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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. While Americans worry out loud about the rights of women in Afghanistan, the rights of women in this country just took a big hit. The US Supreme Court has let stand, at least for now, the new Texas law, which took effect yesterday and bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, that's reported to be around 85% of all abortions previously allowed in the state.

The court will hear a substantive challenge to the law, but is allowing it to take effect in the meantime. That's in direct contradiction to the court's Roe vs.

Wade decision, which protected abortion rights until what's called fetal viability, which comes months later into pregnancy. The new law also enables lawsuits against any person who even helps a woman find or obtain abortion services in the state of Texas.

Now, if the court ultimately allows the law to stand and abandons Roe altogether, that would leave abortion rights up to each state, and Politico reports this morning that with this prospect on the Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett court, abortion is becoming a major motivator in governors' races around the country.

As for those Afghan women, Politico notes that Senate Republicans are pressing President Biden to account for how many immigrant visa applicants were left behind in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal implication. Let's get more Afghans out. That's at the same time as some Republicans are opposing resettlement of those same Afghans in this country, partly because of how they treat women.

For example, former Trump cabinet member, Russ Vaught, now head of a conservative think tank and previously an aid to Texas Senator Phil Gramm is quoted in the Washington Examiner saying, "Many of these individuals have a very different viewpoint about not only what it means to be an American, but dignity for women and children and life". Maybe though there's more overlap with values in Texas on some of those issues than he's letting on.

With me now is Anita Kumar, Politico Senior Editor for Standards and Ethics. She's also been a political White House correspondent during the Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies. Hi, Anita, thanks for some time today with all this going on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Anita Kumar: Sure. Thanks for having me back.

Brian Lehrer: The Supreme Court decision I see was five to four with Chief Justice Roberts siding with the liberal minority, understanding that your background is as a political reporter, not a legal analyst, can you say briefly what the court said in its opinion and what that allows to start happening in Texas now?

Anita Kumar: Yes. Basically, the bottom line here is that the Texas law that was passed by the legislature, signed by the Republican governor, can go ahead and go into effect, even while these court cases are going on. There is a court case pending there.

What the order said from the Supreme Court was really not much, it was not signed by anyone in particular, and it was basically one long paragraph. It basically said that those that are trying to stop the law had not made their case in the face of what they called complex and novel procedural questions.

They were clear to say that they weren't making an opinion or a ruling on the actual law, but just whether to stop this while the cases were going through the court. Again, the Supreme Court not deciding the merit of this particular law yet, they may do that one day, but whether this could go ahead while other courts are hearing appeals on it.

Brian Lehrer: This may or may not in and of itself, the Texas law, per se, make it to the Supreme Court in its new term, which begins the first Monday in October?

Anita Kumar: That's right. Remember in the new term, the Supreme Court is already scheduled to hear another case, which would get to some of the similar arguments here about Roe vs Wade, and that's a Mississippi case concerning a state law there that bans most abortions after 15 weeks. As you mentioned, this is six weeks, a similar case, and that is widely looked at as something that's going to determine what states can do all around the country.

Brian Lehrer: Now, President Biden issued a statement, I see, saying, "This extreme Texas law blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe vs. Wade and upheld as precedent for nearly half a century," but he didn't criticize the Supreme Court, per se. How do you see the political calibration of the statement that President Biden released?

Anita Kumar: It's interesting. I don't even think he actually mentioned really the Supreme Court. He really focused on the Texas law. I think it's a couple of reasons. One, in certain aspects, I guess the president, the Supreme Court Congress, you tend to see in some official statements, although now I guess not really Congress, that they don't take these political views. The Supreme Court has always been a little bit considered in the past to be a little bit above that. People would argue that it's gotten away from that.

The other reason, of course, is the bottom line here is this is about what the Texas legislature and the Texas governor did. Whether the Supreme Court stops it for a period of time or not, it all goes back to this law in Texas and what should happen with that. It's not just about the Supreme Court, it's about other judges and other courts, legislatures, and the governor, as they figure out what's going to happen with this law.

Brian Lehrer: He did, to my eye, implicitly criticize the court by saying this extreme Texas law violates the rights under Roe that have been "upheld as precedent for nearly half a century". Looks to me like he's implying criticism of how they were not upheld these rights as precedent by the court in yesterday's decision.

Anita Kumar: Yes, that's right. The President is right on that. It has been upheld, there's been this precedent, and this court is going to decide whether that will continue or not. When we see their next term next year in the fall, and then probably we won't see the ruling until the spring of the following year.

Brian Lehrer: Right. I think one of the differences between yesterday and in the past is that in the past the court did block laws like this from even going into effect temporarily. Since it was five/four, we have to assume if Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still alive and on the court, rather than Amy Coney Barrett who replaced her, it would have been five/four the other way.

Now, I mentioned the Politico story out today. My guest is Anita Kumar from Politico, about abortion becoming a major motivator in governors' races around the country. When I opened that article, I thought it was going to be about 2022 when a lot of governors are up, but I was shocked to see this is relevant right now in the recall election of California Governor Gavin Newsom, which is coming up in less than two weeks. Can you explain a little of why that is?

Anita Kumar: Yes, that's right. There's really only three governors' races this year, so people overlook them. Of course, Virginia and New Jersey always have these off-election years. Then, of course, we have the recall, as you mentioned, just two weeks away. It's an interesting situation there. California, of course, has Democratic supermajority if you will, in both chambers of their legislature. They are extremely unlikely to pass something restrictive on abortion no matter what happens.

The Democrat there, Gavin Newsom, the incumbent, who is facing this recall is using this issue to motivate people, to say, "Look at what some of these Republicans are doing in other places, look what could happen here."

Now, again, it's unlikely to happen there, but if that's a way that Democrats can get some voters motivated, then that's probably what they're going to do and that's what we're seeing them doing. We're seeing the same thing in Virginia, which is, of course, not as-- it has trended democratically over these past few years, but nothing like we see in California.

This is something whee Democrats feel they can get voters enthusiastic and motivated, get them to the polls, get other people there. You've probably seen that there's a lot of talk about how Gavin Newsom is in trouble. He may not get through this recall. Anything that they can do to get some people motivated is what they're going to do.

Brian Lehrer: As the article reminds us, 36 states elect governors next year and almost every state elects its state legislatures next year. Anita, if the Supreme Court in its coming term actually thrust us into a post-Roe world, a world with no real federal standard, it is game on for how much to further restrict or protect abortion rights in every state. Isn't it?

Anita Kumar: Yes. Definitely, I would definitely see that. We're already seeing that. That's why we saw these Texas and Mississippi cases in the first place. There are a lot of Republicans that have looked at the Supreme Court that President Trump remade or at least added three people to the court and said, "Look, there's now this conservative majority, we can push through things and it will get through the Supreme Court." Now, we don't know that for sure. It depends on each case, but there is that thinking and so we've already seen state legislatures go that route, but of course, if the Supreme Court rules in this case and allows this to move forward, then yes, individual states will take that up. Maybe not California, but a lot of other states.

Brian Lehrer: Now, listeners, we don't have a lot of time for calls in this segment because we went long with our storm coverage earlier in the hour, which of course we added this morning. This was not planned for because no one expected Hurricane Ida, or its remnants to be what it was here overnight.

This segment is getting a little bit crunched, but we could take a few calls, probably get some in for Anita Kumar from Politico about the national implications of the Texas abortion law and the Supreme Court letting it go into effect, at least for now, or on the divide among Republicans on lobbying to get Afghan refugees out, but also lobbying not to take them in which we're about to get to. 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280.

Anita, let's go there. Can you describe how Republicans are criticizing President Biden for not getting more Afghan refugees out of the country in the air left, but also resisting the resettlement of refugees here?

Anita Kumar: The Republican Party is very, very split on this refugee issue. We often talk about the Republican Party being split, but this one we were really seeing some very stark different language here. We have many Republicans who are saying, "We want more refugees here. We need to get all the refugees, Afghan refugees we can in the United States." They want to add more visas to those that can come here, all the sort of things like that.

Then we also see other Republicans who are saying, "We don't want them here, we need to limit the numbers," for a couple of reasons. You alluded to one earlier. One of the reasons is they think that this is going to change the makeup of the communities where they go. Their values are different. It's going to change what America is like, what these American communities are like.

The other reason is these Republicans say that there hasn't been proper vetting. I guess these two reasons are related. There hasn't been proper vetting and these people could be dangerous. We don't know what they're like and we just don't know what their background is. For both of those reasons, but we're seeing a real stark divide in the Republican Party.

Brian Lehrer: Zoe, in Co-op City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Zoe?

Zoe: Hi. A couple of days ago, I got an email announcing a postcard campaign addressed to Democrats in California who hadn't been turning out very much. If we can get them to oppose the recall, we can save a lot of things in California including abortion rights, but I don't have the information on this. This appears from my phone. I wonder if your guest knows anything about it?

Brian Lehrer: That's interesting. I don't know if you can help, Zoe, specifically find that postcard campaign or how to figure out who to address the postcard to, is I guess part of how that campaign would work, but it's interesting even to know that there's some kind of national push including from outside California to help save Governor Gavin Newsom.

Anita Kumar Yes. It's interesting. I don't know about that specific campaign. It is interesting especially that it came out a couple of weeks ago. Of course, abortion's been in the news this week because of what the Supreme Court did or didn't do. That this was going on a couple of weeks ago is interesting. Obviously, shows that this is something that they have been wanting to use as an issue.

Brian Lehrer: I guess one of the things in California is that they're learning from the last time there was a recall that ousted a Democratic Governor Gray Davis, and wound up with a Republican, in fact, taking over it was Arnold Schwarzenegger at that time, right? I think that one of the things that happened then was that the Democrats-- Let's see, maybe you can correct me. It's one way or the other. See now my memory is perhaps flipping the script.

It's either that they didn't put up other Democrats as alternatives to Gray Davis, because they were just trying to save him, but he was unpopular, so he got ousted, and the highest-ranking another candidate which was Schwarzenegger won and so it changed parties, or that now they're not doing that so that all the focus can remain on saving Gavin Newsom if Democrats turn out.

Anita Kumar: I don't know what happened at that time, but you're right. They are learning some lessons from the previous time. One of the things I think that they're realizing as we talked about is you can have this very progressive liberal state where Democrats definitely have the majority there and still your Democratic governor can be in trouble. That's what they're really finding out and really worried about.

Brian Lehrer: Let's go to Gregory in Astoria next. Gregory, you're on WNYC. Hi, there?

Gregory: Hi, good morning. Thanks, Brian. I have a question concerning the population shift in the United States from majority white to perhaps-- or 50%, and where the push for limiting abortion right comes in, because it seems to be, in many conversations, that it's about a population shift and a panic around far-right Americans especially to limit that population shift. Do you have an opinion on that or could you highlight that a little more?

Brian Lehrer: Gregory, thank you for a very interesting question. Do you happen to know, of course, these are perennial issues both immigration and abortion, do you have any political analysis, Anita, of how they may be linked or not?

Anita Kumar: Yes, I'm not really sure I understood the question about the shift and how that relates to the abortion issue, but I will say that what we're seeing is even as the population as a whole is shifting, remember that a lot of state legislatures are Republican and that's where you might say, "Oh, they should reflect what the population is," but, of course, we have gerrymandering in this country and the redistricting is skewed in one way or another.

We're seeing that state legislatures are more Republican than Democrat and those are the ones that are pushing through a lot of these abortion bills that we've been talking about.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, I guess he's thinking that the laws would mean more white babies would be born, but the anti-abortion rights people also make the argument that this is a way to protect Black and Brown babies lives, because if poverty is associated with higher abortion rates then that benefits those communities, so they'll make whatever argument tied to any ethnic group helps make their larger point, I would think.

I think a deeper analysis, you can find all kinds of links between white supremacy and patriarchy, and probably there 14 different angles on that relationship that we could explore here.

Anita Kumar: That's right. That's how politics is today. You can argue whatever you want using the statistics that you have. I'm not saying that's right, but just that's how it works.

Brian Lehrer: This former Trump cabinet member Russ Vought, who's also been an aid to former Texas Senator Phil Gramm quoted in the Washington Examiner opposing rapid resettlement of Afghan refugees, in part, because, "Many of these individuals have a very different viewpoint about dignity for women." Does he have no sense of irony?

Anita Kumar: I guess not. I saw that comment and he was referring to a PEW study from a while back talking about what Afghans believed on different things in terms of whether violence should be allowed if you're making your viewpoint and different things. This goes back to this larger argument about-- we're hearing from some Republicans, the most conservative Republicans, I would say, if too many Afghans are allowed in the United States, it's going to change the community. It's going to change what the community looks like, sounds like, what the views are of the community. It goes back to that argument that we're hearing from some people.

Brian Lehrer: Glenn in West Milford, you're on WNYC. Hi, Glenn?

Glenn: Yes, long-time listener, just first-time caller now. You guys are doing a great job keeping things real, thank you very much.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Glenn: My concern today is the precedent being set by the Texas law using civil lawsuits to weaponize anybody who has a political concern. It seems to me that it could be very dangerous and create a lot of chaos because any state anywhere, whatever the precedent is, could use it for anything.

Brian Lehrer: Glenn, that's a great point. Again, our guest Anita Kumar from Politico is not a legal analyst. Jami Floyd is going to be guest hosting the show for me next Tuesday, our legal analyst. I think she's planning on taking a deeper dive into some of the legal aspects of this new Texas law. There is this thing, Anita, even we laypeople know, that will allow people to file lawsuits against anyone who even helps a woman obtain an abortion in Texas.

Now, I had an interview with someone from Planned Parenthood down there who was saying what they can still do under this law, as they understand it, is help someone cross state lines to get an abortion. If they help somebody get an abortion within the state of Texas, then they can be sued. That is unusual, at least, legal cudgel. I can't think of an exact parallel to it in any other aspect of law, and, again, with neither of us being lawyers, but can you?

Anita Kumar: No, I can't, but I'm so glad the caller mentioned that. It's one of the most unusual things about this law in Texas. I understood from some other people that I've talked to, that it was drafted that way, written that way, just to make things more difficult to challenge in court. This was their way of obviously knowing this was going to end up in court and trying to fight that off.

It's interesting also that Chief Justice Roberts, he mentioned this exact provision in his statement. Basically, all four justices that disagreed with the majority wrote something which is a little bit unusual as well. He actually mentioned this, mentioned that this was very unusual and really almost unprecedented.

I do think that's something we're going to hear a lot about. I remember reading something about this. That it's not that the patient can't be sued, but the doctors, the employees at the clinics, the counselors, anyone can be sued. Even if you get an Uber or a Lyft to take you to a clinic, that person could be sued. It's very far-reaching and quite different.

Brian Lehrer: One more call. We've got more callers in here than I thought we were going to. I'm really glad because it's so important, and our callers have been great. Felice in Brookville, you'll be the last one for now. Hi, Felice.

Felice: Hi, Brian. Just wondering if your guest thinks that seeing this Texas abortion law take effect will motivate Justice Breyer to retire.

Brian Lehrer: Great question. He admitted recently that he's struggling with this, and struggling with the question of whether he wants the political consideration of allowing the current Democratic president to name the next nominee. He's struggling with this, right?

Anita Kumar: Yes, that's right. I don't know what he's thinking, of course, but he's exactly right. He gave a recent interview talking about this. Of course, he reads and sees what people are saying, and he's got to be feeling some pressure here because there are people talking about this all the time, questioning-- I've been at the White House briefing where the press secretary has been questioned about whether they're preparing for this possibility.

This happens to all of these justices as they reach a certain age. They want President Biden to nominate someone else. I'm sure that he's feeling all sorts of pressure, but he also said, "Look, I've got to do what I think is right and no one can pressure me. I've got to decide for myself what I do, how long I stay on." I'm sure he's looking at all of this with great interest.

Brian Lehrer: Just the last thing to go back to the Afghan refugee resettlement, the number that I've seen for how many of these special immigrant visa recipients for helping Americans went to Afghans in Trump's last year in office was only less than 300. Now, there are 100,000 Afghans sitting on US Air Force bases and such waiting to see where they're going to live.

How is the Biden administration approaching that in terms of US resettlement? What about these Republicans like Tom Cotton who's a very conservative senator from Arkansas who's leading the charge against Biden for the criticism of not having gotten more Afghans out, but at the same time, he's one of the most anti-immigrant, pro-Muslim ban senators in the whole US Senate?

Anita Kumar: It's interesting because the argument on this at this time, at this moment and time is, "Look, these are people, these Afghans that are trying to leave now that helped the United States for the last 20 years." Maybe those were the same people during the Trump administration, but the argument from the Republicans is, "We've got to help them because they helped us."

I've seen all different numbers out there. The numbers the White House gave out yesterday were that 20,000 Afghans had come to the United States, 50,000 are what they expect to come, or at least come to military bases. That's where they're going first. They're going to military bases to be processed to find more permanent home to be resettled, and they're being resettled all over the country.

It's not that there's just pockets here and there. There are cities and states all over the country where they're going. We'll say that the top ones earlier this week were Northern Virginia, outside of Washington, and also the Sacramento area in California, partly because there were already big populations of Afghans in those places, and people tend to want to resettle where they're welcome, where they might have family or friends or know people.

This is going to be an issue. The evacuation was an issue for a few weeks. This resettlement situation is going to be an issue for weeks and months to come as more come over as we start to see where they settle and as communities start to either embrace them or not.

Brian Lehrer: We will see more Islamophobic, false premise attacks on their values to come, no doubt. Anita Kumar, Politico's Senior Editor for Standards and Ethics, who has also been a political White House correspondent during the Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies, thank you so much.

Anita Kumar: Thanks for having me.

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