This week, Farai Chideya and her guests discuss the new administration and the historic role of Vice President Kamala Harris. Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters discusses what her party wants to accomplish now that it controls the legislative and executive branches. Political strategist Glynda Carr of Higher Heights wants to elevate more Black women to political leadership roles. Activist and producer Sarah Eagle Heart examines what the Biden-Harris administration could do to address the needs of Indigenous communities. Plus, political journalist Errin Haines of The 19th and Jess Morales-Rocketto of the National Domestic Workers Alliance dive into the priorities, hurdles, and first 100 days of the 46th President and Vice President.
EPISODE RUNDOWN
1:26 Farai Chideya talks to people in D.C. for the Presidential Inauguration.
2:52 Representative Maxine Waters describes the scene during the Capitol siege.
5:14 Representative Waters describes the inequalities that Black women like her experience in the many facets of society.
8:39 Representative Waters says she is elated about the organizing efforts in Georgia.
11:16 Having Kamala Harris as Vice President speaks to what is possible for Black Americans, says Waters.
13:16 Political strategist Glynda Carr talks about her efforts to get more Black women elected into leadership roles.
14:05 Carr breaks down the four pillars of Higher Heights, her organization that endorses and advocates to elect Black women into office.
17:10 Electing New York’s Attorney General Letitia James was a recent success story for Higher Heights.
21:40 The Covid update looks into the strategy to get Covid vaccinations to those who need it most.
23:13 Activist and producer Sarah Eagle Heart dives into her social justice work as a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe.
26:03 Eagle Heart recounts her first time protesting a racist depiction of Indigenous people at a homecoming ceremony in her hometown, when she was a teenager.
28:13 When Eagle Heart approached top organizers of the Women’s March to point out the lack of Indigenous representation, she became part of the solution to amplify these voices in the movement.
29:21 If she was able to ask anything of Vice President Kamala Harris, Eagle Heart would want to be sure that the rights of Indigenous people are included in the new administration.
32:34 Our segment Sippin’ the Political Tea, looks back at a historic week with political experts Errin Haines and Jess Morales Rocketto.
33:58 Youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman was Chideya’s favorite moment of last week’s inaugural celebration.
36:39 Chideya takes her listeners to the streets of D.C. the morning of the Inauguration.
39:42 Morales Rocketto looks at some of the historic appointments to the Biden-Harris administration’s Cabinet.
43:14 Haines looks at how the media will shift its focus from President Trump to the Biden-Harris administration.
44:50 Although there is a new president, “Trump is gone, but Trumpism isn’t,” Chideya explains.
45:33 The Biden-Harris administration has promised to make sweeping reforms to immigration policy, Morales Rocketto says.
47:53 Haines questions how the Biden-Harris administration will tackle issues like systemic racism.
Farai Chideya:
Thanks for listening and sharing Our Body Politic. As you know, we're new and we're creating this show with lots of input from listeners like you. So I want to ask you a small favor, after you listen today, please head over to Apple Podcasts on your phone, tablet, laptop or anywhere you listen, and leave us a review. We read those because your ideas matter to us. Thanks so much.
This is Our Body Politic. I'm the creator and host, Farai Chideya. We just lived through one heck of a week, complete with marching bands, and that, of course, is the Howard University Marching Band welcoming the new Vice President, their alum, Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States of America. Boy, so much else happening. Accusations of a rigged election, spurious, historic siege of the Capitol, and this week, of course, monumental, no matter what. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have become the next President and Vice President of the United States.
Kamala Harris:
...that i will well and faithfully discharge...
Justice Sonia Sotomayor:
...the duties of the office upon which i am to enter...
Harris:
….the duties of the office upon which i am to enter...
Chideya:
Of course, on Inauguration Day, I had to go out there in the streets to ask people what it was like. Frankly, the streets were nearly empty because of the violence at the Capitol on the 6th. Dozens of square blocks of the city were locked down tight, and there were no personal vehicles permitted.
My conversation with Master Sergeant George Roach, a public information officer for the National Guard, happened at a key moment.
Master Sergeant Roach:
We have approximately 2300 Pennsylvania Guardsmen here.
Chideya:
Oh, wow. Can you hold on one sec?
Roach:
There goes Air Force One, or Marine One.
Chideya:
Marine One, is it, do you think? Oh, yeah. Wow.
Roach:
That's the President.
Chideya:
We just saw Marine One.
Roach:
That's Marine One. Now, he probably, that's the President is probably on that aircraft.
Chideya:
Yeah, yeah.
That was Marine One, the President's helicopter, flying him out of Washington, D.C. two hours ahead of the Inauguration.
Roach:
That's what this is all about. A peaceful transition. The passing of the baton.
Chideya:
As the Master Sergeant said, it was a peaceful transition of power, but it certainly wasn't a traditional one. For more than a century, every president has gone to the Inauguration of his successor, acknowledging the new leader. That didn't happen this time.
We've got more interviews from Inauguration Day and fresh analysis on Sippin' The Political Tea with Errin Haines and Jess Morales Rocketto. Stay tuned for that. First, the congressional leader known for reclaiming her time, the inimitable Representative Maxine Waters.
When Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, security urged lawmakers to follow them to a secure location in the building. Most of them did, but Representative Maxine Waters stayed in her own office, where she felt she and her team would be safer. We spoke to her a week after the insurrection. Waters has represented part of Los Angeles in Congress for 30 years, including as a senior member of the Black Congressional Caucus, which she used to chair.
Congresswoman Waters, thank you so much for joining me on Our Body Politic.
Maxine Waters:
I'm delighted to be with you. It's been such a long time since I've seen you and talked to you. Thank you for getting me on today.
Chideya:
Absolutely. I fondly remember getting together back when I lived in Los Angeles, and the whole world has changed. Yet, some things haven't, like the persistence of white supremacy. I'm just going to lay that on the table. How do you process this moment in history and what we need to do to move ahead? I'm going to get into the more immediate political questions, but just on the big picture, what are we looking at?
Waters:
Well, I think it's important that number one, we continue our work in certifying the electoral votes that had come from all of the states, even after the attack on the Capitol and the ... domestic terrorists in our Chambers, et cetera, et cetera. I think that was very good. It sent a signal that we were not going to be intimidated, that we were not going to stop our work.
That's how I'm dealing with all of this. We've got work to do. It's an important time in the history of this country, and we cannot back up. We have to move forward and do what is needed to be done to protect this democracy.
Chideya:
What do you think of what was widely suspected and now seems to be becoming clearer that there were members of the Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies who may have been sympathizers or aiders and abetters here? What do we do about the distinct possibility of infiltration of government branches by active white supremacists?
Waters:
Well, one of the things that I know, just being an African American woman, is that our society has systemic racism. Whether we're dealing with the health systems or with police departments or with the criminal justice system in general, that we are always in a position where there are those who hold those positions are racists. Even though we have to depend on them for security or for healthcare or for education, that we have people who are operating in all of our systems who are not in our best interest.
This is something that we know happens. I was not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised that we were learning that there were some who had joined in with this invasion of these ... domestic terrorists. Yes, that is being investigated. We're going to have a deep investigation into everything that took place.
I don't know if you know, I've been telling the press that I met with the Capitol Hill Police Chief days before the invasion. I talked with him for one hour on the telephone, and I was assured on every question that I asked that they were in control, that they knew what they were doing. It is a horrible experience. It is a daunting experience. It is one that the United States of America is not expected to be in this position by other nations, who thought for sure that the Capitol was well secured, that this could not happen, but it did.
Chideya:
The vast majority of Republicans have not supported impeachment. What options does that leave you and your party?
Waters:
The whole idea is not to act based on what we think they will do or won't do. The most important thing for us is to act, to show that we're going to fight to hold him and them accountable. That we're going to send a message out there to the American public that we're not backing away. That we think that this is the worst President in the history of this country. He has been divisive. He has been a deplorable President, and that we're going to fight to change the direction of this country with Biden and Harris.
Chideya:
We've seen a lot. I mean, it feels like we've lived several years just in the past few weeks. We've seen Georgia go for the Democrats twice, once in the Presidential election and once in the special Senate elections. Stacey Abrams and the new Georgia coalition and many other, Nse Ufot, who we interviewed from the New Georgia Coalition, and many others made that happen. How do you feel about operating in a context where the Democrats control both houses of Congress? What are you looking forward to and what lies ahead?
Waters:
Well, I am absolutely elated about what happened in Georgia. I'm so appreciative for Stacey Abrams, who had the vision of the possibility. Not only did she run for governor and come very close to winning, and that election was stolen from her, but she has fought voter suppression. She has believed in the possibility of winning Georgia.
Now, we have two Georgia state Senators who are coming to the Congress of the United States who will put us in a position where Kamala Harris can break any tie vote, based on what we have before that body. We have an opportunity now to do the kind of public policy that's in the best interest of all of the people of this country. When we're able to put on the President's desk legislation that we've not been able to pass, that's going to fall in a lot of directions. As Chair of the Financial Services Committee, I'm focused on not only doing away with certain kind of deregulation that has been pushed forward by the Republicans to enhance those in the hedge fund and private equity operations, but I'm going to pay a lot of attention to dealing with the homeless issue in this country.
I have HUD in my jurisdiction, and we have homelessness that is out of control all over this country. We're going to start by dealing with a real response to COVID. While we passed a bill, it was not good enough. We don't have enough money in there for stimulus. We don't have enough money in there for rent assistance. We don't have enough money in there for those who are unemployed.
I think that we're going to have to start out by enhancing that which we did to make sure that we give more assistance to all of those families out there that are suffering. Then, I'm moving very aggressively on homelessness and housing. We've got all kinds of issues that Democrats have been so interested in and been the advocates of. Now we have an opportunity of not only passage through both of these houses, but signature by the President of the United States of America.
Chideya:
What does it mean to you to see Senator Harris become Vice President Elect Harris and then Vice President Harris?
Waters:
Well, of course, as you know, I and so many other women of color are just overjoyed to see our image at that level of government. To have Kamala Harris to be elected Vice President of the United States is not only inspiring, but it really does speak to what is possible, even though we see the difficulties and the systemic racism that we're confronted with on a daily basis. When you take a look at her career, coming out of California, having served as the Attorney General there and the way that she has worked and overcome even the problems of the state of California, of being elected on a statewide area, and then moving into having the audacity to run for President of the United States, which put her in a position for people to see her and to learn about her and her capabilities and her talent, and then be chosen by Biden to be the Vice President. It is a wonderful and inspiring thing.
Chideya:
Well, Congresswoman Waters, we are so grateful for your generous time. We wish you health and safety, among everything else. Take good care.
Congresswoman Waters:
Well, you're so welcome, and thank you. It's good to get together with you again.
Chideya:
That was Maxine Waters, U.S. Representative from California. Coming up, Jess Morales Rocketto and Errin Haines break down what you need to know in politics right now.
Errin Haines:
What folks are telling me is that the battle for the soul of the nation, right, is still underway.
Chideya:You're listening to Our Body Politic. I'm Farai Chideya. Black women are making big moves in politics in every imaginable role. Glynda Carr is a political strategist who's out to supercharge that rise. She worked as a staffer in the New York State Legislature, then moved into education advocacy. In 2011, she and her friend Kimberly Peeler-Allen co founded Higher Heights, an organization Glynda says is “a political home for Black women.” She's now the president and CEO. Hi, Glynda.
Glynda Carr:
Hey, how are you?
Chideya:
I am fantastic, and I'm just so impressed with the work that you've done with Higher Heights. Give me a really granular sense of what it is that you do. When you talk about applying power, does that mean raising money? Does that mean messaging? What sorts of things are we talking about?
Carr:
So, we look at Higher Heights work in kind of four pillars. One is research, and so we've partnered for the Center for American Women in Politics, the Brookings Institute in our sister organization Higher Heights Leadership Fund, which is where our research is housed. For us, you can't develop a blueprint forward if you don't look back, so, right, Sankofa, which means to look back.
Our Status of Black Women in American Politics Report that we do annually talks about the history of Black women in elected leadership, the history of Black women voters in this country. What you find is, although we've seen incremental gains over the last 10 years since Higher Heights was founded, Black women are still severely underrepresented and underserved in our American democracy.
Although we just saw a record number of Black women swearing into the 117th Congress, we will have 25 Black women in the United States House of Representatives. Zero, and let me say it one more time, zero Black women in the U.S. Senate. We've only elected two Black women to the Senate. We've never elected a Black woman governor in our country's history. We only have five Black women serving as statewide executives. We've only had 15 Black women serve in that role in our country's history.
This research allows us to know where we've been, where we are, and to help develop a pathway forward. We also recruit, train, and support Black women to run for office. Our hashtag, Black Women Lead political webinar series allows Black women to sit in their homes across this country, as they contemplate their political leadership. That political leadership could be an activist, an advocate. Could be someone interested in running for office, and it also provides training for women who are elected who are thinking about stepping their leadership to the next level, either in their elected body or to run for higher office.
Our political action committee endorses Black women running for offices for Congress, statewide executive, and mayors of top 100 cities. We strategically picked those three levels of offices, because they're the greatest opportunities for expansion, but they're also offices that those candidacies sometimes are the hardest to overcome obstacles like fundraising or providing institutional support from many of our colleagues across the country.
It is about building this network of Black women and our allies to support our work. Then, to create the environment for Black women to vote, run, win, and lead with many of our digital programmings that we've done over the years.
Chideya:
You were instrumental in helping Letitia James win her run for AG of New York. Tell us the kind of work that you do with a candidate, whether it's AG James when she was running, or how do you support a candidate?
Carr:
We're particularly very proud of our partnership with Letitia, Tish James. Here's a woman that started as a staffer of a New York legislator, who ran for city council, who ran for a citywide office. She is exactly the type of leadership and the blueprint that I believe that Black women across the country who are thinking about running for a local office, that is how we build the pipeline of Black women leaders. At the end of the day, she's a friend. She literally is a neighbor, and many of our members, because we're from New York, we were excited to rally around her. That was endorsing, raise funds. Many of our members hosted house parties for her when we used to be able to go outside. We knocked on doors. We made phone calls. We hit social media. We hosted events to expand her brand and excite an electorate to vote for her.
Chideya:
What's changed? In the past decade, has it become a friendlier environment for Black women to step into leadership, to get the resources? Or is it just kind of same-ish? If so, how has your work evolved either way?
Carr:
I would say two things. We have made major strides forward. 10 years ago, you wouldn't read daily articles both in mainstream media and in many of our media that is targeted towards African American or towards women about Black women's political power. There is clearly a recognition about Black women's political power by the masses.
I also believe we've seen Black women step into that power. We are flexing a little harder these days, like, "Yes, we did that." But it's also, we're demanding our return on our voting investment. We can't continue to be the voting block that delivers decisive victories for this country and still be underrepresented and underserved.
I certainly see that Black women are demanding our return. What we still need to do is push the notion of what the face of leadership looks like. Oftentimes, Black women still don't have institutional support, party support early in their candidacies. Then, there's still this question around electability. If you look back to the Democratic Primary in 2020, the women running ... The Democrats had the most diverse stage during the debates in the amount of diversity in those who ran for president, but the women often were always questioned about their electability, particularly Kamala Harris. Right?
Here is a woman who has literally run and won three levels of government. There was a question about electability. There is a lot of work to be done.
Chideya:
Glynda, best of luck with Higher Heights and everything that you are putting in place. Thanks so much.
Carr:
Thanks for having me.
Chideya:
Glynda Carr is the CEO and president of Higher Heights. Coming up later this hour.
Morales Rocketto:
The fact that immigration's such a high priority of the Biden administration, not just the day one immigration bill that he's supposed to be moving in Congress, but also a bunch of executive orders that do really important things to reverse some of the worst abuses of the Trump administration. This was on hour seven of him being the president.
Chideya:
Stay tuned for our political round table with contributors Errin Haines and Jess Morales Rocketto.
Wednesday was Inauguration Day. It was also the one year anniversary of the first case of coronavirus in the United States. Since then, more than 400,000 Americans have died, with 24 million infected. President Biden has pledged 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days.
The administration is mobilizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard to ramp up vaccinations and invoking federal law to make more medical equipment. Biden announced the plan on January 14.
President
Joe Biden:
My fellow Americans, the decisions we make in the next few weeks and months are going to determine whether we thrive in a way that benefits all Americans.
Chideya:
Each week on our COVID update, as we tell the story of the pandemic, we explore inequality in healthcare access based on race, gender, and income. What's emerging now is that the vaccine rollout itself is part of the big picture on health disparities. According to analysis by Kaiser Health News, in some states, white residents were being vaccinated at two to three times the rate of Black residents.
Here, like other areas of our society, the digital divide persists. When vaccination appointments have to be made online, those without internet access or who have trouble using online systems are at a disadvantage. People of color are more likely to get sick with COVID and more likely to get seriously ill and die, but the vaccine distribution isn't prioritizing the groups at highest risk.
Dr. Ebony
Hilton:
The persons that we are [inaudible 00:21:51], all of the vaccines that we have at this point are predominantly of those persons who have a higher likelihood of actually living if they were to get the infection in the first place. That's not right.
Chideya:
That's Doctor Ebony Hilton, a critical care anesthesiologist in Charlottesville, Virginia, on CBS 19 News. Some states like Tennessee have set aside vaccine doses for hard hit areas, and a year into the pandemic, the costs of COVID are not just physical but mental and emotional. Next week, we'll talk about what the incoming CDC director called quote "a behavioral health crisis that demands intervention".
Sarah Eagle Heart is a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe and grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She describes herself as a social justice storyteller, and her work as an activist, author, media strategist, and producer spans a wide range of projects including the Women's March Organization that grew out of the protests at Donald Trump's Inauguration in 2017. Sarah, it's great to have you with us.
Sarah
Eagle Heart:
Thanks for having me.
Chideya:
At Standing Rock, I interviewed Lakota Elder and organizer Phyllis Young, longtime political organizer. We had a conversation at the very moment that the Obama administration said that they were going to block the Dakota Access Pipeline, or at least call for renewed attention to the permitting process ... Everyone was shouting, and I was like, "Oh, are you excited?" And she was like, "Well, the government breaks promises all the time." Then, the Trump administration came in and in fact did reverse that decision.
Now, we are in a situation where we are likely to have the first ever Native American Cabinet member in Deb Haaland, as Secretary of the Interior. How do you make sense of all of the different vectors of that discussion?
Eagle Heart:
Yeah. I think it really comes down to, like you said, promises being kept. There have been so many incredible changes that have happened because America woke up. So many of our people, our activists, our storytellers woke up and said, "You're right. We haven't been doing everything that we can. We're not as knowledgeable as we should have been. We do need to stand up for each other."
I really am so grateful to movement leaders within the Black Lives Matter movement and so many other movements, because after George Floyd, I know they were so intentional about saying, "Black and Indigenous," and I think because of them saying things like Black and Indigenous, we saw change happen on the mascots front. Right? We saw the R-word NFL team go away.
As somebody that has been fighting against stereotypes and discrimination since 16 years old, I can tell you, I was so excited to actually see some action, but we have a long way to go.
Chideya:
Tell me who you were at 16. You talk about standing up for yourself, standing up for your community at the age of 16. Who were you at 16?
Eagle Heart:
Oh my gosh. I'm an identical twin. My twin is Emma. She's a psychotherapist now. We were living on the tribal reservation of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in a little tribal community that was next to a white farming town. They had a ceremony, a homecoming ceremony. I put up my quotes. The mascot was the Warriors. The whole enactment, which was a homecoming drama, was five warrior princesses who were most of the time non-native. They dressed up as native women. The big chief, who was the homecoming king, and the medicine man, who, I don't know who he was, but he danced around the women. He chose one by looking in their mouth and their ears and weighing them.
Chideya:
Wow, that's a lot.
Eagle Heart:
I know. At 16, my twin sister and I were watching this, saying, "Oh my gosh, why is nobody doing anything? This is wrong." We just decided, we're going to protest. We had no idea what protest was or meant. We were just these young, two little young things, who it was like, "No, we got to change this."
We had to protest for four years before they finally ended it, but it took four years for that to happen. Of course, that really laid the groundwork, I think, for me in my life, just as a storyteller, an activist, an advocate, and also standing up for women.
Chideya:
Tell us a little bit more about your work with the Women's March after the election of Donald Trump.
Eagle Heart:
Four years ago, Women's March was just being birthed. There was so much that was happening. People were organizing. It was going to be the million women march on Washington. I was noticing, as I looked at the platform, as I looked at the committees, that there was no representation of Native Americans whatsoever on any committee or in the platform. I began asking questions.
Chideya:
Yeah.
Eagle Heart:
I began to talk to different leaders out there, Indigenous women leaders, and we were able to get in touch with Women's March leaders. They stood up, and they said, "You're right. We didn't include you." People like Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory and Bob Bland, they did step forward. They made space for us on the different committees, so we were able to support the unity principles and change them to include us.
It also showed where we really needed to step up. We decided to organize Indigenous Women's Rise. We had no idea that over a thousand women were going, native women, were going to gather to march in Washington, D.C.
Chideya:
One last question. If you have a chance to ask Vice President Kamala Harris a question or make a proposal to her for something you'd like to see happen, one single thing, what would it be?
Eagle Heart:
I guess I would ask Vice President Kamala Harris to continue to ensure that Indigenous women are not only represented but heard within the administration. That cultural rights and that climate justice and sacred sites are protected. As much as I support and voted for Kamala Harris, I also know there's, we have a long way to go, too.
Because so many tribes have not been happy with her voting record in California, and so I really, really, really hope and pray to see Indigenous rights, tribal rights, sovereignty, that all of that is upheld and expanded during their administration. Our people need true change right now that is meaningful and that is going to create new opportunities for our people, because we just can't keep doing the same back and forth dance that so many generations of presidents have done with our people.
Chideya:
Wow. That is an incredible exhortation, and we're going to leave it there. Sarah, thank you so much.
Eagle Heart:
Thank you so much, Farai.
Chideya:
That was Sarah Eagle Heart.
Each week I ask you to participate in the creation of our show by calling into the platform Speak. This month, in honor of the events at the White House, I want to know, if this was your first day in office, what would be your top priority and why? Leave us a message by calling 929-353-7006. That's 929-353-7006. Or go to Our Body Politic dot show and scroll down to find a Google Form to respond in writing. Don't forget, it's dot show.
Coming up next, Errin Haines and Jess Morales Rocketto lead our new weekly round table, Sippin' The Political Tea.
Haines:
For those of us who are politics reporters who are covering governing in Washington, we have a new administration to focus on. They spent the past four years covering the former president, and now they're going to be spending the next four covering the new President and Vice President. Trump is going to continue to be a part of the media ecosphere, but I do think that the era of us kind of covering him obsessively and relentlessly, in large part because he was the President of the United States, I think that that is probably a chapter that has closed.
Chideya:
The past couple of weeks in the U.S. have been one wild ride. Here to put it all in context, we've got the second installment of our new round table, Sippin' The Political Tea with Errin Haines, Editor At Large of The 19th, and Jess Morales Rocketto, Civic Engagement Director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance.
Haines:
I'm wondering from either of you, with the events that we've seen of the past week, was there a moment that struck you politically or otherwise, from this transition of power? Jess, what about you?
Morales Rocketto:
Okay, maybe this is frivolous, but I was here for JLo. I was here for her jewelry. I was here for the hair.
Haines:
Absolutely not frivolous. Not frivolous at all. I mean, I think most of the executive orders were under that ponytail, I'm pretty sure.
Morales Rocketto:
It was great. Then, her little Instagram photo shoot just lounging, prom-style with A-Rod on the Capitol steps. That is not what people are usually doing on the Capitol steps.
Haines:
It's what you would expect JLo to do at the Capitol. She and A-Rod are going to have a photo shoot, and then Benny Medina kind of just gratuitously in the shot. I was like, "Okay, this is amazing." Agree, that was a moment from this week that I will not soon forget. Farai, what about you?
Chideya:
Amanda Gorman, all day, every day. I love her so much. You know what strikes me, is there's bookends. You know, that the poet and philanthropist Elizabeth Alexander gave the poem at the first Obama Inauguration, and now you have another Black woman from a different generation, just as brilliant, giving this Inaugural poem. To me, that's a great bookend to the arc of history.
Haines:
I think that's absolutely right. Art matters. Poetry matters. In these types of moments, I think that that kind of thing can really capture the sweep of history, and I think that Amanda Gorman certainly did a beautiful job with that.
Chideya:
Absolutely.
Haines:
There were reportedly more troops in Washington, D.C. this week for the Inauguration than there were in U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria combined. Farai, you're staying in the D.C. area at the moment. I'm just wondering kind of what it feels like to you to have such heavy military presence. What was that like?
Chideya:
It was really fascinating. I have never seen Washington, D.C. locked down like this. It was a huge pain and a huge cost to the city. What I mean by that is that certain places of work were closed. A lot of people who had to go to work couldn't take the metro, because it was shut down. Many different stations. So the impact of the largely white-led domestic terrorism at the Capitol then ripples out to working class Black and brown people, and white people, who can't get to work, many of whom aren't going to get a paycheck if they don't get to work. Who work jobs that depend on shift work. I think that in addition to everything else, being a national security risk, violence, a COVID super-spreader event, the siege of the Capitol also took money out of pockets of working class people in the D.C. area. That said, I am so grateful that the presence prevented any further domestic terrorism on Inauguration Day, which was a distinct threat. I'm grateful.
Haines:
Yeah. Yeah, that is an interesting point that you make. Listen, you were super brave and pretty calculating about when you went out to the streets in the early hours of Inauguration Day. I'm wondering about kind of how you made the decision to go out, and what you learned when you were out there. Was there kind of a palpable shift in the mood of the city, kind of as you had that transition of power. Was there anything you noticed kind of about how the city felt kind of as the day went on?
Chideya:
You know, I decided to go out early in the morning because the Inauguration started at 10:30. And I figured if there was a risk of violence, would happen when people were entering the Inauguration. My goal was to get in and out of the city before 9:00 AM, which I did.
The thing is, there are people of every race who believe that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. Again, that's disinformation, but I talked to two Black young men who are entrepreneurs who came to sell shirts. Were very disappointed that the lockdown meant that they couldn't transact business, and were very thoughtful. I would describe them as effectively Black libertarians who believe in trickle-down economics. We don't have time to get into the nine and a half minutes of tape I got with them, but I wanted to play you a little bit of Cam.
Cam:
I don't support Trump as a person. I support his business ethics. Yeah, so the public doesn't want to hear the truth, so the truth is, he made a lot of money. Truth is, as a Black American, more of my Black brothers and sisters had jobs during Trump's presidency than ever. The truth is, we were making money. The truth is, I started my business during Trump's presidency. So I mean, it is what it is. People take what they want to take from things. I'm all about money.
Chideya:
That's what I love about field reporting, is that people are not stereotypes. If almost anyone of any race had seen these two brothers, they would not have said, "Black libertarian Trump supporters who believe the election was stolen." There was also a lot of heartfelt emotion. Some people came almost to tears as they were discussing their hopes and dreams and fears for the country. One of them was Kristal DeKleer.
Kristal DeKleer:
I do hope that more people can reach the American dream. My fear is that they can't. My fear is that we will continue to criminalize poverty, that we will continue to criminalize color, that we will continue to criminalize gender.
Chideya:
In the back, Kristal actually worked in the Obama administration. She's still working in Washington. And it was a windy day so the sound's a little choppy, but you can hear the emotion in her voice and you can hear the sirens in the background. And one other thing we talked about was that she was in her office in the extended Capitol area when the siege of the Capitol happened, and she said there were sirens for fifteen minutes and that it was really emotionally hard for her to be in that space. And so I'm looking at the questions of how people like Cam and Kristal occupy the same country and come to hopefully a reconciliation about how we can move forward together, despite ideological differences.
Jess Morales Rocketto:
In this new Biden administration, there are so many historic people who are the firsts. Of course, the Vice President herself, but also I'm thinking of Doctor Rachel Levine, who will be the first openly trans person appointed to a Senate-confirmed seat to be the Assistant Secretary of Health. Confirmation hearings started this week.
What can, you know, I'm an organizer, what can someone like me or just any American do to make sure that that continues to be true? That we remain on this trajectory?
Haines:
Well, I will say that in talking to organizers like you, what folks are telling me is that the battle for the soul of the nation, right, is still underway. Part of that is continuing to push for the things that you worked for in the election, now that the folks that a lot of you were able to get elected are governing. Right? Keeping diversity and diverse leadership as part of that agenda front and center is absolutely something I hear from organizers as a continued priority and something that they expect, now that they have done the work of registering and turning out and campaigning and getting folks into office that they want to focus on their priorities, and that is certainly one.
Morales Rocketto:
You know, Farai, in the weeks following the coup attempt, it's being revealed that off-duty police officers were part of the mob that stormed the Capitol building. A few days before the Inauguration, it was reported that 12 members of the National Guard were removed from Inauguration. What can we do about the infiltration of extremist ideologies in military and law enforcement?
Chideya:
In the Military Times a few years ago, they asked, "How many of you know someone who's a white supremacist in the military?" And I've talked to service members about it. The reality is, there has to be the opposite of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. There has to be an ask, and there has to be a tell. What makes things complicated is that, of course, the military runs on social cohesion, where you're supposed to be completely in sync with the members of your unit and the chain of command. If you are seeing active white supremacist ideology, that's a threat to the entire military and to the entire country.
Morales Rocketto:
Errin, I've been asking all the journalists in my life this, because I think you all have a big challenge ahead of you. Now that Trump's out, how do you cover a former president, head white supremacist, and his white supremacist allies moving forward?
Haines:
Well, I mean, look. Traditionally, the outgoing president kind of recedes into the background out of respect for his successor. I don't necessarily know that that is going to be the case with former President Trump now, because he does have a substantial following still and has flirted with the idea of running for president again in four years. So there is that. But look, for those of us who are politics reporters who are covering governing in Washington, we have a new administration to focus on. And I do think that that is going to be the focus of those kinds of folks. They spent the past four years covering the former president, and now they're going to be spending the next four covering the new president and vice president. So Trump is going to continue to be a part of the media ecosphere, but I do think that the era of us kind of covering him obsessively and relentlessly, in large part because he was the President of the United States, I think that that is probably a chapter that has closed.
Morales Rocketto:
Yeah, but he's not going away. Certainly the impact of his policies is still being felt, even though we've inaugurated President Biden. What do you think is the best course of action for kind of covering Trump's impact on this country, even when he's gone?
Haines:
Yeah, I would say that is a continued storyline for us. What is Trump's continued impact on this electorate, right? It's not just about what he does, but it is also about how voters are continuing to respond to him. It's also about how the Republican party is continuing to respond to him. And so I do think that it is on us to continue to report that out, and if Trump ends up being a foil to the Biden agenda, kind of what that dynamic looks like and ... how we can, the ways in which we can show that playing out.
Chideya:
Yeah, and I would put in a pitch for field reporting.
Haines:
Absolutely.
Chideya:
I mean, I'm someone who does a lot of different types of reporting, data driven reporting, historical analysis. But field reporting gives me life, and as many people have said, Trump is gone, but Trumpism isn't. And to know how alive and well Trumpism is, you have to leave Washington, D.C. and New York and you have to leave the major cities. You also have to disabuse yourself of the notion that Trumpism ... You want to understand how Trumpism is doing among a lot of different demographics, including people of color.
Haines:
Jess, I want to turn to you, because President Biden has promised this sweeping overhaul of America's immigration laws, which would include an eight-year path to citizenship for Dreamers. I'm wondering if you think that those proposals go far enough?
Morales Rocketto:
Yeah, I mean, it's so exciting. The fact that immigration's such a high priority of the Biden administration, not just the day one immigration bill that he's supposed to be moving in Congress, but also a bunch of executive orders that do really important things to reverse some of the worst abuses of the Trump administration. And this was on hour seven of him being the president, so, it is really, really exciting. We don't often get to win in the immigration rights movement, so I feel the need to be extremely celebratory in that regard. Some of these executive orders we've been fighting for almost four years, I was reflecting that I played a big role in planning the Muslim ban protest. I was really reflecting that, it's almost to the letter, four years ago, we were getting people to go out at airports. People were talking about them being spontaneous, and now here we are, the new president is signing an order that overturns one of the sort of big moments of the resistance to Trump in the last four years.
What a difference an election makes. What a difference a few years make, but I would say, there's more to do in these policies in that this is just about the introduction of a new U.S. immigration system. We're calling for a system that's fair and humane and functional, and that really is going to take passing legislation in Congress to see real changes. A huge thing that happened is in the wee hours of the first day, DHS agency issued a moratorium on deportations for 100 days, which is a truly historic ... That's never happened before. We have never done that. And there will be a 100 day review of the deportation policies. There is a lot of hope that at the end of that 100 days, there could be a real overhaul of ICE and CPB and potentially even a decision to continue to the moratorium on deportations, potentially indefinitely. That would really honestly be such a huge day in America. I'm trying to stay optimistic. It's a new administration. I'm a little bit skeptical, but trying to stay optimistic.
Haines:
Yeah. One of the four crises that President Biden and Vice President Harris said that they expected to inherit upon taking office is racial inequality, racial injustice, systemic racism. Right? Joe Biden said that he had a plan for Black America. Civil rights organizations, the leaders of those groups, have certainly pressed their agenda as this administration was coming into office.
I'm wondering what we can expect to see come out of that, especially for the people who brought him into office. We know that's largely Black voters, particularly Black women across the country that voted for him and Vice President Harris.
Chideya:
Yeah, I mean, the Biden plan for Black America talks about advancing economic mobility of African Americans, closing the racial wealth gap. That's going to require some deft maneuvering with the people who essentially pay for politics, for the most part, on certain levels, which is corporations. There are obviously a lot of individual political donors, but corporate donations to politics are huge. And the Democratic party takes a bunch of them, just like the Republican party. So I'm curious to see with this focus on economic equality, how much the Biden administration is willing to hold its own donors to task.
Haines:
Well, I think that that is a good note for us to end on. We covered a lot, you guys. A lot is already happening.
Chideya:
We sure did.
Haines:
A lot is, as this administration is taking shape, we are certainly off to a running start both in what they're doing and us trying to stay on top of it all. Thanks for keeping up with us all, and let's do it again next week.
Jess, thanks for hanging out again.
Morales Rocketto:
Thank you, this was so fun.
Haines:
Farai, you know it's always a pleasure.
Chideya:
I love it, Errin. Thank you.
Haines:
Until next week, everybody, stay safe and take care.
Chideya:
Thank you so much for joining us on Our Body Politic. We're on the air each week and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Our Body Politic is presented and syndicated by KCRW, KPCC, and KQED. It's produced by Lantigua Williams and Co. I'm the creator and host, Farai Chideya. Juleyka Lantigua Williams is executive producer. Paulina Velasco is senior producer. Cedric Wilson is lead producer and mixed this episode.
Original music by Kojin Tashiro. Our political booker is Mary Knowles. Priscilla Alabi is a producer. Michelle Baker and Emily Daly are assistant producers. Production assistants were Mark Betancourt, Michael Castañeda, Sarah McClure, Virginia Lora, and Kojin Tashiro.
Credits:
Funding for Our Body Politic is provided by Craig Newmark Philanthropies and by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, empowering world, changing work.
Chideya, Farai, host. “Maxine Waters on How the Democratic Party Moves Forward, Black and Indigenous Strategists Demand More from the Government, and the New Administration's Biggest Challenges.” Our Body Politic, Diaspora Farms LLC. January 22, 2021. https://our-body-politic.simplecast.com/