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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. First of all, today, our hearts go out to any of our listeners and anyone at all connected with the horrific apartment building fire in the Bronx with 10 adults and 9 children killed. Others struggling for survival today from the injuries we are told, the deadliest fire in New York City in decades.

During the show today we will get the latest on what happened at that building on East 181st Street. We'll talk about who owned it, what the conditions were there prior to the fire from our reporter, Jake Offenhartz, and also information from a fire science expert on how to prevent that kind of disaster in your high-rise building, that's coming up.

Also today, two newly elected leaders in our area making big waves already. One from the left, one from the right. We'll talk to the new Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, keeping his campaign promise to stop seeking prison time for many offenses, but already getting pushback from Eric Adams' new police commissioner, Keechant Sewell. Some of the controversies include drug reforms, to not always prosecute gun possession charges or resisting arrest if there is no underlying crime in those situations. Alvin Bragg will join us live.

We'll talk about the new Nassau County Executive Republican Bruce Blakeman refusing to enforce Governor Hochul's mask mandate for public schools despite Long Island reportedly having the highest concentration of COVID cases in schools in the state. That's all coming up.

First, today is Monday, January 10th. Next Monday, one week from today, is Martin Luther King Day, right? The national holiday honoring the civil rights icon comes this year amid tremendous concern about voting rights, especially for Black Americans with the voting law changes that many Republican states are enacting that are expected to make turnout in cities harder to achieve and election results easier to overturn by Republican state legislatures as Donald Trump wanted them to do with Joe Biden's election.

Senate Democrats are making Martin Luther King Day their deadline day for enough Republicans to agree to some kind of voting rights bill or the Democrats might vote to abolish the filibuster, at least for this topic. Here is Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor on Friday.

Chuck Schumer: If Republicans continue to hijack the rules of the chamber to prevent us from protecting our democracy, then the Senate will debate and consider changes to the rules on or before January 17th, Martin Luther King Jr Day. As we hold this debate, I ask my colleagues to consider this question. If the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, then how can Democrats permit a situation in which Republicans can pass voter suppression laws at the state level with only a simple majority vote, but not allow the United States Senate to do the same?

Brian Lehrer: Interesting contradiction that he points out, double standard maybe, right? State legislatures can enact voting restrictions with a simple majority. The US Senate needs 60 votes out of a hundred to pass voting rights legislation because of the filibuster rule. Remember, the filibuster isn't in the constitution. It's just something the Senate itself decided to have, and could decide with 51 votes not to have anymore, but will they?

We will start there today and also talk about other aspects of the '22 midterm elections, the 2022 midterm elections, and the daunting challenge for the Biden administration as they confront the Omicron COVID variant, as we welcome NPR national political correspondent, Mara Liasson. Mara, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mara Liasson: Happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get right to that Chuck Schumer clip. As many of our listeners know, Democrats don't have the votes to suspend the filibuster. Joe Manchin is not on board and maybe Kyrsten Sinema, so what exactly is Schumer threatening there?

Mara Liasson: I think he's just threatening to get everybody on the record. He doesn't have the votes, it takes 51 votes to change the rules and that means that every Democrat would have to agree to change the rules to allow a carve-out for bills that deal with voting rights, for a carve-out for bills that deal with the constitution. I don't know exactly how they describe it, but there have been many carve-outs to the filibuster rule. Reconciliation, which we hear a lot about, the way budget bills can be passed with only 51 votes. That was a carve-out made in the 1970s by none other than Robert Byrd from West Virginia, who's from the same state as Joe Manchin.

There are other carve-outs. Supreme court justices, lower court judges, cabinet nominees all need only 51 votes, but this is something that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, possibly others, don't want to do.

Now, Joe Manchin is one of the sponsors of one of these two voting rights bills, and he wanted it to be bipartisan. I think the only Republican he got to come on board was Lisa Markowski. Certainly, they're not going to get 10 even though the bill has been scaled back and includes some priorities that Republicans have wanted for a long time, like voter ID.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. There are three main voting rights bills being considered right now, but I think the one Schumer is linking to Martin Luther King Day. I think this is the one that Manchin also backs, correct me if I'm wrong, is the one name for another civil rights icon and member of Congress who died in 2020, John Lewis, and this is a fairly simple bill. I think it's fair to say that avoids the specifics of guaranteeing mail-in voting or early voting or anything like that. Right?

Mara Liasson: Yes. John Lewis wanted to restore the Voting Rights Act, which the Supreme Court guarded after Congress passed it almost unanimously. That voting rights bill said that certain states, particularly Southern states that had a history of voter suppression, needed to get pre-clearance from the courts if they were going to change their voting rules and they don't have to anymore.

As soon as the preclearance rule was lifted by the court, these states started enacting laws that Democrats say would make it harder to vote. Fewer drop boxes, harder to vote by mail, higher hurdles to registering. That's all about voter suppression. There's a big debate going on about whether voter suppression is as bad as people think, we've had very high turnout elections recently.

Even though there are many Republicans who believe deeply for years and years before Trump even that high turnout elections are bad for them, Republicans have been able to win high turnout elections, including high turnout elections that were determined to be free of fraud, like the governor's race in Virginia case in point.

There's another aspect to this that these voting rights bills or ballot bills want to address, which is election subversion. There's voter suppression on the front end, making it harder for certain communities to vote, fewer drop boxes in urban areas, making it harder to register if you're a young person or a person of color without a certain kind of ID. Then on the back end, there are laws that have been proposed and passed in many, many states that make it easier for partisan officials, Republican state legislatures in particular, to overturn or decertify ballots after they've been cast.

Brian Lehrer: Democrats keep saying that the Senate voted 98 to nothing in 2006 to renew the old Voting Rights Act before the Supreme Court threw a lot of it out in 2013. The court gave Congress a roadmap to updating the bill. That's what the John Lewis Act would do, but since the 2013 court ruling, Republicans have abandoned their traditional bipartisan support for federal oversight of states that have had racist voting law history. Can you give us a little political history of what happened there? Why did Senate Republicans support voting rights unanimously before 2013, and why did they stop?

Mara Liasson: I think they see it in their political interest to make it harder for Democratic constituencies, African Americans in particular, to vote. Like I said, there is this article of faith in Republican circles that somehow the fewer people that vote, the better it is for them. Donald Trump said very famously once if these laws are passed, well, Republicans will never win another election again ever. I don't think that's true, but they do believe that.

I think that, if you want to step back a little bit, when you are a minority party like the Republicans are, in other words, they have only won the popular vote for the White House twice since 1987. When you rely on minoritarian institutions like the Senate or partisan gerrymandering to come into power, you get the mindset of a minority party and you don't have to appeal to a majority of voters because of all of these minoritarian institutions. Some of them are baked into our system, some of them have been erected by Republican legislatures, but you get this mindset that you can't win with the majority of votes, so you are clinging existentially to all these other things and they're doing it really well.

Brian Lehrer: You mentioned that one Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, might be a supporter of the John Lewis bill. If she supports the bill, might she support a suspension of the filibuster just for that bill replacing Joe Manchin?

Mara Liasson: Okay. That's something I haven't thought about. I doubt it very much, that would be a huge breach with her party. The minority party depends on the filibuster. It's another one of their existential tools. I doubt that very much, but the problem for Democrats is that in 2020, even though they won the White House, they lost everywhere else. Yes, they did take the majority in the Senate by the skin of their teeth.

It's a big difference, I'm not saying that 51/49 isn't different than 50/50, but they only had a one-vote majority when the vice president breaks a tie, and Joe Manchin comes from a state that voted for Donald Trump by almost 40 points and his political calculations are just different than other Democrats. Until they get more senators and it's hard to see how they're going to do that, it's hard to see how they are going to pass these kinds of laws.

Brian Lehrer: Most political analysts see a fairly high likelihood that Republicans will take back the Senate majority in this year's midterm elections, is that giving Democrats pause about trying to abolish the filibuster, the shoe might be on the other foot by next January in terms of those whose interest it will be in to acquire 60 votes of consensus?

Mara Liasson: Sure, but Mitch McConnell can abolish the filibuster anytime he wants if he gets to be majority leader, it has nothing to do with what Democrats do now. It gives him an extra talking point if he says Democrats went first, but Democrats didn't do something that made it easier for Mitch McConnell to hold up Merrick Garland's nomination or to push through Amy Coney Barrett's nomination days before the election. That's sure, that's a risk you take and there are people, especially like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin that believe when one side changes the rules, it chips away at the identity of the Senate. Makes it easier for the other side to do that.

I just don't see why Mitch McConnell would feel emboldened or not emboldened by anything that Democrats do. If he wants to get rid of the filibuster, he's going to do that regardless of what Democrats do or don't do right now. The filibuster is being chipped away at. Some people feel that it's not long for this world one way or another, but this is something that Democrats want to do very badly on this issue but they can't unless they have all 50 of their Democrats online and they don't.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we welcome your Monday morning politics questions for NPR national political correspondent, Mara Liasson, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Do you think Schumer is on the right track with that Martin Luther King Day voting rights deadline, even for what we get is putting everybody on the record and a defeat? Also, you be the political strategist as we're about to broaden this conversation, Democrats or Republicans, what issues do you think your party should run on to win control of Congress this year?

We'll talk with Mara about how the parties are starting to position themselves on voting rights and other things. 212-433-WNYC. If you want to be the strategist for your party, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Before we get into those midterm election strategies and how voting rights and the popularity of Trump both relate, I see president Biden will give a speech about the voting rights issue in Georgia tomorrow. What are you expecting to hear from him?

Mara Liasson: I'm expecting to hear a full-throated defense of these bills and why they are extremely important to pass, not just for Democrats' political fortunes, but also for the future of democracy. I think he started talking about those issues on January 6th when he spoke at the Capitol, and this is something Joe Biden has made it clear, he believes that American democracy is teetering on the brink and that we're at an inflection point and that very soon we might not have free and fair elections especially if Republican state legislatures are able to pick electors, to ignore the popular vote, to say it's fraudulent, so they have to nominate alternative slates to make it easier for Republican partisan officials to, or partisan officials, period, to decertify or overturn elections, and to take control really of the election machinery.

We've all gotten a crash course in democratic institutions over the last five years, and we didn't know, or we weren't as aware of how much depends on the integrity of individual people, professional election administrators, people who are determined to count the votes freely and fairly, and the bedrock value of a democracy is that you accept the will of the people when you lose and when you win.

Right now, there are many Democrats who believe and many experts in democracy who believe that Republicans are now becoming a party that only accepts the results of elections when they win nationally and in battleground states, obviously in California and New York, blue states, they're going to accept the result of an election where a Democrat wins, but otherwise, they just are not willing to do that.

Brian Lehrer: Well, there are two other voting rights bills before Congress now besides the John Lewis Act, and one of them deals with this directly, and from what I've been reading, maybe you can explain it to me and everybody, it might in fact have bipartisan support. It's what's called the Electoral Count Act that seems to relate directly to Trump's attempt to get Congress and Mike Pence to overturn the election and protect against it. Can you describe the Electoral Count Act and why McConnell is supporting that one?

Mara Liasson: Well, yes. First of all, the Electoral Count Act is something that was passed in the 19th century and people feel it's very vague. It doesn't really spell out the vice president's role, what he can or cannot do. Also, it doesn't define what is a fraudulent election or an election that could be thrown out or a slate of electors that could be ignored, so the updating Electoral Count Act is meant to clarify the vice president's role and to really define what Congress is supposed to do other than ceremonially accept the electoral votes of individual states.

Now, is that something? Some people have suggested that maybe there would be some bipartisan agreement on that because the shoe could be on the other foot. It was Mike Pence last time, next time it might be a Democratic vice president, but that's very different than solving these elections subversion laws that are being passed in states that would take effect way before the Electoral Count Act would even be in the picture.

Brian Lehrer: Some Democrats see that as a sucker's game, I think. If they agree to a bipartisan Electoral Count Act acquisition, limited in scope, as it is, it'll make it harder to pass other protections like the John Lewis Act to oversee states with racist voting law histories. Is that part of the politics, Liasson?

Mara Liasson: Yes. Although look, the Democrats have such a steep hill to climb no matter what, but sure, they're saying if we just reform the Electoral Count Act, which would be good in and of itself, then moderate Democrats and, of course, Mitch McConnell, will say, "Hey, we solved the problem." Just like Justice Roberts said when he gutted the Voting Rights Act, he said, to paraphrase him, basically, "Racism is no longer a problem, why do we need this?"

Brian Lehrer: Where do voting rights fit into the overall midterm election strategy of either party? Is it a central thing that Democratic congressional candidates are going to run on, especially if they don't get meaningful protections through the Senate and on the flip side something that Republicans are going to run on that supports Donald Trump's big lie?

Mara Liasson: Well, that is an excellent question. We know that Republicans will run on this, they call it ballot integrity, the Democrats call it the big lie, but there's no doubt that Donald Trump's battle cry kind of avenge the steal. The last election was stolen from us that's why we have to do-- It basically sets up a permission structure. If you think the last election was stolen from you, then you're justified in doing almost anything to win the next one. If the game is rigged and it's totally corrupt and cynical, this is one of the themes of Trump just in general, then you're justified in doing whatever you need to do to make sure that your side wins.

There's no doubt that what people refer to as the big lie, the falsehood that the election was stolen from Donald Trump even though 62 judges, many of whom were nominated by him, put on the bench by him, found the election to be free of fraud, this is a motivator for Republicans. It motivates fundraising, it motivates turnouts. 75% of Republican voters believe that Donald Trump was the true winner of the last election, falsely.

Yes, they're going to definitely run on that. Some Republicans think that Trump should not be relitigating the 2020 election, that they should have a more future-oriented, forward-looking agenda, but there's no doubt that on the Republican side, this is going to be an issue and it's something that many Republicans think works for them.

On the Democratic side, it's more complicated. Focus group after focus group has shown that people are not really thinking about voting rights. They don't think about who runs the election machinery in my state? Why is the secretary of state's office important? Something they never pay attention to and probably never even come out to vote for.

Brian Lehrer: Question from a listener via Twitter. Listener writes, "I'm against voter suppression, but I see nothing wrong with having to present an ID." Did you say that a voter ID requirement, which we generally assume associate with Republican politics is in the John Lewis bill?

Mara Liasson: Is either in the John Lewis bill or the other one, but it's definitely in there. Yes, this is something, believe it or not, that has bipartisan consensus now. It used to be something that was resisted by Democrats and pushed by Republicans, but no longer. It's one of the very, very few areas of bipartisan agreement. Exactly, what kind of voter ID that's a whole other question. Should you accept a gun license, but not a college student ID, et cetera, but yes, that's definitely in the Voting Rights Bill.

Brian Lehrer: I would have to double-check myself, but I think that one is in the one that we haven't talked about yet called the Freedom to Vote Act and that's the one that would nationalize election rules that are up to the states now like guaranteeing a right to a mail-in vote, making election day a holiday, so a day off from work to make it easier to vote in person, same-day registration, restoring the right of felons to vote after they've served their sentences, which some states do and some states do not.

To Democrats, those all sound like very reasonable protections. I think they've added in that voter ID in there, which Stacy Abrams among others has endorsed, but that one is really a nonstarter politically so far, right?

Mara Liasson: Wait, voter ID or the bill?

Brian Lehrer: The whole Freedom to Vote Act.

Mara Liasson: Yes, it's a nonstarter because it doesn't have 60 votes and there's not 51 votes to make a carve-out to the filibuster to pass it.

Brian Lehrer: Rick in Trenton, you're on WNYC with NPR Political Correspondent, Mara Liasson. Hi, Rick.

Rick: Yes. I was just wondering, Trump showed us that executive action can work. You could behave more like Johnson behaved in the past, more like a forceful guy. Why is it that Biden behaves like he's playing by the rules? The other side definitely is not playing by the rules. Why doesn't he have this power? Trump showed us that the presidency is right next door to the king. Educate me on this.

Mara Liasson: That's a really good question.

Brian Lehrer: We're hearing it a lot from progressives, including in Congress. Like, "Come on, now do something."

Mara Liasson: Really, really good question. What Donald Trump did that was incredibly successful was convince people he was like a king. He would sign executive actions that were meaningless, big sharpie signature held up for the cameras. His executive actions a lot of times were meaningless, toothless. Every executive action can be overturned, legislation is permanent, executive actions are temporary.

Joe Biden has issued many executive orders, but he wants to pass legislation that's permanent. He wants to pass an infrastructure bill, you can't do that by executive action. You can do certain things and believe me, he's doing them. He's doing them in the environmental area, but Donald Trump because of his concept of the presidency as king like, he made a big show out of doing this, even though they were no more powerful than any other president's executive actions. Which are, they can make a difference as long as the guy is in office and as soon as he's out, the next president can overturn them, which is exactly what Joe Biden did as soon as he came into office.

I think this is a bit of a myth. I think that there is this mindset among progressives that somehow Joe Biden has a magic wand and he doesn't want to use it, which to me is mind-boggling. Like somehow he could just make Joe Manchin vote the way he wants to or he could just somehow pass the John Lewis Act as an executive order, it's just not the case.

Now you could argue that his leadership style is not forceful enough. That's a separate issue, he comes from the Senate, he believes in consensus, he wants to work across the aisle. Although you could see that he's giving up on that a little, because he gave that really forceful speech on voting rights on January 6th, he'll probably do it again tomorrow.

This notion that somehow it's his fault that Build Back Better hasn't passed or that other progressive priorities haven't passed. To me, the reason they haven't passed is because Democrats didn't win enough seats in 2020. Progressives need to go back, and Joe Manchin says this all the time, "elect more progressives", that's the answer. If there was one or two more Democratic senators in the Senate, Joe Manchin would not be the center of the universe.

Brian Lehrer: Larry in Eastern Pennsylvania has something he proposes that the Democrats run on this year. Hi, Larry. you're on WNYC.

Larry: I'm proposing that the Democrats run on social security and they should get a vote on a law to raise the amount of money contributed to social security so it saves it for the future. I think that they have to grab the narrative based upon social security, and a vote on a bill to raise the limit contributed to social security will be a real benefit to the Democrats and will get Republicans on the record opposing it, I'm sure.

Brian Lehrer: Larry, thank you very much. You know who else, Mara, is talking about people on social security? The newly elected mayor of New York, Eric Adams, who was kind of--

Mara Liasson: [crosstalk] "People on social security elect mayors, not people on social media."

Brian Lehrer: Exactly, and he did another version of it on CNN state of the union yesterday. I'm going to play that clip. Adams says kind of eccentrist to ran on fighting crime as a centerpiece, plus being more friendly to business than his Democratic predecessor Bill de Blasio was and he was asked if he thinks his approach is a blueprint for Democrats nationally?

Eric: We had have to be radically practical. Radically practical. We need to deal with those kitchen-table issues that are important to everyday Americans and New Yorkers. I strongly feel that we can't allow social media to dictate what happens. I say it all the time, it's people on social security we need to be focusing on and they're focusing on healthcare, educating their grandchildren and children. They're focused on affordable housing and jobs.

These are the issues that we must be looking at and ensuring that we are living in a city in a safe country and we have that message honed in and letting cascade throughout this entire country. You're going to see those Democrats come to the polling places because they understand we're dealing with those real issues that impact them.

Brian Lehrer: That's when he says don't let social media rule your campaign, it should be people on social security. He means social media means the loudest progressive voices on Twitter. Is that kind of conversation going on inside the Democratic leadership on whether kitchen table issues as opposed to say democracy issues is the way to go for the 2022 midterm versus that being too small boar to meet the real moment in our country?

Mara Liasson: I think that since the loss in Virginia and the near-death experience in New Jersey, I think that that conversation inside the Democratic party has gotten louder. Certainly, Joe Biden and Eric Adams are in the radically practical wing of the Democratic party, which we should point out the Democratic voters in the primary in 2020 wholeheartedly endorsed that approach.

I think that defunding the police was a loser. Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered, voted roundly not to defund the police department. People want to live in safe communities and, yes, they want all these other progressive things that Eric Adams and Joe Biden both want, but you've got to meet people where they are.

Now in terms of that as an alternative to talking about voting rights, I think that's probably a false choice, that's what Democrats will tell you. There has to be a way to tie voting rights and election subversion to everything else. Certainly in the African American community, people I talk to say that isn't going to be hard because this is a community who understands how fundamental voting rights are. You don't have voting rights, you don't have free and fair elections where all the votes are counted, then you don't get anything else that you want. You don't get childcare, you don't get social security, you don't get climate, you don't get anything.

There has to be a way to take something that sometimes seems very complicated, election machinery, election administration, and tie it in a very simple, powerful way to the rest of the Democratic agenda.

Brian Lehrer: NPR National Political Correspondent, Mara Liasson. Mara, we always appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Mara Liasson: Thanks for having me.

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