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Brian Lehrer: Its the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. As we enter the week of Christmas 2021 let's not sugarcoat it. It's a very challenging moment for our country. Crime is up nationally, inflation is up nationally, omicron is up nationally, President Biden plans a COVID speech to the nation tomorrow, voting rights are down, abortion rights are down, the supply chain including rapid tests is down.

As of yesterday, President Biden's human infrastructure or Build Back Better bill for paid family leave and much more went down with no Republican alternative for America's need for childcare or eldercare, pre-K or paid family leave, more college affordability or ways to protect the climate. There was no Republican version that claimed a better way. The effort died in its present form, when Joe Manchin officially became the only Democratic senator to announce he would vote no if it comes to the floor with the 50 Republicans.

Joe Manchin: If I can't go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can't vote for it. I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can't. I've tried everything humanly possible. I can't get there.

Bret Baier: You're done. This is a no.

Joe Manchin: This is a no.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Manchin on Fox News Sunday with the host Bret Baier. We know Manchin's issues include protecting the coal industry, which is big in his home state. The issues he prefers to talk about are more economic, like more promised benefits in the bill than actual funding allegedly, and the risk of inflation from such a big spending package, allegedly. Senator Bernie Sanders responded on CNN with the even bigger spending bill, that Manchin voted for, without a second thought.

Bernie Sanders: Joe Manchin voted for a huge increase in military spending. Manchin voted for an infrastructure bill, which added $250 billion to the deficit. The truth of the matter is that if you look at the military budget $770 billion times that by 10 years, it is four times higher than what the Build Back Better plan is. Now, Mr. Manchin says he's representing the people of West Virginia. Why don't you do a poll?

If CNN do a poll, and you ask the people of West Virginia whether or not they want to lower the cost of prescription drugs, you ask them whether they want to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and eyeglasses. You ask whether they want to continue the $300 payment to help working parents in these very difficult times bring up their kids with dignity. Ask them if they want to deal with climate change. On all of those issues, I suspect people of West Virginia like every other state in this country will say yes, do the right thing for working families.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Bernie Sanders on CNN State of the Union. With that we welcome Anita Kumar, senior editor for standards and ethics at Politico, previously White House correspondent covering Biden and before that Trump. Thanks for coming on, Anita. Welcome back to WNYC.

Anita Kumar: Thanks for having me back.

Brian Lehrer: White House press secretary Jen Psaki released a very critical statement blistering really yesterday, making it sound like Manchin betrayed President Biden. The statement said in part, "Weeks ago Senator Manchin committed to the president at his home in Wilmington to support the Build Back Better framework that the President then subsequently announced. Senator Manchin pledged repeatedly to negotiate on finalizing that framework in good faith," from White House press secretary Jen Psaki. What happened with President Biden and Senator Joe Manchin?

Anita Kumar: The statement you're referencing was really blistering and really unusual for the White House and for this White House. It was lengthy as well. It's a great question what happened. What Jen Psaki is also saying is that Senator Manchin had in person given a written proposal that was the same size and scope of the framework that the Democrats were working on, and that had continued to go there.

What we had heard is that he did give a heads up not personally, but had a staffer give a heads up to the White House and to Democrats, that this was coming, but just right before he went on air to do this. Anyone who's been following this probably wasn't really surprised. It's been, what, five months or so that the two sides have been negotiating and not really getting anywhere.

Some of his statements as you know, had said he was worried about the scope. He was worried about inflation. He was worried about COVID and other issues. That's what he ended up saying was, "Look, we've got other things to deal with right now." I would note that he's not completely closing the door. I'll bet you that the White House is trying to negotiate with him whether this happens in one month or two months or three months or never, we just don't know yet.

Brian Lehrer: Sorry for the little technical difficulty, we will get this straightened out. You heard the Bernie Sanders clip there, which raises at least two issues. One is the much bigger defense spending bill at a time when nobody is contemplating any large scale United States War. Neither party is for anything like that. Why wasn't there more of a ruckus about that or that kind of comparison being front and center in the debate over recent weeks by Democrats or for that matter by America first Republicans before Congress voted for the defense spending bill?

Anita Kumar: Yes. It's a great question. There's been a lot of talk this year about hypocrisy. Members of Congress voting for one thing, and then saying no to another thing. You heard that on voting rights just last week, where people are saying, well, look, they'll they'll agree to change the rules in the Senate for one thing, but they won't for another thing. It's a great question we've been asked over and over again.

I can just tell you that Joe Manchin has just like everybody else, his priorities and things that he wants to get through. We know that he did not like some of the climate provisions. He didn't like the paid family leave that provision. He didn't like child tax credit. He balked at the overall price tag. There were a lot of hurdles to get through, and he reached a point where he just said, I'm not going to do this anymore.

Brian Lehrer: Sanders raised as he has before, the idea of a poll of Joe Manchin's constituents. How do you think that would really come out?

Anita Kumar: Yes. It's a good question. I haven't seen the latest polls from West Virginia, but Joe Manchin would tell you, even if they all support it, that he has to do what he thinks is right. He has talked, it's part of his sort of Persona, as a senator from West Virginia is that he doesn't care if he goes against his party, if he goes against Republicans, if he goes against anyone that he's one of those people we might have called it in a different era, a maverick, someone who bucks the party and just does whatever he wants, and does what he thinks is right.

You will see across the board, though, across the country, that there has been support for the President's agenda and for the spending plan, people individually supporting different pieces of it, and of course, the overall bill that would have put a record number of dollars on combating climate change and social safety net and the social safety net.

Brian Lehrer: Sanders raised as he has before the idea of the poll, but is it all about the coal industry for Manchin, ultimately, and maybe even his own family investments in it?

Anita Kumar: We have reported on that, and others have as well. Obviously, we know where he stands in terms of his family, but we also know what he has said publicly in general, not just about this bill, but about the importance of the coal industry in his state. He has talked about that and made that one of those those issues that he feels strongly about. I will say his objections went beyond just the climate provisions, although that was a big one.

He has indicated to people that he wanted less programs in there. What they ended up doing, if you remember, this bill was really cut in half. Instead of cutting out a lot of the policies or the specific programs, they just shrunk them all. Joe Manchin didn't like that that way, he wanted some of them to just be cut out completely. The approach was not the approach he liked.

Now, the White House I will say, as we saw in that Jen Psaki statement will say, "No, that's not the case." He has said he would go for something that was this size. We have some conflicting information here. What my colleagues have been reporting from the hill is that he didn't like this approach, and it went beyond climate change.

Brian Lehrer: For some Democrats, it goes beyond Build Back Better to a question of basic democracy and structural reform that some would say is needed maybe in the Constitution itself. Here is congresswoman from Queens and the Bronx, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Morning Joe, MSNBC this morning.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: I represent more or just as many or more people than Joe Manchin does, perhaps more. Secondly, and importantly is that if you can't explain to your constituents why the child tax credit that they are getting right now to help feed their kids in a time of record high prices should not be extended, that doesn't seem like a problem with his constituents. That seems like a problem with his ability to either communicate or really, I think there's a different reason behind this vote.

Brian Lehrer: AOC went on to say what she thinks, the president of the United States, Joe Biden and others in the top leadership of the democratic party could do.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: It takes the president of the United States who I believe needs to be more forceful on the filibuster. He needs to also lean, I believe, on his executive authority and say, "If you're going to get in the way, we're going to find other ways to do this. It's either you're either with us or you're not with us, but this train is moving and we need to govern," because the United States house of representatives is delivering an agenda for the people. We cannot blame Mitch McConnell, and we cannot blame Joe Manchin either because we have tools at our disposal with a trifecta.

Brian Lehrer: Anita, so much interesting stuff in there. For one thing, the very long term in structural issue that they can't do anything about right away, although maybe they can, if they decide to end the filibuster that the Senate is so unrepresented compared to the house. She said, Joe Manchin represents about the same number of people as a senator from West Virginia who gets all that voting power as one of only 100 members of the Senate as she represents from one congressional district.

Anita Kumar: Yes. Really what we're hearing is so many different arguments. We've even heard some Democrats say, "Look, maybe he shouldn't be in the democratic party." The big argument we keep hearing this last 24 hours and what really people are coalescing in the democratic party around is one of the issues she said there, which is why do we have this 60 vote threshold in the Senate? It absolutely should be a majority. That they should get rid of the filibuster.

Now we've been hearing this since before January, but it's really gotten a lot stronger of an argument since January that people are making in the democratic party that they need to get things done, that they have the house, the Senate, the White House and they may not have that in 2023 after the next elections at the end of November 2022. They have to use the tools you heard her talking about that. There are a lot of people saying, "Well, look, this is the last straw, next year when we come back we have to get rid of the filibuster."

It's unclear what's going to happen and in fact they need Joe Manchin and others to be supportive of that and he hasn't been supportive. It's not just him, there are others. As you know there was, you mentioned at the top there voting rights, this big talk about whether they could try to get that done by the end of the year that also didn't go anywhere. People are saying, "Look, come on," Democrats are saying, "Let's remove that 60 vote threshold and get some of these things done."

Even the president has changed his tune a little bit as the year has gone on. You see him at the beginning of the year pretty strongly in favor of keeping things the same and now the White House has hinted as the months have gone on, "Well, maybe we have to look at some other ways to get things done."

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your reaction to Joe Manchin, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Joe Biden in Bill Back Better. Plus, what do you want the president to do next with omicron? We'll get to that and anything else relevant to Anita Kumar from Politico at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or you can tweet @BrianLehrer.

Anita, on the Fox News Sunday round table yesterday after Manchin's announcement on that show, several of the reporters and from different points of view, I would say, on the political spectrum suggested some of these popular things in Build Back Better could come back as smaller bills. The child tax credit, paid family leave, maybe others. Do you think that's possible in early 2022 before the congressional election year really gets going?

Anita Kumar: I do think that's possible. I think one of the things that we learned from these last five months is how difficult it's going to be to get this thing through. There are Democrats telling the White House, "Look, if you want to get some of this done, break it apart, make it smaller." Honestly people have been saying that since the very beginning of this administration, since January. About a variety of things, about immigration reform, about all these things that the administration and Democrats want to do.

It's so hard for Congress to wrap its head around something so massive and if they break it apart it might have some ideas, it might be able to get through. I think that is a possibility a lot of people are talking about. I will tell you it's going to be super hard to get anything controversial done in 2022.

Once they come back in January, everything is going to be geared towards this is an election year. It's the midterm year. We thought things were political in 2021, they're going to take a different tone in 2022, even more so. It's going to be tough, but they could definitely try to go that way.

Brian Lehrer: One of the reasons we should say that the Democrats did not try to break up this bill into different fairly popular pieces originally is, and we get these calls all the time. People say, "Well, if the public likes paid family leave put out a paid family leave bill. If they like universal pre-K put out a universal pre-K bill and pick these things off and let's do a lot of this, and they will successfully pressure the Republicans, because the Republicans constituents will say, "Oh, I get it now," and they will want those things.

As I understand it, you only get a certain number of bites at the apple under the rules of the Senate to do it in the so-called reconciliation format, which means you can get around the filibuster. They put a lot of things together in the one bill, because they couldn't put through two bills under the rules. How accurate is that?

Anita Kumar: Yes, that's right. I guess you would also have to look at something else, which is, there are a lot of things in this bill. It's not like they're going to pass 30 bills anyway. The Congress would not go there. It's just not going to happen. It's hard enough to pass one bill, even a small bill. Everything is so incredibly difficult now that the president felt like he had to put all those things together.

Remember this bill has already been cut in half from his original proposal. It's already gotten smaller and their perspective is, "Look, we're trying to meet halfway. We're trying to find a compromise." When the White House put out a revised plan in October, paid family leave one of the president's biggest priorities wasn't even included and the reason is because they didn't think they could get it through.

I guess I would just say to you is, it's not realistic to think, even if the rules allowed it, that they would get 20 or 30 bills. They know that through the Congress, they know they have to pick their shots. They have to do what they can and there's only likely to be a couple things.

If they decide, "Hey, let's make this smaller again or let's just look at paid family leave, or the child tax credit or climate," they could do that, but they're not going to get a lot through. If they come back next year and it's really they can't get this bill through, you might see them look at a couple different programs or a much, much smaller bill.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 and let's take a phone call right now from Janet in Brooklyn, Janet, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Janet: Good morning. I was listening to Joe and one of the congressional members had to explain parental leave to Manchin. I don't think he understands a lot of these things in this bill and a lot of the provisions in the bill. I just hope they get rid of the filibuster and in the end that money is our money. It's not they're giving it to us, it's money that we gave the government and I would like for the government to use the money to help the American people. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Well, Anita, Janet says she doesn't even think Joe Manchin understands what's in the bill. Are the people saying that?

Anita Kumar: I haven't really heard that. People have complained that he doesn't understand the importance of it and maybe that's the same thing. He doesn't understand how this could be important to his constituents in West Virginia, but also people across the country. He has indicated on some of these things, like the child tax credit on paid leave, that he doesn't support them and so people are saying, "Well, if you look at how it would help your own constituents, you would support it," and he's pushed back on that.

His argument on several these things is that he doesn't want to spend this money because the inflation record high prices that Americans are having to deal with and more recently when he made those comments this weekend, he was talking about COVID and we haven't really talked about that yet, but how we're seeing another surge here and that should be the top priority, that there should be other priorities right now.

One thing that we saw over and over again this year is that maybe you could relate this to senators too, the White House and some democratic leaders were really upset for a while there, that they felt like the message wasn't being delivered on how this bill could help people. They were very frustrated. They actually turned on the media and say it was the media's fault for not its explaining this well.

You could argue maybe some of the politicians don't understand what the Democrats or what the White House is trying to convey. There were some people that said, "Look, the Democrats did not do a good job of selling this, telling the American people and telling members of Congress, why this was so important, what was in it and how it would benefit people across the country."

Brian Lehrer: Let's go to another caller on line six. Here is Jack in Brooklyn, who I think is going to agree with AOC, putting a lot of it on Biden. Jack, you on WNYC. Hello.

Jack: Hey Brian, thanks for taking my call. Basically I feel like no one should be surprised. I know in the progressive wing, at least in all the news outlets on the left side, it's completely expected that this is what was going to happen, especially with Joe Biden and his pressure campaign against Joe Manchin. It's not Joe Manchin to blame, it's not Republicans to blame, this is completely the weakness and the status quo of the democratic party and that's why they wanted.

Joe Biden instead of someone like Bernie Sanders, who would with the stroke of a pen cancel suited debt, with a stroke of a pen make a nationwide $15 minimum wage and with the stroke of a pen, many other things that are completely possible by the president of the United States.

We have a president who has tanking numbers in the polls and is continuing to just flounder in his sale ability to do anything because that's what he promised before when he was running to a corporate donor fundraising party or dinner, we all know about it, that nothing is going to change. That's why the establishment Democrats wanted him in because they themselves don't want anything to change, they want people to be put under the thumb of the economy that they're choosing to have fail and the people are suffering under it and that's what they want.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call, but that is pretty conspiratorial saying Joe Biden didn't want anything to change, he really wanted the American people to be under the thumb of corporations. He promised to corporate fundraisers that nothing would change or for that matter, Anita, that Bernie Sanders or anyone else who's president could have cancel those student debt with a stroke of a pen instituted a national $15 minimum wage with the stroke of a pen.

A couple of questions there, one, does the president have that power in theory? What do you think Jack was referring to there with respect to Biden? I guess he did try to reassure Corporate America at the same time he was trying to run as the new FDR.

Anita Kumar: I will say about that, it's the criticism of many, maybe not every single politician is that the system in this country is the way it is that they collect campaign contributions and then they're beholden to these companies and people that they collect contributions. This isn't just a criticism of Joe Biden, it's a criticism of most, I say most, politicians who accept money and accept these big donations or corporate donations or any of that.

It's something that could be said of any of them and it could be said of none of them, we don't really know what's in their head about that. Joe Biden has tried to straddle the line, he's tried to appeal to both companies and people to Democrats, Republicans. Remember Joe Biden is a completely different politician than Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders would come in there and try to do some of these things. We don't know if he has the authority on some of those things. We know that he could try do something a president could try and then they could find themselves in court.

Joe Biden's tried a number of things on a variety of policy issues and he's found that he's quickly been sued and taken to court. Barack Obama tried the same thing on a variety of levels and was taken to court, so was Donald Trump. That is the way that the world works now but I will say that Joe Biden came in as a different kind of politician. He said, "I worked in the Senate for a long time decades, I can bring everyone together and come up with a compromise."

He never wanted to do what, what Bernie Sanders wanted to do, he wanted to do something different. That reputation of his really took a hit this weekend because he said he could bring all the parties together and come up with a compromise. He tried to do it and it hasn't happened. He in fact failed when Joe mansion made this announcement so I do think that there's going to be some soul searching in the White House. Will this idea that you can compromise and bring people together is this going to work in today's America?

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Anita Kumar, from Politico and your calls and tweets. I'm going to put all of this in the context for her heads up, Anita, this is what you're going to have to deal with when we come back from the break of how each party is going to set up for the 2022 midterms in the context of what happened yesterday. We'll also talk about the speech that Biden's planning for tomorrow on omicron. Stay with us, Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Anita Kumar from Politico. Anita, as promised as threatened, how do you see each party gearing up for next year's Congressional Midterms in the push and pull between their big tents and small tents and in the context of yesterday's Joe Manchin decision, if it changes that?

Anita Kumar: I'll start with the Democrats. I think that they were already worried because we see this resurgence of COVID, you've seen inflation, you've seen the economy and immigration, a lot of issues that have not gone well. You've seen the president's poll numbers, as you indicated earlier, go down. They've been really worried and what they kept saying, and what I've heard from Democrats is, "Look, things don't look good but if we can show that we can get some things done that will help us."

They were really putting a lot on this bill, this Build Back Better bill. Of course, at the moment it's on hold, we don't know if it's completely dead yet or not. I think that is not going to help them and they are in sort of a worse spot than they were a week ago. All you have to do is look at the polls. I will say that it's a lifetime before those 2022 elections so a lot can change. You know how the news cycle is, things can change every day. There's still some hope that things can change over the next year.

Republicans are feeling really good right now. You could just look at the November 2021 elections and see what happened in Virginia, they want to use how the governor-elect there, Glenn Youngkin in Virginia should have straddled the line, balanced everything. He balanced the support of Donald Trump, he talked about kitchen table issues, the economy and schools that they thought helped him get a good message out.

They are hopeful that they can use some of those issues, they can say, "Look, the Democrats aren't getting things done," all sort of things like that to win enough to take back the house and Senate. It's unclear, of course, that's going to happen, but they do feel the wind at their back and are feeling pretty good about it.

Brian Lehrer: Shannon in Astoria, you're on WNYC. Hello, Shannon.

Shannon: Hi, Brian and Anita, it is great to be calling. I'm really upset with the lack of progress that we've seen with the Build Back Better bill. I had a question to ask about the filibuster. I understand why we're seeing from some voices a push to end the filibuster, but I'm wondering if there's greater dangers to removing it and especially, if from what you're speaking about right now, if we could be seeing a big red wave in 2022, is it shortsighted? Instead, should we be focusing on trying to CDC or Puerto Rico statehood to help pass democratic legislation?

Brian Lehrer: Great questions. Anita?

Anita Kumar: Yes, it's a really great question. She brings up a point that we hear a lot from Democrats. Democrats that don't support the change are worried not just about 2023, I guess, after the midterm elections, but just in general. If the Democrats are in the minority, what's to say the Republicans with their simple majority won't pass a million things that the Democrats don't want.

This is exactly the argument. I'm sure there's other arguments about what the Senate was supposed to be and about how the rules are supposed to work, but there is some fear from Democrats that I talk to that say, "Look, if we're in the minority, this will work against us and it may not be a good thing." I think that's one of the reasons that you're seeing a lot of hesitation.

Brian Lehrer: New York could break up into New York City and New York State. New Yorkers have threatened to do that at times, either from the city standpoint or sometimes the Upstate standpoint, when they feel taken advantage by the city, rightly or wrongly. California talks about breaking up into Northern and Southern, the Old San Francisco culture versus LA culture discussion. I know it goes way beyond that.

These are not active conversations in either of those states at this time, but in the context of what AOC was talking about, in the context of what we've talked about or a year and four years on this show, and I know elsewhere, too, about the fundamental, undemocratic structure of the United States Senate, and the severe consequences of that for people in the United States right now who are living in cities, who are people of color, who are underrepresented in various ways because of the structure of the Senate.

Does anybody in DC ever talk about, "Okay, let's just create more states out of the existing blue states," which as AOC pointed out in the clip we played have much more population than states like Joe Manchin represents.

Anita Kumar: Yes, I think there are people that talk about that, but I don't think it's the majority of people. I think that's unrealistic. I just think those big, big fundamental shifts, like you're talking about, are really hard, and that there hasn't been a serious conversation about them. Of course, there's always talk about ways to change things, but it's just so difficult to get things done.

They can't even get bills passed, let alone change the structure of how things are done and there are a lot of people, including Joe Biden, who obviously was in the Senate for a long time, who say, "Look, this is the way it was supposed to be. This is the way that the framers and the Founders intended and we can't deviate from that." There are disagreements, but I don't see anything seriously on that magnitude changing.

Brian Lehrer: Biden will speak on omicron tomorrow. We see this wave really scary the way it's taking off, the way it's so much more transmissible than delta. I think we have good news and bad news from South Africa and from scientists. The wave seems to have already peaked and is declining in South Africa but the populations are so different. The previous exposure to any variant is so much more widespread in South Africa. Scientists are not saying that they're convinced that it's a milder variant of COVID.

I know you're not a scientist, we're going to do scientist segments, obviously, going forward on this but in terms of national response, what is President Biden planning tomorrow? I see he's going to give a speech.

Anita Kumar: I don't think you'll be surprised to hear some of it. He's going to talk about the difference between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated and he's going to encourage the unvaccinated to get out there and get the vaccine. He's going to encourage people to get the booster shot, he's going to talk about testing. None of those things are surprising. That's been what he's been conveying for quite some time.

He's also going to say that the federal government is there, the resources are there, that they're going to help those that are hard hit. I do think that you're starting to see a shift from him and his administration, on talking about the number of cases, to the severity of those cases. You're going to see a lot of cases going up, and we already are but he's going to talk about look, the severity, and the hospitalizations are those that are unvaccinated.

Remember back a while ago, in the summer, he talked about the freedom from the virus that we want to have the freedom from the virus. I don't think you're going to hear that kind of message anymore. It's more how we live with this virus and of course, that goes back to how you live with it is you might get vaccinated, you might get boosted, you might continue testing.

He knows that there's fatigue from people trying to deal with this issue and he's going to talk about how we can get through this if you do certain things. He's going to talk about living with that virus.

Brian Lehrer: Two things real quick on this and then we're out of time. One is that rapid tests are rising as a tool, but there are shortages, and they are not free for most people, including those with insurance who still usually have to first spend the money out of pocket. Should we expect anything more on that from the President tomorrow?

Anita Kumar: It's just been a big criticism of the United States and the administration. They haven't done more, of course in other countries, they're free. They're available. If you'll recall his last big speech, he talks about COVID all the time, but a speech he had in December, he talked about how they were going to make more tests available and there have been complaints that that hasn't happened. You're exactly right. They're very costly. Some people can't afford them.

I do think you're going to see a push from the administration to try to get that both better that the cost will be down, and that there'll be more available. I do think testing is a big issue and they know that they have gotten criticism about that. If you'll recall in December, he said, "We will send tests to community centers and around the country so that people are able to be tested."

There was a lot of criticism about exactly what you said that you had to pay out of pocket and then get reimbursed. I don't know if there's going to be a change on that but I expect him to talk about testing.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, has the President announced the time for this speech tomorrow? Selfishly I want to know if it's going to be during our show. I'm sure people will want to know if it's going to be in primetime. Do you know?

Anita Kumar: I do not know. I haven't seen that and I haven't seen if the White House has put out anything. I don't think they have, they just said he'll do it. Sometimes they announce those things the day before, so we might hear today.

Brian Lehrer: Anita Kumar, after years as White House correspondent and obviously still paying attention to that beat. She is senior editor for Standards and Ethics at Politico. Anita thanks, as always

Anita Kumar: Sure. Thanks for having me.

 

 

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