HAILEY: Hey there. This is Hailey (ph) from Boston, Mass. After throwing everything I could spare at my student loans over the past few years while interest was paused, I’m finally preparing to submit my last payment to settle my balance before interest starts up again. This podcast was recorded at…
SUSAN DAVIS, HOST:
12:51 p.m. on Friday, August 18.
HAILEY: Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I will still be enjoying my new financial freedom. OK. Here’s the show.
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DAVIS: That was a very wise financial decision. You take advantage of no interest rates when you have them in this life.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Congratulations, Hailey.
DAVIS: Hey there. It’s the NPR POLITICS PODCAST. I’m Susan Davis. I cover politics.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: And I’m Asma Khalid. I cover the White House.
ELVING: And I’m Ron Elving, editor correspondent.
DAVIS: And President Biden is hosting leaders of Japan and South Korea today at Camp David, the famous presidential retreat located in rural Maryland. Asma, you are there. I should note the weather is beautiful today in the D.C. region. And it’s been a while since the president hosted any foreign leaders there.
KHALID: That’s right. No foreign leader has come here to Camp David since 2015, so we’re talking about eight years. And, you know, I think that the reason that this is so noteworthy, I think, is, you know, of course, we can talk a lot about the sort of storied, tense relationship that Japan and South Korea have had. That goes back to when Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula. But, you know, I think that part of why this meeting is also very significant is that it is happening here at Camp David, which has such a storied legacy of, you know, really important diplomatic moments in American history.
DAVIS: Asma, there’s a lot of symbolism behind a Camp David invite. What is the symbolism here? And what’s the message the White House is trying to send with this meeting?
KHALID: Yeah. I spoke to a former naval commanding officer here at Camp David. His name is Michael Giorgione. He’s, in fact, written a book about what it’s like to be inside Camp David because he’s one of the few families who’s lived here year-round. And he kind of had an eye witness to history, seeing different foreign leaders come and go under both former President Clinton and George W. Bush.
MICHAEL GIORGIONE: If I were invited to Camp David, I think if I were world leader, I’d rather – I’d value that more than going to the White House. It’s like bringing someone into your family room.
DAVIS: When I think of Camp David, I think of sort of high-stakes diplomatic negotiations. What is the point behind this meeting? What are they working on?
KHALID: You know, the three leaders are trying to strengthen security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. And I will say from the Biden administration standpoint, from this white House, they may say that this is not really exclusively about China. But what I will say, having covered the Biden White House, is that much of the president’s foreign policy is about China, about trying to counter Chinese influence.
And so, you know, I think really bolstering relationships, alliances with two key allies in the Indo-Pacific, that certainly, you know, China is the subtext here. It’s certainly not the only thing at stake here. But what they’re trying to do is really improve the security cooperation. And they’re planning to announce a range of things, you know, comprehensive military exercises, a new crisis hotline, as well as a commitment to just consult each other on security issues of concern. And so we’ll see how this all pans out. What they’re hoping is to kind of institutionalize this trilateral relationship and have annual meetings of this sort every year.
DAVIS: And obviously, the China subtext is clear, but it is worth noting that this is the first time this type of trilateral between South Korea and Japan and the U.S. has ever happened, in part because of that very complicated and often contentious relationship between Japan and South Korea. So it’s also historic on their end.
KHALID: Of course. Of course. Right? And I do think that what you’ll hear from this White House is that this is really setting the stage for a new era in the relationship with the United States and Japan, South Korea.
DAVIS: Ron, Camp David has played a very storied role in presidential history and has been used by many presidents for very, you know, symbolic and high-stakes meetings.
ELVING: Absolutely. You go back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt meeting with Winston Churchill there 80 years ago, when the camp was quite new. Roosevelt, by the way, called it Shangri-La. Then later, President Eisenhower called it Camp David in honor of his grandson. Eisenhower met with Khrushchev there. JFK met with Khrushchev. And, of course, the most famous Camp David meeting – summit meeting was when, 45 years ago, Jimmy Carter met with Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt and concluded what became known as the Camp David Accords. And that was peace in the Middle East, at least to some degree, at least between the two largest antagonists in the long-running Middle East struggle. And it really mattered a great deal. Bill Clinton tried to do something similar a dozen years later, didn’t quite work out. But everyone is always reached for that Camp David magic. And you’ll notice that what comes out of this meeting is being dubbed the Camp David principles.
KHALID: And if I can just jump on that, Ron, I mean, I think that there is no doubt this White House is trying to tap into the historic legacy you’re describing by having the meeting here at Camp David. It is, you know, I think, an attempt to elevate the relationship with Japan and South Korea and really put it in that kind of category of monumental historic negotiations that have occurred here.
ELVING: Yes. And in addition to elevating that relationship, it’s also very deliberately intended to elevate this president and his presidency and put it in that pantheon of important presidencies that I just ticked through this. This is what the Biden people want to do, looking a year and a half ahead to his reelection.
DAVIS: All right. We need to take a quick break. But, Ron and Asma, don’t go far. We’re going to have you back for Can’t Let It Go.
ELVING: Bye now.
KHALID: Oh, bye. Talk to you in a bit.
DAVIS: All right. After the break, a chat about Alabama Republicans ignoring a recent Supreme Court ruling.
And we’re back with NPR’s Hansi Lo Wang. Hey, Hansi.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Hey, Sue.
DAVIS: And Stephan Bisaha of the Gulf States newsroom. Hi, Stephan.
STEPHAN BISAHA, BYLINE: Hey. Thanks for having me.
DAVIS: Thank you both for being here. So the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Alabama’s congressional district map likely violated the Voting Rights Act. And before we get into the latest court fight here, Hansi, can you remind us exactly what the Supreme Court ruled?
WANG: Yes. OK. Quick recap – the map Alabama used for last year’s midterm elections – a panel of three federal judges ruled that map needs to be replaced to get in line with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. And that was a ruling upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in June. And those judges on that panel said Alabama needs to increase the number of voting districts where Black voters have a realistic opportunity to elect their preferred U.S. House candidate. Instead of one, there should be two of those opportunity districts, the judges said. And we should keep in mind that because voting in Alabama is so racially polarized, if you want to have two opportunity districts for Black voters in Alabama, they will need to be two districts where Black Alabamians make up the majority of the voting-age population or something quite close to it, the judge has said.
DAVIS: Hansi, let’s do a little point of clarity because I think we shorthand a lot and call this majority-Black districts. But when we say that, we don’t mean it’s 50-plus-one majority. It just means – well, you explain it.
WANG: Well, in this case, the judges have found that it’s possible that Black Alabamians don’t necessarily have to make more than 50% of the voting-age population. It could be something quite close to it. And so that’s the kind of rub here. All right.
DAVIS: So we’re talking about this case again because the maps went back to Alabama lawmakers, and they recently passed a new map responding to this ruling. But it still does not have sufficient districts where Black voters would have the possibility of electing a candidate of their choice. Stephan, let’s put this all back in court. How did the lawmakers who redrew the map defend that decision?
BISAHA: Yeah, that was the big question going into the court date – was how they were going to justify this because, again, one of the districts was only, like, 39.9% Black while the other one was just barely over 50%. So they went in there, and the state’s argument was, hey; this is a new map. And also, we passed new standards for how we draw these maps. Your old order pertaining to our old maps and old standards – that does not apply here. And these new standards are things like making sure keeping as many counties together so you’re having fewer congressional districts that slice through a county. And particularly they had fewer of these kind of county splits than what advocates were kind of proposing for as alternative maps.
They also said it’s really important that we, with these new standards, keep communities of interest together. So we’re talking about, like, the Gulf Coast – so that little nub of Alabama that’s touching the Gulf of Mexico – keeping that community together as well as keeping together Alabama’s Black Belt. And this is a stretch of land across the center of Alabama. And whenever you look at different election results maps, like 2020’s presidential maps and the – how counties voted, Alabama – it’s a very red state. But you have this line of blue that slices across the state. So these maps do a better job of keeping that Black Belt together.
And we should say Black Belt is named for the fact that it’s actually the soil, this very black, rich soil, not the fact that it is a very Black area, though it actually is. It’s consequence of the fact that, you know, this is where there were cotton plantations because of that soil. That’s where a lot of former slaves ended up staying after the Civil War. That kind of goes into the geography of how the state is split up politically.
DAVIS: And it’s not uncommon to hear defenses of maps talk about communities of interest and contiguous districts. How did the judges respond to that argument?
BISAHA: The judges did not seem to be too interested in this argument. These were the same three federal judges that started this all off, the three judges that said, hey; you need to add a second Black-majority district or something close to it. So when the state and its solicitor general, Edmund LaCour – when they were making their closing arguments, the judges kept on going, hold on here. You’re basically ignoring us; aren’t you? And they kept on asking this question, and the state would say, look. This is the best we could do without violating other parts of law, without violating these other standards. We’re not supposed to be considering race when we are making these maps. And the judges kept on coming back like, well, OK, so how – are you able to create new standards whenever we give you an order? They did not seem too pleased with the state’s arguments here.
DAVIS: And what about the opponents or, I should say, the plaintiffs in the case? What is their argument against it?
BISAHA: Yeah, they say, well, look. You can actually consider race when you’re talking about something that’s a potential voting rights violation like that was found here. And the other thing they said was you don’t really get brownie points for keeping the Black vote together if people in the Black vote can’t actually vote for the candidate of choice. What you got to actually pay attention to is the election results that these maps create. And projecting those out, we still would only have one district where Black Alabamians would be able to pick their candidate of choice. And you would think with all of this, with this kind of setback and Alabama coming forward with this map, that a lot of the activists and plaintiffs would be upset, but it was kind of celebratory on the steps of the courthouse after the hearing.
When I was talking with the lead attorney, he was mentioning how this is kind of what happens with civil rights laws – that a judge might find it discriminatory. The state comes back with a slightly modified law to see if they can – if that will pass with the judges. And it’s that slow progress. And that slightly modified law often does not actually address what the judges actually complained about, so they’re used to this. The fact that the judges seem to be not too keen to the arguments of the state made the advocates feel pretty positive about the results.
DAVIS: What are the potential outcomes here? And is this one of those legal challenges that observers would say is also an effort to get something back to the Supreme Court, or is it just going to be contained here?
BISAHA: Yeah. The – I believe the states hope – and they’ve kind of hinted at this. Different lawmakers in Alabama hinted that they want this back in front of the Supreme Court. During the hearing, they mentioned the idea of Brett Kavanaugh seemed to really care about the idea of counties being split up. So – and, hey, look. Counties not being split up as much, that was part of the state’s new standard. So that seems to be one thing they’re hoping is that Brett Kavanaugh actually sided with, also, John Roberts. They were the ones that sided with the liberals that, hey, Alabama, you actually need to follow this order here. They’re hoping to flip Brett Kavanaugh. And that would – if they could get this in front of the Supreme Court again.
The other option here that could work in the state’s favor is maybe the judges just side with them. Again, they don’t seem too happy with the state’s arguments right now. But the map is currently law. This is not a temporary map. This is the law – the map they passed is a congressional map. But the judges can say this is not a good one, and we need to redo it. And in that case, what they could do is assign a special master to draw a new map, essentially take the power of creating a congressional map out of the hands of the state and have the judge’s own hand-picked special master do this instead.
DAVIS: Hansi, this case is about a lot more than just Alabama. The Supreme Court ruling has had ripples beyond the state, and there’s a lot going on in the redistricting space, even though we’re a couple of years after the census.
WANG: Yeah. And, you know, what’s important to point out here is we’re talking about the possibility of more majority-Black districts in the South that are likely to vote for Democratic candidates. So what could happen here is that Alabama could end up with two Democrats in the U.S. House after next year’s midterm elections. And there could be more Democratic pickups in House races in Louisiana and in Georgia, depending on how similar redistricting lawsuits there pan out.
DAVIS: You know, I also think – it’s unrelated to this to this court fight, but there’s also a redistricting battle going in New York for other different reasons that could also give Democrats an advantage. And I think redistricting is going to be so crucial to 2024 because the way that it could tip more races towards Democrats’ favor is really important when you think about the fact that Republicans only have a very narrow four-seat majority.
WANG: Yeah. I think that what’s – why there’s so much attention on this Alabama case is because it’s coming out of that Supreme Court ruling that upheld the past rulings on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and really sets up a pathway for more Democratic pickups in these House races in the South. And I think the thing to keep in mind here is that Alabama’s strategy of potentially trying to get this before the Supreme Court – that could get rid of that pathway. But, you know, voting rights advocates I’ve talked to think that it’s very unlikely the Supreme Court would take back its earlier ruling in this Alabama case.
DAVIS: All right. Stephan Bisaha and Hansi Lo Wang, thank you both so much for your reporting.
BISAHA: Thank you.
WANG: You’re very welcome.
DAVIS: We’re going to take a quick break, and when we get back, time for Can’t Let It Go.
And we’re back. And, Asma Khalid, Ron Elving, welcome back.
KHALID: Great to be back with you.
ELVING: Good to be with you.
DAVIS: And it’s time to end the show like we do every week, with Can’t Let It Go, part of the show where we talk about the things from the week we can’t stop talking about, politics or otherwise. Ron Elving, what can’t you let go of this week?
ELVING: Story in The Washington Post about a collection of human remains in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History – this has been collected from back in the early part of the 1900s and reflected the interests and the beliefs of a curator of physical anthropology there named Ales Hrdlicka. He was the head of the Eugenics Society in the United States, and these were people trying to find a scientific basis for racism, really, basically, was what they were trying to do – trying to clothe their attitudes towards race in some degree of science – discredited, debunked many years ago. And many of these human remains were taken from families who didn’t realize that they had lost part of their relatives to science. In this sense, they were not obtained with the cooperation of the families, some of it. And some of it that remains is in that category.
Story caught my eye on a slightly personal ground because it had a picture of a woman named Mary Sara, who came from far northern Scandinavia and was part of a group of people known as the Sami, S-A-M-I. And they had different language, different kind of background from other Scandinavians. They’d come from points east, and they were held in some degree of – well, they were held at arm’s length, at the very minimum, by other Swedes and Norwegians and people from further south. Many of them went to other parts of the world. One of the people who came to the United States and was born quite near Mary Sara at about the same time was my grandfather on my…
DAVIS: Oh, wow.
ELVING: …Maternal side. And our family has always talked sort of vaguely about our heritage and about the Sami people being part of that heritage, but very, very, if you will, vaguely. Let’s just put it that way. So it was interesting to see the degree to which they were regarded by these researchers as people who had to be studied to see why their brains and, presumably, their humanity was inferior.
DAVIS: Ron, did this story make you want to find out more about your Sami heritage?
ELVING: Absolutely. Absolutely. My sister has found out a good deal more about it and explored it more over the years. But it was clearly part of the sort of sotto voce discussion of my grandfather’s background in that part of the world. He had come to the United States and worked as a woodcutter and then in the Anaconda Copper Mine in Montana and…
KHALID: Wow.
ELVING: …Never had much education and was sort of a somewhat mysterious presence.
KHALID: That’s fascinating.
DAVIS: Well, that is a very deep and philosophical Can’t Let It Go and is a very harsh transition into mine, which is very much into campaign politics this week. The thing I can’t let go of – I don’t know if you all saw this story, but a campaign memo for Ron DeSantis’…
KHALID: Oh, yes.
DAVIS: …Debate strategy was posted online by the main super PAC that’s supporting his campaign. And it outlined what his strategy should be ahead of next week’s first Republican debate in Milwaukee. And I can’t let it go because I can’t think of a worse thing to happen to any candidate in the days before a very high-profile debate than to have your entire strategy about the debate leaked for the whole world to see it.
ELVING: So does he follow the strategy now, or does he defy it?
DAVIS: That’s the trap, right? David Axelrod, the former Obama campaign strategist, tweeted that very point, where it’s like, now if he does anything that was outlined in this memo, things like attacking Vivek Ramaswamy or former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, or if he follows the prescriptive plan, it’s going to seem super inauthentic. But also, pivoting on a strategy that usually campaigns work for weeks and weeks, if not months and months on, I just think it puts him in a very bad bind and certainly increases the focus that’s going to be uniquely on his performance next week.
KHALID: Yeah.
DAVIS: I would not want to be Ron DeSantis now going into this debate.
KHALID: I also don’t understand who thought it was a wise idea to do this just strategically – right? – when you look at campaigns. Who thought that this would be a smart plan? And my understanding is the DeSantis campaign has said that this was not a campaign memo, and they really tried to distance themselves from it. But either way, you know, strategy – campaign strategy-wise, don’t recommend doing this.
DAVIS: Well, that’s part of what makes this story a fascinating bit of politics, because super PACs and official campaigns are not technically supposed to coordinate, right?
KHALID: Yeah.
DAVIS: Like, that’s against the law. So a lot of times, PACs will put things in the public domain so everybody can see it, but specifically the campaign, ’cause then it’s not technically coordination. It’s unclear what – how this leak came to pass, but it was posted on the business website for the strategy group run by the super PAC’s main strategist. This has happened before in campaigns, especially for ads. Like, super PACs will post B-roll footage on YouTube so the campaigns can sort of sweep it up and use it for free. I mean, there’s lots of trickery around how super PACs and campaigns can communicate with each other. But oftentimes, it works out well. This time, I don’t think it worked out so well.
ELVING: Yeah. The only word for this is oops.
DAVIS: Asma, what can’t you let go of this week?
KHALID: So New York City…
DAVIS: I’ve heard of it.
KHALID: So I can’t let go of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. You know, he is someone, it strikes me, who kind of just says what is on his mind however it is on his mind, however it is interpreted politically. And this week, he decided to take a stance on outdoor dining. So New York City apparently changed their rules to make outdoor dining permanent in the city and sort of offered some guidelines around this all. And apparently, he was trying to sell outdoor dining as a good strategy for New Yorkers. I don’t need to make his pitch. I think we need to listen to him make his pitch.
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ERIC ADAMS: You know, bring your boo to a restaurant. You know, somebody, you’re trying to, you know, keep your marriage together – a little outdoors will help you. You know, come and try it, man. You know, you look into, you know, your date. You may drive by. You may see eye candy sitting down somewhere. You may want to park and, you know, come and slip them your your number. And listen, come have fun, man. You know, outdoor dining is the way to go. And so people who are opposed to it…
KHALID: So that infomercial for outdoor dining, brought to you by the mayor of New York City.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVIS: I love the idea that outdoor dining needs a selling point. Like, it’s outdoor dining. People just like to do it.
KHALID: Yeah. I mean, I think the idea that this is really the pitch for outdoor dining, is dating advice from the mayor of New York City. There are many reasons you may like outdoor dining. But from his perspective, I guess this should be something you all should keep in mind.
DAVIS: Look, it’s never a bad idea to take your boo outdoor dining. So I’m going to give the mayor a point there. All right. That’s a wrap for us today. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Research and fact checking by our intern, Leigh Walden. She is headed back to school this fall. We are going to miss her. She has done a bang-up job, and we know she’s going to do great things…
KHALID: Yes.
DAVIS: …And maybe be our boss one day. Thanks to Krishnadev Calamur and Lexie Schapitl. I’m Susan Davis. I cover politics.
KHALID: I Asma Khalid. I cover the White House.
ELVING: And I’m Ron Elving, editor correspondent.
DAVIS: And thanks for listening to the NPR POLITICS PODCAST.
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