White House and you think you're going to influence them, you're wrong. And they're going to end up influencing you.
People in Washington, particularly people who've been around power and people who like power, will often fool themselves about the amount of good that they can actually do. And it is the oldest excuse in the book to say, I'm simply doing this for the country; this isn't my ambition talking. You know, I think I can change these people. And sometimes those things are true, but more often, in my experience, that's self-delusion.
SHAPIRO: Eliot Cohen was a former counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and he's now with the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. His new book is called "The Big Stick: The Limits Of Soft Power And The Necessity Of Military Force." Thanks for joining us.
COHEN: You're very welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
At today's press briefing, Sean Spicer defended President Trump's executive order temporarily restricting travel from seven countries, and specifically he talked about how the administration chose those countries.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
SEAN SPICER: This is a national security issue. These seven countries were derived from what the Obama administration had deemed as needing further travel restriction.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Again, those seven countries are Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen. And about that Obama restriction Spicer mentioned...
CORNISH: It was part of a program known as the Visa Waiver Program. A little background here - that allowed citizens of 38 countries to travel and do business here in the U.S. without a visa.
RUTH WASEM: And the nationals of these countries, if you look through the 38, are close allies to the United States and countries seen as having very secure screening procedures in their own country.
CORNISH: That's Professor Ruth Wasem. She teaches immigration policy at the University of Texas in Austin, and she worked as a policy expert at the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service for 25 years.
SHAPIRO: Wasem says after terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino in late 2015, Obama signed a law tightening up the Visa Waiver Program. The exemption from visa requirements no longer applied to people who are either dual citizens of or had traveled to, quote, "countries of concern." The worry was that someone who had traveled to one of these places might have become radicalized.
WASEM: You couldn't enter through the Visa Waiver Program if you were from one of these countries or had traveled to one of these countries, but you could seek a visa and go through the standard process with a personal interview and a full national security background check.
SHAPIRO: Those seven countries of concern are the same ones in Trump's executive order.
CORNISH: But Wasem says the Obama administration's policy wasn't nearly as restrictive as Trump's.
WASEM: So it didn't bar the entry of individuals. It just subjected them to the full-blown security process. And what - as I understand, President Trump's executive order bars travel.
CORNISH: So as press secretary Spicer says, the new rules do affect the same countries, but they affect them in very different ways.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE FLASHBULB SONG, "I CAN FEEL IT HUMMING")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
At universities across the country, students and administrators are protesting President Trump's recent executive order restricting entry to the U.S. from seven majority-Muslim nations. Some foreign-born students and professors are stuck abroad, and in the U.S., many more are worried that the order will have wide-ranging impacts on academia. NPR's Tovia Smith reports.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: There are stories from campuses around the nation. Two professors from Iran trying to get back to UMass Dartmouth were detained in Boston. A Ph.D. student at NYU was denied re-entry to the U.S. after living here for eight years. And an Iranian scientist due to start new research at Harvard is now wondering if he ever will. They're just a handful of more than 15,000 students studying in the U.S. from the seven affected countries.
MARY SUE COLEMAN: This executive order is causing considerable chaos on our campuses.
SMITH: Mary Sue Coleman of the Association of American University says it's not only bad for individuals involved, but she says it's also bad for the nation.
COLEMAN: There's a lot of concern, and I think the spillover effects will be very damaging to the U.S. ultimately.
THOMAS MICHEL: To keep America great, I think we need to ensure that the best and the brightest continue to want to come here, and that is under direct threat.
SMITH: Harvard Medical School professor Thomas Michel hired an Iranian scientist, Sohail Saravi (ph), to work in his lab on how diabetes affects the way cells talk to one another in the cardiovascular system. Michel says Saravi got a visa after many months of vetting, but his visa was suspended this weekend.
MICHEL: He is the top young scientist of his generation in the life sciences in Iran. He's not taking a job away from anyone. He is actually going to make contributions I think are unique.
SMITH: The Trump administration says the order is necessary - at least temporarily - to re-evaluate the immigration vetting process and re-secure the nation's borders. But critics say it sends a horrible message that the U.S. is not a welcoming place to study or work.
WILLIS WANG: People are in shock. It is understandably unnerving - not only are international student and scholar community directly but everyone in this community.
SMITH: Willis Wang is Boston University's associate provost for global programs. He spent the past few days helping to counsel international students. On a practical level, he says, BU's advising those already here not to risk leaving. But on a more personal level, he says, there's little the school can say that's really reassuring.
WANG: It's hard. We've been providing something as simple as a warm shoulder to cry on.
SMITH: Wang, the son of immigrants himself, says the ban undermines the most fundamental principles of this nation as a haven for refugees and a land of opportunity. That's how Lubna Omar, a Syrian professor at Binghamton University, always saw America. But she says the travel ban is now making her question everything.
LUBNA OMAR: Oh, God, yeah. I spent the whole night, like, trying to figure out, like, it's going to affect me. And it happened really fast. It's kind of scaring me a lot.
SMITH: Omar says the travel ban will now make it impossible to continue her work as an anthropologist. But on a personal level, she says, she has even bigger concerns.
OMAR: If this is the first wave of, you know, orders and then if there will be a next step next targeting the people who are already in - so I'm dreading it, but after what happened this weekend, maybe I should, you know, start thinking about moving to another place. It's just really sad.
SMITH: As one academic put it, that is really bad news. We need them as much as they need us. Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Over the weekend, federal judges in New York, Virginia, Washington and Massachusettes prevented deportations and raised other legal objections to the executive orders. And acting Attorney General Sally Yates now says she won't defend the White House executive order. But that decision isn't likely to hold when Donald Trump's new choice to head the Department of Justice, Jeff Sessions, is approved by the senate. In the meantime, attorneys general from 16 states signed a letter condemning the policy.
In the meantime, attorneys general from 16 states signed a letter condemning the policy. Earlier, I spoke with Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller about how far they're willing to go.
Welcome to the program.
TOM MILLER: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: Now, so far we've heard that the AG for Washington state, Bob Ferguson - he's confirmed that he's filing a lawsuit in federal court against Donald Trump declaring this order unconstitutional. Are you filing a similar lawsuit?
MILLER: Well, what we're going to do is take a good look at Attorney General Ferguson's lawsuit as soon as it's filed, as soon as we get a copy. You know, I think it's a very good move, a very good idea for him to file a lawsuit and to litigate this issue. What the...
CORNISH: But not one you guys are jumping on yet. How come?
MILLER: Well, you know, it's just been a few minutes. You know, I know you're accustomed to things happening very quickly, but I think a number of AGs are considering something similar. You know, we've offered to help people that are caught in this difficult situation. But Attorney General Ferguson is the first - will be the first to file. He's the leader on this one. And we will see what he does and see what it says and go from there.
CORNISH: Now, in the statement you all signed on to, you said, we condemn President Trump's unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful executive order. You know, now that the White House has clarified that this should not apply to green card holders, what in the language of the order is unconstitutional?
MILLER: Well, I think that there's a number of serious legal issues, and that's why it's so important that Attorney General Ferguson filed a suit and maybe some of the rest of us come along. There's issues concerning his authority to do this, although the authority recognized is very broad. They may have run afoul of some of the due process concerns by doing it so quickly and at times clumsily. But I think the main legal issues revolve around religion and the attempts in one form or another to restrict severely Muslims from coming to this country...
CORNISH: Now the...
MILLER: ...And also some questions about treating Muslims and Christians differently in this context. So I think the real significant issues revolve around religion and discrimination based on religion.
CORNISH: So going after that specifically because the White House has always had enormous power over immigration and border control, especially when it comes to non-citizens, right?
MILLER: That is correct. They do have a lot of power, as they should given this kind of world and this area. But still, there are restrictions of concerning the due process clause and the equal protection clause of how they do it, and they have raised a series of issues concerning religion that are legitimately litigated.
CORNISH: Now, you campaigned for Hillary Clinton, but Donald Trump won your state. And he was actually in Iowa when he was asked about the Muslim registry, and he promised one absolutely. Your voters supported this, so are you out of step with your state?
MILLER: Well. I hope not, and I don't think so. I mean Iowa is a remarkable state. We have a great tradition of supporting and welcoming refugees and immigrants. Bob Ray, the - probably the best or certainly one of the best governors in our history - a Republican - brought in refugees from Southeast Asia when it was a little bit unpopular to do that, and Iowans conclude he was right and were very supportive of that. And...
CORNISH: But what do you say to voters in your state who say, I voted for Donald Trump because I wanted something like this?
MILLER: Well, I - you know, I say that I respectfully disagree and explain why. But I don't think we should assume that everybody that voted for Trump agrees with the Muslim ban or the activity here. They vote for him for a whole host of reasons, some of them 'cause they didn't like my candidate, Hillary Clinton.
And also, of his many campaign proposals, the muslin ban I think probably had among the least support. In fact, he backed off on it from time to time during the campaign. Certainly of all the issues on immigrants, the Muslim ban had the least support among the public I think.
CORNISH: Now, over the last decade, Republican-leaning attorneys general sued the Obama administration over health care, over climate regulations, were coordinating their efforts at times. Are you and other Democrats essentially gearing up to do the same thing? I mean are you what Democrats have left in terms of challenging the Trump administration?
MILLER: Yeah, well, you know, I as a public official disagree with Senator McConnell's position of trying to be against everything the Obama administration did. And to the extent that Republican AGs followed along, I disagree with that. But I think that attorney generals have a very important role in a number of these issues, and we certainly do work together, the Democrats. We know each other. We respect each other. We've worked together in the past. We will work together in the future.
So when we disagree with something with the administration's activities when it concerns the law, we will work together, and we will work hard. And we have some terrific lawyers, and Bob Ferguson is demonstrating that this afternoon.
CORNISH: That's Tom Miller, attorney general for Iowa. Thank you so much.
MILLER: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM SONG, "GIVEN YOU NOTHING")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
When I visited Corine Dehabey last month in Toledo, Ohio, she told me her worst fear was that President Trump would close the door to all refugees from Syria. Dehabey runs an organization called Us Together. Last year, it helped 135 Syrian refugees settle in Toledo. Now Donald Trump's immigration order has made her worst fear a reality. So we wanted to check back in again. Hi, Corine.
CORINE DEHABEY: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What was this past weekend like for you?
DEHABEY: The families kind of - they were kind of confused. They don't know what's happening. They don't know if they have go back themselves, what's going to happen with their families overseas.
We tried to be positive, but, at the same time, we gave them the truth. This is what happened, and this is what might happen. So some families - because they are waiting on their children to come here and join them - their married children, brother or sister - now everything is on hold. We don't know what's going to happen.
SHAPIRO: When you tell people that, when you give them this hard news that maybe their children won't be able to come join them in the United States, how did they react?
DEHABEY: Very sad. One family - they were expecting three of their children to come, and we told them...
SHAPIRO: Adult children?
DEHABEY: It might - adult children because they are married. He was very sad, and he was crying. And - but then he said, I'm hopeful. Maybe I'm going to pray. And he said, maybe things are going to be changed, and we'll meet them again. But then, on the other hand, we have families - other families - they said, if we you knew we're not going to be reunited with our families, we probably would have stayed there.
SHAPIRO: Really?
DEHABEY: Yes. And then, specifically, he said because he's waiting on his brother and his family to come. He said, if it's not going to happen, we might have to go back.
SHAPIRO: What do you tell someone when they say that?
DEHABEY: What can you tell someone? You know, we tell them, you know, to stay positive. Maybe things is going to be changed in the future. And then we tell them, of course, when you become an American Citizen, you can, you know, probably go and see them. But, at the same time, we're telling them Highest, Us Together advocating big time on behalf their - our fugitive program.
SHAPIRO: Highest is the parent organization that oversees the national resettlement program.
DEHABEY: Yes.
SHAPIRO: You say that you're encouraging people to stay positive. You're trying to stay positive yourself. There doesn't seem to be a lot of reason for positivity if you're a Syrian refugee right now.
DEHABEY: It's not. But you don't want to be discouraged either. Once you're positive, you can think better. You can think of ways. But if you want to be discouraged and lose hope, it's not going to help us either.
SHAPIRO: I know you sometimes get one-week notice - maybe sometimes even less - that somebody is coming to Toledo to be settled. Is there anybody who you were expecting to arrive this week who now is not going to show up because of this order?
DEHABEY: Actually, we were expecting two families today, and their flights were canceled. We went ahead with our plans - you know, renting apartments. We were trying to get the furniture from the church, gathering donations for them - mattresses. We had to cancel everything today.
SHAPIRO: What kind of conditions are these families living in now?
DEHABEY: Yeah, we have a family - Syrian family - from Turkey. They were supposed to come. And we have another one from Tunisia. So I don't know, to be honest with you, about their status. We don't know, before they come here, what's the situation in the asylum country.
SHAPIRO: If this ban on Syrian refugees coming to the United States is extended, does that mean that your organization, Us Together, will close up shop?
DEHABEY: We don't know. We're hoping not. We're hoping that we're going stay at least to help the families who are here. But if it's open for other countries, we're hoping so. But the majority of our clients here in Toledo are Syrian. So with all honesty, we don't know what's going to happen to the program.
SHAPIRO: Well, Corine Dehabey, it's good to talk to you again, and thank you for taking the time.
DEHABEY: You're welcome. Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Corine Dehabey runs the organization Us Together in Toledo, Ohio.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Resistance is building to President Trump's executive order that freezes immigration from seven majority Muslim countries and halts refugees worldwide. Lawsuits are in the works. Foreign critics are weighing in, and some opposition is coming from within the U.S. government - for one, the acting attorney general, a holdover from the Obama administration.
Sally Yates told federal lawyers not to defend the Trump executive order. But her decision may only be in effect for a short time - until the senate approves Trump's choice for a new attorney general, Jeff Sessions. In the meantime, the White House is standing fast, as NPR's Greg Myre reports.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Several judges blocked parts of Trump's immigration freeze over the weekend amid confusion at airports around the country. And today, the Council for American-Islamic Relations, or CARE, announced a suit against Trump's order on behalf of more than 20 people who are not identified due to their uncertain status. The group says Trump's move discriminates against Muslims and that he intends to favor Christians.
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SHEREEF AKEEL: For the first time, there's a broad proclamation that our country has issued an edict that it prefers one religion over another.
MYRE: That's attorney Shereef Akeel announcing the suit in Washington this afternoon. It claims that while the president's order, quote, "does not apply to all Muslims, the policy only applies to Muslims." Over at the White House, Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted the restrictions are only about national security and the administration will keep them in place.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
SEAN SPICER: You don't know when the next attack's coming. And so the best you can do is to get ahead of it.
MYRE: Spicer and others in the administration deny the move is directed at Muslims. They note there are more than 40 mostly Muslim countries that are not part of the immigration freeze. And administration officials argue the number affected is limited. They say it was 109 travelers out of more than 300,000 that enter the U.S. on a typical day. But the government is still clearing up some fuzzy areas.
The initial word was that green card holders, those who are permanent legal residents in the U.S., would be barred during the freeze. But the Department of Homeland Security now says green card holders can come and go. And there are other attempts to reshape the policy. The Defense Department says it's building a list of Iraqis who helped U.S. troops on the battlefield and wants them exempt from the order.
Meanwhile, Democrats say they believe Trump's order is about keeping his one-time campaign promise to ban all Muslims and not about stopping a terrorist attack.
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DAN KILDEE: This policy is morally bankrupt. It is an attempt to pander to narrow voices to which this president promised a Muslim ban.
MYRE: That's Congressman Dan Kildee of Michigan on the House floor today. And there's also been a backlash abroad, including from countries working with the U.S. to fight the Islamic State. To many Iraqis who've been battling alongside the U.S. military for more than a decade, the president's order feels like a slap in the face. Iraq's parliament called for reciprocal measures against the U.S.
State Department workers and former U.S. national security officials are signing letters calling the freeze counterproductive for the fight against extremism, and there's more to come. Jordan's King Abdullah, one of the closest U.S. allies in the Arab world, met Vice President Mike Pence today in Washington. The king is scheduled to meet Trump on Thursday. Greg Myre, NPR News, Washington.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Some Democratic lawmakers spent their weekend at major airports, joining protests against the president's executive action. With Congress back in session today, the minority party is trying to keep momentum up by holding more rallies and introducing bills to halt the order. At the same time, a significant number of Republicans have also voiced concerns although most GOP leaders appear to be onboard with what President Trump is doing.
NPR's congressional reporter Scott Detrow is on Capitol Hill. He joins us now. Hey there, Scott.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Hey, Audie.
CORNISH: So as we said here, they joined protests, right? They weren't exactly leading them. So what's going on?
DETROW: Yeah, I think joined is the key word. I mean we've seen protests for several weeks in a row now, but what was surprising about this weekend was how quickly these major protests formed at a lot of airports without any advance planning or top-level organization. And many Democrats were scrambling to be included.
You saw Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey and a couple Pennsylvania congressman rush from a formal dinner they were at at Philadelphia to the Philadelphia Airport to join in - looking a little out of place in their tuxedoes and tails. But as the weekend went on, more lawmakers were making a point to be at these protests. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker gave an impromptu speech to protesters at Dulles Airport on Sunday, and CNN recorded that.
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CORY BOOKER: And what frustrates me is they are being singled out now simply because of how they have decided to pray and their country of origin. That has to be unacceptable to every American no matter...
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
DETROW: So these airport protests and appearances by lawmakers continued today. In a little bit, Democrats are holding a big rally across the street in front of the Supreme Court.
CORNISH: Meanwhile, we have been hearing more and more from Republicans at this point. How many? Where are we at?
DETROW: Around 20 congressional Republicans have voiced some form of concern. The majority of Republicans, we should be clear to say, do seem to support the step. But still, around 20 is a notable number because Republicans have really rallied around President Trump ever since he won, and they've been keeping their criticism muted.
Some Republicans like Senator John McCain say that this order is across the board a bad move. Of course, you know, he's been a vocal critic of the Trump administration on a lot of fronts. Most of Republicans who have spoken out against this are saying it's the implementation they have a problem with, that it was too quick, too rash. It needs to be tweaked. You know, that goes against what the White House is saying, that this is something that they consulted with Congress on. But that's not what we're hearing from Republicans here.
I think the most significant voice speaking out against this is probably Bob Corker. He's not the most vocal critic, but he's important because he's the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he said that the order was poorly implemented, especially since it affected green card holders.
CORNISH: Right, and we know the White House has made some tweaks, they say, or tried to clarify on that green card holder issue, right? Meanwhile, there is - with this executive order, we're seeing legal efforts underway to stop it. We're going to hear from Iowa State Attorney General Tom Miller elsewhere in the program. But is there anything else that members of Congress can actually do about this?
DETROW: Well, there's a lot of action on this on the Democratic side. California Senator Dianne Feinstein is introducing two bills responding to this order today. One would outright rescind it. A second would create more congressional input for these types of decisions. This afternoon, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer appealed to Republicans to support those bills.
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CHUCK SCHUMER: So many of you know it's wrong. I understand party loyalty. I do. But what this order does is go against the grain - that there are higher values at stake.
DETROW: But to be clear, the chances of this going anywhere are very, very small because Republicans control the Senate, and they control the House. I mean you do have those Republicans who want to see this change go one way or another that we were talking about. But the most important voice here is Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and he's given no indication that he would be open to that sort of vote. So far, both McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan have been largely supportive of the executive action.
The one thing you can see - you know, Democrats are going to be rallying at the Supreme Court. Of course tomorrow, President Trump is going to announce his pick for the Supreme Court. I think it's fair to say that this issue will be high-profile during those confirmation hearings and during the public posturing that always happens on both sides when it when a Supreme Court pick is made.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Scott Detrow on Capitol Hill. Scott, thanks for your reporting.
DETROW: Sure thing.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Canada is grappling with yesterday's brutal attack on a mosque in Quebec City. The victims were praying when a lone gunman opened fire. Six people died. Two others are in grave condition. North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann is in Quebec City and joins us now. Hi there.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: First, what can you tell us about the alleged attacker?
MANN: Well, authorities are being very closed-mouthed. We expect to hear more later this evening. Much of the attention so far has fallen on a French-Canadian man believed to have far-right political views, but Quebec police and the RCMP haven't confirmed yet the name of the suspect who is in custody.
SHAPIRO: Can you clarify for us? There were earlier reports that said two men had been arrested, one of them possibly Muslim. What is the latest on that?
MANN: Yeah, this is still developing, but police now say that one of the individuals taken into custody was a witness and not a person of interest. They believe that this was a single shooter they think with no accomplices. There were names floated earlier in the day today, but again, as of this hour, no one's been arraigned - still a lot of uncertainty - but we do think a single gunman.
SHAPIRO: Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, spoke to parliament today. Tell us what he said.
MANN: Well, he really echoed the message that's just everywhere in Canada today, Ari, that Muslims are part of Canadian life. They're deeply woven into the fabric of these communities.
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PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: These people are just that - people, ordinary Canadians. They were brothers, uncles, fathers and friends.
SHAPIRO: That's Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking to parliament. And Brian, describe the mood there in the city where you are.
MANN: Well, it's absolute dismay. This is a pretty quiet provincial capital, very low crime. The idea of a mass shooting here is just a stunning blow to the sense that this is a really well-integrated community. You know, the fact that this happened in a mosque during prayer service is a terrible echo of the church shooting in Charleston in 2015.
And I will say, too, Ari, that a lot of the response here - what people are talking about is focused on recent events in the U.S. on President Trump and on the refugee restrictions that were announced over the weekend.
SHAPIRO: What do you mean? What are people saying?
MANN: Well, Canada has welcomed a huge number of Muslims in recent years. This has been one of the most welcoming countries, especially during the refugee crisis in Syria. And the view of Donald Trump's policies toward at least, you know, some of these Muslim countries - it's viewed with deep hostility here.
There's a lot of concern, too, that viewing people of Muslim faith as suspicious, as sort of other, as dangerous - that this is an idea that could spread north across the border. And so a lot of the political response here from the conservatives as well as the Liberal Party has been to say clearly that Muslims are not different. They're Canadian. Here again is Justin Trudeau.
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TRUDEAU: We are kind. We are generous, and we embrace one another not in spite of our differences but because of that.
MANN: I should say that U.S. President Donald Trump did call Trudeau today to offer his condolences, and there were also vigils planned right across Canada. In fact, I'm speaking to you now from just down the road from the mosque where the attack took place, and I'll be going to what's expected to be a really massive vigil here later and others right across Canada. It's expected to be a bitter, cold night, but a lot of people are going to turn out.
SHAPIRO: That's Brian Mann of North Country Public Radio speaking with us from Quebec City. Thanks, Brian.
MANN: Thank you, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF GOLDMUND SONG, "LEADING")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Tomorrow night, President Trump will announce his pick for the Supreme Court. We don't know yet who he'll choose to fill the vacancy left by Antonin Scalia's death, but Trump has been consistent about his intent to choose a conservative justice. It's a promise he made throughout his campaign.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You have no choice. You got to go for Trump - Supreme Court justices.
Look; Supreme Court Justice Scalia - great - was supposed to live for a long time. He died.
CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss the leading contenders and the politics of the appointment is NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Welcome to the studio, Nina.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Thank you.
CORNISH: First let's talk timing. Do we know why the White House moved up this announcement from Thursday to tomorrow?
TOTENBERG: That's pretty simple, the White House has had a terrible week about immigration and the executive orders, and this is a way to change the subject.
CORNISH: Now, I want to get into the politics 'cause this is surely going to be contentious, but tell us about the contenders.
TOTENBERG: Well, if I've learned anything this year, Audie, it's not to predict anything with certainty. The leading contenders are said to be three federal appeals court judges. All are very conservative to a large degree, have philosophies that mirror Justice Scalia's, all were nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush, and all are relatively young.
CORNISH: Let's hear more about them.
TOTENBERG: The two who seem to me the most likely are Neil Gorsuch, a well-regarded 49-year-old judge on the appeals court based in Denver; and Judge Thomas Hardiman, 51, a popular judge on the appeals court based in Philadelphia. He's notably well-liked by Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, the president's sister, who also sits on that court. And these two judges seem in some ways to be the flip sides of each other - Gorsuch, the scholarly Ivy Leaguer; and Hardiman, the longtime litigator with lots of experience trying cases who's said to have a practical approach.
CORNISH: Let's get into that a little more. And start with Neil Gorsuch, what about his resume is appealing?
TOTENBERG: Well, he's a Colorado native, a westerner. He's proof that you can acquire a personality that is diametrically different from your parents. His mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, was a highly controversial take no prisoners head of the EPA during the Reagan administration, known for being quite the bomb thrower. But lawyers and judges alike described the judge as unfailingly polite, diplomatic, a good listener and a good colleague to the point of being obsequious.
He's very conservative on social issues, best known for his votes under the Affordable Care Act upholding challenges to regulations requiring employers to provide birth control coverage for women. He earned his undergraduate degree from Columbia, where he co-founded a newspaper aimed at rebutting what he considered the dominant liberal and, quote, "politically correct philosophy on campus." A graduate of Harvard Law School, he also earned a doctorate in legal philosophy at Oxford University.
In private practice in D.C., he represented mostly corporate clients. And in 2005, he became principal associate attorney general in the Bush administration's Justice Department. A year later, he was nominated at the 10th Circuit, where he's earned a reputation as a cerebral conservative with a flair for writing vividly that's similar to, though not as sharp in tone, as Justice Scalia.
CORNISH: And what do we know about Judge Thomas Hardiman? He's from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
TOTENBERG: He's not an Ivy Leaguer, but as one of his friends put it, he went to the Catholic Ivy Leagues - Notre Dame undergraduate and Georgetown Law School, where he helped put himself through school driving a cab. He was initially nominated by President Bush to the federal district court in Pittsburgh and later elevated to the appeals court. His conservatism has demonstrated itself most prominently in gun cases, where he's ruled often in favor of the right to bear arms.
For instance, he dissented from a decision that upheld New Jersey's restrictive law on who may receive a permit to carry a gun. Hardiman's one of those people everyone really likes, down to earth, smart, as one colleague put it a closet scholar. Several people noted that because of his many years as a trial lawyer and a trial judge, he has more experience trying cases than most of the other Supreme Court justices. Personally, he's said to be very conservative or even in the view of some a little wacky. If you get him going, said one colleague, you'll find out he thinks climate change is a hoax.
CORNISH: And then there's one other prominent contender you wanted to talk about, and that's Judge William Pryor. You know, he's from the appeals court based in New Orleans. What do we know about him?
TOTENBERG: Well, he was the odds on favorite going in, but he called Roe versus Wade the worst abomination in American jurisprudence, made other controversial comments, and that's made him the easiest nominee for the Democrats to filibuster.
CORNISH: Before I let you go I want to ask about the filibuster. What can Democrats do here? What's their power when it comes to fighting these Supreme Court nominees?
TOTENBERG: Well, there still is the possibility of a filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, not lower court nominees. And there are certainly indications the Democrats are going to do that, but of course the Republicans can get rid of the filibuster if they want to. They probably have the votes to do it by simple majority.
CORNISH: That's NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Nina, thank you.
TOTENBERG: Thank you.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In this story, we say Judge Pryor sits on a federal appeals court based in New Orleans. In fact, Judge Pryor's court is based in Atlanta.]
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now we're going to hear what's happening in one of the countries named in President Trump's executive order on immigration. That's Iraq. With limited exceptions, Iraqi citizens are temporarily banned from traveling to the United States under the order. It's a particularly important case for the U.S. because Iraq is a key ally in the war against ISIS. There are roughly 6,000 U.S. troops there. NPR's Alice Fordham joins us now. Hi, Alice.
ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: Good afternoon, Ari.
SHAPIRO: How is Iraq responding to this ban?
FORDHAM: Well, in Parliament today, they voted that the ban be reciprocated for Americans to be banned from Iraq. It's not 100 percent clear whether this vote is actually legally binding, but what it does show is that the prime minister is under a lot of pressure to respond to this ban. There's been statements from influential clerics in Iraq and from the spokeswoman of a really powerful paramilitary group calling for Americans to leave Iraq.
And I've been speaking to individual regular Iraqis and lawmakers. There's a really palpable sense of an insult here both from the ban and also from President Trump's recent remarks on ABC that the United States should have taken all Iraq's oil. People, you know, see the U.S. and Iraq as allies, but there's some calls to re-evaluate that now.
SHAPIRO: What would it mean for the U.S. if the relationship with Iraq is damaged?
FORDHAM: Well, as you said, the U.S. works directly and extensively with the Iraqi government in the fight against ISIS. And for all of those thousands of United States soldiers and advisers and diplomats to be there permission was actually painstakingly negotiated over years. They could all in theory be asked to leave, which, as I say, is what some people are calling for. So to get some context, I spoke to a man who used to be the Iraqi ambassador there in D.C., Lukman Faily. And he said he thinks the ban is detrimental to the fight against terrorism.
LUKMAN FAILY: I feel that we are sort of moving backwards rather than moving together forward in the fight against terrorism and in providing more stability in the world.
SHAPIRO: Moving backwards rather than forwards, he says. Now, you mentioned he used to be the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S. Is he personally affected by this order?
FORDHAM: He absolutely is. He says he personally can't come to the United States anymore. And he feels betrayed because he says he worked really hard to build up positive bilateral relations. But much more than his personal situation, he is worried that the United States is no longer going to be a reliable partner to Iraq.
FAILY: These latest steps and statements have been, I would say, damaging to it. It certainly damaged the reputation of the United States as a reliable partner, and also damages the aspect of planning together security and cooperation in the region, and therefore in the globe.
SHAPIRO: Just to restate because it's not a great phone line, he's saying this is damaging to the reputation of the United States as a reliable partner and it damages planning, security and cooperation in the region and around the world. Now, Alice, you say Parliament in Iraq is recommending that the country ban Americans. Is that likely to happen?
FORDHAM: Well, the prime minister in Iraq, Haider al-Abadi, he himself has been a staunch ally of the United States. He and American leaders have had nothing but good things to say about each other. But he is not operating in a vacuum. He, in fact, has a very delicate political balance to maintain in Iraq. It is not just ISIS who are anti-American. There are powerful political currents in Iraq who are basically deeply mistrustful of the United States, so the prime minister has had to constantly make the case for the presence of the U.S. in Iraq. And that's just gotten a lot more difficult for him.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Alice Fordham. Thanks very much, Alice.
FORDHAM: Thanks for having me, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
People are still sorting out what the impact of President Trump's executive order on foreign travel will be. Part of the confusion surrounds how freely green card holders can travel, and that has members of Nashville's Kurdish community in a panic. WPLN's Emily Siner reports.
EMILY SINER, BYLINE: The Azadi International Market in South Nashville is busy. The butcher is chopping halal meat almost nonstop. At the cash register, owner Kamal Hasan is working through a long line of customers. Hasan came to the U.S. in 1996 from the Kurdish region of Iraq. He was part of a wave of ethnic Kurds fleeing persecution under Saddam Hussein.
Many refugees were resettled in Nashville. Some, like Hasan, started elsewhere, but moved here once they realized there was a growing community. It's become the largest Kurdish population in the country, according to community leaders. Like many people here, Hasan makes the trek back to Iraq every few years to see family.
KAMAL HASAN: All my brothers, sisters - many of them - they're still back there, yeah?
SINER: And that is why some Kurdish immigrants, even those who are permanent residents of the U.S., are so worried. Drost Kokoye with a Muslim advocacy group called American Center for Outreach is tracking cases of people with green cards who are unable to return to the U.S. In one instance, she says, a Nashville resident was in Iraq visiting family.
DROST KOKOYE: And then he went to the airport in Erbil to come back to Nashville - to come back to the United States - and he was denied. They wouldn't take his green card, and so now he's stuck in Erbil.
ANDREW FREE: As the situation develops, our advice is changing, which makes it very difficult for people to plan and order their lives.
SINER: Andrew Free is a Nashville immigration lawyer who was at a rally and is working with some permanent residents having trouble getting back. The Department of Homeland Security says green card holders should be admitted into the U.S. on a case-by-case basis, as the Trump administration says it's trying to ensure public safety. With all the confusion, Free is advising people to avoid flying through certain airports. And he says even for naturalized U.S. citizens, he can't guarantee they'll be able to travel freely.
FREE: If you're from one of the seven countries, you really need to make sure that you have thought about what you're going to do if you're not able to get back. It's not something I thought I'd ever have to say.
SINER: This uncertainty for a green card holders and citizens alike has caused anxiety, says community organizer Kasar Abdulla. She says neighbors have been calling her...
KASAR ABDULLA: ...Saying, well, Kasar, I'm supposed to travel next week to Kurdistan. What does this mean? And then - or my family - I'm expecting these families to come. What do I do?
SINER: Abdulla is a U.S. citizen who fled Iraq in the late '80s. She points out that Iraqi Kurds allied with the U.S. against Saddam Hussein back then and against ISIS now.
ABDULLA: We thought America was our friend. We thought, you know, we are American. And, you know, it's just, like, the sense of - so does this naturalization paper - is it now fake? Does it really mean something?
SINER: Ultimately, the travel ban may be less of a burden to Nashville's Kurdish community than people currently fear because so many are permanent residents. But Abdulla says even so, the executive order sends a larger, more troubling message - that refugees like her are unwelcome in America. For NPR News, I'm Emily Siner in Nashville.
POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In this story, we incorrectly say Drost Kokoye is with the American Center for Outreach. In fact, she works with the American Muslim Advisory Council.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Many Democratic lawmakers spent their weekend at major airports joining the protests against President Trump's executive order. With Congress back in session today, the minority party is trying to keep that momentum going, and Democrats held a rally outside the Supreme Court tonight. NPR's congressional reporter, Scott Detrow, is at that rally. He joins us from Capitol Hill. And, Scott, so this is a rally they actually get to lead this time, right? They've been joining all the others.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Yeah, that's right. This weekend, these big rallies that happened at airports were basically organic affairs that popped up on Twitter and other social media, and Democrats were scrambling to get there. The leader is Nancy Pelosi on the House side. Chuck Schumer on the Democratic - on the Senate side actually organized this. And a lot of people in the crowd and speaking were angry. The basic feeling is that this order was fundamentally un-American. Chuck Schumer spoke to that.
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CHUCK SCHUMER: This order is against what we believe in in America. The order will make us unsafe. The order will make us inhumane. And the order will make us less of America because this order is what America is all about.
CORNISH: And so this seems like an issue that Democrats finally can rally around - right? - even though there's been an onslaught of things coming out of the White House.
DETROW: Yeah, well, the House and Senate Democrats are clearly rallying around this. But I've got to tell you there was a lot of frustration from the crowd, and a lot of it was directed at the Democrats. There were chants of do your job, chants of walk the walk. I asked several people what they wanted. They said Democrats aren't doing enough to stop the Trump administration. They want specifically no votes on every nominee. A lot of people are angry that Democrats were voting yes on early nominees like James Mattis for defense secretary. They want Democrats to hold up the Senate floor until the order is rescinded.
And several people were saying they want Democrats to try and impeach Donald Trump right now. Of course, they don't have the votes to do that. They're a minority in both the House and the Senate. But we've seen a lot of this frustration build over the last few weeks, and a lot of people are saying Democrats might be going through that same Tea Party movement that Republicans went through in 2009 and 2010.
CORNISH: What are you hearing on the Republican side today?
DETROW: Well, close to 20 Republicans in Congress have voiced some sort of concern about this order. And what's most significant is probably Bob Corker. He hasn't had the most vocal response. His has been more about the rollout of it. But he's important because he's the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said this order was poorly implemented, especially since it affected green card holders as well. Of course, it is important to say that a majority of Republicans in Congress are backing what Trump is doing. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton defended this on the Senate floor today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TOM COTTON: I've heard lots of claims on TV about 134 Muslims who could be affected. Of course, that leaves 1.6 billion Muslims who are not affected. This is not a Muslim ban. This is a temporary pause of movement from seven countries.
DETROW: And Democrats' response to that is that Donald Trump repeatedly called for a Muslim ban as a candidate, that these are Muslim-majority countries, and that Trump has said himself that Christian refugees should be given a priority.
CORNISH: Now, we've been hearing about potential legal action, but what about political action? I mean, what, if anything, could congressional lawmakers who want to stop this do?
DETROW: Well, I think that gets back to the frustration from the crowds who want them to do more. They can't do too much. California Senator Dianne Feinstein has introduced two bills responding to the order today, but it's not clear they would ever be able to come up for a vote on the Senate floor because, again, Republicans control the schedule and what votes are voted on.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Scott Detrow on Capitol Hill. Thanks for your reporting.
DETROW: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Canada is grappling with yesterday's brutal attack on a mosque in Quebec City. Six people died, two others are in grave condition. Officials there have charged a 27-year-old university student with murder. Police released details of their investigation as residents were gathering for a vigil to mourn the men who died. Brian Mann of North Country Public Radio joins us from the vigil. And, Brian, let's just start with an update on what we're learning about the man accused in the attack. What do you know?
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: All right, his name is Alexander Bissonnette. He's 27-years-old, a university student, attends Laval University, studied anthropology and political science, French-Canadian. And the authorities believe he is the single shooter involved in this crime.
CORNISH: You mentioned that he's a French-Canadian, is there any indication of what motivated him?
MANN: It's very early days in terms of motive, but there is some indication that Bissonnette was drawn to far-right political ideas, perhaps some of the French nationalist ideas of the Le Pen movement in France. But again, police still haven't said with any conclusiveness what motivated this alleged crime.
CORNISH: Can you clarify some reporting we heard earlier today that there were two people in custody? Who is that other person? What happened?
MANN: That's right. There was a second man named early on, a Muslim individual, but police have now confirmed that that individual was taken as a witness, someone who witnessed the crime. He was not a person of interest believed to have been involved.
CORNISH: Now, what is the scene there in Quebec City tonight? I know we mentioned this vigil, how many people have come out for this?
MANN: It's massive. It's - Audie, it would be beautiful if it weren't for this reason. I've been walking through the streets. It's very deep snow here, freezing cold, and thousands of people marching silently with candles. And they're converging slowly on an old church here where they're laying flowers, people talking quietly, and people talking to me about just how upset they are that anger and fear could drive someone to a crime like this. Really, the whole city has turned out.
CORNISH: And what's been the response in other parts of Canada?
MANN: Well, it's been very much the same. I think in many ways the reaction across Canada has resembled what happened in the United States after the shooting in Charleston in 2015. The shooting in this mosque while these men were at prayer, it's really drawn the country together. Today in Ottawa Prime Minister Trudeau spoke, and here's what he had to say.
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PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: These people were just that - people, ordinary Canadians. They were brothers, uncles, fathers and friends.
MANN: And this has been the theme the last 24 hours, the idea that all Canadians are drawing together setting aside this idea of Muslim and really embracing Canada's fast growing Islamic community.
CORNISH: And just a few moments left there, Brian. Also, is there conversation about what's happening in the U.S. in this atmosphere?
MANN: It's a huge part of the conversation. You know, this comes on the heels of Donald Trump's announcement of sharp restrictions on refugee status for Muslims from seven countries. There was already a fierce backlash in Canada over that, and people see this all being very much a part of a larger conversation about how the West embraces people who are coming here from Muslim countries.
CORNISH: That's Brian Mann of North Country Public Radio. Thank you, Brian.
MANN: Thank you, Audie.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
President Donald Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates this evening. Yates served as deputy attorney general during the Obama administration, and she was leading the Justice Department temporarily until Trump's pick for attorney general, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, was confirmed. Now, this came hours after Yates told Justice Department lawyers not to defend Trump's executive order on immigration and refugees, which is being challenged in federal courts.
NPR's White House correspondent Scott Horsley is on the line. And Scott, what more can you tell us about what led up to all of this?
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Well, Audie, this was a remarkable series of events beginning this afternoon when the then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates announced that she would not be defending this executive order that the Trump administration had issued just on Friday which puts a temporary hold on the entry of all refugees to the United States as well as travel by residents of seven mostly Muslim nations.
In her message, Sally Yates said her responsibility is to ensure the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible but informed by our best view of what the law is after a consideration of the facts. And she says she was also responsible for ensuring the positions we take in court remain consistent with the institution's solemn obligation to seek justice and stand for what is right. So Sally Yates said as long as she was running the Justice Department, they would not go into court to defend this executive order against the many challenges that have been filed.
Now, we always thought Sally Yates was something of a short-timer. She's a holdover from the Obama administration who was acting attorney general as we await confirmation of Donald Trump's nominee, Jeff Sessions. But her time was perhaps shorter than we thought because the president stepped in this evening, fired Sally Yates and appointed someone to take her place.
CORNISH: So how unusual is it for a president to fire an attorney general?
HORSLEY: Well, the antecedent that is on everyone's minds this evening I think is the Saturday Night Massacre when Richard Nixon fired the attorney general who refused to fire Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor who had been brought in to investigate the Watergate crimes. Ultimately Nixon wound up firing several people in the line of succession before Robert Bork, who was the solicitor general, finally did his bidding and did fire Archibald Cox.
This is not the Saturday Night Massacre. This is maybe the Monday Night Mash-up. But this is a striking display of the battle between the new president and his executive order and his insistence that this executive order be carried out and the legal community which in many cases is suspicious of this order.
CORNISH: What's the - who do - who is leading this department now?
HORSLEY: So Donald Trump has appointed someone to take the place of Sally Yates. Dana Boente will be the acting attorney general now pending, again, the confirmation of Jeff Sessions. Jeff Sessions' confirmation has been delayed by Democrats in the Senate, but they don't have the power to delay it indefinitely. So ultimately he will be confirmed as attorney general.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Scott Horsley with the news that President Trump has fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates. Scott, thank you.
HORSLEY: You're very welcome, Audie.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
When it comes to gun violence, often both the victims and perpetrators are young people. In Chicago, where the number of shootings rose last year, young people with close ties to street life are now advising law enforcement and community leaders on the crisis there. NPR's Cheryl Corley has this report, which begins with a siren passing by.
(SOUND OF BLARING SIREN)
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: I'm standing outside the Cook County Juvenile Justice Center, a huge white building on the city's near west side that takes up more than a city block. On any given day, there are about 200 to 300 young residents at the temporary detention center, which is a part of the facility. It houses young people awaiting trial.
LEONARD: My name is Leonard, and I'm 17 years old.
NIGEL: My name is Nigel, and I'm 17 years old.
CORLEY: Because of the rules of the juvenile court, Nigel and Leonard's full names and specifics about their cases can't be disclosed. They and several other detainees were part of a summit on violence in the Chicago area where participants shared strategies about how to decrease it.
Last year in Chicago, there was a huge jump in the numbers of murders to more than 760 and more than 4,000 injured by gunshots. Leonard, tall and with dreadlocks, says the violence isn't always about gangs fighting over drugs or turf.
LEONARD: Some people do it just to make a name for themselves, to try to get some fame or something. Some people do it because they actually loss people and they (unintelligible) or they're forced into it.
CORLEY: Forced, he says and trying to avenge a friend's death. Most of the young people at the detention center are male, and the most common offenses are for violating probation, aggravated battery and unlawful use of a weapon. Nigel says while revenge is often a motive behind some of the violence, peer pressure can be intense.
NIGEL: I get mad at the fact that it's a lot of kids out here that are so, so incredibly smart, and they look at the other person with all the money and girls that don't go to school and want to be just like them when you could be way more than that.
CORLEY: Both young men say while at the detention center they've learned how to resolve differences or difficulties they may have had in the street through counseling and other programs. Nigel, who wants to be a welder or a juvenile justice activist, says he was able to find himself at the detention center, but he couldn't in his neighborhood.
NIGEL: What prevents that is you don't got nobody trying to show you, you know what I'm saying? You never had nobody to tell you. There's people in here that actually care about us, and they tell us and teach us about how can we do better - what's more to life, you know what I'm saying? Everybody - most people out there, all they know is the corner. All they know is the block.
CORLEY: There's often a collision of issues for at-risk youth in long-neglected areas - homelessness, mental illness, high levels of poverty. What's missing in the neighborhood, say Leonard and Nigel, are mentors and role models who can steer them the right way. Other detainees call for limits on guns, more neutral zones in neighborhoods, more afterschool programs. Leonard says for young people trying to stay out of the streets, more recreational opportunities and sports programming are crucial.
LEONARD: We've got one recreation center, but the gym only go from - what? - 6 to 8. And if it's on a school day, they'll open it up from 2 to 8. So what's left - the streets?
CORLEY: Leonard Dixon, the supervisor of the juvenile temporary detention center who spearheaded the summit, agrees.
LEONARD DIXON: One of the things that I think communities have to understand - recreation is for kids what work is for adults. That's how they learn how to get along.
CORLEY: Nigel adds that actual work is also what's needed. In some of the city's impoverished areas, the unemployment levels rivals those set during the Great Depression. Nigel says it's important for younger teenagers to have jobs.
NIGEL: They can't even get a good job - you know what I'm saying? - to provide for them. They - OK, they get a job over the summer. And after the summer, now what are you going to do?
CORLEY: What's equally important, say the young detainees, is making sure the funding for jobs and anti-violence programs stays intact. Officials with the juvenile justice system say as a coordinated effort to stem violence in Chicago continues, they will pay close attention to the voices of the young people who are surrounded by violence every day. Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ODDISEE SONG, "WANT SOMETHING DONE")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It's really hard to reintroduce a species to a place where it's died out. Scientists are trying on Socorro Island off the west coast of Mexico. They're returning a cinnamon-colored bird called the Socorro dove back to its ancestral home. Reporter Loretta Williams traveled to the island with one of the scientists leading the effort.
LORETTA WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Socorro is part of an island group nicknamed the Mexican Galapagos. This is not a resort with beach-side cabanas. The only residents are part of the Mexican navy, who today help us navigate through an unforgiving thicket.
All I can say is ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
In the 1920s, the California Academy of Sciences noticed island birds and animals were disappearing fast. So the academy sent an expedition to Socorro with instructions to bring back live doves. The terrain those researchers hiked a century ago is the same ground I and Juan Martinez, a scientist with Mexico's Institute of Ecology, hiked today.
JUAN MARTINEZ: We're going to camp in that area there, where you see the green...
WILLIAMS: Yep.
MARTINEZ: ...And the red.
WILLIAMS: OK.
MARTINEZ: In that area is a heavier forest. That is where they found the Socorro doves.
WILLIAMS: And those are the ones that they brought back, right?
MARTINEZ: Yes.
WILLIAMS: The live ones.
MARTINEZ: That's why all this exercise is helping us to find the locations. The best place to bring them back is a similar place, where they found them.
WILLIAMS: That original expedition brought back 17 doves and sent them to zoos in aviaries in the U.S. and Europe. The plan was to breed them in captivity. At the zoos, they survived. But on the island, they did die off. The reason for that, says Martinez...
MARTINEZ: Here on Socorro, you have introduced sheep, introduced cats and introduced mice.
WILLIAMS: Cats and mice prey on birds and their eggs. But the biggest problem, says Martinez as he points to the hillside, was the sheep.
MARTINEZ: In that hill, that's probably the highest point where they completely removed the vegetation.
WILLIAMS: The sheep, which were more like burly bighorns than woolly lambs, chewed and trampled their way through the forest, destroying the Socorro doves' home.
MARTINEZ: And at the end, all of that material goes to the sea. And it's tons and tons of soil that were lost by the impact of sheep.
WILLIAMS: Martinez and his colleagues have spent the last several years aggressively removing sheep and replanting native trees. There's also ongoing work to rid the island of cats and mice. Even with all that work, you just can't open a cage door and release some doves.
MICHELLE REYNOLDS: Reintroductions are full of uncertainty in most cases.
WILLIAMS: Michelle Reynolds is a biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and a reintroduction specialist. She knows of Hawaiian ducks that were once moved from one island to another only to take off over the open ocean, never to be seen again. Expect surprises, she says, even after removing the old threats and returning the doves to Socorro.
REYNOLDS: There could be a new threat, one that didn't exist when the species used to live there.
WILLIAMS: For example, says Reynolds, avian diseases such as West Nile are more prevalent now. Another unknown - how captivity changed the birds. The doves may have lost traits needed in the wild.
REYNOLDS: You might lose some aggression. You might lose vigilance. There's lots of characteristics that can change over many, many generations in captivity.
WILLIAMS: Back on Socorro, Martinez admits this might seem like a lot of work for one small species on one small island. But, he says, other birds here are teetering on extinction. He and other scientists believe the effort to return the dove to Socorro will also help those endangered species.
MARTINEZ: It's not restoration by restoring or reintroducing one species. At the end, what you want is to restore the ecological interactions that interplay on the island. And once you do that, the island will go back to its original course.
WILLIAMS: Martinez and his team hope to bring the birds back to Socorro in the coming year and slowly reintroduce them to the wild. It's a process the scientists a century ago might never have imagined. And it's an undertaking Martinez also might not see the end of. It could be decades before the doves can flourish on their own, living and reproducing with the population continuing to grow. Martinez believes it's a long, difficult and costly effort that's ultimately worth it to give the dove and the island another chance. For NPR News, I'm Loretta Williams on Socorro Island.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We've seen a lot of big protests over the past year from Black Lives Matter to the movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline. And since the inauguration, we've seen even more massive protests against President Trump's policies.
Now, as Iowa Public Radio's Clay Masters reports, a number of Republican-controlled state houses are considering increased penalties for protesters who block roadways.
CLAY MASTERS, BYLINE: Soon after Donald Trump was elected president, more than 100 protesters blocked traffic on Iowa's busy Interstate 80 just outside of Iowa City. It stopped traffic for almost a half hour.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #1: (Singing) Oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave...
MASTERS: Now a Republican state senator here wants to make it a felony for anyone who intentionally blocks traffic on busy highways, punishable by up to five years in prison. Senator Jake Chapman introduced the bill. He's also the chief operating officer of an ambulance service.
JAKE CHAPMAN: You're not just stopping traffic, OK? You're impeding law enforcement's ability to get to calls where there could be serious life-threatening situations.
MASTERS: Opponents of the bill say there are already laws on the books. And there are. Senator Joe Bolkcom is a Democrat from Iowa City. He says the proposal is punitive, unnecessary and more about politics.
JOE BOLKCOM: Republicans have taken over state legislatures across the country, and they appear interested in punishing people with different views than theirs that want to assemble and use their rights of free speech.
MASTERS: As Bolkcom mentions, similar bills are cropping up in other states. Take North Dakota, where protests have gone on for months over construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: (Chanting) I believe that we will win.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Chanting) I believe that we will win.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: (Chanting) I believe that we will win.
MASTERS: A lawmaker in that state has a bill that would allow motorists to run over and kill any protester obstructing a highway as long as the driver did not do it intentionally. There are bills in Michigan and Washington State. Last week in Minnesota, a House committee approved legislation that would increase penalties and charge demonstrators the cost of policing protests. Black Lives Matter protests blocked busy interstates last year in the Twin Cities following the fatal shooting of Philando Castile. Republican Nick Zerwas says, the cost of these protests go back to the taxpayers.
NICK ZERWAS: These individuals have broken the law. It is against state statute to be on the freeway.
MASTERS: The hearing became heated when John Thompson testified. He was a friend of Philando Castile's, a black man who was killed by a police officer during a traffic stop last year. Thompson told lawmakers he did not block the interstate, but he understood the protesters' message.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN THOMPSON: You know what they were doing? They were asking for all of you guys to come out and say what is it that we can do to help you. Not one of you came out.
(APPLAUSE)
MASTERS: After the vote, a protest and chants of shame broke out in the hearing room, forcing the meeting to end.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #3: (Chanting) Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame.
MASTERS: With protests likely to continue nationwide, Rita Bettis with the ACLU of Iowa says elected officials should be protecting free speech rights. She says bills like the one in her state do the opposite.
RITA BETTIS: In our country where the government's power flows from the people, peaceful protest is a source of Democratic strength, not a weakness. And it deserves to be protected and cherished, not attacked.
MASTERS: Advocates like Bettis say if a few states can reduce a demonstrator's ability to block traffic, it could have a chilling effect on Americans' right to protest.
For NPR News, I'm Clay Masters, in Des Moines.
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ MAKO SONG, "LOOK")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Kristian Bush is one of the most successful artists in country music both as a songwriter and part of the duo Sugarland. His latest venture is a musical about country music in the 1950s. It's called "Troubadour," and it's opened not in Nashville but in Atlanta. Bradley George of Georgia Public Broadcasting reports.
BRADLEY GEORGE, BYLINE: When it comes to collaboration, Kristian Bush says he's open to just about anything.
KRISTIAN BUSH: If you ask nicely (laughter).
GEORGE: That's how he connected with Atlanta playwright Janece Shaffer.
JANECE SHAFFER: And I wrote him an email that Saturday. And then that following Wednesday, we met for breakfast. And at the end of breakfast, he'd written the first song for the show, "Father To The Son."
BUSH: Right, OK. One, two, three...
GEORGE: Her play "Troubadour" is a story about family and legacy, familiar themes in many country songs.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "TROUBADOUR")
RADNEY FOSTER: (As Billy Mason, singing) Said the father...
ZACH SEABAUGH: (As Joe Mason, singing) Said the father...
FOSTER: (As Billy Mason, singing) ...To the son...
SEABAUGH: (As Joe Mason, singing) ...To the son...
FOSTER: (As Billy Mason, singing) ...I am so proud of...
SEABAUGH: (As Joe Mason, singing) ...So proud...
FOSTER: (As Billy Mason, singing) ...What you have done. Follow my footsteps one by one.
GEORGE: The idea for the musical came from an exhibition at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville about clothes.
SHAFFER: And it started off in church wear - dark pants, white tops, string ties - very, very plain. And then there was this moment in the exhibition where it exploded with color and decoration and rhinestone. And I was like, I want to know what happened at that moment.
GEORGE: That was in 1951, when tailor Nudie Cohn's embroidered and rhinestone-studded outfits began to catch on with country and western musicians. Director Susan Booth says a character based on Cohn was the original focus of Janece Shaffer's story.
SUSAN BOOTH: But it was an idea, and it wasn't yet a full-on narrative. And we talked for a while, and she went away. And she came back. And all of a sudden, the story of the tailor was the story of a father and a son, a moment of profound transition musically, personally, aesthetically. And I was in.
GEORGE: In "Troubadour," reigning king of country Billy Mason is nearing retirement. Son Joe sings backup in his father's band, and he's looking to break out on his own. In this scene, Joe wants to sing at his dad's final concert, but Billy has other plans.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "TROUBADOUR")
FOSTER: (As Billy Mason) This is what we're going to do. I'm going to let you stand out on that stage all by yourself in the quiet.
SEABAUGH: (As Joe Mason) Yes, sir.
FOSTER: (As Billy Mason) And then...
SEABAUGH: (As Joe Mason) Thank you, Dad.
FOSTER: (As Billy Mason) Shh. You say real earnest something like, this stage can only belong to one Mason, and that's my daddy, Billy Mason. And then I'll come out, and I'll do a final song. I'll write a tribute to my father.
GEORGE: To convey a story that's so intrinsic to Nashville, director Susan Booth says it was important the actors have a real-life story that reflects the characters they portray. So this Atlanta-based theatre company held auditions in Nashville.
BOOTH: And I think we all had a shared epiphany when Radney walking in the room. Just in his little chatter before he picked up his guitar, he was inhabiting the role. And then he opened his mouth.
GEORGE: That's Radney, as in Radney Foster, who's had Top 40 country hits of his own and whose songs have been recorded by the Dixie Chicks, Keith Urban and Sara Evans. Foster never acted before. He says he wasn't used to the trial and error of rehearsal, where it's OK to fail.
FOSTER: It's really going to come down to my best efforts to get the playwright, the composer and the director's vision in front of people. And it feels weird to crash and burn in front of people. I'm not used to that (laughter).
GEORGE: While Radney Foster is steeped in the traditions of country, the playwright and composer come from more contemporary worlds. But Kristian Bush says it didn't take a whole lot of work to find the sound of another era.
BUSH: I got on, you know, blessed Google and started typing in obvious things like country music in 1949 and country music in 1950. So I didn't really have to go dig through bins.
GEORGE: Bush's online digging took him all the way to the 1930s to write "White, White Steeple" in a way that might've been a hit for Radney Foster's character.
BUSH: (Singing) He lifted me just like a cross so I would not be wandering lost, so I could always see - raised it high, high, high - was a white, white steeple in a blue, blue sky.
GEORGE: Bush wrote 16 songs for "Troubadour." Fourteen made it into the final show. Radney Foster says it was a little strange at first to perform music written by someone else. But when he first heard the title song from the show, he was in.
FOSTER: 'Cause that song is my life. And I think it's really any other singer-songwriter's life.
GEORGE: As Foster's character sings, there'll be nothing left when I'm gone except this old case, this guitar and a song. For NPR News, I'm Bradley George in Atlanta.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "TROUBADOUR")
FOSTER: (As Billy Mason, Singing) They won't remember the way that I look. You won't see my name on the spine of a book.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
By midnight today, open enrollment for Obamacare comes to a close. President Trump has already issued an executive order aimed at curbing federal rules of the Affordable Care Act. It's not clear yet what that means. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans know they will repeal it but not what they will replace it with. We want to take a closer look at some of the ideas floating out there as potential pillars of an Obamacare replacement. One is a national insurance market.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CHARLIE ROSE")
PAUL RYAN: We have a lizard selling us car insurance on GEICO. We have Flo selling us home and auto insurance.
CHARLIE ROSE: (Laughter).
RYAN: Why can't we have a vibrant and competitive marketplace like that for health insurance?
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
That's House Speaker Paul Ryan on public TV's "Charlie Rose" show. Now, some states already do have markets that reach across state lines - Georgia, Maine, Wyoming. And Rhode Island looked into it. But Christopher Koller, the man who led that effort as the state's health insurance commissioner, doesn't think comparing health and car insurance is apt.
CHRISTOPHER KOLLER: No, no, it's not. There's a big difference between a hospital who is providing you healthcare services and an auto body guy who's repairing your car.
CORNISH: Beyond the obvious (laughter), what is it?
KOLLER: Well, one, we have a lot more auto body guys out there in a market than we have hospitals. So in Rhode Island, we have one hospital system that has 80 percent of the births in the state. You absolutely have to have that hospital in your network if you want to be competitive. And I can tell you. The hospital has no reason to give that insurer any kind of discount comparable to what the local health plans who are already established have. So that national insurer cannot offer a competitively priced product.
CORNISH: What about the states themselves because I noticed that state insurance commissioners seem to be against this as well. We've seen some speak out nationally. And what's the reluctance there?
KOLLER: So to have interstate insurance means that a state has to accept the rules of another regulator. That means that, in my case in Rhode Island, if an insurer was licensed in Massachusetts, we would have to say, OK, whatever you do in Massachusetts is good enough for us in Rhode Island. Obviously there are turf issues associated with that, but that also requires just significant work to coordinate the rules and the regulations.
And then ultimately, that would mean that when a consumer calls us with a complaint, we have to say, sorry, we can't help you out. Go call Connecticut. Go call Massachusetts. Go call Georgia. That doesn't feel like we are fulfilling our obligation for consumer protection.
CORNISH: This also gets at a criticism we hear most consistently from Democrats and consumer advocates, which is that the state that has the least amount of rules and regulations for these insurers would just basically draw all of them there (laughter), right? And then the insurers would start offering skimpy plans. When Rhode Island researched this, was that a concern?
KOLLER: Certainly. Let's say, for instance, we in Rhode Island did not allow limited benefit health plans, health plans with annual and lifetime limits. Well, if we were to allow insurers to come in from a state that did allow those limited benefit plans and they were selling those plans in Rhode Island, one, you would create confusion. And two, you would have insurers offering policies that were against the laws. So that race to the bottom is a real fear.
CORNISH: Now, obviously people are still interested in this idea on Capitol Hill. Do you think that they think things will be different if it's national?
KOLLER: No. Look; we don't compel auto body makers to take care of our car if we can't pay for it. But we compel hospitals to treat people if they can't afford to pay for it. We look at health care very differently from auto insurance.
CORNISH: Christopher Koller is the former health insurance commissioner for the state of Rhode Island. Thank you for explaining it to us.
KOLLER: Sure, Audie.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Tonight, President Trump will announce his pick for the Supreme Court. Speculation has centered on two federal appeals court judges, Neil Gorsuch of the 10th Circuit based in Denver and Tom Hardiman of the 3rd Circuit based in Pennsylvania. Joining us now is NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Hey there, Nina.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Hi.
CORNISH: So as I said in the intro - speculation (laughter). What do we know so far?
TOTENBERG: Well, various media organizations are quoting unnamed sources as saying it's Judge Gorsuch from Denver. But this is the Trump White House, so with lots of caveats and apologies to Judge Hardiman, I'm going to talk about Judge Gorsuch, who it seems to me for weeks has had the inside track.
And there were lots of - there are lots of reasons for picking him. He's young. He's 49. He's known for his conservative and cerebral approach to legal interpretation. He's known as a really fine writer, often compared to Justice Scalia, the man that he would replace, in writing ability but without that sharp tone. And he's relatively uncontroversial, with the stress on relatively.
He'll face a lot of questions about opinions he's written on religious rights that would seem to suggest, for instance, that he would uphold the rights of employers who do not want to accommodate gays and lesbians, although that decision was in a contraceptive - in a birth control case where the Hobby Lobby employer didn't want to provide certain kinds of contraception. But he's less controversial than others who - like Judge William Pryor of the 11th Circuit, who would have been far more controversial.
CORNISH: Now, while we wait for the announcement, just help set the stage for the upcoming debate over this which we know is going to be pretty contentious, right?
TOTENBERG: Yes, it's going to be contentious. The Republicans are already signaling how they intend to get this done, though. Here's Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, talking about what President Trump is pushing as the criteria for the confirmation.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
SEAN SPICER: The default is that if you're qualified for the position, then you should be confirmed, not the other way around. And I think that most Democrats realize that at some point, that is a - that having a court that is not fully operational is not the way that - is not the political fight to have.
TOTENBERG: Now, you may notice that for almost a year, a shorthanded Supreme Court didn't bother Republicans who refused to even give a hearing for Obama nominee Merrick Garland, whose qualifications nobody in the land of the sane disputed. Indeed Garland was always the Democratic nominee that Republicans had hoped for.
CORNISH: So do you think Democrats will dispute qualifications for this prospect?
TOTENBERG: No, but they're being pushed very hard by their base to register their objections. They see the Republicans as having basically stolen this seat by a precedent-shattering year-long blockade that they don't want to reward. And they want to register their outrage in some way, any way at President Trump's actions in the first 12 days of his presidency.
And it's - you know, this is a lifetime appointment, and it's very important. So there's a lot of talk about filibustering the nominee. And if they do that, it would take 60 votes to break the filibuster and get a vote on the nomination.
CORNISH: And have we heard from Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate Republicans, about that?
TOTENBERG: Well, we know that Mitch McConnell is a brilliant strategist and arm-twister, and he's already said that Democrats will oppose anybody and paint that individual as an extremist. And I just want to say, nobody has clean hands in this debate. Both sides flip what they say about Supreme Court nominees whenever there - if it - depending on who's in the White House.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Nina Totenberg. Thanks so much.
TOTENBERG: Thank you, Audie.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
And we're going to turn now to one Democrat in the Senate who will have an opportunity to consider President Trump's Supreme Court nominee. That's Senator Amy Klobuchar. She's a Democrat from Minnesota and joins us from her office on the Hill. Senator Klobuchar, welcome to the program.
AMY KLOBUCHAR: Well, thanks, Ari. It's great to be on - just a few things going on around here today.
SHAPIRO: Just a few things - thank - glad you could make the time. As we heard from Nina, it's virtually unheard of for senators to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee, and yet some of your Democratic Senate colleagues are already promising to break that norm and filibuster whoever Trump chooses. Are you willing to stand with them?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, just to step back, this is a solemn obligation that we have, especially as members of the Judiciary Committee. It's in the Constitution that the Senate must advise and consent. And so we don't know who he's going to nominate. Nina did a nice job going through the two potential nominees. But I will say that I would look at this a little differently than just a filibuster.
It is a 60-vote threshold. That's how it was with President Obama's nominees Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. They had to get Republican votes to be able you meet that threshold and we're able to get some Republican votes. I still remember Lindsey Graham saying, you know, this may not have been who I picked, but I believe I'll vote for her. Now...
SHAPIRO: Could you imagine saying the same about somebody that Trump picks?
KLOBUCHAR: I don't think anyone knows that yet because we don't know who it is, and we haven't been able to look at their record. And a lot of times people who may be on a lower court haven't been vetted in the same way or looked at the same way as a circuit court. So I just think it's important for the listeners to know that this is truly different than the other nominees we're seeing now for these agencies as well as the other judges in which we have gone to a 51-vote threshold.
SHAPIRO: For you...
KLOBUCHAR: But both parties made a decision in the rules to stay at 60.
SHAPIRO: For you, what will the decision hinge on? Do you have a litmus test?
KLOBUCHAR: I don't like litmus tests, but I really look at the person as a whole and how they've respected precedent. If I think they're going to respect precedent, if I believe that they have the judicial qualifications and their temperament - all those things - but a lot of it has to do with whether or not they see this as a way to legislate and continue what has been a real conservative agenda for the court, whether it's Citizens United and what they did there or some of the other decisions that have been really concerning. And just from a democracy standpoint, that Citizens United decision...
SHAPIRO: The campaign finance decision...
KLOBUCHAR: ...Has really thrown our country and our elections into a mess.
SHAPIRO: As we heard from Nina, some Democrats are referring to this as a stolen Supreme Court seat, referring to Republicans' refusal to give Merrick Garland a hearing. Is that a factor for you, or are you willing to consider this nominee on the merits independent of what happened with Garland?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, I said all through last year, Ari, that we had to have a hearing, and I believe that. And that hearing is our opportunity to do the job that the Constitution says that we should do. I only wish that he picked someone like Merrick Garland - let me tell you - because that was a mainstream candidate who had a lot of respect from Republicans and Democrats.
SHAPIRO: I'd like to get to Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick to be attorney general. Democrats today forced a delay on that vote until tomorrow morning. And this is what White House Spokesman Sean Spicer had to say about that.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
SEAN SPICER: It's unfortunate that Senate Democrats remain so out of touch with the message that the American people sent this past November. The people want change. President Trump is delivering that change. And the only response from Senate Democrats so far is to stall - try to stall the core functions of our government.
SHAPIRO: Senator Klobuchar, I know you don't plan to vote for Sessions, but he does have enough votes to be confirmed. What does a delay accomplish?
KLOBUCHAR: Look at what happened in the last 12 days. We think it's very important to talk about the issues at hand, which is really key to the Justice Department's role. You have just last night Sally Yates, a career prosecutor with nearly 30 years of experience through Republican and Democratic presidents, who's on major - the Olympic bomber case and has done incredible work, nowhere near an activist - she's a career prosecutor - basically was fired for saying that she had concerns about that unprecedented executive order which has created chaos throughout our country for refugees and for people who are legal members of our country that have been here as - under visas, have been here as green cards, have been here as refugees. And so I think that issue opened up a whole new discussion area for whether or not Jeff Sessions will run an independent Justice Department.
SHAPIRO: Just very briefly, do you think he will?
KLOBUCHAR: We have asked him that. He has said he will. But when I look at some of his political stance - as much as I've worked with him on a number of issues, of Violence Against Women - yes, Donald Trump won, but I can tell you most of the people didn't want to throw out the Violence Against Women Act.
SHAPIRO: All right, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota, thanks for joining us.
KLOBUCHAR: Well, it was great to be on, Ari. Thank you.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It's not every man who can make history by thinking inside the box.
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CORNISH: In this case - the cat box. Seventy years ago this month, Edward Lowe invented kitty litter.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Lowe was living in Michigan, selling sand, sawdust and clay to heavy industries, materials that were sometimes used to soak up spills. One day, an acquaintance of Lowe's asked for help. Like many cat owners, she filled her cat's box with sand. But she didn't like how the cat tracked dust through the house.
CORNISH: Edward Lowe thought, clay - clay is absorbent. So he gave her a bag of clay granules.
SHAPIRO: The lady tried it. She liked it. Her cats seemed to like it, and Lowe knew he was onto a real money maker.
CORNISH: But before he could make his first million, he had to convince other cat owners.
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KATHY PETERSON: When he would go to his first cat show, he said, my goodness, it smelled to high heaven.
CORNISH: That's Kathy Peterson, Lowe's daughter. She was on our program in 1995 just after her father died.
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PETERSON: The people there were amazed how his simple clay was helping with the odor. The cat would still be an outdoor animal without kitty litter.
JACKSON GALAXY: With over 95 million cats in American homes these days, it's a huge thing.
CORNISH: Jackson Galaxy is the host of the show "My Cat From Hell" on Animal Planet.
GALAXY: Cat litter accounts for over $2 billion. It's a huge industry.
SHAPIRO: Clay litter is now the most commonly used litter in the U.S. - convenient cleanup, yes, but Galaxy says there is a big environmental downside.
GALAXY: And we see us trying to mitigate that effect now with the advent of a lot of litters that are much more environmentally friendly and not made of clay. Right now, we're dumping upwards of 8 billion pounds of cat litter into landfills every year. The kicker is that it is not biodegradable. That mummified cat poop is going to be around a lot longer than you or me.
CORNISH: In the meantime, as you cat owners sift and scoop what your feline friends leave behind, pause for a moment to mark the invention of kitty litter 70 years ago this month.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHET ATKINS SONG, "TRAMBONE")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
On Capitol Hill, what was supposed to be a debate on Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Justice Department turned into a referendum over his executive order on immigration. A Senate committee had planned to vote on Trump's pick, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions. But last night, Trump fired the acting Attorney General Sally Yates. She had refused to defend the executive order, which temporarily bans refugees and travelers from seven Muslim majority countries. The White House accused Yates of betraying the Department of Justice. With us to talk about all this is NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Hi, Carrie.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: So the Judiciary Committee met today to talk about Sessions, but it sounds like they actually talked more about Sally Yates than Trump's nominee.
JOHNSON: Absolutely. Democrats made this hearing all about the need for the Justice Department and the attorney general to act independently of the White House. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein offered a lot of praise for the way Sally Yates left the department. And Feinstein said her firing harkened back to a dark time in the Nixon era.
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DIANNE FEINSTEIN: That statement took guts. That statement said what an independent attorney general should do. That statement took a steel spine to stand up, and say no. That is what an attorney general must be willing and able to do.
JOHNSON: Now, Ari, Feinstein also pointed out that Jeff Sessions was one of Trump's earliest supporters in Congress, and he actually wore the make America great again hat on the campaign trail. As such, Dianne Feinstein thinks Sessions will not have the backbone to stand up to this White House.
SHAPIRO: Sessions developed a reputation in the Senate for being a hardliner on immigration much like Donald Trump. What do we know about Session's involvement in this executive order?
JOHNSON: Well, late last night, Sessions sent some written materials over to the Senate that helped shed a little bit of light on the situation. Republican Sen. Charles Grassley says Sessions denied helping to draft that immigration order.
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CHARLES GRASSLEY: Some on the other side have raised concerns about Sen. Sessions, whether he was involved in drafting or reviewing the executive orders. It's not clear to me why it would be a problem even if he had been involved, but the fact of the matter is he was not involved.
JOHNSON: During the hearing today, though, Ari, some of the Democrats on the committee said they have their doubts about his involvement actually. They say that's important because, in their view, this immigration order is unconstitutional discrimination against Muslim refugees and travelers on the basis of their religion.
SHAPIRO: Everyone on this committee knows Jeff Sessions personally. He's a senator who sits on this committee. Is there any chance he might actually not get through?
JOHNSON: Well, so many lawmakers wanted to talk today that the committee actually delayed the vote until Wednesday, but there's no sign Republicans are moving away from Sessions. In fact, people like Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said Democrats are just having a hard time coming to terms with losing the election. Who did they think President Trump was going to pick to lead the Justice Department, Lindsey Graham said today.
SHAPIRO: By the way, what's happening at the Justice Department? Sally Yates was fired last night. Who's running things now?
JOHNSON: Yeah. Late last night, Sally Yates' nameplate came off the fourth floor of the Justice Department office. The White House has put another longtime-career prosecutor, Dana Boente of Virginia, in charge for now as acting attorney general. Boente says he will defend Trump's immigration order. But he only expects to be on the job for a few days. He thinks Jeff Sessions will get a speedy confirmation maybe by the end of the week from his colleagues in the United States Senate.
SHAPIRO: I'm imagining in the front of the Justice Department where they have those photographs of the attorney general, the president, and the vice president, the photographs going up, coming down, going up, coming down with each passing day (laughter).
JOHNSON: Well, I think that photographs of Obama and Loretta Lynch have come down. Jeff Sessions not up there yet but maybe by the weekend.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Carrie Johnson, thanks a lot.
JOHNSON: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A story now about mountain biking as a competitive school sport. In Nashville, races are dominated by teams from private schools. Riders wear matching spandex on expensive bikes. One group, though, started out racing in hoodies and jeans on bikes they built themselves. Natasha Senjanovic of member station WPLN followed the startup team, now in its second season.
NATASHA SENJANOVIC, BYLINE: The sun sets as a group of teenage boys pedals hard down an abandoned airport runway in Nashville. They're taking a break from the trails to work on sprints and stamina.
UNIDENTIFIED BOY #1: Dude, you're so slow, Dude.
DAN FURBISH: Hey, hey, hey, our conversations are supportive and kind, right?
SENJANOVIC: They're still a little green and undisciplined. The coach, Dan Furbish, lovingly calls them the Bad News Bears.
FURBISH: I would say they're 10 times better than they were at this time last season.
SENJANOVIC: Furbish teaches international kids to build mountain bikes at Oasis, a Nashville community center that offers youths everything from afterschool workshops to a teen crisis shelter. A couple of years ago, Furbish thought, now that they've learned one skill, why not another? He gathered a group of them into a team.
FURBISH: We were basically - got them these bikes. And we're like, there's the starting line.
SENJANOVIC: One of them, 14-year-old George Ghabril, didn't even know how to ride a bike back then.
GEORGE GHABRIL: I crashed into every single tree.
SAUL BECERRA: You couldn't even get on the bike.
SENJANOVIC: That's his teammate Saul Becerra teasing him. This group didn't resemble much of a team back then. They had donated jerseys that didn't quite fit which, at first, they refused to wear. And then their bikes, patched together from scrap pieces, sometimes fell apart during races.
BECERRA: We used to be terrible. We used to all come in last place. Now this time, we - well, some of us came in last place.
SENJANOVIC: By the second season, they had the fundamentals down and worked on technique. Co-coach Greg O'Loughlin offers pointers for downhill riding.
GREG O'LOUGHLIN: Where should your butt be?
GHABRIL: Behind the seat.
O'LOUGHLIN: Yeah, behind the saddle, right?
SENJANOVIC: The coaches have had an uphill battle. It's not easy to mold a team out of newbie riders who cheer for one another in three languages. Five kids were born in Egypt, one in Mexico. And another is the first son born in the U.S. to Salvadoran parents.
UNIDENTIFIED BOY #2: (Speaking Spanish).
SENJANOVIC: At practice, they shout over each other in Spanish, Arabic and English.
UNIDENTIFIED BOY #3: (Speaking Arabic).
SENJANOVIC: Despite various backgrounds, these kids have a lot in common. They live in the same diverse neighborhood and went to middle school together. Now they're struggling to adapt to three different high schools, where George says they don't always fit in.
GHABRIL: People at my school - when they see me speaking Arabic, they act like I'm a new species of human. And, like, 20 people came up. Like, George, what are you speaking, hieroglyphics?
SENJANOVIC: The jokes are fine. But the guys say comments like, go back to your country, have gotten old. And Saul says, well, white kids could do the same.
BECERRA: You know what I told them? I said, go back to England.
SENJANOVIC: Given their ethnicities, they know they face more discrimination than most. But they're also teenagers who like to rib each other about girls and ride bikes in the mud. The coaches say, as the kids' riding skills grow, so does their confidence. And thanks to sponsors, they started their second season with matching uniforms and new bikes that stay in one piece.
(CHEERING)
SENJANOVIC: On race day, the boys line up, their faces serious as they prepare for the 10-mile trek ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Ready, set, go.
SENJANOVIC: They tear down the course, heading into the woods. An hour and a half later, one by one, they begin to emerge, including George, who's among the last around the corner towards the finish line. He's pedaling like crazy but not making much headway.
O'LOUGHLIN: Come on, George. Come on.
SENJANOVIC: His tire popped late in the race. And the rules kept him from fixing it. Still, he was determined not to quit.
FURBISH: Let's go, buddy.
SENJANOVIC: He cranks through the flat, working harder than everyone else just to finish. But George seems OK with the uneven odds. They all do. For NPR News, I'm Natasha Senjanovic in Nashville.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Transgender boys are now able to join the Boy Scouts of America. The announcement came from the organization last night. It was a reversal of a previous policy. Across the nation, some chapters are cheering. Others are wary. Terry Gildea reports from Utah where Scouting is closely tied to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
TERRY GILDEA, BYLINE: The decision to accept transgender kids comes largely because the Boy Scouts of America was facing potential litigation from the family of 8-year-old Joe Maldonado, who was born a girl but identifies as a boy. He was kicked out of his New Jersey Cub Scout pack in December. Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh explained the decision in a video press release.
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MICHAEL SURBAUGH: After weeks of significant conversations at all levels of our organization, we realized that referring to birth certificates as the reference point is no longer sufficient.
GILDEA: But that decision is not sitting well with some people. Gayle Ruzicka saw her sons move through the Scouting program in a troop chartered by a Mormon congregation. She says the BSA's decisions to allow gay youth, gay adult leaders and now transgender kids shake the very foundation of what Scouting is about.
GAYLE RUZICKA: So I think this changes the culture completely of Boy Scouts. And they can no longer be that very organization that they set out to be. There's a reason they're called Boy Scouts.
GILDEA: Ruzicka is the president of the Utah Eagle Forum, an organization that brands itself as pro-family and pro-life. She says she doesn't understand how a girl who identifies as a boy could participate in a Boy Scout troop.
RUZICKA: She's not going to look like the rest of them. When she gets in the showers with them, she's going to have completely different body parts than they're going to have. And so to say that they can participate together in Scouts - where do they draw the line? Are they going to say, well, you can participate with us, but you can't go to camp with us?
GILDEA: In Salt Lake City, more than 95 percent of units are chartered by Mormon congregations. Mark Griffin is the scout executive for the Great Salt Lake Council. He says Scouting is all inclusive. But he does acknowledge that some Latter Day Saint - or LDS - units would still be able to deny membership to whomever they want based on religious principles.
MARK GRIFFIN: The faith-based organization that is using Scouting as a ministry with their youth and others has the right to choose who their members are based on their religious principles.
GEORGE FISHER: You know, if the LDS units or leadership decides to enforce rules, then they're certainly free to do so. I would hope that others might offer the benefits of Scouting to others who might be denied that.
GILDEA: George Fisher is a practicing Mormon and former leader in his congregation. He has been a scoutmaster of several troops and believes that the Scouting program can be a positive place for transgender kids and help teach others tolerance. But he admits that LDS-sponsored troops might not be the best place for transgender or gay kids.
FISHER: I think the announcement's entirely in keeping in harmony with the role and the goal of Scouting. So I'm very pleased. I'm really happy to see it go that way.
GILDEA: Fisher is now working with a community church, the Great Salt Lake Council and a local homeless shelter to form a more inclusive Scout unit. For NPR News, I'm Terry Gildea in Salt Lake City.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Protests at airports, lawsuits from civil rights groups and consternation from frustrated lawmakers who were left out of the loop - criticism is coming from all sides against President Trump's executive order that suspends admissions of refugees from around the world and restricts travel from seven majority Muslim countries. But the White House stands by it.
We spoke with Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka earlier today. And first, I asked him what, if any, revisions they're making to the order?
SEBASTIAN GORKA: Revision I don't think is the right word to use here. This is an executive order from the highest level of the U.S. government, and now it is being implemented. Certain questions to do with dual citizenship and green cards have already been answered. So now it is the question of the agencies to actually put the wheels in motion.
CORNISH: You said revision isn't the right word, but are changes being made?
GORKA: I'm not going to fall into the narrative of something being forced upon this, you know, that isn't true. No, the presidential executive order is being implemented at the operational level, and those are the best words I would use to describe the process.
CORNISH: I want to ask you about questions raised by some lawmakers. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said this was an extreme vetting program that wasn't properly vetted. Do you think that the White House could have built a case for this with members of Congress by working with them in the drafting of it - like, heads of committees, say, like Bob Corker and others?
GORKA: I think it's very unfortunate to take a measure that is focused exclusively on increasing the safety of American citizens and try and turn it into some kind of political football. The fact is the 1950s law is explicit in the fact that the mandate for immigration and how immigration is handled and the requirements that individuals come into this nation must meet is in the purview of the president. This is a very simple executive order, and on top of that, it is based upon the Obama administration's identification of these seven nations as of primary concern to the safety of Americans here in the continental United States.
So it's not about politics. It's not about the Congress's being consulted or the mandate of some kind of parliamentary function. It is about the security of our borders and our people.
CORNISH: You've spoken extensively about how you feel that the media has been incorrect in describing these orders. But there has been a kind of groundswell of protest. And what's your response to people who look at this as kind of a moral question, that this is not an approach the U.S. should be taking?
GORKA: I do think that this executive order is a moral question because it's about protecting Americans. And I think the protests or the criticism is really just another reflection of the chattering classes and the so-called echo chamber that Ben Rhodes was so proud of having exploited as the deputy national security adviser. So I think...
CORNISH: You're referring to the Obama administration...
GORKA: Yeah.
CORNISH: ...Adviser.
GORKA: Yes, that...
CORNISH: But when you look at all the people at the airports, does that look like chattering classes to you?
GORKA: It does. It does. It looks like people totally disconnected from the reality of November 8. I find it quite amusing, sadly so, but amusing that there seems to be a large portion of the media and maybe the millennials who seem to not understand what happened on November 8.
You know, there are consequences. As a Democrat politician recently said, there are consequences for elections. And as a result, I think these individuals who are protesting need to look in the mirror first and understand what happened on November 8.
CORNISH: So November 8, the Election Day, to you is a mandate for what Donald Trump is carrying out now.
GORKA: (Laughter) Anybody who questions the fact that we have a new president and he should actually be executing the things that were part of his platform really doesn't understand how a republican democracy functions in my opinion.
CORNISH: Before I let you go, I want to ask you one other question because you work with the National Security Council, and you've worked with Steve Bannon in the past of Breitbart News. What's the rationale for elevating him as chief strategist to the principals committee of the National Security Council?
GORKA: Your question provides the answer. What is this individual's title - chief strategist to the president of the United States and senior counselor. The idea that it would be in some way controversial to have the president's chief strategist in the meetings of the National Security Council, again, is rather a peculiar stance to take. This is a man that provides strategic advice at the highest level to the president. Of course having him in the deliberative body that deals with national security is, again, the injection of common sense.
CORNISH: And people have also talked about Stephen Bannon's background with the Navy. Most of his adult life has been in the media. How is that experience relevant?
GORKA: I think you need to look at what Stephen Bannon did in terms of building a media giant that has crushed its left-wing rivals in terms of a breitbart.com. I think one has to look at what he did for the Trump campaign to understand that this is a man who eats and breathes and sleeps strategy. Whether or not he wore a uniform, that's a credit to his service to the nation. But he is really - and I can tell you as somebody who's worked with him for years - a truly strategic mind.
CORNISH: So of value to national security concerns.
GORKA: Without question.
CORNISH: Well, Sebastian Gorka, thank you so much for speaking with us.
GORKA: It's my pleasure, anytime. It's been a delight.
CORNISH: Sebastian Gorka is deputy assistant to the president.
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While Democratic lawmakers are speaking out against President Trump's policies, the party's base wants more. Some protesters are demanding that Senate Democrats try to block Trump's nominees from getting confirmed. The problem is the minority party doesn't have the votes to do that unless some Republicans also vote no. NPR's Scott Detrow reports from the Capitol.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: When House and Senate Democrats held a rally last night to oppose Trump's executive order on refugees and immigrants, the crowd wasn't all on their side.
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Do your job. Do your job. Do your job.
DETROW: Do your job. That's something several Democrats have been hearing because of the fact that so far, Cabinet picks have been passing by relatively wide margins. Protesters confronted Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse this weekend. Their problem - the fact that one of the most liberal members of the Senate had voted in favor of CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who was approved by wide margins.
In Cranston, R.I., today, Jane Tucker and about 50 other people showed up at Senator Jack Reed's office to demand Reed vote against Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for attorney general. In fact, Reed has already said he'll vote no on that pick.
JANE TUCKER: Yay, OK, good. We're going to be here to say thank you then. And we're also going to talk to him about all the other horrible Cabinet picks that he hasn't come out against yet.
DETROW: In addition to these office visits, most Democratic senators' phones have been ringing off the hook.
TUCKER: We're looking for more senators, our senators to be like Warren and Sanders. We want them outspoken and advocating for us.
DETROW: But even Elizabeth Warren is drawing the ire of angry progressives. After a committee vote in favor of Ben Carson's Housing and Urban Development nomination, Warren had to explain herself.
OK, let's talk about Dr. Ben Carson, she wrote on Facebook, saying he's not who she'd want running the department but that he made good promises during his confirmation hearing. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut says he's hearing a lot of feedback, too.
CHRIS MURPHY: I don't think one is pushing the other. I think both, you know, Democratic senators and those who are protesting outside recognize the gravity of this moment. So I wouldn't say that one is influencing the other.
DETROW: But the fact is as the pushback has gotten louder, Senate Democrats have adjusted their tactics. Today, they blocked a committee vote on two Trump Cabinet picks by boycotting a committee meeting. That's not a permanent solution, but it slows down the confirmation timeline for Trump's Treasury and Health and Human Services picks.
And in the Senate where decorum goes a long way, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made waves today by voting no on the nomination of Elaine Chao for transportation secretary. She's the wife of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and someone who's worked in several White Houses.
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CHUCK SCHUMER: My view is that every nominee to the Cabinet should state their position on this horrible executive order. And Secretary Chao was asked by Senator Nelson to do so publicly. She has not, so I voted against her. And I will vote against every nominee who does not.
DETROW: Democrats are also delaying a final vote on Rex Tillerson's secretary of state nomination for as long as they can. Still, Schumer is facing protests at his Brooklyn home tonight for not grinding the Senate to a halt to block Trump's Cabinet picks. The fact is, Democrats are hesitant to throw the same roadblocks that Republicans used throughout President Obama's eight years in office. Here's Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
SHERROD BROWN: There's not a plan to slow walk or slow things down the way that Mitch McConnell did on darn near everything.
DETROW: That may change if this pushback continues. Scott Detrow, NPR News, the Capitol.
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The Trump administration has had many firsts so far. This first is particularly somber - the first U.S. service member to be killed in combat under President Trump's leadership as commander in chief. It happened Saturday in Yemen.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
William Ryan Owens was a Navy SEAL and chief special warfare operator. Owens was from Peoria, Ill. He joined the Navy after graduating from high school in 1998 and started SEAL training in 2001.
CORNISH: Cody Jackson, a high school friend, spoke about Owens to the Peoria Journal Star. He said, everyone has dreams, and not everyone knows what they want to do in high school, but he did. He wanted to be a Navy SEAL. Back then, he wasn't the most fit guy in the world, but he'd get up every morning and do the Navy SEAL workout because that's what he wanted to do.
SHAPIRO: Owens was a decorated sailor, earning two Bronze Stars for combat valor. He earned the rank of chief petty officer in 2009. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said today that President Trump has already reached out to Owens' family.
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SEAN SPICER: The president offered his sincerest condolences to (unintelligible) Owens' wife, his father and their three children. Chief Owens was on his 12th deployment, from what I understand. We could never repay the debt of gratitude we owe him, the freedom that he fought for and the sacrifice that he made as well as the other members of his unit who were injured in this operation.
CORNISH: Three other members of Owens' unit were injured in the raid against an al-Qaida outpost in Yemen on Saturday. Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens was 36 years old.
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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The VA has been under pressure for the last two years to get health care to veterans faster. One possible solution - hire more doctors, nurses and staff. Congress gave the VA $2.5 billion to do that. NPR and member stations have been following that money and found it did not make a dent in wait times.
Today on MORNING EDITION, we heard about how the doctors and nurses who did get hired did not go to the places with the longest wait times. And now we're going to look into whether the VA hired as many staff as it might have for the money.
So joining us now are NPR's Quil Lawrence, who covers veterans, and Patricia Murphy, a reporter at KUOW in Seattle, which is one of the cities where we've been digging into this problem. Hi, to you both.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Hello.
PATRICIA MURPHY, BYLINE: Hello.
SHAPIRO: Quil, begin by reminding us of the problem that the VA was trying to solve here.
LAWRENCE: So back in 2014, there was a big scandal over how long veterans were waiting for care at VA clinics across the country. And underneath a lot of other things, there was just a basic math problem. The number of vets coming to the VA had jumped. The number of doctors and nurses working there hadn't kept up. So Congress passed a law called the Veterans Choice and Accountability Act, and part of it included $2.5 billion for new medical staff.
SHAPIRO: How many staffers would you expect $2.5 billion to hire?
LAWRENCE: You know, we got a lot of different answers to that question. The choice money was used to hire about 12,000 medical staff, but that includes people who aren't doctors and nurses, like schedulers. What we found overall was that staffing just didn't go up that much. And we spoke with the head of Veterans Health, Dr. David Shulkin, last fall about this. And I should add, since we spoke to him, he's been nominated by President Trump to be the next head of the VA. Anyhow, he said that the Choice money was critical but that even with it, they had only gained about 3,000 doctors and nurses over two years.
DAVID SHULKIN: The net gain of clinicians - about 2,200 nurses and 828 physicians.
LAWRENCE: That's the net gain?
SHULKIN: That's the net gain.
LAWRENCE: That's - so that's a shockingly lower number.
SHULKIN: Yes. But not only have we added more doctors and nurses, but we have also seen a dramatic increase in efficiency, which has allowed us to see more patients and to address the wait-time issue.
SHAPIRO: We should add that Dr. Shulkin, who we're hearing from there, is going to go up for confirmation hearing in the Senate this week.
You try to figure out why it's so hard for the VA to add doctors and nurses to its medical staff. And let's bring in reporter Patricia Murphy who worked on the story. Patricia, what did you find when you looked at this question in Seattle?
MURPHY: Well, we found really three reasons that explained why so few medical staff were hired. One of the first is simple supply and demand. So even with $2.5 billion to spend, right now there's a nationwide shortage of qualified doctors and nurses and specialists, especially in rural areas. And I spoke to Benjamin Brunjes at the University of Washington about this.
BENJAMIN BRUNJES: You're competing with private hospitals - right? - private hospitals and nonprofit hospitals. So, as a physician coming out of med school or finishing an internship or residency, the VA in terms of comparative attractiveness maybe lower on the list.
SHAPIRO: And I can imagine that the VA waiting-times scandal that Quil mentioned probably didn't help make the VA more attractive to new doctors.
MURPHY: No, not at all. And since that scandal two years ago, applications at the VA are down 78 percent. And we should note, of course, the VA says it's trying to make salaries more competitive with the private sector.
SHAPIRO: So if competition with the private sector is the first reason the VA might not have gotten more staff after spending $2.5 billion on hiring, what other reasons are there?
MURPHY: Well, the second reason is this government hiring process, which is just really convoluted. About 13 percent of potential hires even drop out of the process. Between us, Quil and I talked to more than half a dozen people with similar stories about how long it takes, about how they're not able to afford to wait around even after they've been hired for the VA to complete the paperwork.
And one of those people was Almetta Pitts. And she interned at the VA while she was pursuing her master's in social work here in Seattle. After graduation, she began this intense application process because she wanted to continue the work she started there helping vets confront their trauma. And this was back in 2010.
ALMETTA PITTS: It took about six months. So I had to think about ways to just put my money together to be able to - really be able to pursue this job.
MURPHY: And after a series of interviews, Pitts was actually notified she'd been hired.
PITTS: I received my acceptance letter, and it did inform me that I would start in that September. And I was like, oh, my gosh. I'm so excited. But I was like, wow, it's, like, May. It takes so long. And you're just like, maybe I could definitely move on, or do something else? Like, what do I do? I work for Starbucks (laughter). And I'm grateful. I'm grateful for Starbucks, as well. But I'm just saying, like, what do I do? I have an apartment. I have student loan that's, you know, needs to take care of (laughter). So it's those things that you're just not prepared for. And so I had to make the decision to move back home.
SHAPIRO: So she actually had to give up her apartment and move in with her mother to take this job that began four months after she was offered it?
MURPHY: Yeah, she did. And after 13 months of working for the VA, she was laid off.
SHAPIRO: Oh, wow.
MURPHY: At the time, human resources offered to help her find another job at a VA out of state. And this was a job that she loved. She really thought she was making a difference, but she decided that she just had to move on.
SHAPIRO: OK. So two big reasons why the $2.5 billion dollars did not add more medical staff - a shortage of doctors and nurses, a cumbersome VA hiring process. Quil, what's another explanation?
LAWRENCE: Well, the last reason doesn't really have so much to do with the hiring challenges of the market. We looked at VA data, and we found the VA basically hired the same number of people with the VA Choice money - the $2.5 billion - as they were expected to without it based on the recent hiring trend. So Congress gave them this money to really plus up the staff. It seems like the VA spent the Choice money on hiring first and then spend its regular hiring budget on other things - other needs.
SHAPIRO: So you're saying when you look at the line, you would've expected to see a spike when they spent this $2.5 billion. There was no spike, which suggests instead of using $2.5 billion dollars plus the regular hiring budget, they only used the $2.5 billion dollars and spent the regular hiring budget on other stuff. Can they do that?
LAWRENCE: Yeah. I ran this by one of the best VA watchers I know, Phil Carter. He's an Iraq vet. He works at the Center for New American Security.
PHIL CARTER: It makes complete sense for a self-interested bureaucracy to hire with that money first. I think VA hired staff with this money with all intention of easing access challenges and improving quality. But I don't see malice here so much as the basic inefficacy of American bureaucracy.
LAWRENCE: Now, Republicans on the Hill did see, if not, malice some sort of a shell game. They were ripping mad when we showed them our conclusions. A vets committee spokesman called it just a plain money grab - a way for the VA to free up more of its other budget from congressional restrictions.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Quil Lawrence, thanks a lot.
LAWRENCE: Thank you, Ari.
SHAPIRO: And Patricia Murphy of member station KUOW in Seattle, thanks for joining us.
MURPHY: Thanks.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We have one.
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(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
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SHAPIRO: And that radio ad was written by Adam Drake of Broken Arrow, Okla., one of the thousands - literally, thousands of suggestions that you all sent in.
CORNISH: And one of the five we selected...
SHAPIRO: For our commercials for a Nicer Living project.
CORNISH: We'll hear two others later this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF DELICATE STEVE SONG, "BALLAD OF SPECK AND PEBBLE")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Tonight, President Trump will name his nominee to the Supreme Court. Senators on both sides have been gearing up since Election Day for the confirmation battle, which is expected to be intensely partisan. Last year, Senate Republicans refused to hold confirmation hearings for Judge Merrick Garland after President Obama nominated him to fill the vacancy. And Senate Democrats are still deeply resentful about that.
With us now to talk about the strategy on both sides is NPR's Congressional Correspondent Ailsa Chang. And Ailsa, first tell us how Republicans are basically making the case that Trump's nominee deserves more cooperation from the other side than what they offered last year.
AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: Well, so Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the situation of Merrick Garland was totally different. He says, it's not the middle of an election year now. This is the beginning of a four-year term of a new president. And even though it was a contentious election year, the country has spoken, McConnell says, and therefore this new president has every right to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
The example McConnell keeps going back to are the first terms of President Clinton and President Obama. Back then, Republicans did not block Clinton from getting Justices Breyer and Ginsburg confirmed to the court during his first term. And they didn't prevent Obama from naming Justices Sotomayor and Kagan to the court during his first term. So Republicans say, here we have another first-term president. It is only fair play to let Trump fill this vacancy.
CORNISH: So have Democrats figured out how they're going to respond?
CHANGE: Well, right now, there doesn't seem to be consensus on strategy. First of all, the nominee has not been named yet. And the vast majority of Democrats have held their fire because they don't want to appear obstructionist just for the sake of obstruction. There is one Democrat - Jeff Merkley of Oregon - who has already publicly declared he will oppose any nominee that is not Merrick Garland. But for the most part, Democrats want to stay away from this narrative that they're seeking retribution for Garland. They don't want this to be a story about retaliation.
Instead, they're going to frame it as, we are going to focus on the nominee's record and ideology. For Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic Leader, the go-to word is mainstream. He says he will fight tooth and nail any nominee that is not mainstream. Now, what does mainstream mean? Schumer hasn't specifically defined it. And when I pose that question to multiple Senate Democrats, the answer I get is, oh, mainstream is someone like Merrick Garland.
CORNISH: Now, I know you need 60 votes to confirm a Supreme Court nominee, but there are only 52 Republicans in the Senate. So they do need to peel off some Democrats, right?
CHANGE: Right.
CORNISH: I mean do Democrats have the power to fully block this nominee? And if not, what's kind of complicating things for them?
CHANGE: They do technically have the power to block Trump's nominee, but it's complicated. First, Schumer has the 2018 midterms to worry about. Several Democrats are up for re-election in states Trump decisively won. And Democrats don't want to get blamed in those states for a protracted war over this Supreme Court vacancy. So they're trying to be very careful about how they describe their path forward on this confirmation.
And there's also this thing called the nuclear option. It's a phrase you're going to be hearing a lot around here. Basically, the nuclear option is a parliamentary maneuver that McConnell could try to pull that would change the Senate rules so that it would take only 51 senators to confirm a Supreme Court nominee rather than 60.
CORNISH: And they call it the nuclear option in part because they'd be going to war with each other, right? I mean...
CHANGE: Right.
CORNISH: ...It's a big deal if Republicans do this.
CHANGE: It's a very big deal. But President Trump has already goaded McConnell. Last week, he said he wants - he thinks McConnell should change the Senate rules, that he should invoke the nuclear option. But McConnell has been very coy about what he will do. And it is ultimately up to him as a Senate majority leader.
McConnell's only said - and this has been his stock response every time he's asked, will you invoke the nuclear option. He's only said he's very confident that Trump will see his nominee confirmed to the Supreme Court. So he hasn't said he wouldn't go nuclear. Right now, it's just an option in his back pocket.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Ailsa Chang. Thanks so much.
CHANGE: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now let's meet a man affected by President Trump's executive order suspending admissions of refugees. He fled his home country of Iran because he's gay, and Iran has a history of executing gay people. This man was supposed to come to the United States. Instead, he's stuck in Turkey, which is where NPR's Peter Kenyon spoke with him.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: I got hold of Arash - he's afraid to give anymore of his name than that - a day after his dream of reaching America was thrown into limbo.
ARASH: (Through interpreter) When I got the call, I was stunned. My life suddenly seemed impossible. I'm completely confused. I don't know if my country of residence is changing or not. I have no idea of what's going to happen to me.
KENYON: The call from his migration agency told him he'd been tripped up at the finish line by President Trump's executive order. Arash had been forced to flee Iran after his boyfriend's father discovered their relationship, and he says if he goes back, he'll almost certainly be arrested.
His wait in Turkey as a refugee was tightly controlled by the police who just days earlier produced his exit permit so he could travel to the U.S. Monday. He's already given up everything he owned except what could fit in two suitcases.
ARASH: (Through interpreter) The place I was living in, all my furniture - that's gone. I don't have anything but these two bags. I'm almost out of money.
KENYON: Arash is one of many stranded LGBT refugees who in desperation called Arshem Parsi. He directs IRQR, the Iranian Refugee Queer Railroad. It's a Canadian-based nonprofit that helps LGBT refugees with their resettlement cases. Parsi says Canada used to be a popular destination for Iranians, but then Ottawa changed its policies to favor Syrian refugees, shoving others to the back of a long, slow-moving line. Parsi says the U.N. high commissioner for refugees started looking elsewhere.
ARSHEM PARSI: And the UNHCR encouraged LGBT refugees to go to the United States because it's going to be a shorter process.
KENYON: It could still be true if this suspension is lifted in the coming weeks or months. But Parsi says if LGBT refugees have to switch back to Canada for resettlement, they could be in for a very long wait.
PARSI: Honestly, I don't know what would happen for a lot of them. They are very, very, you know, vulnerable, and we deeply concerned about their situation.
KENYON: Another Iranian LGBT refugee and activist, Ramin Haghjoo, says he's been hearing desperate reactions among those waiting to be resettled. He repeats one comment from an LGBT refugee stuck in Turkey.
RAMIN HAGHJOO: I'm going to die here.
KENYON: Continuing in Farsi, he says anxiety and depression are common reactions. These people risked everything to escape Iran, he says, and this news is devastating to them. Haghjoo's own story shows the old system was working, at least for some. I interviewed him back in 2010 when he was waiting as a refugee in Istanbul. By the following spring, he was resettled in Washington, D.C., with a job at a foundation. Today, he says he's heartened by the protests against the order.
HAGHJOO: (Through interpreter) It's right that the president of the United States can give orders. He's the president. He says. But then I see the women's march, and I see all these protests popping up at airports. And it tells me the people of the United States aren't behind these policies.
KENYON: Haghjoo knows he's one of the lucky ones. He's been reunited with his partner, and they're making plans to get married. But for other LGBT refugees from Iran and the other countries affected by the executive order, that kind of stability and happiness feels a long way off. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Istanbul.
(SOUNDBITE OF HIDDEN ORCHESTRA SONG, "REMINDER")
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
President Trump last week reinstated what's known as the Mexico City Policy or, to its critics, the global gag rule. It cuts off funds to any aid group that provides abortions overseas or even counsels women on abortion. And without that money, reproductive-health clinics in some of the poorest countries in the world may have to close. NPR's Eyder Peralta visited a clinic in Nairobi, Kenya.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Just outside the Family Health Option Kenya building in Nairobi, there is a golden plaque. It says the headquarters for the reproductive-health organization was built with assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development - or USAID. As executive director Edward Marienga sees it, the funding has been a blessing and a curse because when Democrats enter the White House, they up funding. But when Republicans take power, they reinstate the Mexico City Policy. When George W. Bush took over after Bill Clinton, for example, the clinic was devastated.
EDWARD MARIENGA: We closed a number of clinics, five out of - by that time, we were only nine.
PERALTA: That's more than half their clinics. The most frustrating part, says Marienga, is that this all has to do with domestic American politics that Kenyans can do little about.
MARIENGA: But, you see, sometimes, this continuous change - it's like playing a football match with people's lives.
PERALTA: Critics say that there are two big problems with the policy. It's too broad. It cuts funding for organizations that simply try to educate women on abortion laws in their country. And, secondly, in many poor countries, U.S. aid is monumental. Moreen Majiwa of the Center for Reproductive Rights Kenya.
MOREEN MAJIWA: Four percent of Kenya's GDP goes to health. A large part of that is donor-funded, and a large part of that is U.S.-funded.
PERALTA: So sexual and reproductive health services become scarce, especially for poor women, says Majiwa. Back in 2011, a Stanford University study looked at how the Mexico City Policy affected African countries during the Bush administration. It found that as counseling services went away, abortions in some of those countries doubled.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
ALICE NYABOKE MMONYI: Come this side.
PERALTA: Back at the clinic, I meet the head nurse, Alice Nyaboke Mmonyi. She takes me to the clinic's maternity ward. The clinic, she says, does pride itself on providing contraceptives and abortion counseling for women. But they also do much more. They offer HIV counselling. They test and treat STDs. And in a country with a high rate of maternal mortality, they offer a safe place to give birth. This month so far...
MMONYI: Eighteen deliveries - normal delivery being 15 and cesarean section being three.
PERALTA: All those services, she says, are in danger now because the clinic says it's impossible to comply with a policy that would interfere with medical conversations with patients. Downstairs, I am introduced to Chaila Maya, a patient at the clinic. She's 24, the mother of a 3-year-old girl. The clinic has been a lifeline for her. It's the place that taught her about sex and family planning.
CHAILA MAYA: From where I comes from in the slum, actually, they don't talk about family planning.
PERALTA: At all?
MAYA: Not even, like, the simplest - like, you should use a condom. They believe it's, like, a taboo. They shouldn't do that.
PERALTA: Every month now, Chaila comes to the clinic to receive free contraceptives. Public hospitals don't offer them. And the nearest other clinic that might is easily a two-hour bus ride away. Chaila says she doesn't know what she'll do if the clinic closes.
MAYA: Me personally - first, I'll be broken down. Maybe you can try to find a way to talk to Trump. I don't know how you can do it.
PERALTA: Maybe, she says, there's a way for President Trump to see how his actions affect the everyday lives of poor women an ocean away. Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Nairobi.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE VERY BEST SONG, "KADA MANJA - BLOODSTAINED")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We're learning more today about the French Canadian man who killed six people at a mosque in Quebec City on Sunday. Alexandre Bissonnette injured 19 more - two seriously - when he opened fire during a prayer service. Brian Mann has this from Quebec City.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: People here are being cautious about exactly what Alexandre Bissonnette's motives might've been. Emanuel Trottier marched as part of a vigil last night.
EMANUEL TROTTIER: I think we have to wait for the police to do their work. And then we can analyze what happened and what we can do to prevent it from happening again.
MANN: But a growing number of sources say the 27-year-old college student was increasingly radicalized, embracing anti-Islamic and anti-feminist rhetoric. His Facebook posts, now deleted, suggest he was particularly drawn to Marine Le Pen, the populist French leader who visited Quebec last year. In a YouTube video posted by a right-wing group here, Le Pen issued dire warnings about Muslim immigrants.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARINE LE PEN: (Speaking French).
MANN: Le Pen said the people of Quebec are naive. And she predicted a total war from the fundamentalist Islamists. This kind of rhetoric has shaped Quebec politics for years. The influential, nationalist Quebec Party has campaigned on a cultural platform that includes banning Muslim garments, especially the burka and the veil. The party's leader, Jean-Francois Lisee, once warned voters that Muslim women might hide AK-47 rifles under their robes. Speaking this morning on CBC Radio, Lisee apologized and said he would tone down his language.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEAN-FRANCOIS LISEE: Not a good choice of argument - I agree with you.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: So you regret that now?
MANN: Quebec's Liberal Party premier, Philippe Couillard, also argued today that the way politicians talk about Muslim immigrants has to change. Words can hurt, he said. Words can be knives slashing at people's conscience.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOSQUE BELL RINGING)
MANN: Outside the mosque where this brutal attack took place, Achmaoui Fadwa was kneeling in the snow today, lighting candles at a memorial for the victims. Her cheeks were covered in tears. She said too many people around the world have a twisted idea of her faith.
ACHMAOUI FADWA: We are a kind people. It's peace. It's kindness. It's happiness. It's friendships.
MANN: Fadwa, who moved to Canada from Morocco, said she feels guilty now because she's happy that her husband didn't go to prayer on Sunday, which means he's here today, safe.
FADWA: It's something sad because someone else was killed here.
MANN: Fadwa said if she had her way, the new political language in Quebec would replace fear with curiosity.
FADWA: If you are different from me, I have to learn another culture. It's not to have fear. No, we are just humans.
MANN: Canada is a nation of immigrants with more refugees and newcomers arriving all the time. So there's a lot riding on how the country responds to this attack. For NPR News, I'm Brian Mann in Quebec City.