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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. From time to time, NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson comes on with us often to talk about bills being passed by Congress. Well, today she's here to talk mostly about bills not being passed by Congress. These include some pretty famous bills. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Tomorrow was the one-year anniversary of his murder, as you know. President Biden's American Jobs Act and his American Families Act, and the bill to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the roots and events of the January 6th insurrection.

Now, before we bring on Mara, here’s part of a video that she retweeted over the weekend. It's Republican congressmen Mike Gallagher of Green Bay, Wisconsin, a video he made while locked in his office in the Capitol on January 6th, in which he pleads with President Trump to call the insurrectionists off.

Mike Gallagher: We have got to stop this. Mr. President, you have got to stop this. You are the only person who can call this off. Call it off. The election is over. Call it off. This is bigger than you. It's bigger than any member of Congress. It is about the United States of America, which is more important than any politician. Call it off. It's over.

Brian Lehrer: Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher on January 6th, barricaded in his office. Now, last week he voted against a January 6th study commission. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins me now. Thanks for coming on, Mara. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mara Liasson: Happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: My New York area listeners and I are pretty unfamiliar with Congressman Mike Gallagher. Who is he?

Mara Liasson: Well, we have to look him up, because I just retweeted that very quickly. Let's look him up. Maybe you can have somebody there do that. We know how he voted on the January 6th commission. Let's see how he voted on overturning the 2020 election, which happened after the insurrectionists were physically removed from the Capitol building. Those would be two interesting votes. Mike Gallagher's statement there really echoed Kevin McCarthy's statement on January 6th, where he felt that Trump was responsible. He had a phone call that has been recounted by Jaime Herrera Beutler, another Republican member of Congress, where he implored Trump to call off the insurrectionists.

Trump famously said to him, according to this other Congresswoman, "Kevin, I guess these protestors or insurrectionists care more about the election results than you do." There's been a transformation in the Republican Party from January 6th to now. Now, I'm sure Mike Gallagher has a way of justifying or explaining his vote against a January 6th commission. Maybe he thinks there are other ways of investigating what happened that day, but there's no doubt that there's been a shift from the horror that was bi-partisan. People felt that the insurrection was the worst attack on our democracy, that President Trump had something to do with it, egged on the protesters, didn't act quickly enough to try to call them off.

Then as time went on and they started thinking more about 2022 and how important it was to keep Trump in the big tent of the Republican Party, they've changed their minds about January 6th and don't seem to want to pay too much attention to it at all and just want to move on. That has very good practical political explanations, they're focused on winning elections, but it has profound implications for our democracy.

Brian Lehrer: We did lock it up, and sure enough Congressman Mike Gallagher, we're WNYC, there is WNCY in Wisconsin, which said on January 4th, "Wisconsin Republican US Congressman Mike Gallagher has signed onto a statement urging an end to election opposition." He was not one of those calling for the election to be overturned by Congress. Here's one more clip. It's house Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who you just described a minute ago,, in his interaction with the president at that time. Here's McCarthy speaking back in January when a second impeachment of Trump was in the air calling for guess what instead? A fact-finding commission.

Kevin McCarthy: These facts require immediate action by President Trump. Accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest, and ensure president elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term. The president's immediate action also deserves congressional action, which is why I think a fact-finding commission and censure resolution would be prudent.

Brian Lehrer: Based on that, Mara, should I assume Kevin McCarthy voted for the commission last week?

Mara Liasson: Well, he's talking about a fact-finding commission. I'm sure he would say that the commission that has been proposed, which is an outside commission, is not the same thing that he was proposing. The fact that he proposed a censure vote as an alternative to the second impeachment of Donald Trump, that's also significant look. Kevin McCarthy has changed his mind. He wants to be speaker. He wants to win the 2022 election. He is making a pretty interesting bargain, that he can agree with President Trump without quite saying so. I don't think Kevin McCarthy has actually said the words, "I believe the election was stolen from President Trump." He said the other day that Joe Biden is the president. That seems to be the new place that Republicans are landing, the safe lily pad.

Yes, he's the president. That's true. He lives in the White House, but they don't want to contradict former President Trump who believes and continues to state that the election was stolen from him, and that Joe Biden was illegitimately elected. There's no doubt that Kevin McCarthy has undergone a transformation. That is one of the reasons that there was this huge rift in the house Republican conference and why they booted Liz Cheney out, because she continues to stick to her firm conviction that the Republican Party should not be associated with a lie, the lie that somehow the election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Brian Lehrer: We should point out, however, as you have in your reporting, that 35 Republicans did vote for the January 6th Commission last week in the house. That's a small number out of around 200 in the house Republican conference, but it's a lot more than zero, which democratic bills often get. I heard you talk about what that means on the NPR politics podcast the other day. Would you go into that here?

Mara Liasson: Yes. I think that 35 people voting for the commission is important. Now remember, on January 6th, two thirds of the House Republicans voted to overturn an election that the judicial branch, which is the referee when we have disputes, had determined was free and fair. A majority of Republicans in Congress and two thirds of House Republicans voted to overturn a free and fair election. However, and only, I'm trying to remember, seven Senate Republicans voted to impeach and how many, 10 I think, House Republicans. 35 voting for a commission is significant. If only 10% of the Republican Party is disenchanted and are Liz Cheney Republicans, that’s significant. Elections in the United States are very, very close.

I'm not saying that the Republican Party is splitting apart. I don't think there's a civil war in the party. I think that the fight for control of the party has been won. It's been won by Donald Trump, but I still think that this kind of dissent is important.

Brian Lehrer: Let's go on to some other bills not being passed by Congress. How is the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act coming? With the anniversary this week, I thought that one was moving toward a bipartisan deal.

Mara Liasson: Well, it still might. Joe Biden has said he wanted it by Memorial Day. It doesn't seem like he's going to get it, but they're still working on that on Capitol Hill. That's something that both sides said they wanted, there were negotiations. The negotiations seem to be moving forward. I don't know all the details about where they are on immunity, certain kinds of qualified immunity for police, but so far that one seems to be held up.

Brian Lehrer: The stat I've read is that 24 states plus Washington DC have passed some kind of police reform measures in the last year. Of course police departments are run locally, except for federal law enforcement. What would the federal bill change that would be more than symbolic?

Mara Liasson: Well, actually, I think that you need to talk to somebody who's a better expert on this than me. I am not familiar with the granular details of this bill, but it would certainly provide guidance and funding to states that want to do reform.

Brian Lehrer: I'll tell you one provision that I'm interested in. It's the national police misconduct registry that it would create, so that officers fired for misconduct can't latch on with other police departments, which apparently happens frequently.

Mara Liasson: That’s just a simple matter of sharing data.

Brian Lehrer: It strikes me, I wonder what your impression is, that this is like with guns, where Republicans under pressure from the NRA resist cataloging gun crimes at the federal level so that there aren't newsworthy numbers to look at.

Mara Liasson: Yes, I think that's possible, and it's unclear to me whether that provision is one of the bigger sticking points or not.

Brian Lehrer: All right, let's go on to two more bills not being passed by Congress right now. President Biden's American Jobs Act and his American Families Act. Physical infrastructure, and what he calls human infrastructure, around $4 trillion in spending over the next decade between them. Mara, I see there was an offer in the last few days by the White House to shrink spending on the Jobs Act by about a quarter off Biden's original price tag. Are you familiar with what they're offering?

Mara Liasson: Yes. What's happening with that, first of all, the American Jobs Act and the American Families Plan is something that Biden did not expect to be on his desk by Memorial Day. This has a longer runway, they need to pass it by the end of the year. He wanted progress by the end of May or July 4th. We've asked the White House about this, it's unclear if they meant actual passage on the House floor or just some progress in negotiations. What's happened is the president came in with this two-plus trillion-dollar plan. Republicans came back with something that was a tiny fraction of that, and then the White House made a counteroffer, they cut $500 billion off the original, I think it was $2.2 trillion, and the Republicans dismiss that out of hand.

Right now, even though there have been several bipartisan meetings at the White House with Republicans and the president, they are very far apart on three fundamental things. Number one, what is infrastructure? Is it just roads and bridges? Does it include broadband and high-tech manufacturing? How much infrastructure should we pay for? Then the third thing, which is really important is how do we pay for it? Do we pay for it with user fees, which is what the Republicans want? Do we raise taxes on people making more than $400,000 a year and corporations? That's what the White House wants.

In their counteroffer, they did not change the pay for us. In other words, they're still proposing to pay for it the same way. Many Democrats think that in the end, Biden will have to pass this bill the same way he passed the COVID relief bill, which is under a budget maneuver known as Reconciliation. It's basically a carve-out to the filibuster, which means you can pass a bill with 51 votes in the Senate, can't be filibustered. That's how COVID relief got passed, and maybe that's how American Families Act will be passed, but we're not done yet. I think negotiations are still ongoing. There is a group of bipartisan senators trying to work something out, that one is a work in progress.

Brian Lehrer: There are sometimes groups of bipartisan House members or senators who work in good faith with each other, but really, the leadership on one side or another or both isn't interested in a compromise bill for political reasons. I'm curious of your impression of, in this case, if either side wants to compromise, or would they rather both have a one-party bill and an issue?

Mara Liasson: That's a really good question. Infrastructure was supposed to be the exception to the rule of hopeless polarization on Capitol Hill. Structure has traditionally been something that's bipartisan. Anything that makes the United States more competitive with China had bipartisan support. There was hope that certain chunks of Biden's infrastructure agenda could be broken off. Universal broadband, road and bridges, cleaning up lead pipes, that kind of thing, that maybe they could be passed separately with bipartisan votes. Then the human infrastructure parts that Republicans aren't interested in, the child care funding to keep elderly people cared for in their homes, things like that, free community college, free pre-K, those things would be passed with democratic votes only.

It's still unclear how much of this will be in one package, and how much of this Republicans would like to vote for. Don't forget, after the COVID relief bill was passed with no Republican votes, several Republicans were touting its provisions to their constituents. There are many things inside the infrastructure package that are very, very popular and that Republicans like, but they don't want it. Many of them do not want to give President Biden a win, that's true on both sides when there's divided government, and also they don't want to vote for any tax hikes to pay for it.

Brian Lehrer: Let me drill down on one of those things that you mentioned. If you're just joining us, listeners, my guest for another few minutes is NPR National Political Correspondent Mara Liasson. The American Families Act portion of that two-part infrastructure bill, basically building a new babies and toddlers infrastructure, setting limits on people out-of-pocket childcare expenses for babies, and establishing two years of pre-K, which I think would be very popular with families on both sides of the political aisle, there really is a lack compared to other industrialized countries that I imagine crosses party lines. I don't hear republicans getting behind this concept. What are the politics of that?

Mara Liasson: The American Families Plan would strengthen the social safety net. There's been a huge shift in public opinion over the years, the Reagan revolution is over. People no longer think that activist government is a bad thing. As you've had more economic inequality, as it's been harder and harder for people to stay in the middle class, they seem to think we have social security for old people, we should have something for families, too. There is a handful of Republicans in the Senate that want to increase the child tax credit, Mitt Romney wants to give cash payments to families, then they could spend it either on child care outside the home or inside the home.

I think that there are Republicans who are for some of these provisions, but on the whole, the Republican strategy is to say that this is socialism, or it's forcing people into, we've even heard this, corporate childcare. I can't imagine there's going to be much Republican support for the human part of the infrastructure plan.

Brian Lehrer: Finally, Mara, not a bill per se, but President Biden's goal of 70% of Americans vaccinated by the Fourth of July. How's it going? Is that a partisan issue?

Mara Liasson: It certainly is a partisan issue in terms of people who say they want to get the vaccine and they don't, although there also is more of an education split there. People who have college educations are more inclined to get the vaccine than people who aren't, regardless of their race or ethnicity. What's interesting about herd immunity is that, we had someone on NPR yesterday who said, it's really not a good idea to think of herd immunity, it's better to think of it as community immunity because there are communities in the United States that are going to reach the levels of immunity, whether it's 70% or 80%, that is going to be enough to protect them. There're going to be other communities that don't.

I think that many parts of America are on their way to what we are calling herd immunity. Although the vaccination rate has slowed down, there's a huge push to increase it and accelerate it, including all sorts of incentives, employers offering bonuses. Mike DeWine, the governor of Ohio even was offering a lottery prize.

Brian Lehrer: Cuomo here, too.

Mara Liasson: Cuomo in New York, too. I think that people are continuing to get vaccinated, but there are pockets of the country where vaccinations are not popular, and there are communities that it's just hard to convince that they should get vaccinated. I think by July 4th Joe Biden will have something, some kind of success to announce.

Brian Lehrer: Ending on a note of optimism, NPR National Political Correspondent Mara Liasson, we always appreciate it. Mara, thank you so much.

Mara Liasson: Thanks for having me.

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