michael barbaro
From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”
[music]
Today’s Senate primary in Kentucky has been transformed by the outcry over police brutality. Jonathan Martin, on what the election can tell us about the future of Democratic politics.
It’s Tuesday, June 23.
Jonathan, tell me about today’s Senate race in Kentucky.
jonathan martin
Well, this is the Democratic primary to take on Senator Mitch McConnell, who, of course, is the majority leader of the Senate. And, for a long time, it seemed like his Democratic opponent was going to be Amy McGrath —
archived recording (amy mcgrath)
I’m Amy McGrath, and I love our country. I spent 20 years as a U.S. Marine, flew 89 combat missions bombing Al Queda and the Taliban.
jonathan martin
— who came to some fame nationally in her 2018 House race on the basis of her resume.
archived recording (amy mcgrath)
I was the first woman marine to fly in an F18 in combat, and I got to land on aircraft carriers.
jonathan martin
She was a Marine pilot, and entered the House race talking a lot about her military experience —
archived recording (amy mcgrath)
This is my new mission — to take on a Congress full of career politicians who treat the people of Kentucky like they’re disposable.
jonathan martin
— and almost immediately gained this national profile.
archived recording (amy mcgrath)
Some are telling me a Democrat can’t win that battle in Kentucky, that we can’t take back our country for my kids and yours. We’ll see about that.
jonathan martin
But she was not a terribly good candidate, it turns out.
archived recording
This is a disappointment to Democrats. It comes from state to Kentucky. Amy McGrath, the former Marine combat pilot, defeated by the four-term incumbent, Andy Barr.
jonathan martin
She was running in a pretty difficult seat for a Democrat.
archived recording
But this is a district that Trump won by 15 points. Her opponent, Andy Barr, looks like will get that fourth term.
jonathan martin
And she lost what was otherwise a great year for Democrats. But Chuck Schumer, who runs the Senate Democratic caucus, and effectively runs recruitment of Senate Democratic candidates, figured that she had one very important asset that could help him in 2020. She raised a lot of money and built a large list of national donors in 2018.
michael barbaro
Hm. And so, as this Senate — not House race — gets underway this year, I’m guessing Chuck Schumer decides to look to Amy McGrath once again.
jonathan martin
Exactly. Because the idea was not necessarily to beat Mitch McConnell, but to at least keep the race competitive, keep McConnell pinned down in Kentucky, keep him focused on raising money for his own re-election, and perhaps siphon some national G.O.P. money that would otherwise go to different states, and have it go to Kentucky. So that was Schumer’s thinking.
archived recording (chuck schumer)
Look, Amy McGrath is our candidate. She’s a strong candidate.
jonathan martin
And he looked at McGrath and saw her money potential, saw the sort of breadth of her national donor list, and said —
archived recording (chuck schumer)
She’s giving McConnell a run for his money. The Republican super PAC put $10 million dollars into Kentucky. She’s doing very well.
jonathan martin
— this is who I want to be our nominee against McConnell. And I’m going to make sure that she does not have any kind of a consequential primary to speak of.
michael barbaro
So he wants to clear a path for her to become the nominee.
jonathan martin
Right. Schumer wants to clear the field. He wants McGrath to be their candidate. He doesn’t want to deal with drama in the primary. He just wants to have her raising money, putting up enormous numbers to spook McConnell, and divert McConnell’s attention back to his own home state and his own re-election. So it does seem like, for some time, that McGrath is not going to have a terribly competitive primary. And so while McGrath seems to be full steam ahead towards the general election, with not much of a primary to speak of, she is banking money at an extraordinary rate. She has raised over $40 million, which is more money than a lot of Senate candidates raise in an entire campaign, let alone a primary.
michael barbaro
Yeah. That’s a lot of money. So as far as everybody is concerned, especially back in Washington, Amy McGrath is on a glide path to the nomination.
jonathan martin
Exactly right. And then something happens.
[music]archived recording
We turn now to a deadly police-involved shooting in Louisville. The victim was an E.M.T. Her family claims she was executed by police, as officers served a search warrant in the middle of the night.
jonathan martin
On March 13, shortly after midnight, Louisville police officers used a battering ram to enter the apartment of Breonna Taylor, who was a 26-year-old African-American emergency room tech, and shot her eight times while she was in bed in her own apartment.
archived recording 1
So they just went into her apartment looking for a suspect, whom we now understand was already in police custody. This is not unique to Louisville.
archived recording 2
We need answers. We need answers, because this should have never happened.
jonathan martin
And this killing of Miss Taylor by Louisville police sparked an outcry in the state —
archived recording
We have right to live while black!
jonathan martin
— that is then amplified, sadly, by the killing in late May of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
archived recording 1
(CHANTING) George Floyd!
archived recording 2
Say his name!
archived recording 3
George Floyd!
archived recording 4
Say her name!
archived recording 5
Breonna Taylor!
archived recording 6
Say her name!
archived recording 7
Breonna Taylor!
archived recording 8
Say her name!
archived recording 9
Breonna Taylor!
michael barbaro
And how does that begin to impact this Senate race?
jonathan martin
The activism in the aftermath of the killing of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd is extremely intense in Kentucky, and especially in Louisville. The demonstrations are nightly. There are clashes with police. And there is a candidate who is running from Louisville. He’s an African-American, and his candidacy is now starting to get more attention.
archived recording (charles booker)
[APPLAUSE] I stand before you as your brother, as your cousin, as your neighbor, as your fellow good troublemaker.
My name is Charles Booker. [CHEERING]
jonathan martin
35-year-old state representative named Charles Booker.
archived recording (charles booker)
I’m state representative for the 43rd District, which we are standing in. And if you are not from the 43rd District, I represent you anyway. [CHEERING]
jonathan martin
So he represents what he likes to say is the poorest zip code in all of Kentucky.
archived recording (charles booker)
No one pays attention to my neighborhood. In the West end of Louisville, with roughly 75,000 people, we have just a couple of grocery stores, a handful of dollar stores, because they prey on us.
jonathan martin
He is from the West End of Louisville, black neighborhood.
archived recording (charles booker)
And if you need to use public transportation to get to the hospital, it can take you a couple of hours. Jobs have left.
jonathan martin
And he is someone who is running as a progressive, and had been running as a progressive —
archived recording (charles booker)
Our platform is about ending structural inequity, and ending generational poverty.
jonathan martin
— talking about issues like the Green New Deal, like single-payer health care, but hadn’t gotten a lot of attention in large part because he hadn’t raised much money. And McGrath had raised so much cash.
michael barbaro
Right.
jonathan martin
But after the killing of Taylor and then Floyd —
archived recording (charles booker)
We are crying out for Brianna Taylor, and we’re crying out for ourselves.
jonathan martin
— once these demonstrations get going, there is now suddenly more attention to Booker. Because he is a state lawmaker who is in these protests.
archived recording (charles booker)
When Breonna died, when she was killed —
archived recording (protestor)
Murdered!
archived recording (charles booker)
— a part of us was killed, as well.
archived recording (protestor)
Yes!
jonathan martin
He is getting tear gassed in the streets of Louisville. And he is seeing this up front. He is experiencing this himself, day in, day out in his hometown. He is effectively a Black Lives Matter candidate.
archived recording (charles booker)
But if you look like me, if you look like him, if you look like him, if you look like her, you may be seen as a deadly weapon before being seen as a human being.
archived recording
Yes!
archived recording (charles booker)
It ain’t right, and it’s hurting all of us.
michael barbaro
And so what happens to Booker’s candidacy as these protests intensify in Louisville, and all over the country?
jonathan martin
Well, the two largest papers in the state, The Courier-Journal in Louisville and Lexington Herald-Leader, taking note of this fraught moment of racial politics, endorse Booker and state that he’s the best candidate for these times. So that helps to give him traction. And then, in addition to getting that key local support, he’s getting the attention from national progressive leaders. Bernie Sanders offers his endorsement. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez gets behind his candidacy. And that’s putting him on the sort of national progressive radar screen, if you will.
michael barbaro
So Jonathan, as Booker is, from everything you’re describing, catching fire, what is the party’s anointed candidate, Amy McGrath, doing in response?
jonathan martin
Well, she is talking about these demonstrations and about the killing of George Floyd a little bit more, in recognition that she can’t take the primary for granted. But Amy McGrath is not a natural politician. This was part of her struggle in 2018. And it does not go perfectly when she tries to engage these issues. In fact, in a debate she’s asked the question about —
archived recording
Have you been on the ground in Louisville with the protesters the last three days or in Lexington or elsewhere, Miss McGrath?
jonathan martin
— have you been to any of the protests. And she answers pretty awkwardly.
archived recording (amy mcgrath)
I have not.
archived recording
And, why?
archived recording (amy mcgrath)
Well, I’ve been with my family and I’ve had some family things going on this past weekend. But I’ve been following the news and making sure that — you know, I think — we’re in the middle of a pandemic.
[music]michael barbaro
So suddenly, Amy McGrath’s politics of moderation and her distance from these protests are seeming quite out of sync with the moment.
jonathan martin
Right. And, more to the point, Booker is very much tapping into the moment. This is suddenly a competitive primary. Amy McGrath has had to spend an enormous amount of money on ads in the last couple of weeks to sustain her advantage — money that I think she and national Democrats thought that they would use against McConnell. And Booker has made this more of a competitive race going into the primary Tuesday.
michael barbaro
And so what is Booker’s surge here? What does that mean for Democratic Party leaders back in Washington, who bet so heavily on Amy McGrath?
jonathan martin
So Booker illustrates that the intensity, the activism that we’re seeing on the streets of America in the last few weeks, is now at the door front of the Democratic Party. And Democrats are eager to harness this energy and activism, especially when it comes to organizing against President Trump and Republicans this fall. But when it comes to their own races, their own primaries, their own party, it’s more complicated. So this does also represent a challenge to Democratic leaders.
[music]michael barbaro
We’ll be right back.
Jonathan, how is it a challenge for Democratic Party leaders to have a candidate like Booker doing really well? Because on the surface it seems like a hotly contested Democratic primary that raises lots of attention, raises lots of money, that that’s a good thing for the party.
jonathan martin
Well, it creates a challenge, because Chuck Schumer has gotten used to being able to dictate primaries in the Senate races basically every two years. But it’s not just about Schumer. This is about the Democratic Party’s leadership being able to keep its grip on who the nominees are going to be, where the money is going to go. And this is a real challenge to that power, that grip on the party.
michael barbaro
And why does that grip matter if it may be out of sync with what Democratic primary voters want?
jonathan martin
Well, because leaders like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi believe that to keep or gain majorities they have to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters, and that that means nominating some candidates who are more moderate depending upon the state or the district that they’re running in.
michael barbaro
And Booker does not fit that mold.
jonathan martin
Exactly. Leaders like Schumer are skeptical that a candidate of Booker’s liberal politics could win the race in a place like Kentucky, where Trump won by 30 points four years ago. But I think to get closer to the bone here, if Schumer is not able to control the outcomes of these Democratic primaries, and he’s got people in his caucus, potentially, who are not loyal to him, who won despite his intervention, then that’s going to create vote counting headaches for him. And looking at the map right now, his majority is probably going to be, if there is one, a seat or two. It’s not going to be that extensive. So every vote counts. So he’s thinking about, who am I going to have in my caucus? Who’s going to be reliable? Who’s going to be less so? And so that’s where this matters.
michael barbaro
This reminds me a little bit of what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dealt with, with the election of the squad, among whom is Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, progressive Democrats who tugged the entire body at times to the left in ways that House leadership wasn’t perhaps ready for.
jonathan martin
But it’s even more delicate in the case of Schumer because of math, because the Senate is going to be so closely divided next year. And if Democrats have a majority, it’ll be a narrow one. Think about it. Pelosi in the House — she won 40 seats in 2018. They had a pretty robust majority. So you could lose a handful of progressives, like the squad, and basically cater to your more moderate Democrats, because those are the ones that had numbers. This is just a more sort of delicate situation because the Senate is on a knife’s edge.
michael barbaro
Jonathan, we’re talking about this race in Kentucky as if it is very high stakes for Chuck Schumer. But how much does this race, in particular, really matter?
jonathan martin
So this less about eventually beating McConnell, which is going to be a tall order in Kentucky, then it is about what’s happening in the Democratic Party. And it’s not just in Kentucky. Also on Tuesday, there is a competitive primary featuring Eliot Engel, who’s the long-serving chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who’s facing a primary from an African-American, Jamaal Bowman. In Virginia, a fairly conservative district, there is also an African-American running in that primary. So what I’m really interested in watching these primaries unfold is can progressives gather strength, organize and sort of overcome the establishment candidates in some of these races? But also, is 2020 going to be for black candidates what 2018 was for a lot of women, which is sort of capturing the energy of the moment? And I think that’s going to be one of the most fascinating things to watch on Tuesday, is can black candidates like Jamaal Bowman in New York, like Booker in Kentucky — can they build these multi-racial coalitions, capitalizing on this extraordinary moment of race in America?
michael barbaro
Jonathan, it would seem counterproductive, not to mention perhaps hypocritical, for the Democratic leadership to stand in the way of such a change within their party, that you described. I mean, the party said it welcomed all these progressive women in 2018. And wouldn’t it want to welcome and celebrate African-American progressive candidates in this coming election cycle?
jonathan martin
Well, here’s the catch. A lot of the women in 2018 — the Democrats embraced — were more moderate. You know, the squad got the attention. But a lot of the women who ran and won in 2018, who were not as well known, are much more centrist in their political orientation. I think the difference here is twofold. First of all, I think there is concern that some of their politics are too progressive for their states or districts. And I think in the case of Engel, of Congressman Engel, it’s just a matter of protecting incumbents. That’s a longstanding rule in both parties, that they support incumbents. So Nancy Pelosi, Andrew Cuomo feel obliged to support a longtime ally, somebody who’s up for re-election.
michael barbaro
Right. They don’t want to lose loyal votes, longtime allies. That all makes sense for the leadership, in theory. But isn’t the greater risk for Democratic leaders, on a really practical level, that they are missing this moment? They are not getting behind candidates. And they risk losing touch with this very powerful constituency that seems to be ascendant within the party.
jonathan martin
Right! The left would say, this is what the moment is, and this is about the country now needs and demands. Given the virus, given issues of racial injustice, given the economic collapse, the moment cries out for real substantive sweeping policy changes in America, and that if you don’t abide that, if you don’t recognize that, then you’re out of touch as a Democratic leader. And I think this conversation — this tension between the left and the center in the Democratic party, I think, is really going to come to the fore.
michael barbaro
And in that version of this, Jonathan, what becomes of some of these Democratic leaders who we started this conversation focusing on, like a Senator Schumer?
jonathan martin
Well, they have to adapt to the moment. And if they don’t, then they’re going to pay a political price in their own party. And they risk losing control of their own party’s nominating process, because they would further feed this energy on the left, and risk having their own colleagues lose primaries. And, yes, even perhaps in Schumer’s case, they would risk their own seats.
[music]
You know, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to candidates. And they often try to hedge or they often try to trim their answers to reflect the states that they’re running in. But that was not the case when I talked to Booker.
jonathan martin
Amy McGrath, your opponent, your primary opponent — do you think that she would lose to McConnell in the fall?
charles booker
Of course.
jonathan martin
He was very straightforward about the fact that he believes the moderate approach, trying to not be seen as too ideological, was a loser in Kentucky.
charles booker
It’s the same playbook that loses every time. And it’s this political B.S. that says, the only way you can beat them is just raise a whole lot of money.
jonathan martin
Right.
charles booker
Flood the airwaves. Don’t talk about real issues. Don’t talk about poverty. Just play the political game and you’ll peel off some conservative voters. That never works.
jonathan martin
He said we’ve tried that before. He said, we’ve seen that playbook used time and time again. And people are not going to fall for that bullshit again.
charles booker
These aren’t issues that I’m choosing out of political expediency. This is out of survival. We need the Green New Deal, because we need a cleaner environment. We need sustainable jobs. We need more investment in infrastructure.
jonathan martin
They want somebody who’s going to be true to themselves, who is not going to try to sort of hammer or hedge. And he didn’t mince any words.
jonathan martin
But, Charles, what are you going to save the day after the primary when Schumer calls you on the phone says, if you want the money, you want our help, you got to ease off on some of that stuff?
charles booker
Well, we’re beating the status quo in the primary, and so I think that conversation will go a little bit different.
michael barbaro
Jonathan, thank you very much.
jonathan martin
Thank you.
[music]michael barbaro
Polls in Kentucky opened at 6:00 a.m. today. Thousands of Democrats cast mail-in ballots, some of them weeks ago, before the race had tightened. Long lines are expected for those who plan to vote in person. A single polling place has been designated for Louisville, Booker’s hometown, and a city of 600,000. We’ll be right back.
[music]
Here’s what else you need to know today. On Monday, President Trump signed a sweeping executive order that bars many foreign workers from receiving visas through the end of the year, preventing those workers from filling more than half a million jobs. The White House said that the restriction on several different kinds of work visas would protect U.S. jobs in the midst of an economic crisis. But the move is opposed by many businesses, from tech firms to manufacturers, who say that it will hamper their ability to fill key jobs that Americans can’t or won’t do. And —
archived recording (tedros adhanom ghebreyesus)
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. It seems that almost every day we reach a new and grim record. Yesterday, more than 183,000 new cases of Covid were reported to W.H.O., easily the most in a single day so far.
michael barbaro
— in a press conference on Monday, the World Health Organization warned that global infections from the coronavirus keep reaching record highs, fueled by the rise of cases in India, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil, which has become the second country after the U.S. to report more than 50,000 deaths from the virus.
archived recording (tedros adhanom ghebreyesus)
Some countries that have successfully suppressed transmission are now seeing an upswing in cases as they reopen their societies and economies.
michael barbaro
The United States now accounts for 20 percent of total new infections worldwide. Two states have reported more than 100,000 cases each over the past 14 days, Florida and Texas, where the governor, Greg Abbott, called the data, quote, “unacceptable” —
archived recording (greg abbott)
I know that some people feel that wearing a mask is inconvenient or that it is like an infringement of freedom. But I also know that wearing a mask will help us to keep Texas open.
michael barbaro
— and urged residents to maintain precautions to avoid another lockdown.
archived recording (greg abbott)
Because not taking action to slow the spread will cause Covid to spread even worse, risking people’s lives and ultimately leading to the closure of more businesses.
[music]michael barbaro
That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
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