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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show in WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom filling in for Brian today. Mother's Day is this Sunday, and we'll be celebrating by talking to the cartoonist Liana Finck. She's got a sweet new book out called How to Baby, and moms, we're going to take your calls too on what surprised you most about early motherhood. Plus we'll explain how the trillions of cicadas emerging this year will affect the environment and answer your questions on this rare event. Have you ever wondered how apartments are considered affordable, especially when it seems like they're not? Well, we're going to dig into the metrics used and why they often seem out of whack with people's economic realities.

First, we're going to kick things off with some Friday morning politics straight from the nation's capital. The activity on the hill this week brought together some rather unlikely company in that failed effort to remove another house speaker. 359 house members voted to block a measure introduced by Georgia Congress member, Marjorie Taylor Greene, to oust Speaker Mike Johnson. There was an unusual coalition of members who voted to move it forward, including 10 of Greene's far-right allies and 32 Democrats.

We're going to talk about who voted with Greene, particularly from New York, and why they voted that way. Plus, the house held another hearing on anti-Semitism in schools, this time featuring the leaders of several public school systems from the bluest parts of the country, including New York City. There's a renewed effort to add a citizenship question to the US census. We're going to talk about who's behind that and what it could mean for a state like New York and more with Politico congressional reporter Nicholas Wu. Nicholas, thanks for joining us this morning.

Nicholas Wu: Thanks so much for having me.

Brigid Bergin: All right, let's start with that vote to vacate the speaker's chair. Can you help set up the tension here? What prompted representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to finally try this after many weeks of threatening it?

Nicholas Wu: Well, I think what happened here was the culmination of a long series of threats played out over weeks by Congressman Greene about ousting the speaker. It started with Speaker Johnson's bringing the foreign aid bill to the floor. It was very clear from the beginning, Congresswoman Greene did not have the votes for, but she put herself out pretty far on a limb threatening to do this for weeks, laying out a specific timeline and specific triggers, what would cause her to do it. That's what brought us to the vote this week. She couldn't back down from this threat, and so then it failed.

Brigid Bergin: That's right. It failed pretty spectacularly. I want to talk a little bit more with you about the scene on the floor during the vote. How much of a spectacle was it? I read that there were some boos and some chants. Tell us what it was like on the floor when the vote actually came up.

Nicholas Wu: In many ways, it was very anticlimactic. Since Congresswoman Greene went up to the floor, she got up and said that she was going to initiate the process to bring this motion to vacate. She was booed by both sides of the aisle. Then to very quickly get rid of it, House GOP leadership triggered this so-called motion to table, which basically sinks this motion to vacate before it even gets to a full vote. Then the house voted on that in a matter of minutes, and a very lopsided coalition of members on both sides of the aisle shot this down.

Brigid Bergin: I want to get into how the vote split. Listeners, I want to tee up a pulse check for you about how you feel about your own representative and whether that member voted in favor of keeping House Speaker Johnson in his seat, or whether that person supported his ouster. If you are represented by a Democrat and your member voted to save Johnson, we're going to get into the list of names in just a moment. I'm wondering what that means for you, and if your member is a Democrat or a Republican who voted to save Johnson, what do you hope can happen in Congress moving forward?

Give us a call at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text that number, or if you have another question for my guest, Politico reporter Nicholas Wu, give us a call again, 212-433-9692. As we've said, Johnson easily survived the ouster attempt, vast majority of Democrats joining Republicans to block the measure. There were some notable Democrats from New York who voted along with Greene and her allies. I'll note that Progressives including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamal Bowman, Nydia Velázquez, Yvette Clarke. Nicholas, what do you hear is their rationale for supporting this motion to oust Johnson?

Nicholas Wu: Democrats I talked to took pains to say that the vote they took was not necessarily a vote on Johnson himself. As a lot of them see it, this was a procedural move. None of them directly voted on Johnson. In effect, that's what was done here. This prevented the motion to vacate from moving forward. For a lot of progressives I talked to, there's a lot of angst about voting to make sure Mike Johnson could keep his job because he has a very conservative voting record. He has a record on LGBT rights and he was part of the legal efforts to overturn the election in 2020 that really render him not a national ally for Democrats.

This wasn't in any way any kind of coalition government forming or something like that. As many democrats I've talked to saw it, this was just a very one-off kind of vote. The votes were there to keep him. This gave a lot of folks like progressives space then to vote how they really felt about Mike Johnson.

Brigid Bergin: Yet on the other hand, we have someone like Pat Ryan from the Hudson Valley, decidedly more moderate, who also joined them in the vote. He's in one of those potential swing seats in upstate New York, I shouldn't say upstate, Hudson Valley to be more accurate. What do you think was the calculation for someone like him?

Nicholas Wu: For someone like Congressman Ryan who came into office making abortion rights such a large part of his campaign platform and his pitch to voters, it would seem likely that to vote to keep Mike Johnson, who has this very conservative record on abortion rights, would be very hard for someone like Congressman Ryan. Even though he's in a swing seat, he still has that very central tenet of his political identity.

Brigid Bergin: We have on the flip side of that, you've got these staunch Democrats joining with the Republicans to save Johnson, starting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, along with the rest of the delegation on both sides of the aisle. I want to play a little bit of what Jeffries said speaking to reporters after the vote.

Hakeem Jeffries: We are just interested in making sure that the House of Representatives can continue to work in a bipartisan manner, isolate the performance artists, the pro-Putin wing of the Republican Party, and the MAGA extremists so we can get things done for the American people.

Brigid Bergin: An argument that now Congress can function. Do you think now Congress can function?

Nicholas Wu: No, I don't think so. One thing that we've got to remember is even this week, the House canceled its remaining votes amid this standoff over the authorization for the FAA. The House left town early. It's not like things are working that much better than before. For Democrats, leading up to this point, they've really been able to get the big legislative items they've wanted across the finish line, whether it was with government funding or this foreign aid bill. They've been able to find someone that they can work with and live with in Mike Johnson.

As we heard the minority leader say, that's really where a lot of the vote to keep him this time came from. A lot of Democrats emphasize this would be a one-off sort of thing. It's not necessarily something that they would do every single time if Marjorie Taylor Greene or other conservative Republicans tried again to remove the speaker, as they've threatened to do.

Brigid Bergin: Do you see this backfiring for Democrats in any way?

Nicholas Wu: It remains to be seen exactly how this is going to play out down the line. The sense I got from a lot of lawmakers this week was that they were just so fed up with this whole process with Marjorie Taylor Greene in dragging out this motion to vacate, that they were more than happy to dispose of it this week before it got any further. Where it could cause problems down the line though, is if they have to do it again, since a lot of progressives really don't like Mike Johnson and his conservative politics, there's other democrats who have privately expressed concern about whether he would vote to certify a Democratic presidential victory next year if Republicans won the House and Democrats won the presidency.

There's a lot of angst among Democrats about that. We'll have to see what happens if Marjorie Taylor Greene or other Republicans bring this up again, but for now, it's very clear that they don't have the votes to try to get rid of Johnson. With the legislative calendar settling down and the lawmakers pivoting towards November, we might expect to see more of that on the campaign trail.

Brigid Bergin: If you're just joining us now, I'm Brigid Bergin in for Brian Lehrer today. I'm talking with Nicholas Wu, congressional reporter for Politico, about the many things that happened on the Hill this week. We're taking your calls, a little pulse check about how you're feeling about your congressional member right now. We're talking about it in the context of the potential vote to oust Speaker Johnson that was unsuccessful, but a lot of other things happened. We've gotten some text in. I'll read a couple of them.

A listener writes, "Hi, I'm in Dan Goldman's district and don't like his vote for keeping Johnson. Much like his refusal to call for a Gaza ceasefire, his position doesn't reflect my and my neighbor's views." Another listener writes, "Simply put, anything that thwarts the radical right is a good thing." Another listener writes, "The vote to table the motion was less about saving Speaker Johnson and more about stifling Marjorie Taylor Greene's outlandish behaviors in general, and the idea of vacating the speaker position on a whim." Nicholas, any reaction to some of those comments from our listeners so far?

Nicholas Wu: It's interesting to hear some voters say it doesn't necessarily reflect their views since-- There was certainly a lot of sentiment among Democrats this week that regardless of how they felt about keeping Johnson, I think within the building, lawmakers and staff were just so scarred by what happened last fall when the House went through nearly a month of chaos after Speaker McCarthy was ousted that there was just very little appetite to do that again.

For as much as people didn't like Mike Johnson, seeing how Republicans went through speaker candidate after speaker candidate that would fail on the floor last October with the House unable to do anything, especially in the aftermath of October 7th, really meant that there was very little appetite to go through that again. I think there's also the growing sense among members of Congress that Mike Johnson won't even be the Republican leader next year because he's seen as more unlikely to survive a Republican leadership election, especially now that he's stayed in power with the help of Democrats. For as much as they don't like the guy, there's the sense that they could just put up with him for now.

Brigid Bergin: It sounds like from your analysis, Johnson may be safe for now. How much did this hurt Marjorie Taylor Greene in terms of her brand and her ability to be a foil for the Republicans?

Nicholas Wu: Something that we saw play out on the floor. She got up to initiate this process and was booed by both sides of the aisle. Although there was a decent-sized contingent of Republicans who voted along with her to move this motion to vacate forward, that's still a minority of the House GOP conference. I think there's certainly some growing frustration among Republicans with her antics and the way she handled this.

Brigid Bergin: What was interesting is that some of Greene's most vocal Republican critics seem to be members from right here in New York. I want to play a clip of Congressman Mike Lawler that was just ahead of the vote.

Congressman Mike Lawler: As I said the day that she introduced it, it's idiotic, and it's not going to actually help advance the cause that she believes in. In fact, it undermines our House Republican majority.

Brigid Bergin: Then his statement on Twitter after the vote was even more scathing. He referred to her as Moscow Marjorie. Nicholas, just tease out a little bit more about what these fissures are within the Republican conference now.

Nicholas Wu: Lawler is a particularly interesting example because he's one of the Republicans who represents a district won by President Joe Biden. There's a lot of incentive for him to carve out a position in the political middle. For him, someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene is a very natural foil amid the chaos of this week. It was notable to see after the vote unfolded, Marjorie Taylor Greene was surrounded by a swarm of reporters trying to get her reaction to the vote, while at the same time, Lawler and other Republicans were on the steps of the Capitol as well, doing interviews with reporters, trash-talking her.

Congressman Lawler, who is someone who's been out front for quite some time about the matter, speaking out against these motions to vacate, whether it's with Kevin McCarthy or now with Mike Johnson. It's interesting. We'll have to wait and see how exactly this plays out on the campaign trail for him, whether this is something that helps him build a more moderate brand or not.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to Bob in Brooklyn. Bob, thanks for calling WNYC.

Bob: Thank you for taking the call. Long time, long time. I hate and love your show at the same time-

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Bob: -because every time I'm walking around the house trying to do stuff, something comes up and I have to stop and listen.

Brigid Bergin: We're sorry to be such a problem.

Bob: Oh, it's a delicious problem. Now, here's my thesis. America must be left to burn. Here's why. The one problem, well, basically the one main problem with Johnson is that he was an architect and participant in trying to overthrow a rightful election in America. It is intolerable that he be left second in line for the presidency. The Democrats made a deal with him to make sure that the country moves forward and we avoid disaster once again. However, that cannot be an ongoing permanent alliance. If the vote comes up by one of the crackpot caucus, again, in Republican land, then we have to let the vote go forward.

Our citizens have become far too comfortable in our luxury, and we have forgotten the responsibilities of citizenship. If those responsibilities as voters result in crackpots continuing to lead the country and set it a fire, then America must be left to burn.

Brigid Bergin: Bob, just one quick follow-up question. Who is your representative in Congress?

Bob: We had Major Owens, and then we had Yvette Clarke.

Brigid Bergin: Okay. Bob, your member is one of the members who did actually vote to let this move forward, which is interesting. Thank you so much for that call. Nicholas, any response to, as Bob put it, his thesis there?

Nicholas Wu: It's something that was really a question that I saw a lot of members of Congress wrestle over. This was, like our listener mentioned, that someone whose views a lot of Democrats find very deeply odious and potentially threatening to a future election, I guess he's footsteps away from the presidency. While at the same time, for Democrats in Congress, this was someone who they worked with and who in many ways they saw as actually a more trustworthy, or at least trustworthy for now, actor than former Speaker Kevin McCarthy ever was.

This was something that lawmakers really went back and forth a lot on, leading up to the vote. Although Democratic leadership made it very clear that they were going to-- as they were going to vote to keep Johnson themselves, they left it as a vote of conscience, so to speak, for a lot of members of Congress.

Brigid Bergin: That's so interesting. We're going to talk more about this vote and take more of your calls after a short break. I'm Brigid Bergin in for Brian Lehrer today. My guest is Nicholas Wu, congressional reporter for Politico. Much more to come just after this.

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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, in for Brian today, and I'm talking with Nicholas Wu, congressional reporter for Politico, about all the happenings on the Hill. Right now, we are talking about the failed ouster of House Speaker Mike Johnson. I want to go straight to another caller. Let's go to Andrew in Brooklyn. Andrew, thanks for calling.

Andrew: Oh, hi, Brigid. Hi, Nicholas. I think Bob stole a little bit of my thunder, but I'm still going to need it explained to me what Democrats get out of this. They have just voted, in the eyes of me and people like Bob, for anti-abortion, Trump nut job who might not certify the election. Marjorie Taylor Greene can't deliver anything to the Republicans except the Trump voters who can't vote twice yet until we reelect Trump, and he allows that to happen. I guess taking Bob's theory of burning the whole country, the system down, but keeping it more a little bit real, for expediency purposes, what was the political gain for Democrats and not letting this descend into chaos again like the McCarthy spectacle and making the Republicans look absolutely ridiculous?

Brigid Bergin: Andrew, thanks for your questions. Nicholas, I'll let you have first crack and then I've got a couple listeners who offered some texts that give some thoughts on that as well.

Nicholas Wu: This was a really interesting question, and it's something that, watching Congress, I saw play out over the last few months as Democratic leadership tried to figure out where to land on this. What they settled on was basically the idea that by voting to prevent chaos in the House and preventing another [unintelligible 00:21:16] speaker of the House, that Democrats could look like the adults in the room. This has been something that's been part of House Democrats' messaging all year, that they are the responsible party, that it's with Democratic votes that big ticket legislative items are getting done.

That was where they saw political gain happening. While at the same time, Democrats have been more than happy to leave Republicans out to dry on lower stakes, procedural votes. On most pieces of House legislation, there's a vote on a so-called rule. It's a big procedural step before you bring a bill to the floor. Democrats have almost always throughout this session voted against the rule and that's led to bills failing at times because they can't get passed, Republicans can't get past that procedural step without Democratic help.

We'll see how this plays out on the campaign trail, whether voters actually care if their member of Congress, whether they're a Democrat or Republican, appears to be the more responsible party or if general apathy about Congress will win the day.

Brigid Bergin: Nicholas, I'll share a couple of texts we've got from listeners that underscore some of your points. One listener wrote, "Johnson advanced the Ukraine spending even though a majority of his conference didn't support it. That's called compromise, so he deserves to keep his job for now." Another listener wrote, "They had to keep Johnson. He gave them what they wanted. You can't have it both ways."

A little bit more to your point about how the Democrats were supporting him because of some of his support for initiatives that mattered to them. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about the latest hearing on anti-Semitism held earlier this week. It was the third hearing held by the Republican-led committee where school leaders were asked to testify about not doing enough at their institutions to address anti-Semitism in the wake of the October 7th Hamas militant attacks in Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza.

We've seen several university presidents go before this committee and really stumble under questioning, but this time it was leaders of public school systems, including New York City Schools chancellor, David Banks. Here's a little bit of his testimony.

David Banks: We really care about solving for anti-Semitism, and I believe this deeply. It's not about having got your moments, it's about teaching. You have to raise the consciousness of young people. The challenge we have as a system is that we do have some adults who bring their own bias into the classroom, and we've got to figure out how do we unpack all of it at the same time, but the ultimate answer for anti-Semitism is to teach, to expose young people to the Jewish community so that they understand our common humanity.

I would certainly ask that my colleagues from across the nation, and I would call on Congress, quite frankly, to put the call out to action, to bring us together to talk about how we solve for this. This convening for too many people across America in education feels like the ultimate got you moment. It doesn't sound like people who are actually trying to solve for something that I believe we should be doing everything we can to solve for.

Brigid Bergin: Just a note, that Chancellor Banks will be a guest on the show next Thursday, so be sure to tune in for that, but Nicholas, how different was the tone of this hearing compared to what we've seen before? That testimony there from Chancellor Banks was pretty fiery.

Nicholas Wu: Well, the testimony we just heard from Chancellor Banks sums up the more combative tone of that hearing and the more artful answers to cultural war questions that had really tripped up some of the college presidents who had come before him. It really marked a difference in tone from some of the previous hearings with school officials where folks were on the defensive. It led to the resignation of a college president, whereas these officials had the luxury of time and seeing how things went with some of the previous testimony to prepare and rehearse, and that is exactly what we saw this week.

Brigid Bergin: I'm curious why these particular panelists seem to be able to navigate this hearing, this testimony a little bit more effectively than some of their university counterparts. Certainly these are people who are used to being in school board meetings and other settings where they are getting hit with a lot of questions from parents and teachers on a regular basis, so maybe that was some good practice, but I'm also curious because I think as I understand it, the way the hearing was conducted was slightly different. Can you talk about some of the players who were there and players who were not?

Nicholas Wu: This was a slightly smaller setting than some of the other hearings because this was a subcommittee of the House Education and of Workforce committee, not the full committee where you had some of the more fiery moments in the past with people like Congressman Elise Stefanik who had offered very pointed questioning of college presidents. That was not as much of a factor this time because it was a smaller panel that had called these officials to testify. It was a smaller room, which often has an effect in these congressional hearings.

In many ways, these were somewhat lower profile figures than earlier on when there was public scrutiny on university campuses and the issue of anti-Semitism. That played a factor, and for that matter, I think with the officials that came and testified this week, they certainly had the experience of seeing what had happened and how previous university administrators had been tripped up by the questioning to prepare.

Brigid Bergin: Sure.

Nicholas Wu: One of the issues that had really confronted the university administrators who testified was that they offered answers that while were perhaps legally sound, did not necessarily hold up as well in what we might call the court of public opinion. Whereas folks like Mr. Banks gave answers that were very clearly meant for more public consumption as opposed to a more deeply legalistic answer.

Brigid Bergin: That's interesting. There was a lot going on in the Hill, as there always is, but also this week, House Republicans passed a bill that would add a citizenship question to the census. This is not an entirely new issue, of course, but why is this something gaining new support?

Nicholas Wu: Well, this week it came as House Republicans and other Republicans are looking at finding ways in some respects to re-litigate the issues of the 2020 election and longstanding Republican fears about non-citizen voting and the way voters are counted. The bill that passed this week would potentially add a citizenship question to the census as part of-- there's a broader philosophical debate between both parties about who exactly is counted when you apportion legislative districts.

Do you count everyone who lives there or do you count non-citizens as part of that? Republicans are trying to figure out how many non-citizens are living in any given district, and then potentially subtract them from these important citizenship counts.

Brigid Bergin: Just to be clear, the way we conduct this census right now under the 14th Amendment, it requires the census to count all "whole persons in a state." That would include everyone who lives there, whether you're a citizen or not, you could be someone who's not here legally, you could be here with a green card or work permit for many other legal reasons, but still not be a citizen. This legislation would change it how? What would be the impact of this question?

Nicholas Wu: The potential impact of the question would be to find a way to tally the non-citizens in every single district, which is something that's not currently done because the census does not include a citizenship question, and then subtract those folks from the overall tally in the district. This could have a large effect on the way a lot of communities of color are potentially counted, and for how cities in particular could be impacted by the Census count.

This is legislation that's very likely going nowhere in this Congress because Democrats oppose it. Democrats still control the Senate, and the President would likely veto it if it ever got to that level, but it still speaks to this philosophical debate, and an issue that Republicans are very much trying to keep alive.

Brigid Bergin: As you mentioned, this doesn't feel like it has a ton of legs going forward. It won't pass the Senate. Democrats voted unanimously against the legislation in the House, but House Republicans voted unanimously to pass it. Since they're in the majority, it will move to the Senate. It's so interesting that this, as you said, could have huge changes to congressional maps particularly not just-- We think of it, where are some of the largest populations of people with large immigrant communities? A state like New York, a state like Texas, a state like California. New York is already expected to lose another congressional seat. This could mean it could, if it were to be passed, potentially lose more. Do you think it's surprising that all New York Republicans voted in favor of this since it risks potential seats here in the state?

Nicholas Wu: For me, it's not surprising to see that vote because Republicans have tried to make immigration and fears around it such a large part of their campaign messaging this year. Speaker Johnson held an event on the federal steps this week to talk about immigration and raise the issue of non-citizen voting, something that there's not a lot of evidence for. For that matter, this is something that has long been an issue Republicans have tried to press in Congress.

It's not something that's going anywhere, but for folks like the New York Republican members of Congress, the incentive for them is to vote for something like this, because of the way immigration is a major motivating factor for their party. Besides, this was something that was not going to become law very likely anyway. They were able to vote for it.

Brigid Bergin: Looking ahead a little bit, what is on your radar for next week and beyond?

Nicholas Wu: Well, next week, when the House comes back, I'm watching to see what the fallout is from this motion to vacate the vote. Now that Congress has time, will have some time to go back to their districts and hear from constituents. Is this something that becomes more of a settled issue throughout the rest of the year, where Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republicans won't try to do it again, or will those who voted to keep Johnson, both Republicans and Democrats, face a substantial backlash for it? That remains to be seen.

Brigid Bergin: All right. Well, we are going to have to leave it there for now with Nicholas Wu, congressional reporter for Politico. Nicholas, thank you so much for joining us.

Nicholas Wu: Thank you so much for having me.

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