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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC, good Friday morning, everyone. Here, to me, was the one minute heart of President Biden's first prime-time address as President last night. If Donald Trump famously said, "I alone can fix it," about everything, Joe Biden said he's doing what he can to end the pandemic, but--

President Joe Biden: -but I need you, the American people, I need you. I need every American to do their part. This is not hyperbole, I need you. I need you to get vaccinated when it's your turn and when you can find an opportunity and to help your family, your friends, your neighbors get vaccinated as well. Here's the point, if we do all this, if we do our part, if we do this together by July the 4th, there's a good chance you, your families and friends will be able to get together in your backyard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout and a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day. 

That doesn't mean large events, with lots of people together, but it does mean small groups will be able to get together after this long, hard year, that will make this Independence Day, something truly special. Where we not only mark our independence as a nation, but we begin to mark our independence from this virus.

Brian Lehrer: President Biden last night. With me now, we're very happy to have NPR white house correspondent Ayesha Roscoe, Hey, Ayesha I know you're busy and you did Morning Edition today so thanks for doing this and welcome back to WNYC.

Ayesha Rascoe: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: There's so much we can talk about just in those 60 seconds. I thought of those World War II era Uncle Sam posters that said, "I want you for the war effort," Biden said, "I need you." He said it twice, the American people to get us out of the pandemic. Again, the contrast with Trump's, "I alone can fix it." Why do you think he chose to appeal to the public with those words, and with that plaintive tone of voice?

Ayesha Rascoe: That has been President Biden's style from the campaign on. He ran on this message of bringing the country together of, he's not the president of just Democrats, but he is the president for all Americans and this idea that Americans are all in it together. He also said never bet against America. In that way, it was an optimistic speech, but also saying, look, people are going to have to do their part for this to work and he talked about it like a wartime effort.

Everyone is going to have to join together to do what needs to be done, whether it's following health officials, helping other people get vaccinated, getting vaccinated themselves, but everyone has to work in this quote, unquote, "wartime effort" to defeat this enemy, which is the virus.

Brian Lehrer: He invoked Independence Day there the 4th of July, as when maybe family gatherings like in the olden days of 2019, could return. Didn't he used to say by Christmas?

Ayesha Rascoe: He did. This was a more ambitious timeline. The White House, they have been very careful not to over promise. It seems like in many ways, they've tried to under promise and over deliver and they were telling people that, "Yes, it could be maybe around Christmas, you could get together," but it seems like now because at the rate of the vaccination--

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Brian Lehrer: [unintelligible 00:04:06]

Ayesha Rascoe: -not large gatherings, but there could be some small gatherings.

Brian Lehrer: I want to play another clip of Biden as empathizer in chief. Again, such a contrast with his predecessor in tone as well as substance as he grieved with the public for all our lost loved ones and also for all the time people have had to spend isolated from one another.

President Joe Biden: For we are fundamentally a people who want to be with others, to talk, to laugh, to hug, to hold one another, but this virus has kept us apart and grandparents haven't seen their children or grandchildren. Parents haven't seen their kids. Kids haven't seen their friends. The things we used to do that always filled us with joy, have become things we couldn't do, and broke our hearts.

Brian Lehrer: Now, Ayesha, in the special coverage of the speech that I was hosting last night, one of my guests, Susan Page from USA Today said it was like an FDR fireside chat. You know, more and more I hear people likening Biden to FDR and LBJ, both in tone in the case of FDR, and frankly, in his economics, in the case of both. What kind of President is Joe Biden turning out to be after 51 days in office?

Ayesha Rascoe: Well, President Biden definitely looks up to FDR, I think that's the way that he is trying to model himself. He wants to be that leader during this crisis, bringing calm to America, but also bringing them the truth, the hard truth at times. He keeps saying, "I'm going to level with you, I'm going to give it to you straight, this is not going to be easy." It seems like he's been that type of leader. He's also been someone who was willing to stand his ground on getting this massive package out.

Now, there were compromises and obviously, they had to compromise on the $15 minimum wage that got pulled out. There were compromises on expanding unemployment, but overall, you have a $1.9 trillion, massive bill with all sorts of child tax, increasing the child tax credit, more subsidies for Obamacare, all of these things. He has been someone who has been willing to move ahead with a very big spending bill without Republican support, because they argue that that's what's necessary right now and that the problem would be going too small and not going too big.

Brian Lehrer: To the point, Ayesha, what Biden didn't do very much last night, that frankly, I thought he would was emphasize the $1.9 trillion corona virus relief bill that he had just signed yesterday afternoon. I thought he was setting himself up by signing it a day earlier than predicted to make a big thing about it in the speech and use the signing to pivot to a longer term message about economic inequality in this

country, but he didn't do that. Why do you think he downplayed the relief bill?

Ayesha Rascoe: Well, I think that they have a plan in place to celebrate it today and the big thing is, that they plan to go on the road next week. They're going to be traveling all over the country, President Biden, the First Lady, Vice President Harris, and the second gentlemen, they will all be traveling across the country to different states to really sell this aid package.

They make the case, they argue that they feel like in 2009, when the stimulus package was passed under then President Obama that Obama didn't really take a victory lap. He did promote it I was around back then. It was definitely promoted, but they seem to have taken from what happened in 2009, that there was not a big enough push on that and how it helped people. They want to, in their view, fix that with this bill and make sure that they're going around the country and really selling it and that Biden will be selling it. They're making that point.

Brian Lehrer: That's so interesting. If he and Vice President Harris are going on tour to sell a bill that already passed. Here's one more clip from last night that I wonder if it relates to that, where he talks about unity as he often does. Tell me here if you think part of this is a swipe, not just at Trump for the past, but at Texas may be in other states lifting all mask and capacity rules, but in Biden's gentle way. Listen.

President Joe Biden: Too often, we've turned against one another, a mask, the easiest thing to do to save lives, sometimes it divides us, states pitted against one another, instead of working with each other. Vicious hate crimes against Asian Americans who've been attacked, harassed, blamed and scapegoated.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think he was getting at there?

Ayesha Rascoe: Well, he didn't say this-

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-used as president he called the lifting of the mask mandates in Texas Neanderthal thinking. He clearly feels like this is not the time to let up on the health precautions and the things that people are doing. That this is the time to lean in and not to let up. He has said that in the past, and I think that's what he was getting at.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have the itinerary app for this road trip? I'm curious what states or cities, he and the vice president are going to.

Ayesha Rascoe: The President is going to Pennsylvania on Tuesday, I believe, and then on Friday, he'll be in Georgia. He and the vice president will be in Georgia that now purple-ish state and the First Lady and others will be traveling to other states. It's interesting right now, where they're choosing to go and to get their message out.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Well, the ultimate swing states, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, these days, obvious choices. I was curious if he would venture any further into red territory, as he's trying to build unity, but it sounds like as far as you know so far, not.

Ayesha Rascoe: Not right now, but they have said that they will travel to red states. It will be interesting to see how far President Biden wants to go because he has made this case that he's not the president of blue states. He's for every blue states, red states, he doesn't care. He's tried to draw this difference between him and former President Trump, that he doesn't care whether a state voted for him or not. It will be interesting to see if he'll really try to take his message to those states that haven't had as much support for the President.

Brian Lehrer: We have a few minutes left with NPR, White House correspondent, Ayesha Rascoe. There was a New York Times article the other day, not even an opinion column, but a news article with the headline "After Stimulus Victory in Senate, Reality Sinks in, Bipartisanship is Dead," but not everyone thinks that way. What is your reporting tell you if anything about that?

Ayesha Rascoe: Well, it seems like what the White House is trying to do is to redefine what bipartisanship is. They argue that bipartisanship isn't necessarily getting a whole bunch of Republican and democratic votes, but it's having the majority of the country, Republicans and Democrats, so the public, not lawmakers who support a policy. They argue that the relief bill is bipartisan, because when you poll and you talk to the public, the majority of the public, even when it looks is supportive of it, and even a great deal of Republicans are so supportive of it, even if the lawmakers didn't vote for it.

It seems like they're trying to say that what matters is broad public support, not necessarily broad support just in Congress, where there are other things at play.

Now obviously, Republicans aren't buying that. They're saying that they want to be reached out to more, that this was unfair, that they were really shut out of the process, but that's the argument that the White House is making.

Brian Lehrer: Now, the COVID relief bill didn't require Republican support, because technically it was a budget bill, and that's exempt from the filibuster. That's not true. However, as you know of course, for most of his agenda, to fight climate change and racial injustice and economic inequality and get comprehensive immigration reform, and more is the next big thing inevitably going to be a stark choice for the Democrats on whether to abolish the filibuster, something Biden has said he doesn't want to do.

Ayesha Rascoe: It is inevitable that it will come up. Right now when you have Senator Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia saying he does not support that. It seems difficult that they would be able to remove the filibuster, but Manchin has signaled that he would be open to making the filibuster more difficult to carry out, to basically making it tougher for Republicans or whoever the minority party is to use the filibuster.

Those sorts of discussions are going to come up because as you said, the other parts of the agenda, particularly voting rights, all of these other things, they are going to run up against a wall that is the need for 60 votes in the Senate. There's a question of how long you allow that to go on if you really cannot get any Republican votes to really compromise on these issues.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing, how do they make the filibuster harder potentially? I've heard requiring senators to actually keep talking in the old-fashioned filibuster style. Eventually, they might wear themselves out, and they'll have to allow a regular vote instead of a 60 vote margin requirement. Is that all it is?

Ayesha Rascoe: That's the sort of thing that they're talking about, requiring them to have the 40 votes there, to have the people there to block a vote, having them stay there, having them talk to bring that back. As you said, where you would actually have to talk and keep going and keep the marathon going if that's what you want to do. Just different ways to make it harder for you to carry out a filibuster, so it would take more effort than it takes right now. The idea is that the minority party would have to be more strategic than they are right now.

Brian Lehrer: NPR, White House correspondent, Ayesha Rascoe, very informative as always. Keep up the great work down there, and thanks for coming on with us today.

Ayesha Rascoe: Thank you.

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