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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We'll start with a little breaking news that's just came down within the hour, maybe you heard a brief mention of it earlier during the BBC. The breaking news is that Former Mayor Bill de Blasio will not run for governor. I'm going to read you from the Politico version by Sally Goldenberg who's covered de Blasio closely during his full mayoral tenure, headline, "De Blasio will not run for governor after all."

It says, "Bill de Blasio isn't running for governor after all, a decision the former mayor announced in a tweet this morning after fundraising, seeking endorsements, and trying to put together staff for a gubernatorial bid in recent months." Here's the quote from the tweet, it says, "I am not going to be running for Governor of New York State, but I am going to devote every fiber of my being to fighting inequality in the state of New York." "The decision," writes Sally Goldenberg, "appeared to mark the end of the political road for New York City's 109th mayor who concluded his eight-year tenure by moving a December 31st celebration planned for the City Hall Plaza indoors to avoid anti-vaccine protests outside the building."

For a little more context, it says, "He had hoped running for governor would allow him to test his signature proposals, raising taxes on the wealthy to fund expanded early education on a bigger stage, and all signs pointed to an interest in challenging Governor Kathy Hochul, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and Representative Tom Suozzi in the primary this June. The news that he would not run after all came as an about-face from the former mayor who had called people seeking donations for an account he established with the State Board of Elections last year called New Yorkers for a Fair Future."

I'll throw in that that was seen by a lot of people as a sign that he was very serious about getting ready to run. Politico reports, "A public filing reveals his fundraising totals is expected soon, and a member of his team did not say exactly how much he had pulled in this far." I know there were concerns about whether he was raising enough. It says, "Still de Blasio got a glimmer of hope if he wanted one in a Siena College poll released Tuesday outpacing Jumaane Williams by one point, while both trailed Hochul by more than 35 points.

The survey found Black voters who were crucial to de Blasio's winning mayoral coalition in 2013 are still keen on him. He led among Black Democrats, 36% compared to Hochul's 26% and Williams' 19%, but putting together endorsements and a staff was proving difficult." We will leave those excerpts there. There's the breaking local Politico news, Former Mayor Bill de Blasio not running for governor after all.

Now, turning to national politics. When I first saw the headline from the latest story by Meridith McGraw, National Political Correspondent for Politico, I misread it. I thought it said, "Trump's super fans dream of a run again and of RFK Junior on the ticket." I thought, "Well, that's wacky, but maybe in today's crazy politics it makes a certain sense. RFK Junior is one of the leading anti-vaxxers, so maybe teaming up with Trump who buys into lots of conspiracy theories himself and doesn't like virus restrictions makes for a certain bizarre team. Trump would have whatever Kennedy prestige there is left for a certain kind of swing voter."

Let me be very clear, I read the headline wrong. It wasn't RFK Junior who the Trump super fans were dreaming about as his running mate, it was JFK Junior who's been dead since 1999. With that in mind, we'll begin today with some midterm election politics around both parties' leaders in the Senate. As affected by the specter of Trump, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is heading for a Senate vote today on voting rights legislation, something that would make Ted Kennedy proud even though Schumer knows he will fail today.

Trump's big lie has succeeded in leading the Democrats to a political dead end in its legislative response, but perhaps even holding the vote and getting everyone from both parties on the record will help Democrats in November, we'll see. Trump seems to be campaigning now as much against Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell as he is against any Democrats. Politico has the story called Trump is eyeing White House and wants a more compliant Senate for when he gets there. McConnell, remember, has not bought into Trump's lie that the election was stolen.

Let's start there with the writer of that story and the one about JFK Junior, Politico National Politics Correspondent Meridith McGraw. Hi, Meridith, thanks for coming on, welcome to WNYC.

Meridith McGraw: Hey, thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Am I the only person you've heard about who misread your headline as a Trump and RFK Junior ticket rather than JFK Junior?

Meridith McGraw: No, you are not the only one. It is a fantastical, wild idea, but among some, I would say a very small group percentage of folks that support Trump, there is a real belief that JFK Junior who died is going to reveal himself, come back from the dead, and run with Trump. It is part of a QAnon conspiracy theory that has captivated this portion of Trump's supporters, and some of them were there at his rally in Arizona that I attended over the weekend, and I talked to them.

When I asked who they might want to see Trump run with in 2024, people threw out names like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. They threw out names like Mike Pompeo, even Mike Flynn. Then there were some that brought up JFK Junior as a potential running mate. Like I said, it's part of a wild underground conspiracy theory, but the fact that people were wearing t-shirts that had JFK Junior on them and things like that, just shows how the QAnon conspiracy has integrated itself into this portion of Trump supporters.

Brian Lehrer: Just to be clear, before we move on from this silliness, is it that they think JFK Junior is going to come back from the dead literally like in a metaphysical sense or a Jesus Christ's sense, or is it that the plane crash that killed JFK Junior in 1999 was a hoax and he's now embedded somewhere in the deep state as a Trump supporter? I think you used some language like that.

Meridith McGraw: Some of them have claimed that Trump uses a body double that's actually JFK Junior. There are some really silly, crazy ideas that have been thrown around and that are out there. Obviously, conspiracy theories and really honestly nutty stuff. I do want to say, this is not all of Trump's supporters are like this or think this way. This is a very small population, but they were there at Trump's rally on Saturday.

Brian Lehrer: I guess you're making a larger point, and I think everybody hears you how clear you're being about this being a very small percentage of the people who were at the Trump rally, but I guess you're making a larger point about how big the conspiracy theory world, in general, actually is that turns out voters and rally-goers for Trump. A lot of people have been surprised at how many QAnon supporters there have turned out to be. What's the larger political context for this?

Meridith McGraw: I think the larger political context is, honestly, that people will believe what they want to believe, and people are so siloed in their own media information worlds, where they get information from, who they're talking to, online communities, that I think it makes it much easy here for these types of wild outlandish conspiracy theories to grow and for people to find community in that.

I think that's one of the striking things when I go to Trump's rallies, is that it is a community of people who- These are like-minded folks, they support Trump, they support MAGA. For these QAnon people, it's the same thing. They've found some kind of a community, and they're able to have these wild ideas reinforced by whatever information they're getting from the internet.

Brian Lehrer: Do you see Republican Senate hopefuls monitoring events like the Trump rally in Arizona, which on one level is barely worth covering because he's not running for anything right now, but in the context of 2022 that Republican Senate hopefuls are monitoring events like that to see just how far off the right cliff they have to jump to get Trump's endorsement this year because Trump drives that many votes?

Meridith McGraw: I think they're certainly watching these events to hear what Trump has to say and what barometer he's setting. They care about getting his endorsement and they care about getting his nod of approval. They go down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with him, to talk to his political advisors. Some of them show up at these rallies. I was surprised to see Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was at the rally in Arizona. He has Trump's endorsement, but they do like to orbit the former president and to keep in his good graces. Political advisors will show up at these rallies with the hopes of talking to people around Trump.

Trump had a fundraiser before the rally for his Make America Great Again, Again Super PAC that supports people that he has endorsed. People do want to stay close to Trump and they are hoping for his endorsement. In terms of listening to what he has to say, I think one of the most interesting parts of that rally wasn't Trump but who spoke before him. He had people like Mark Finchem who's running for secretary of state in Arizona and has promulgated a lot of the same falsehoods that Trump has about the 2020 election.

He had Carrie Lake who's running for governor and who's been endorsed. She's also repeated some of those claims. Congressman Paul Gosar. He had My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, who's really been a ringleader for so many falsehoods about what happened, obviously, accusing Dominion voting machines of rigging the election, which is not true, and has been such a mouthpiece for a lot of things that are live. They made up the pre-program for this event. I thought that was very telling in terms of how Trump and people around him think his supporters want to hear, who they want to hear from, what they want to hear. That was made very apparent by that lineup.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we're talking about the midterm elections with Meridith McGraw from Politico on the Democratic side through the lens of the vote that's scheduled for today, on voting rights which is expected to fail in the Senate, on the Republican side through the lens of the shadow, the cast, that is cast by Donald Trump even after defeat and even in a year when he is not on the ticket. We can take your comments or questions if you have any for our journalist guest. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. As we've done in a few other segments, we invite agenda items for your party, whichever it is.

In the midterms, we're going to get into how the Republicans don't seem to really have an agenda right now other than stopping Democrats agenda items and supporting Trump in the big lie or figuring out how much to support Trump in the big lie. Any Republicans listening, saying what actual issues you would like your candidates to run on this year, or any Democrats, same, or anything related. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Meridith, on your article about Trump and this year's Senate elections, you write that Trump was aggrieved that when he was president, he didn't have enough Republicans in Congress who supported his so-called America First agenda. What are some agenda items that he didn't get through because of Senate Republicans?

Meridith McGraw: He will point to [unintelligible 00:14:09] John McCain, of course, doing his famous thumbs down on repeal and replace Obamacare, emergency funding for his wall. He really felt like for things that he felt strongly on that he didn't have the ideological support in the Senate from the Republicans that were there. They didn't align with him philosophically.

That's something that Trump's advisors told me when I was making calls for that story, was that Trump really did feel like senators didn't have his back when it came to certain things that he wanted to get accomplished. At the same time, Trump as we know, was his own worst political enemy and was not the best at negotiating what he wanted with the majority Republican Senate that he had.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take that a little deeper in terms of today's politics, so much of the talk about the Republican Party these days is that they have no national policy agenda. They're all about lining up behind Trump because he's so popular, and Trump is mostly about his false claim that he won the election. The Republicans in Congress seem to only talk about thwarting the Democrats agenda, Universal Pre-K, they don't want that, paid family leave and elder care support, they don't want that. Climate legislation, voting rights, criminal justice reform.

They don't even have to talk about it because the Democrats are fighting among themselves and not getting those things through. It looks like the Democrats have an agenda, and the Republicans are just trying to stop it and don't have a particular agenda of their own. Am I missing something?

Meridith McGraw: I think it's always easier to be the opposition party. It's always easier to be the party that gets to criticize and push back on whatever policies are being presented. Republicans right now in talking to National Party leaders, and operatives and folks here in Washington, they really do feel like they could be in a strong place come the midterm election, because the Biden Administration hasn't been able to- Coming off of last week and everything that happened, and then with this voting rights bill that's likely to fail, that will be just one more blow to Democrats as they head into a midterm election year.

Brian Lehrer: There's polling and reporting that shows Democrats and Republicans are emphasizing not only different positions on issues for the midterms this year, but different issues to even address. For Democrats, it's inequality and economic insecurity, climate. For Republicans, it's inflation and crime and various kinds of white grievance politics. How much does your reporting indicate that that's the case? They're not even running on disagreements about the same things, they're running on different problems even to try to solve.

Meridith McGraw: I think that's very true. A good example of that actually would be the Virginia governor's race that we just saw Glenn Youngkin win. He was obviously inaugurated over the weekend in Virginia. You really did see a disconnect between how Democrats and Republicans ran that race. For Republicans, there was an intense focus on pocketbook issues, on emphasizing things like the grocery tax or inflation. They really leaned into some of the culture wars part of school politics and the debate over critical race theory that was going on in the state.

Whereas, Democrats were talking about completely different things, and it was two very different visions that were presented. I think we're going to continue to see that play out. Some Democrats would like to see the push be more on economic issues, which they obviously have tried to tackle with some of these bills and the Build Back Better bill. I do think that one of the biggest contrasts was seen in that Virginia governor's race.

Brian Lehrer: Here's an interesting tweet from the listener who writes, "Oh, please, please, please, nominate more QAnon whack jobs as GOP candidates. November 2022 is going to be a turkey shoot." Obviously from a Democrat or anti-Republican, how much do you think that represents attention for Republican congressional candidates, maybe as they run in primaries, or even as they start to set themselves up for November against Democratic opponents? How much to run toward what the listener calls the QAnon whack job side of the spectrum, let's also call that the Trump election fraud side of the spectrum as opposed to on kitchen-table policy issues?

Meridith McGraw: I think you're going to see a lot of the latter. I wish I had the statistics in front of me, but I believe the Washington Post's tallied up just how many Republican candidates have taken Trump's view on election fraud and have talked about that in their own campaigns. I think a lot of people from the far right have been inspired to run by talk of election fraud, by their belief that the election was rigged, that the election was stolen from Trump. People feel from the right very passionately about that.

I wouldn't paint the GOP with broad brushstrokes just based off of what some of those people have said about the election, but it is notable that those feelings are shared by a majority of Republicans when they're polled, and by quite a few people. A majority in Congress as well.

Brian Lehrer: Meridith McGraw with us, National Political Correspondent for Politico. Another tweet, listener writes, "Will anyone speak about immigration reform?" Has that fallen way down the list of Democratic Party agenda items for the moment?

Meridith McGraw: It certainly seems like it's on the backburner. I feel like the issue of immigration is one that comes and goes in waves, if you will. We were obviously hearing so much about it and there was such an intense focus on it last year, last summer. It's something that actually from the right, I was interested in hearing from Trump at the rally talk about it, to talk about immigration. It was not any focus at all in his speech or in what people talked about, despite that being a really hot-button issue and important topic in the state of Arizona.

Brian Lehrer: Not only that, probably the key issue on which Trump got elected in 2016. What do you make of him not emphasizing it right now? Why wouldn't he?

Meridith McGraw: That's a good question. Perhaps he just doesn't see that as a particularly animating force right now. I really don't know. One of the things I did find interesting in what he did talk about was, over the course of the past few weeks, he's talked about boosters, he's talked about vaccines, he's promoted getting the vaccine. In December, he was at an appearance with Bill O'Reilly and was booed when he encouraged people to take the vaccine.

I just think it was notable at this rally, he didn't tell people to take the vaccine, he didn't encourage the booster, he didn't brag about Operation Warp Speed, but he did talk about the evils of the vaccine mandate and the Republicans resistance to any vaccine mandates, which was quite popular with the crowd.

Brian Lehrer: If the Republicans take Congress, do you think we'll see some of the more hardcore things happening at state level politics and Republican-controlled states take a national, like the six-week limit on abortions in Texas, or severe restrictions on mail in voting, or a national ban on vaccine mandates by private businesses like in Florida, or banning the teaching of America's racial history and the law if the facts make white kids too uncomfortable like in Virginia? Will we see federal policies like those if the Republicans control both houses of Congress?

Meridith McGraw: I think it's quite possible that we do see a wave of more hardline conservatives, particularly in the house, but I do think the Republicans in the Senate have been a buffer, if you will, to some in the house. I don't see Mitch McConnell let Senate getting behind some of the more radical right-wing ideas that you just mentioned.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. On the vaccine politics and the mass mandate politics that you mentioned a minute ago, hopefully they won't have COVID to kick around anymore in 2024, at least, but I guess that means Florida COVID policy is now being directed by the DeSantis 2024 campaign strategists. Let me ask you a political question about that. I know vaccine mandates and mask mandates always draw protests, but don't they tend to be more popular than unpopular in the electorate overall? Is being provirus really good politics?

Meridith McGraw: I don't think provirus is good politics, that is for sure, but-

Brian Lehrer: I know they wouldn't put it that way.

Meridith McGraw: [laughs] Of course. I think in mentioning DeSantis, he has been obviously incredibly popular in his state with Republicans and others in the state for how he has handled COVID in terms of pushing back against things like vaccine mandates and stuff like that. It is something that I think, at least on the right and for Republicans is very unpopular. I am interested, like you said, in seeing how much that shapes the upcoming midterm elections. I don't know where we'll be with this pandemic in the coming months, but I could see that continuing to be a very hot-button issue.

Brian Lehrer: The vote today in the Senate to advance voting rights legislation, Majority Leader Schumer is calling the vote even expecting to lose. Can you put that in the context of the midterm elections?

Meridith McGraw: I think Democrats want to show that even though they're likely to lose, that they tried. They want to put it up for a vote, and they want to make Republicans have to fight publicly over it, and to remind voters of how Republicans have handled the issue of voting rights, and how Republicans have handled talk of election fraud and election security in the 2020 election, and show to voters that they at least tried to put it up for election, they tried to push back on some of the criticisms from the left, that they haven't tried hard enough to really get this through, to convince people to overturn the filibuster so that they can actually make this happen.

Brian Lehrer: I guess the fact that we've arrived at this moment at all is a sign of how much Trump even in defeat is driving national politics and threatening democracy. The Democrats wouldn't be going through this internal struggle over voting rights and the filibuster, if a, they didn't see it as crucial to democracy and b, if Trump supporters weren't setting up to suppress and be able to more easily overturn the vote in selected swing states. They're succeeding, the Republicans are enforcing the Democrats into this tough political spot.

Meridith McGraw: I think so. I think they're looking at the state-level and what is happening on the ground in some of these states and saying that they need federal reforms. There are Republicans who say that any voting reforms that should take place at the state level, that it's not the role of the federal government to step in and mandate how states operate their own elections. In terms of how Trump has continued to hold such a sway over the GOP and has continued to strike fear in Democrats as they see his continued falsehoods about the election, have such a grip on the party, I think continues to be eye-popping, continues to be notable.

As Trump continues to talk about 2020, he hasn't backed down from any of it, even though there's been evidence that shows he's incorrect or just on a factual basis shows that what he's saying are falsehoods. Yes, some of the Republicans have come in line and have used that as a motivating force to change election rules in their own state.

Brian Lehrer: We just have two minutes left with Politico National Political Correspondent Meridith McGraw. Let me get in two more color comments. I think one from a Republican, one from a Democrat. We'll give each of them 30 seconds because we're going to run out of time. Andrew in Brooklyn, you're up first. Hi, Andrew, we have 30 seconds for you. Thanks for calling.

Andrew: Oh, thank you. I just think this is such an echo chamber conversation, and it's an echo chamber I want to live in, but you just got to remember Marjorie Taylor Greene was elected before all this aggrievement over the election on fairness and the big lie, and Jim Jordan is beloved. I think the Democrats are going to get massacred unless we wake up and pay more attention to the real situation. Thank you, guys.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Jack in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi Jack, 30 seconds.

Jack: Why doesn't the Justice Department try Trump for the insurrection the way Mitch McConnell says we should, and then he won't be able to run for president again if he'll be convicted on a felony. Why don't they do it? Maybe they want him to run because they know they have a better chance against him than against a different Republican.

Brian Lehrer: Jack, thank you very much. Briefly on each caller, Meridith. On that last caller, that's certainly an X factor for Trump, he may wind up getting indicted, either in connection with January 6th on federal charges or by the state of New York on tax evasion or real estate fraud charges. Obviously, that could change something.

Meridith McGraw: Right. I think, Attorney General Merrick Garland, press conference that he had, he was very cautious, of course, with what he said, but he has vowed to hold people accountable for what happened on January 6th, and he certainly left the door open to a potential indictment of Trump as they continue to make their investigations.

As to the first caller's comment, he's very right. People like Marjorie Taylor Greene, people like Jim Jordan are incredibly popular. Marjorie Taylor Greene has become such a darling of the right. I think they've been able to tap into an emotional response from a lot of voters, particularly as we go into yet another year of dealing with the pandemic, and people really are feeling things like the forces of inflation on their everyday lives.

Brian Lehrer: Trump chose to have with him at that rally on Saturday Congressman Paul Gosar, who just had come under such criticism for releasing that anime of himself in cartoon form, murdering a cartoon AOC and then going on to assault President Biden in that cartoon. Yet, he is who Trump found it to his political advantage to appear with at the Arizona rally. There we leave it with Meridith McGraw, National Political Correspondent for Politico. Meridith, thanks for joining us today.

Meridith McGraw: Thanks for having me.

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