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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. As we come to the end of the week and day three since the State of the Union address, we're probably seeing an example of how you don't need everyone to watch the State of the Union for it to drive national politics. Did you see that the TV rating services say only 27 million Americans watched President Biden's speech on Tuesday night compared to 38 million last year?

Anyone who follows the news at all in professional media or social media probably can't help but have heard by now how President Biden picked a fight with the Republicans over Social Security and Medicare that he has now taken on the road to campaign-style appearances in Wisconsin and Florida. Here, one more time is 20 seconds of the president raising the issue in the speech on Tuesday night. Then we'll play a piece of evidence that he's now using from a clip of Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee. Here's the president with Republicans reacting.

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President Biden: Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security sunset. I'm not saying it's a majority. Anybody who doubts it, contact my office. I'll give you a copy of the proposal.

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We'll read a line or two from the copy from the proposal that he was referring to that's in writing that all the Senate Republican candidates were supposed to run on last year. Notice the president was careful in his language there saying some of you, not most of you Republicans. Afterwards, Utah Senator Mike Lee was among those accusing Biden of mischaracterizing Republican views on the issue nonetheless. Here is Lee from one of his own past appearances.

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Senator Lee: I'm here right now to tell you one thing that you probably haven't ever heard from a politician. It will be my objective to phase out Social Security lies, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of [inaudible 00:02:22] People who advise me politically always tell me that's dangerous, and I tell them in that case, it's not worth my running. That's why I'm doing this, to get rid of that. Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort and need to be pulled up.

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Can't get any clearer than that. Right? Let's talk about all this and some other posts, State of the Union politics too with the Washington Post, White House Bureau Chief Toluse Olorunnipa. He is also co-author of the book called, His Name is George Floyd. We'll talk about the police accountability part of the State of the Union too. Toluse, thanks for some time, and what is still a busy week for you, obviously, covering the president. Welcome to WNYC today.

Toluse Olorunnipa: Thanks so much, Brian. It's great to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: The president spoke for over an hour about many issues Tuesday night, very much emphasizing the economy if you break it down minute by minute. This is what has broken out as a centerpiece of conversation ever since. Does it seem like this is the way Biden planned it?

Toluse Olorunnipa: If you look at the speech, we actually got a copy of the speech before he gave the speech. We knew that he was going to spend some time talking about Medicare and Social Security, and this was going to be one of the parts of the speech that was not going to be just about bipartisanship. It was going to be drawing a clear contrast between what he wanted and what his administration wants to do with those programs and what some Republicans are proposing.

We knew it would be aligned that would get under the skin of some Republicans. I don't think the White House would have been able to predict how much of a response it would trigger and how much of a back-and-forth would ensue. If you look at the text of the speech, the line in there calling for Republicans and Democrats to stand up together for seniors, that was already in there. I think the White House anticipated that this would be one area to put Republicans on the spot and let them have to make a public declaration of support for a popular program in Social Security and in Medicare.

The White House knew that this was one area that they were going to try to press their advantage because the president's policies on these two programs are more popular than some of the Republicans' policies of sunsetting these programs or raising the retirement age or making it harder for people to qualify for these programs that many Americans work for, for decades.

I do think the White House was aware that this was going to be a key moment of the speech, but I don't think anyone would've predicted the kind of response that they got from Republicans and the kind of back and forth that happened when President Biden put the Congress on alert and told them to stand up for seniors and essentially say that this issue has been resolved with his public commitment to not cut Medicare or Social Security

Brian Lehrer: That Mike Lee clip, it's pretty direct about phasing out these programs that, historically many Republicans have never been so fond of, but maybe have felt obliged to go along with for decades now because they became so popular. Do you know why Mike Lee took that position?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Well, a lot of Republicans took a position especially in the Tea Party in pre-Trump era, essentially, that we needed to reduce the debt, reduce the deficits, try to get government spending under control. Some of the biggest sources of government spending are these programs, things like Social Security and Medicare take up large chunks of the federal budget, and so, for a lot of these Republicans who came in on the Tea Party wave and described themselves as fiscal conservatives, they realized that if you're going to get government spending down, you're going to have to focus on some of these high expense programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.

When Trump came along, he cared a little bit less about physical conservatism and tried to reduce the debt. Actually, the debt increased pretty significantly during his watch and so, a lot of these Republicans have these clips of them before Trump essentially saying, we need to reduce spending, we need to take on these programs and we need to be more fiscally conservative. This was during President Obama's administration.

A lot of these Republicans have had to shift their positions and figure out how to navigate the current political environment in which under Trump, Republicans didn't care too much about deficits and debt and allow the deficits to go up. Now that another Democrat is in office, they're trying to figure out how to navigate these key programs which Trump has been warning Republicans, "Don't try to cut these programs. I'm running for president again. We should not be doing this because it's not politically popular." A lot of these Republicans are in a tough position trying to figure out whether they'll pass position or their current position is the one they should be sticking with.

Brian Lehrer: Biden didn't announce a reelection campaign in the State of the Union, but he's made some campaign-style appearances since then in Wisconsin and Florida. Trump won Florida by around three points, I think, and it's been trending red. DeSantis won reelection easily as governor last year. Do Democrats think they can make Florida a genuine swing state again in presidential elections?

Toluse Olorunnipa: They're saying they're going to give it their best shot. They haven't quite fully given up on Florida, but I don't expect it to be one of the main battlegrounds in 2024 at the presidential level. We've just seen too much erosion among the Democratic Party in Florida where they don't even have any statewide office in Florida at this point, and two presidential elections in row 2016 and 2020 Republicans won that state by a pretty comfortable margin.

Now, President Obama did win Florida in 2008 and 2012, so there is a history there of Democrats being able to put together a coalition, but it's an expensive state. It's a very large state, and Democrats are going to rank a number of other states like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, above Florida in terms of their priorities in trying to win the Presidential in 2024.

Florida's a big state, it accounts for 29 electoral votes, so I wouldn't expect Democrats to just completely give up on it, but it's just moved way down the list in terms of their priorities because it does seem to be trending away from Democrats and into the column of Republicans.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about the Rick Scott factor in this regard. Let me point out to our listeners that you covered Florida for five years for the Miami Herald if I've got your bio right. Rick Scott, former governor and now Republican senator from Florida, he's up for reelection next year too. He led the National Republican campaign to win Senate seats last year, which resulted in a loss of one seat, not a red wave.

In his blueprint for other Republicans to run on, he had that line that Biden is keying on. I'll read it, "All federal sunsets in five years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again". Why are Democrats saying that's uniquely a threat to Social security and Medicare?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Well, Social Security and Medicare are both programs that were put into place by legislation. If you have a sunset that comes into place for all federal legislation, that means that whenever that sunset comes up, those programs could be on the chopping block. We have seen other programs fall by the wayside when they haven't been renewed, things like the assault weapons ban, which was in place for 10 years, but it had a sunset.

When that 10-year mark came, Congress couldn't get it sacked together to try to renew it, and it lapsed, and we have never seen an assault weapons ban passed again. People are worried that if you were to put that kind of policy in place for even popular programs like social security and Medicare, Congress is such a dysfunctional place that we may not be able to get the two parties together to figure out what to do to make sure that those programs keep going.

It's a bit of a pipe dream that this sunset would actually come into place because I think both sides realize that it's too far-fetched and it would be very unpopular for people to not know whether they'd be able to have social security and Medicare five years from now, people who are in their 50s, people who are just approaching 60, who are worried about those programs being there for them when they retire.

I don't think that there's any realistic shot that this kind of sunset would be put in place, but it makes for good political arguing and good political positioning that Democrats want to be able to point out that this is what some Republicans want to do, that they want to put these very popular programs on the chopping block so that people in twilight of their careers who are looking at retirement would have to worry about whether or not they'd have a safety net for them.

I don't expect this will be the last we hear of this program. I think that'd be a lot much more discussion about these kinds of policies than actual movement in Congress, but it is part of where we are in our politics that these kinds of ideas have some political benefit and political risks for both sides of the aisle.

Brian Lehrer: Sunsetting would be different than passing changes to Medicare and social security to keep them solvent, like delaying the eligibility age or having higher income people pay social security taxes on their higher income amounts, which would be a change, or encouraging enrollment in Medicare Advantage, private insurance plan. Those are all conversations that the two parties have been having, and in some cases, actually doing.

Making the program subject to basic renewal every five years is fundamentally different from that, and fundamentally different to the relationship to other laws because social security and Medicare are in the law now as permanent programs. For Congress to have to reauthorize them every five years subject to the politics of that moment would be a really big change compared to many other laws on the books, right?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Yes, it would be a huge change. That's part of the reason this is theoretical in nature of this argument that Republicans and Democrats are having. Democrats will say that all these various other things that you mentioned, these different potential policy changes for these programs, would be how Republicans would be using this sunset as leverage. If we know the program's going to go away in five years, if we don't reauthorize it, let's do what we're doing right now with the debt ceiling and say, in order to reauthorize these programs, we have to make them more solvent.

We have to raise the retirement age or reduce benefits or Republicans wouldn't probably not want to increase those social security taxes, but Democrats may put that on the table.

That's part of the theoretical battle that's going on with Republicans and Democrats saying if you have a program sunset, then all of a sudden it becomes this bargaining chip where it must pass legislation, but it's an area where the two parties think they can get leverage or extract concessions from their opponents.

Those sacred programs that people have relied on for a long time would be subject to change every five years when the renewal comes up. This is all a theoretical discussion, but it's very real in terms of the kinds of politics that are happening around these popular programs.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we're going to open the phones. I wonder if we have anybody listening in Florida right now who might want to weigh in on any of this from a Florida perspective. The President did a campaign-style appearance in Tampa yesterday, and Senator Rick Scott is up for reelection next year. He's obviously in the crosshairs of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee with President Biden out in front pointing to what Senator Scott put in that Republican Senatorial campaign blueprint last year.

Anybody listening in Florida right now, who has any impression of whether this is landing one way or another? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or anyone else on the whole social security and Medicare issue. We'll also get into the George Floyd Act language from President Biden in the State of the Union and Republican reactions to that. You can raise that too.

212-433-WNYC, and you don't have to be in Florida, but you can, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLeher for Toluse Olorunnipa, who's the White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post.

Before we get off social security, there is also a history here worth mentioning. The news organization, The Hill, has a piece on this, which included this. When President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, 33% of Republicans voted against it. On the Medicare vote in the 1960s when that was created, it says about 50% of House Republicans and 57% of Senate Republicans voted against it. That was even creating Medicare at all.

In contrast, it says the percentage of Democrats voting against Medicare was just 17% in the House, and 11% in the Senate. They remind us that, for example, Bob Dole, who went on to be the Republican nominee for President in 1996, was one of those no votes on the creation of Medicare. Ronald Reagan said it would lead us to socialism. The history doesn't make this seem necessarily fringe or crazy to worry what Republicans would do with those programs, right?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Yes. The long history of before a program gets entrenched into the American society, you have this political debate over it. It can be seen as an entitlement or as bringing the government further into people's lives or making people more dependent on government.

Once these programs get going, we've seen it with things like Obamacare, definitely with social security and Medicare, once they become entrenched into our society and people come to rely on these programs, to expect them to pay into them over the course of several decades, then it becomes much harder to have these political arguments, philosophical arguments over whether government is doing too much by providing a safety net for seniors, providing social security. I believe if we were to have those votes today, you wouldn't see a majority of Republicans voting against popular things like Medicare and social security.

Now they're forced to talk about how expensive the government has become, how bloated the government has become, and try to figure out ways to change the programs or reorient them or change eligibility. In terms of social security and Medicare being part of our society and part of the American worker experience for the foreseeable future, that's where we are now. Even though a lot of Republicans philosophically would be opposed to the idea of the government providing a safety net for people who are older and spending so much money to do so, the programs passed. They have been implemented. People have come to like them, people who have come to expect them.

Now it becomes a much more difficult debate for Republicans who want to stick to their "conservative principles" while also realizing that these major programs are expected by the American people, and they've been in place for such a long time that there's not too much you can do to put the toothpaste back into the tube at this point. That's why we have these debates. That's why President Biden feels so strongly about the political advantage of talking about these programs, because they are popular, people have come to expect them. Republicans from the very beginning have not been in favor of these kinds of programs.

Now Republicans have to figure out how to marry their philosophy about smaller government, less spending with the fact that their constituents and Americans are at large, like these programs, expect these programs, have paid into these programs, and expect that when they retire or when they reach the eligibility age, they will have these safety net programs. It's become a political football, but it's also something that democrats feel much more strongly is to their advantage because they have always been for these kinds of programs and they continue to support them into the future.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call, and we do have a call coming in from Orlando. Sarah in Orlando, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sarah.

Sarah: Hi. Great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Great to have you.

Sarah: I was just calling in because I heard you ask for people from Florida and I am a Florida Democrat in a relatively blue area. I would say, despite my optimism with politics in general, I don't have a ton of hope for us in terms of the overall momentum in the state toward flipping any of the seats blue. The last election was my first in Florida and it was a little disheartening, and so wanted to share that perspective from someone on the inside.

Brian Lehrer: All right, Sarah, thank you very much. Toluse, as a former Miami Herald reporter, do you have any early sense of whether this is landing in Florida in the way that Biden hopes it is? He did campaign in Tampa yesterday, you could tell me why Florida is such a hopeless state for the Democrats, which presumably if Ron DeSantis is the Republican nominee, it would probably be pretty hopeless in a presidential election, or if it's landing and tainting Rick Scott at all in any purple voters' minds in the Sunshine State? Is it too early to even have an observation on any of this?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Well, I am also a Floridian. I know that state politics can be very hard to predict and very strange at times. I would be hesitant to say, one way or the other, whether Florida is off the table, but the kind of event that President Biden did yesterday, and I was with him for that event in Tampa. It may not be about putting Florida back into the swing state column or making it more of a purple state than it currently is, it may be about trying to influence the national narrative of Florida is a state that has the highest percentage of senior citizens of any state in the country.

It made sense for Biden to go there and try to talk about this issue that affects seniors and Biden needs to do well with seniors. He lost seniors in 2020, but he needs to keep those margins pretty respectable if he's going to win again in 2024. Biden himself is 80 years old, and so he's hoping to appeal to that set of voters and try to swing them on this very key issue.

Seniors rely on Social Security and rely on Medicare for their healthcare. He's trying to reach a broader audience, and also keep the margins as tight as possible in Florida, Democrats cannot completely abandon Florida, because you have key House races, you have key races at the local level that would be impacted based on the results of the presidential race. If it's a 10-point blowout, a lot of those down-ballot races would also go Republican, if you keep it more close, keep it at three points, two points.

Even if you lose the presidential race or lose the Senate race, you may be able to pick up some seats in Congress, which the Democrats are hoping to win back the Congress, they're hoping to make gains when it comes to state legislatures. This is about fighting for the margins, fighting to try to change the narrative, fighting to try to keep Democrats in play in some of these areas so that they can take small gains, where they can find them, and also try to win the national narrative on these key issues.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Robert in Brooklyn with a Rick Scott comment. Robert, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Robert: Hey, Brian, the irony is rich, that Rick Scott whose company was what find hundreds of millions of dollars or a lot of money for ripping off Medicare wants to get rid of Medicare. Fabulous, only in American politics. My second comment is, this feels like a bit of a scare tactic. The Republicans in the Senate want nothing to do with, this Biden would, of course, veto it. It's a bunch of crazies in the House who say these things at donor dinners with a cell phone camera on them, and then they raise more money but I really don't think anybody wants this. Again, feels like a bit of a scare tactic.

Brian Lehrer: Scare tactic by Biden or scare tactic by the Republicans?

Robert: The boogeyman is coming for your Medicare. Yes, crazies on the right want to take it away, but there's no stomach for this. Mitch McConnell would never let this happen but be scared because they're threatening to take it. They boast that they want to take it, but they can't do it. Would never happen.

Brian Lehrer: Robert, thank you. A shot from you to both sides of the aisle there. Of course, people said that about Roe. "Oh, that's a scare tactic that Democrats are saying, they're going to take away your abortion rights," and look what happened. Toluse, what's that thing that Robert referred to about Rick Scott's company being fined for ripping off Medicare? Is that true history?

Toluse Olorunnipa: That is true history. Now, you have to say that Rick Scott was never charged with anything, and he didn't admit to any wrongdoing but in a major settlement worth hundreds of millions of dollars, his former company, HCA, which is a hospital company, had to essentially agree to pay this money. They were accused of essentially pulling off a major fraud on the Medicare system. This happened before Scott entered into politics, before he was the governor of the state of Florida, before he became the senator from Florida.

It's been a charge that has always been levied against him by his political opponents, he has been able to survive politically, in part, by spending a lot of his own money, tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars on campaigns to make sure that he's able to get his own message out, but it hasn't been something that has dogged him in his various races going back to 2010 when he first ran for governor of Florida. It's part of his political story at this point that people will call him out for this large fine that he got.

He later resigned from the company and whatnot, and he's been separated from that company for a while, but the fact that the company that he led was accused of these major fraud accusations and had to pay quite a lot of money in a settlement is something that people will continue to mention because it is part of his story before he entered politics.

Brian Lehrer: Will continue with Toluse Olorunnipa, White House bureau chief for The Washington Post, and more of your calls, right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we talk about Post's State of the Union politics over these last few days with The Washington Post's White House bureau chief, Toluse Olorunnipa, who's been on the road with President Biden, as he was just describing, especially in Tampa yesterday. I want to get one more call-in that I think is important on this topic, then we're gonna go on to the George Floyd Act, and President Biden and the Republicans. Karen in Nassau County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Karen.

Karen: Hey, thanks for taking my call, really appreciate this program. I heard you talking earlier about the need for Responsible Social Security funding, and that's an issue that the Republicans have been using as a leverage for making arguments to the changes. Has the idea being considered to raise the annual cap, or actually eliminate the annual cap on Social Security contributions as a solution to funding Social Security people who have higher incomes, reach that cap pretty early, the bonuses, and so on? If they were to just lift the cap so that everybody contributes a regular amount, whatever their amount is, but doesn't stop once they reach the cap. Would that make a big difference? That's my thoughts.

Brian Lehrer: Karen, thank you very much. For a little more background on that, for people who don't know, you pay a percentage of your income for a Social Security in a Social Security Medicare tax, a payroll tax, up to a certain amount. It's a hundred and something thousand dollars.

After that, all those really high-income earners who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars, they don't pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on most of their income or pieces of their income above that hundred and something thousand. Is that in play at all Toluse? It doesn't sound like it is in the short term, but I think probably even Democrats, if you talk to them, privately, will say, "Yes, we know that these programs are not generating the money through the current payroll tax to fund themselves through the whole baby boomer retirement era, so something's going to have to give."

Toluse Olorunnipa: That's true. This is an idea that's been bandied about for quite a while. It has some supporters, and it has a good number of people who are opposed to it. One of the challenges for President Biden is that he has pledged not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 per year, and right now the Cap is much lower than that $400,000, it's about $160,000. If they were to raise that Cap or eliminate it, you would sweep in some upper-middle-income people who Biden has pledged not to raise taxes on.

Now, there are ways to structure it so that you exempt some of those people and maybe start collecting the tax again, maybe above 400,000, at some point above that Cap that Biden has set but it would be very difficult to get Republicans on board. They did not want to raise taxes, even on the wealthy, even if it means that's a way to shore up this program. Republicans have said that we need to control our spending, not bring in more revenue.

You do have a major disagreement on that front, but this idea that Karen mentioned, is one that many people are discussing. We're going to see the budget come from the White House next month, and we'll find out exactly what Biden's plan is for strengthening Social Security, strengthening Medicare. He said that that was what he was going to do. He talked about some other tax proposals, other ways to raise revenue, other ways to target the ultra-wealthy people who make hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars, and in the words of the President don't pay their fair share of taxes.

He has proposed some different ideas for how to target the top 1%. This is not something that he's embraced publicly at this point, but it remains to be seen whether that is something that he comes around to as he tries to figure out how to keep Social Security solvent because as much as he's talked about protecting Social Security and how he's threatened to veto any plans to cut Social Security, there is that issue of solvency and making sure that the program is around for the long term.

At some point, we will reach a moment where we have to make those decisions, because the program as it's currently constituted, will not be able to fund itself forever. There just won't be enough money. That's a question that may be kicked down the road for quite a while, but I do think we'll start to see those discussions intensify as we get closer and closer to a point where people who have earned Social Security may not be able to trust that it will be there because just based on the numbers, it does appear that there's not enough funding coming in to keep the program running for decades and decades and decades.

That issue of addressing the Cap on payroll taxes may be something that we get to down the road, but at this moment, it's not quite yet something that is politically feasible, and it's not being proposed by Democrats or Republicans on a broad scale.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Let me go on to another issue. Police Accountability. Tyre Nichols's parents were invited to the State of the Union. One of the things President Biden said on the issue of police violence, was this.

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Biden: [applause] To the support of the families of victims, civil rights groups, and law enforcement, I signed an executive order for all federal officers banning chokeholds, restricting no-knock warrants, and other key elements of The George Floyd Act. Let's commit ourselves to make the words of Tyler's mom true. Something good must come from this. Something good. [applause] It's difficult, but it's simple. All of us in this chamber, we need to rise to this moment. I can't turn away. Let's do what we know in our hearts, and we need to do. Let's come together to finish the job on police reform. Do something.

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Brian Lehrer: The question is, will they do anything? Toluse, I know you co-authored the book, His name Is George Floyd. Is The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act any closer to passing today than it was at the beginning of the week or before much of America saw the awful video from Memphis?

Toluse Olorunnipa: It may be somewhat closer but it is not by any stretch of the imagination close. The closest that it got was back in 2021 when Democrats and Republicans were negotiating. Senator Tim Scott and Senator Cory Booker were working through the different pieces of that legislation and coming to a number of agreements, having a few disagreements but hoping to work through them, but it turned out that the disagreements were too significant for them to be able to bridge the gap.

Those talks broke down. We've seen other police killings since then, not any as moving for the country as the police killing of Tyre Nichols, which has raised the discussion again, of whether or not we should be passing federal legislation to try to get policing to be more accountable and more in service to the communities of everyday Americans. That discussion is happening, but it is not anywhere close to being a discussion that would lead to legislation.

Since 2021, we've had a change in power in the House, Republicans now control the House. The House was able to pass The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in 2021. They were able to do that, and it died in the Senate as those negotiations were taking place, but it does not even look like this will be able to pass through the House at all, not to talk of getting to the Senate where you need a 60-vote threshold because of the filibuster. It just doesn't appear that the math or the votes are there for a policing bill at the federal level, even with what we saw in the wake of Tyre Nichols's death.

As we reported in our book, His Name Is George Floyd, we saw how the country responded to George Floyd's death, how there were mass protests all over the country, how there was this broad call for change in 2020. We haven't seen that level of engagement by the public in the aftermath of Tyre Nichols's death so you don't even have the public pressure on lawmakers like you had after George Floyd died, and you don't have the political calculus of lawmakers in power to try to do something like he did in 2020 and 2021. It doesn't seem like the pieces are there for activists and people who have been calling for these kinds of changes for a while.

I hope the spring is eternal, but it just doesn't appear that there is that level of support for these kinds of changes, and it doesn't appear that beyond a couple of the things that the President said during his State of the Union and the executive order that he signed, that he's going to be putting his political muscle behind this movement. He doesn't appear to be something that he's going to prioritize, especially when it seems like the votes aren't there.

Brian Lehrer: When you talk about how unlikely it is that the new Republican majority house would pass the George Floyd Act, here's a, to me, shocking example of that, from the new Republican head of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, on CBS Face the Nation. Listen to the way he's deflecting any action by Congress.

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Jim Jordan: Well, I don't know that there's any law that can stop that evil that we saw, that is just difficult to watch. What strikes me is just the lack of respect for human life. I don't know that any law, any training, any reform is going to change. This man was handcuffed, they continued to beat him.

[end of audio playback]

Is that Jim Jordan's usual take on law and order? Then we're going to be out of time, Toluse. Laws against criminal violence don't prevent it? I couldn't believe that clip when I first heard it.

Toluse Olorunnipa: Yes, it was quite strange to hear. We can't do anything because people were just going to do whatever they're going to do anyway. If you were to take that point of view and extend it to other issues, then you wouldn't have any laws on the books. It does appear that this is a line that Republicans have been using to avoid saying that they're going to engage with the idea of making changes and holding people accountable and making federal law that upholds certain rights that people have when they interact with law enforcement. It just doesn't appear that there's any momentum behind it.

We often hear that same line of thinking when it comes to gun violence when it comes to mass shootings. Now, there's no law that could change the heart of a mass killer or someone who's deranged. It does appear that that talking point is a sign that we're not going to see any changes. We're not going to see any legislation because that is a familiar talking point that you hear often from lawmakers who don't want to do anything after a tragedy. I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes another instance of major outrage and no major change in Washington.

Brian Lehrer: They're talking about defunding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Republican version of defund the police. Toluse Olorunnipa is the White House bureau chief for The Washington Post and co-author of the book, His name Is George Floyd. Thanks, Toluse. We really appreciate it.

 

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