Coronavirus Will Likely Change The Nature Of U.S. Political Debate (Update) Transcript

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With Congress taking unprecedented measures to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and a deep economic shock to the country, the crisis is poised to deeply reshape political dynamics in the U.S.


NOEL KING, HOST:

This pandemic could permanently change the way we live. There will almost certainly be more handwashing and more telework in the future. But could it also cause lasting political and policy changes? National political correspondent Mara Liasson has some answers.

MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: There are a lot of people who think the pandemic could reshape politics in profound ways.

ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER: This crisis is a time machine to the future.

LIASSON: Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of the New America think tank, was the former director of policy planning at the Obama State Department.

SLAUGHTER: I think we'll look back and see that this was like the Great Depression or a war and that created political space to make big policy change that seemed just too hard even two months ago.

LIASSON: Big policy changes that could rearrange traditional political divisions. Now that Republicans in the Senate have voted unanimously for policies they've opposed in the past, like paid sick leave, a guaranteed minimum income, student debt relief, protections for renters and for gig economy workers. Of course, this massive package of federal help for ordinary people is only temporary, but Slaughter says it has the potential to permanently change the political debate.

SLAUGHTER: Suddenly, in a crisis like this, people realize across the political spectrum that unless we can provide a floor, the whole economy can crash - that paid sick leave is not about coddling workers. It's about making sure that sick workers don't come to work and infect others. People are equally realizing if workers have no money to spend, the economy can't function.

LIASSON: Democrats have advocated many of these policies for decades. But now that Congress has approved the largest federal intervention in the economy since the creation of Medicare, they see a new opportunity to push for big investments in modern digital infrastructure, like 5G, a better public health system, universal health insurance that doesn't disappear when you lose your job and a stronger social safety net.

As he endorsed Joe Biden last week, former President Barack Obama was making this argument.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BARACK OBAMA: The vast inequalities created by the new economy are easier to see now, but they existed long before this pandemic hit. Health professionals, teachers and delivery drivers, grocery clerks, cleaners - the people who truly make our economy run, they've always been essential. And for years, too many of the people who do the essential work of this country have been underpaid, financially stressed and given too little support.

LIASSON: Democrats aren't the only ones who see a political opportunity in the pandemic. The nationalist populist wing of the Republican Party that's been warning about the dangers of globalization has also gotten a boost, says conservative J.D. Vance, the author of "Hillbilly Elegy."

JD VANCE: One of the core arguments of the Trump 2016 campaign is that in our supply chains in our manufacturing economy, we had become too dependent on a globalized world, especially China. It turns out that if you want to have an economy that can weather a crisis, you actually have to be able to make some core things for yourself, whether it's wireless technology, whether it's pharmaceutical products, whether it's ventilators and hospital masks.

LIASSON: And that's exactly the argument that you're hearing from Peter Navarro, President Trump's pandemic equipment czar.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PETER NAVARRO: If there's any vindication of the president's buy American, secure borders and a strong manufacturing base philosophy, strategy and belief, it is this crisis.

LIASSON: On trade, the pandemic gives a clear advantage to the antiglobalists in the GOP led by President Trump. But on domestic policies and the role of the federal government, while Democrats know what they want, Republicans aren't so sure, says Henry Olsen, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington.

HENRY OLSEN: I think the debate within the Republican Party over what it stands for has been heating up, and the pandemic is going to kick it into overdrive. That you've got the people who are holding on to the neolibertarian version of the past but the - you've seen more and more calls for reform, which is moving more in the direction of engaging the Democrats on their core issue, which is how do we help people rather than saying the government can't help people?

LIASSON: There are already lots of splits. Conservative freshman Senator Josh Hawley, for instance, wants to beef up the social safety net. He's advocating a European-style unemployment backstop, where the federal government would pay companies 80% of wages to prevent layoffs. But other Republicans support nothing more than the current temporary emergency measures. And in addition to Tea Party-style protests against the stay-at-home orders, there's also conservative pushback to the exponential increases in federal spending - even temporarily.

But despite those Republican tensions, J.D. Vance says, it will be hard for the president and his party to continue to argue that popular programs like Obamacare should be eliminated lock, stock and barrel.

VANCE: I think the appetite for small government, everyone-is-on-their-own approach to the welfare state - frankly, it was always pretty small, and it's going to be even smaller, I think, over the next couple of years.

LIASSON: Especially, says Vance, when there are at least 22 million people who've applied for unemployment benefits. How this debate resolves itself depends on how long the pandemic recession lasts and how popular the government rescue programs turn out to be. But until then, the pandemic has given both parties an opportunity to appeal to the vast number of Americans who will need help from the federal government for some time to come.

Mara Liasson, NPR News.


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Paying Pandemic Bills Requires Changes In Wealth Gap

Paying Pandemic Bills Requires Changes In Wealth Gap, Dalio Says

April 16, 20205:04 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition


NPR's Noel King Talks to Ray Dalio, founder of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, about how the economy might change in a post-pandemic world.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Ray Dalio is known for making lucrative predictions. His hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, is the largest in the world. But Dalio, who is a billionaire himself, says capitalism is broken. Noel talked with Dalio about how the economy might change in a post-pandemic world.

RAY DALIO: We will have ahead of us the question of, who's going to pay the bills and how will we redefine things? - because we have a large wealth gap. And all of these processes necessitate a lessening of the wealth gap.

NOEL KING, BYLINE: You've been concerned about the wealth gap since before this - before the pandemic. Is there a set of circumstances in which that gets better? And what are those circumstances?

DALIO: Well, history has shown the same things happen over and over again. You have the crash. And the '30s is a great model. There's the United States; there's other countries. And there's a lot of fighting over wealth, just as a basic principle. The United States maintained a civility, but there was a wealth gap. There needed to be a shift in wealth. And there were jobs programs. There were changes in taxation and so on. And the United States did it in the best way in the world.

KING: Over the weekend, the pope, in his Easter address, appeared to endorse a universal basic income - a government guarantee that every citizen receives a minimum income. What do you think about a universal basic income to address some of the structural inequalities that have you so worried that capitalism is not working the way it should?

DALIO: We are now in an era of universal basic income.

KING: Oh, you mean now with the pandemic - people getting checks in the mail?

DALIO: Right. And it won't be adequate. And the only question is how long that lasts. But let's say...

KING: How long should it last, do you think?

DALIO: It has to last long enough so that there's subsistence. It's the quick and easy way for getting a certain amount of purchasing power in the hands of those people. And of course, it's the transfer of wealth, and that should exist. And I think there's a wonderful opportunity here, if we can operate well, to restructure the way the system is working in a way to increase the size of the pie and divide it well.

KING: What does the United States economy look like when this is over?

DALIO: We will have a lot of people suffering financially, not just in - here but around the world. I worry about the anger and the fighting and what that might be like. And we're going to be much more isolated, not just because of the virus but because of the fact that everybody knows that they have to have self-sufficiency, from the individual all the way to the country. In either case, we still have the greatest asset of humanity - the ability to adapt, invent and come up with things. And we will do that effectively, and we will get past it. But it may take a few years, and it may be nasty in the process.

KING: Ray Dalio, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.

DALIO: Thank you for the opportunity.

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Evaluating India's Radical Experiment In Eliminating High-Value Currency

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May 18, 2017 · by Stacey Vanek Smith

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Obama's Years: Road Trip Kentucky

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July 4, 20165:03 AM ET


Heard on Morning Edition



Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep talks to Americans about how their lives have changed under President Obama. Here's what he heard from a group of travelers he met in Paducah, Kentucky.


RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

An NPR team traveled much of the country talking with voters about how their lives have been over these past eight years. The road trip led from Denver to Philadelphia, and we're hearing parts of it this week. We pick up the journey with my colleague, Steve Inskeep, as he arrives in Kentucky.


STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: From southern Illinois, we've now crossed the Ohio River. I'm on the south bank of it now looking out at a barge - several of them - being pushed by tugboat.


We stopped there for the night in Paducah, Ky. It was once a Civil War battlefield. Now it's a tourist town. We stayed in a bed-and-breakfast where some of the rooms were adorned with dolls and baby chairs. And in the morning, over the breakfast, we met five other travelers...

U.S.-Mexico Border Sees Resurgence Of Central Americans Seeking Asylum

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May 31, 20164:32 AM ET
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JOHN BURNETT

Immigrants from El Salvador, including one who says she is seven months pregnant, stand next to a U.S. Border Patrol truck after they turned themselves in to border agents on Dec. 7, 2015, near Rio Grande City, Texas.John Moore/Getty Images

Immigrants fleeing gang violence in Central America are again surging across the U.S.-Mexico border, approaching the numbers that created an immigration crisis in the summer of 2014. While the flow of immigrants slowed for much of last year, nothing the U.S. government does seems to deter the current wave of travelers.

Immigration officials opened controversial family detention camps in south Texas. They publicized immigration roundups earlier this year, with more to come. A big U.S. public relations campaign is under way in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, warning would-be immigrants they are not welcome. And recently, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson traveled to Central America to say it in person.

"I am here today to send a message that our borders in the United States are not open to irregular migration," he said.

But that message isn't getting through.

THE TWO-WAY
U.S. To Renew Effort To Deport Central American Immigrant Families

AROUND THE NATION
Central American Families Fear Deportation As Raids Begin

That's apparent in the parish hall of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, Texas. Every day, it's full of young mothers and children who've been released by the U.S. Border Patrol. They get a shower, clean clothes, a hot meal and supplies. Sister Norma Pimentel is director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which runs the shelter.

"It's like 50, 60, 100, 200 backpacks that we need every day; 200, or 50 or 80 deodorants or shoes," she says. "Can you imagine coming up with 50, 60, 80 pairs of shoes every day? It's amazing."

Immigration officials don't seem worried about a repeat of the humanitarian crisis on the border that made international news two years ago. Caught unawares at the time, the Border Patrol packed dirty, bewildered young immigrants elbow-to-elbow into frigid cells.

Today, the government has new family holding facilities, and unaccompanied kids are sent to well-staffed church camps.

Mothers and children who've been released by the U.S. Border Patrol can get a shower, clean clothes, food and supplies at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, Texas.

John Burnett/NPR

Yet the numbers are daunting. From last October to March, the U.S. Border Patrol averaged 330 apprehensions of Central Americans a day, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center, an increase of 100 percent over the same time period a year earlier.

While the swelling numbers don't seem to alarm the Homeland Security Department, its border officers are clearly frustrated. Two weeks ago, the agents' union president, Brandon Judd, testified at a congressional hearing.

"What happens is if you are arrested in the United States and you ask for any sort of asylum, what we do is we will process you, and we will walk you right out our front door, give you a pat on the back and say, 'Welcome to the United States.' And they're good to go," he said.

The Border Patrol ends up releasing the vast majority of family members it apprehends because U.S. court rulings restrict its ability to detain them.

Asylum applicants are allowed to hop a bus to join family elsewhere in the U.S., where they await their hearing. Currently, nearly a half million cases are backlogged in U.S. immigration courts, with anaverage wait time of almost two years — though the government is trying to expedite the recent arrivals. Critics call this policy of catch and release "de facto amnesty."

U.S.
When Asylum-Seeking Women And Children Immigrants Are Welcomed Like Criminals

Chris Cabrera is a Border Patrol officer and union official in south Texas. He says all the families surrendering to seek asylum are distracting his member agents, when they should be chasing drug and human traffickers.

"Our agents are so caught up with rounding up the ones that are turning themselves in, corralling them and getting them to the station, that we don't have adequate resources to get the ones that are trying to get away," Cabrera says.

A top Homeland Security official in Washington, D.C., speaking on background, told NPR the agency is continuing the programs it has in place. These include deporting recent arrivals, detaining a small number of women and children, helping Central American countries fight crime, arresting human smugglers and giving money to Mexico to stop the immigrants in transit.

The official stressed that the U.S. message hasn't changed: Don't come. If you do and your asylum claims are denied, we will remove you.

NEWS
Why A Single Question Decides The Fates Of Central American Migrants

But inside the Catholic immigrant shelter on the border, no one seems to pay much attention to the government's tough talk.

Central Americans risk the journey because they know most of them will be admitted at the U.S. border and not locked up, as are immigrants from Mexico who cross illegally.

Wendy Villanueva is from Honduras, traveling with her toddler daughter. The 21-year-old says they fled Colón Province when gangsters extorted her small clothing business and threatened to kill her if she didn't pay up.

Villanueva and her daughter took buses to the Texas-Mexico border and surrendered to U.S. agents on the international bridge at Brownsville. They're headed to North Carolina to join her mother and sisters, who are also seeking asylum.

"According to our countrymen who are here, and from what they learned, we expect that the authorities will also give us permission to remain here," she says, waiting to collect some new clothes and hygiene items at the shelter for the next leg of her journey north.

PARALLELS
City, Interrupted: How Gang Killings Brought San Salvador To A Halt

For their part, immigrant advocates say the administration's handling of Central Americans is already too harsh and it should make the asylum process easier, not harder. Ben Johnson is director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

"The violence that is driving these women and children out of their home countries has not subsided," Johnson says. "In many places, it has increased. And they need help."

While the expectation of catch and release on the U.S. border is a powerful magnet for Central American immigrants, the push factor in their home countries remains horrendous. Earlier this year, El Salvador's murder rate made it the most violent country in the world, edging out the former homicide capital, Honduras.


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As U.S. Attitudes Change, Some Evangelicals Dig In; Others Adapt

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May 10, 20164:31 AM ET

Heard on Morning Edition

 TOM GJELTEN

 MARISA PEÑA LOZA




The audience at last month's Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville, Ky.
Sarah Mesa Photography


America's culture war, waged in recent years over gender roles, sexuality and the definition of marriage, is increasingly being fought inside evangelical Christian circles. On one side are the Christians determined to resist trends in secular society that appear to conflict with biblical teaching. On the other side are the evangelicals willing to live with those trends.





For Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., the key question is "whether or not there is a binding morality to which everyone is accountable."


Mohler is a co-founder of the biannual Together for the Gospel conference, which brought together thousands of evangelicals last month at a sports center in Louisville, a few miles from the Southern Baptist campus. Electronic signs around the top of the arena carried such messages as "We Were Born Out of Protest" and "We Stand on Scripture Alone, Not Man's Wisdom."


"Our theme for this year is, 'We Protest,' " Mohler tells NPR. "You might say [it's] putting the 'protest' back in Protestantism." He and his fellow conservative leaders urge Christians to take a "biblical" stand against such things as no-fault divorce, extramarital sex, transgenderism and gay marriage. His new book is We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, & the Very Meaning of Right & Wrong.


Mohler and other conservatives are pushing against strong headwinds, however. Survey data show that the number of Americans who think divorce is morally acceptable has increased significantly in recent years, while disapproval of homosexuality and same-sex marriage has declined sharply. (Click to see changing attitudes on homosexuality and same-sex marriage by religion.) The latter holds true even for white evangelicals, among the groups most resistant to LGBT rights. For church leaders like Mohler, the challenge is unmistakable.




Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is urging conservatives to put the "protest" back in Protestantism.

Emil Handke/Southern Baptist Theological Seminary


"Conservative Christians in America are undergoing a huge shift in the way we see ourselves in the world," Mohler says. "We are on the losing side of a massive change that's not going to be reversed, in all likelihood, in our lifetimes." In his view, Christians must adapt to the changed cultural circumstance by finding a way "to live faithfully in a world in which we're going to be a moral exception." (It is this goal, Mohler says, that explains the passage of "religious liberty" laws to protect people who want to express their opposition to same-sex marriage or transgenderism.)




Hear Albert Mohler on why it's important for Christians to reject popular culture messages


Listen· 0:32





'At Odds With What Everyday People Believe'


Living as the moral exception was the prospect facing the Together for the Gospel attendees. Most were young men training to be pastors in Southern Baptist churches. The Southern Baptists are one of the Protestant denominations that do not ordain women, even as church deacons. Some Southern Baptist congregations do not even allow divorced men to serve as pastors.

We are on the losing side of a massive change that's not going to be reversed, in all likelihood, in our lifetimes.

 

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Many in their millennial generation may reject conservative thinking on social issues, but the young men who choose to be Southern Baptist pastors have full knowledge of the church teachings. Their church mandate is somewhat limited: not to persuade the broader culture of new moral truths but rather to help their own congregants live their lives as a "moral exception" to the rest of society.


"The Bible makes claims about what is right and wrong, and those claims are often at odds with what everyday people believe," says Southern Baptist seminary student Joshua Van der Merwe, 24, of Louisville, during a break between conference sessions. "Christians are called to protest and to witness to what the Bible claims to be right and wrong."


An insistence on strict Bible-based standards of morality may exclude some of those everyday people, however.


For them, one alternative is Ridgewood Baptist Church in a working-class suburb of Louisville. The pastor, Matt Johnson, grew up as a Southern Baptist, but his church is one of a group that broke from the Southern Baptist Convention about 25 years ago. It now serves a diverse congregation, and the men and women who make up Johnson's lay advisory "Dawnings" committee advocate that it opens doors to everyday people.


"Let's offer words of hope," Johnson prayed at a recent Dawnings meeting. "Hope for the future of what could happen here, who couldcome here and find a place to belong." The committee members included Janney Gilbert, a medical office manager whose son is gay, Estelle Power, a retired former deacon who became involved in the church after a painful divorce, and Janelle Perry, whose mother was the first female deacon at Ridgewood and who now serves as the church's youth director.


"I've been here all my life, and Ridgewood is not the same church we were 40 years ago," Perry says. "Everyone can come. Some people are taken aback by that — [and] women deacons. And we'll let most anybody attend. ... We're just open-armed."


It is not that the church serves highly educated liberals who might be expected to support a progressive agenda. The surrounding community, according to Johnson, is "a conservative area, with a lot of folks who feel disenfranchised. I'd say it represents the new face of poverty."


The Role Of Women


Economic stress can be hard on marriages, and Ridgewood's membership includes several people who have been divorced. "I don't know what I would have done without this church," Power says. "I felt I was the only person in the world that was going through a divorce."


Now 76, Power says she has found others at Ridgewood whose lives didn't necessarily fit a church ideal. She can relate to them, she says, because of her own experience.


"I've made some friends, just saying hello," she says, "and somebody would say, 'You're so kind.' I said, 'No, I'm just who I am.' But I do think that it makes you a little more humble when you go through something."


Power grew up in rural Kentucky with divorced parents. Her father drank too much but listened faithfully to Baptist preachers on the radio. Having heard bad things all her life about women who divorced, she welcomed the less judgmental attitude at Ridgewood.





Evangelical Leaders Question Movement's Support Of Trump


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"There are people who have stopped going to church because they think that all that church is is a place where you're being condemned," Johnson says, "and where you're just told, 'This is what you have to think.' " Such people, he says, are among those whom he now hopes to reach with his own ministry.


The church's rupture with the Southern Baptist Convention was in a dispute over the role of women. Southern Baptists believe that men and women "complement" each other but are not interchangeable, which is why women are not allowed to serve in prominent church leadership roles.


Mohler says the church position on complementary gender roles may seem outdated but comes straight from the Bible.



Hear Albert Mohler on the role of women in the Southern Baptist ministry


Listen· 0:27





"It's an entire pattern of complementarity that we see woven throughout the account of scripture," he says, "from Genesis 1:26-28 all the way to the Book of Revelation. So it's not a minor matter to suggest that the church can somehow just update its understanding of gender. This is where we must be found faithful, regardless of the cultural understanding around us."


More than 15 million Americans attend Southern Baptist churches. Many Christians yearn for the certainty and direction that come with a life based on a strict reading of the Bible. With the culture rapidly changing around them, however, the future of conservative evangelical Christianity is not clear.


By contrast, the more moderate Baptist churches would seem to have an ever-growing market. On the other hand, some of the people who have soured on the Southern Baptist approach now reject church altogether. The evangelical Protestant share of the U.S. population is declining, so the growth prospects for a congregation like Ridgewood Baptist are also unclear.


From the outside, with a cross prominently placed on the plain brick front, it looks like any other Baptist church in Louisville. Nick Wilson, the church pianist and most prominent gay member, says he would never have approached Ridgewood had he not heard it was a welcoming church.


"Driving by, seeing Ridgewood Baptist Church, I would not stop," he says. "I would just assume that I already know what's going on inside those doors, and I'm not welcome, or I don't want to be part of it, and would go on."


Nick Wilson's story on being Baptist and gay will air on All Things Considered and publish online later today.



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Who Owns The South China Sea?

Who Owns The South China Sea?




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April 13, 20165:12 AM ET
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Frank Langfitt




Members of the Chinese navy stand guard on China's first aircraft carrier, Liaoning, in 2013. Tensions in the South China Sea have grown over territorial disputes between China, the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam and others. Reuters/China Stringer Network/Landov



The South China Sea fills Ma Sijin with national pride.

The retired ink factory worker says he is glad to see China challenging foreign powers, including the United States, over control of the strategic waterway.

"All the Chinese people have now stood up!" says Ma, 66, quoting the famous words of Chairman Mao Zedong when he announced the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

"When all is said and done, everybody knows who these islands belong to," Ma continues, polishing off a dinner of meatballs, rice and greens in Shanghai. "They belong to China."

Some analysts see nationalistic sentiment like Ma's as fertile ground for Chinese leaders. A recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations warned that as China's economic growth continues to ebb, President Xi Jinping may stoke nationalism to distract citizens from the country's myriad problems.

"China's foreign policy may well be driven increasingly by the risk of domestic political instability," said the report, written by Kurt M. Campbell, former assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and Robert D. Blackwill, deputy national security adviser for strategic planning under President George W. Bush. "Xi will most probably stimulate and intensify Chinese nationalism ... to compensate for the political harm of a slower economy."

China is communist in name only. The government can no longer rally the nation of more than 1.3 billion people around ideology, so it long ago turned to nationalism to help provide a sort of societal glue.

After the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the government refreshed a patriotic education campaign to develop more support for the Communist Party.

Teachers emphasized what the Chinese call "The Century of Humiliation" — roughly 1842 to 1949 — when China lost wars, was invaded and ceded territory to imperial powers.

The Competing Claims In The South China Sea

Many countries claim islands in the South China Sea, and tensions have been on the rise in recent years.



Credit: Stephanie d'Otreppe / NPR


Schoolchildren here are exposed to a map of China with a nine-dash line encompassing most of the South China Sea. Although the government has never fully defined that line, the implication is that China sees everything inside, including the islands, as its own. China says it wasn't able to enforce its claims to islands in the South China Sea earlier because it was too weak militarily.

Like many young people, Qin, a psychology grad student at Shanghai's East China Normal University, supports the official position.

"Regardless of whether it's true or not, the government says since ancient times these islands have been part of our territory," says Qin, 24. "I feel if other people aggressively occupied these places, it would damage our national pride."

But all that patriotic education and the Chinese state media's steady drumbeat on the issue have not convinced everyone here that the South China Sea even matters. Many people on campus seem to have tuned out the government's message.

"I am not paying attention," says Wang, a neuroscience grad student, who is sitting on a bench behind a giant statue of Mao. Wang says he sees the state media reports, but forgets them immediately. The South China Sea, more than 1,300 miles from Shanghai, has no resonance.

"It doesn't really affect you," says Wang, who refuses to give his full name because of the political sensitivities surrounding the issue. "You pay more attention to the price of eggs, the price of a meal, how much an apartment costs."

Some Chinese even oppose the government's policy. Li Yougen, a retired factory worker, says claiming most of the South China Sea and building artificial islands, as China has, is unreasonable.

"I think it's unfair," he says. "You can't simply say since ancient times it's been ours. You need to tell ordinary Chinese how it became ours. I think it ought to be resolved through diplomacy. Otherwise, it will be the law of the jungle."

An international court in The Hague is expected to rule soon on whether China's claims are excessive, but Beijing has boycotted the proceedings.

Several years ago, a Chinese firm did a rare public survey on the South China Sea. Fifty-seven percent supported compromise through negotiation. In addition, young people were cautious about aggressively pressing China's case with other countries that also claim South China Sea islands, such as the Philippines and Vietnam.

Andrew Chubb, a doctoral candidate at the University of Western Australia who studies Chinese public opinion on the issue, says the results run counter to the sort of nationalistic vitriol that tends to dominate the online conversation here and raise fears in the West.

"There is a sort of a silent majority in China that really doesn't have any time for the idea of a war in the South China Sea," says Chubb.

Cheng Li, who studies Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution, says Chinese leaders don't want war either, in part because China's military is still not advanced enough to win one. Nor does Li think military conflict would find much public support given that most Chinese are focused on domestic issues.

"Basically, the middle class still wants to have stability," Li says.



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On Foreign Policy, Trump's Campaign Hasn't Released Names Of Advisers (Richard Haass of CFR interviewed)

@ 1:00 Min., Richard Haass of the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) is interviewed by NPR's Mary Louise Kelly.

 

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Updated March 17, 20168:05 AM ET Published March 17, 20165:21 AM ET

 

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Little is known about the foreign policy plans of Donald Trump. Mary Louise Kelly talks to Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who has met with the Republican front-runner.

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Memory Of Potato Famine Burdens 'Immortal Irishman'

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Updated March 3, 20168:44 AM ET Published March 3, 20165:11 AM ET

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Civil War buffs and the Irish-American community have probably heard of Thomas Francis Meagher. Renee Montagne talks to New York Times columnist Timothy Egan about his book The Immortal Irishman.

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Jeb Bush: GOP Must Be Inclusive; Can't Insult Its Way To The White House

Updated December 31, 2015   11:55 AM ET

Published December 31, 2015  5:11 AM ET



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POLITICS
Jeb Bush Says Voters' Passions For Trump Will Pass

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush talks to Steve Inskeep about his vision for the party and explains his immigration policy. While down in the polls, Bush still has a well-financed campaign.


RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Jeb Bush is ending a challenging year. The son of a president and brother of a president started 2015 favored to win the Republican presidential nomination.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Bush ends the year looking differently. When campaign reporters spin out scenarios for who could win, they sometimes neglect to mention him.

What has sustained you these last few months?

JEB BUSH: Well, I've got - I'm not going to stand up and pull them out, but I have a little Jesus in my pocket that I carry with me and some rosary beads. And first and foremost, what sustains me is my faith.

INSKEEP: His faith and his belief that he could make a difference.

BUSH: The possibility of becoming president sustains me in ways that it's hard to describe.

INSKEEP: That possibility is at risk, though the former Florida governor still has money and a big goal. He wants to redirect the energies of his party. Bush talked of this in our year-end interview. He is among the Republicans who planned a new tone for this election until Donald Trump arrived. Trump spoke of walls on the border and keeping out Muslims, and many Republicans flocked to him. For Jeb Bush, the first question is - what went wrong?

BUSH: I would argue that Donald Trump is in fact a creature of Barack Obama. But for Barack Obama, Donald Trump's effect would not be nearly as strong as it is. We're living in a divided country right now, and we need political leaders, rather than continuing to divide us as both President Obama and Donald Trump do, to unite us.

INSKEEP: Your party sponsored a report in 2013. It was described as an autopsy of the election loss in 2012. One of your close advisors, I believe, was one of the authors of that report. Among the many recommendations was that the party needed to be more inclusive...

BUSH: ...Yeah...

INSKEEP: ...More welcoming to people of color, and embrace comprehensive immigration reform. What if it turns out that Republican primary voters just are not willing to go there?

BUSH: Well, look, it's - I think the report is accurate for us to win the election. That was the - their point wasn't how are people feeling, you know, in the primary, their mission was how do we win? It's tough being in exile. It's lonely for now near eight years, and to imagine another eight years or four years with Hillary Clinton as president is something that is unfathomable for most Republicans. So the argument that we need to realize our demography as a nation is changing and we need to make our - we're going to have to change our principles. In fact, I think we need to reestablish them because the Conservative movement is a hopeful, optimistic movement at its best.

INSKEEP: Although aren't you in a situation where, granting that no votes have been cast, but based on the polling in 2015, very large numbers of Republican primary voters don't seem to want to be in that spot you'd like them to be in.

BUSH: Well, they want to win though. And if they have a honest appraisal of how we're going to win - we're not going to win by insulting our way to the presidency. You cannot disparage women, people of disabilities, Mexican-Americans, POWs, Muslims. It's not a strategy for victory. It's a strategy to maintain this divisive kind of culture we're in right now.

INSKEEP: One of your rivals, Ted Cruz, made a joke the other day. It was a joke that spoke, I think, to a serious point. He said that the politically correct term for illegal immigrants now was undocumented Democrats, which speaks, I think, to the Republican suspicion that this is all about registering Democrats, ultimately, making citizens of people who are likely to be Democrats. Democrats have the opposite suspicion that Republicans just want to prevent immigrants from voting. How much of the impasse here is really about that question, the question of political power in the future?

BUSH: It's an interesting point. I don't know what percentage of the gridlock can be related to that. The proposal ought to be, for a Conservative, for the people that are here illegally, a path to legal status. Not a path to citizenship, but a path out from the shadows where you pay a fine, where you learn English, where you work, where you don't commit crimes, you don't receive federal government assistance, and over an extended period of time you earn legal status. That's the answer. The answer isn't to joke, as Senator Cruz apparently did. It's to offer a proposal that will solve the problem.

INSKEEP: And if someone says to you, Governor Bush just doesn't want that person to vote, that's why he's objecting to their citizenship...

BUSH: ...I think it's a question of fairness. I think it's a question of fairness. Why should someone - it's called illegal immigration for a reason. People came here illegally. Why should people gain citizenship by coming here illegally? I just - I don't quite understand why that is such a compelling moral argument.

INSKEEP: So let me ask about an implication of that. You have argued that on immigration and so many other issues, that you are far better positioned for a general election than many of your opponents for the Republican nomination. But Hillary Clinton, if she is the nominee - and you've made it clear in your remarks you believe she will be - no matter who the Republican nominee is, she will still be able to hammer them on this issue. She'd be able to hammer you and say you're against a pathway to citizenship. Aren't you still going to be vulnerable on this in a general election?

BUSH: No, because I have a proven record as it relates to immigrants and immigration, and a tone and a leadership as governor of Florida that defies whatever the attacks will be. As it relates to my reelection effort - when I ran for it in a purple state, I got 60 percent of the Latino vote. I got more Latino votes than I got non-Latino white votes. And there's a reason for that, because I campaigned and I governed in a way that was inclusive. Hillary can talk all she was about the stuff that she wants to do, but her record of accomplishment is quite narrow. She's passed - she was a senator for eight years, I believe, and she passed - three bills became law that she sponsored. One was renaming a highway, one was naming a monument, and one was naming a post office.

INSKEEP: Are you saying you'd tell her you'd never get a pathway to citizenship anyway?

BUSH: I would tell her that I have a proven record as it relates to - I don't need to be lectured to about my commitment to the immigrant communities because I did it.

INSKEEP: I also want to ask about your family, governor, but in a different way, I think, than you've been asked about it in the past. People ask you - will you be different than your brother, how would you be different than your brother...

BUSH: ...Yeah, I have a lot of that...

INSKEEP: ...Questions like that. This is a different question. I'm thinking about the fact that the Bush name, your last name, is in political terms a brand. So can you define it for us? What is the Bush brand?

BUSH: Well, I think the Bush brand, if there is one - I'm not sure people can be created into - we use branding now kind of in a broader context than maybe we're used to. It would be integrity. It would be having a servant's heart. It would be patriotic, loving the country. And in my case, you know - look, I'm a Conservative, but I believe that conservativism needs to be applied in a hopeful, optimistic way. And I think that's another part of the Bush brand that I hope people will be reminded of, that it's a hopeful, optimistic message, not a divisive one.

INSKEEP: Governor, thanks very much.

BUSH: Yeah, happy New Year.

INSKEEP: Happy New Year to you.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.


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Jeb Bush on his knees in homage to Ratzinger. 

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Unprecedented Security In Place For French Christmas Celebrations (Update)

Updated December 25, 20157:52 AM ET

Published December 25, 20155:10 AM ET

ELEANOR BEARDSLEY



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This Christmas, after the recent terrorist attacks, Parisians pass by soldiers as they go to church. Amid huge security, they're starting to return to theaters and concerts, but tourism is down.


DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Let's go to the streets of a city trying to mark Christmas even as memories of violence are still so fresh. Paris is still on high alert this holiday after last month's massacre that left 130 people dead. There are thousands of police mobilized today. And let's go to NPR's Eleanor Beardsley. Eleanor, good morning.

ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Good morning, David.

GREENE: So where are you? What's the scene? What are you seeing?

BEARDSLEY: It's pretty quiet out on the street today. I'm at a little church in my neighborhood, and the service starts in about 20 minutes here. And there are three armed soldiers guarding the entrance of the church out front with assault rifles, and this is just unprecedented. In fact, the prime minister said that France's 50,000 churches would be heavily protected on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And there are 90,000 police and soldiers mobilized across the country protecting churches like this and also ensuring France's borders. The country is under really high, high alert today at Christmas. I went actually to the American church in Paris last night and there was a long, long line down the sidewalk because everyone had to get their bag checked before coming in for a Christmas Eve service. And the priest - he thanked the French government for the security. He said this is the first time we've ever been under such security, and we thank the French state for protecting us. But it's really a strange feeling to see all of these armed men around churches at Christmas.

GREENE: I'm just struck because, I mean, you said this is a small church where you are this morning. This is a neighborhood church. It's not like this would be a specific target for some reason, so literally every single little church in Paris and around the country is probably seeing this kind of presence this morning.

BEARDSLEY: I think so, David, because yes, this is just a little church. This isn't Notre Dame. And you can imagine that every church that's having a service today has somebody protecting it, yes.

GREENE: How are peoples' spirits?

BEARDSLEY: You know, they're having Christmas. I was, you know, out shopping - you have to now get your bag checked every time you go in stores - so the lines are long, but people are dealing with it. People are celebrating. But, of course, there is in the back of everyone's mind only six weeks ago these deadly attacks. So people are accepting all of these bag searches and waiting in line because they know it's a necessary part of life now.

GREENE: Are there real threats that the government might know about, or are these just - I mean, just serious, serious precautions to make sure that nothing happens?

BEARDSLEY: David, that's interesting because usually when - before when they would say, you know, we've thwarted an attack, I would wonder did they really? I think people really believe it now. In fact, the prime minister spoke this week. He said terrorism is now something we are now having to live with. He said 10 attacks have been thwarted since the beginning of the year, and one was last week. It was targeted - the southern city of Orleans, which is south of Paris. So I think these are real threats. And actually, last year, there was a botched terror attempt. A guy was going to attack a church, and he ended up shooting himself in the foot. But he's one of these radical Islamists, and he had targeted a church. So I think people feel that these threats are real now, yes.

GREENE: Eleanor, when you and I were together covering the story after that terrible massacre last month, I know a lot of people in Paris were talking about how there was going to be this state of emergency that was going to be going on for a while, worried about - that peoples' rights would be threatened if the government was able to round up people. I mean, are - is that debate still going on there?

BEARDSLEY: You know what, David? The French government is even getting stricter. They want to enshrine parts of their terror-fighting tools, they call it. So this state of emergency, they want to put it in the French Constitution. So at the beginning of next year, in February, the French Parliament is going to be voting on amending the country's constitution to put in this state of emergency. It will allegedly make it easier for the country to come under state of emergency and it won't be called unconstitutional. Another controversial thing they're doing is they're going to revoke the French nationality of people convicted of terrorism who have double nationality. So, like, some of these men who have attacked France who are - you know, they also have, say, Moroccan nationality - they will lose their French nationality. People feel that these measures are necessary to protect them. There's just a new level of reality here now in France and in Paris. The government has raided, and they can do searches and seizures anytime they want under this state of emergency. And it's going on every single day, and people are not protesting, no.

GREENE: And Eleanor, as we go forward here, I know Paris is like New York. I mean, there are some big, big celebrations usually planned for the around the new year, right? Are they going to go forward?

BEARDSLEY: Well, David, absolutely. For a while after the attacks in November, public gatherings were forbidden. But there is a huge New Year's Eve event on the Champs-Elysees. It's much like Times Square, and they have decided to let it go forward. So that will be happening, and I'm sure that it will be under very, very tight security.

GREENE: OK. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley speaking to us from outside her neighborhood church in Paris this morning. Eleanor, thanks as always and have a merry Christmas.

BEARDSLEY: Thank you, David.



Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

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Spaniards Snap Up Holiday Hams, Even After Cancer Warning

Updated December 23, 201510:48 AM ET

Published December 23, 20155:30 AM ET

LAUREN FRAYER


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Display of Spanish hams in the front window of a branch of the Museo del Jamón, a chain of ham-themed bars in Madrid.Lauren Frayer for NPR

In Madrid, Museo del Jamón, which isn't a museum but a chain of bars, sells special ham backpacks, for carrying a whole ham leg — hoof and all — around town at the holidays. Spanish airports have special luggage rules for them. A leg of ham is the most popular family gift at Christmas. Every self-respecting Spanish household has ajamonera — a kitchen countertop rack on which to mount and cut slices off a ham leg.

"It's the ingredient we use most in Spain — essential to our cooking and to our lives," says Jesus Engamo, a ham cutter who has worked at the museum for 35 years. "We can't live without it!"

THE SALT
Bad Day For Bacon: Processed Meats Cause Cancer, WHO Says

So when the World Health Organization warned in October that eating 50 grams a day of processed meat — defined as including anything cured or salted, like Spanish ham — can raise your risk of cancer, Spaniards were aghast. (On average, Spaniards eat 140 grams of pork a day, though there's no official breakdown of how much of that is cured or processed versus fresh.)

"I think it's a lie! It's what other countries say when they're jealous of Spain because we have the ham," says Asunción Claudios, 25, sharing a plate of jamón ibérico with friends at the Museo.

She closes her eyes as she places a paper-thin, almost translucent slice of jamón on her tongue. It's got to be a conspiracy, she says.

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A ham cutter demonstrates how to carefully slice Spanish jamón at the Don Jamón tapas bar on Madrid's Gran Vía.Lauren Frayer for NPR

"I'm inclined to say Germany is behind this," she says, straight-faced. "Sure, they have sausage there — but it's nojamón. Other countries are jealous."

There is no evidence whatsoever that Germany or any pork-producing competitor put the WHO up to its cancer warnings. And Spain's ham industry has balked at its products being described as unhealthy, lumped in with other processed meat, like hot dogs.

"My first reaction was, 'I can't believe it!' We have a lot of studies that say just the opposite," says Ricardo Mosteo, president of the Denomination of Origin (D.O.), a ham quality-assurance board, in the region of Teruel, south of Madrid.

Last summer, a scientific study funded by the meat industry of Andalusia, another Spanish region, found that cured Spanish ham is free of the toxoplasmosis parasite found in other uncooked meats, and thus safe for pregnant women.

Groups like the Spanish Jamón Serrano Foundation claim local ham is ideal for people on diets, the elderly, or athletes. The group's website says jamón cuts cholesterol and boosts childhood growth and athletic performance.

NPR could not independently verify the research methods or conclusions of those studies.

But with the WHO findings, Mosteo says his phone has been ringing off the hook, with queries from journalists as well as confused ham consumers.

"I wasn't very worried, but then journalists started phoning me, [asking] 'What do you think?' " he says. "And I realized, OK, this is going to be a problem for us."

The sale of ham legs alone is a $1.65 billion industry in Spain, and 50 percent of sales happen in the weeks before Christmas, Mosteo says.

He predicts a marketing shift, with Spanish ham producers describing their products as organic, to be consumed in small quantities, as a luxury item. But Mosteo says there's been no perceptible drop in ham sales so far this holiday season.

Back on Madrid's Gran Vía, the Méson El Jamón — the house of ham — has a pork leg wearing a Santa hat on its storefront. Inside, another ham specialist is choppingjamón serrano for croquetas — bechamel dumplings.

"Here we're actually selling more ham since the WHO warning," says Angel Contera. "There's an urgency to enjoy it now. If jamón is bad for us, what will we live on?"

He sighs and puts down his knife. He's taking a break — going out for a smoke.

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Counterterrorism Cops Try To Build Bridges With Muslim Communities

NATIONAL SECURITY

Updated December 21, 20151:54 PM ETPublished December 21, 20155:15 AM ET

MARTIN KASTE

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Shawn Alexander and Ashley Jimenez visit a madrassa in the Los Angeles area. The two police officers are part of the Los Angeles Police Department's counterterrorism bureau, which is focused on fostering community engagement.Martin Kaste/NPR



The attack that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., earlier this month raised the alarm over so-called homegrown terrorism, attacks that aren't necessarily coordinated from overseas.

A few days after the massacre, FBI Director James Comey described the challenges of detecting those threats in a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Critical to our finding those people who are radicalizing in their homes is tips from the community," Comey said. "We have worked very, very hard to develop good relationships in communities all across the country — especially in Muslim communities."

But the FBI is regarded by many American Muslims with suspicion, in part because of misgivings about a legacy of federal sting operations that are perceived by some as efforts to entrap Muslims into planning theoretical terrorist attacks.

Local law enforcement, on the other hand, says it is well-positioned to develop relationships with Muslim communities.

"It's no different than how we work with young people who want to join gangs," says Sheriff Rich Stanek of Hennepin County in Minnesota, where local law enforcement has been struggling with the question of how to dissuade the youth of recent Somali immigrants from becoming radicalized. "We want to know what's happening in the communities, and that's all based on trust. Local law enforcement has to trust them, and in order for that to happen, they have to be able to trust us."

In a sense, it's an adaptation for counterradicalization purposes of good old-fashioned community policing methods.

Anders Strindberg of the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security

This approach is often called countering violent extremism, or CVE, a philosophy built on the idea that law enforcement can help isolated communities such as recent immigrants to feel more invested in society and, as a result, make them more likely to detect threats such as self-radicalization.

"In a sense, it's an adaptation for counterradicalization purposes of good old-fashioned community policing methods," says Anders Strindberg of the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security. Local police are ideally situated to bring marginalized immigrant communities into the mainstream, he says — and make them more likely to report threats.

"I know this sounds kind of crunchy," he says, "but what you really need are communities that feel a level of trust and integration that allows them to reach out."

This philosophy is officially part of the federal government's anti-terrorism strategy, but Strindberg says it's been hampered by an internal struggle over whether the FBI or Homeland Security should take the lead and over what the role of local police should be. Strindberg says that debate has been "vitriolic" and has wasted valuable time.

There's been skepticism among Muslims. "If there is such a program — which I don't believe there is in the United States — it's an idea, it's a framework," says Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Marayati says CVE suffers from being too vague about its goals. He wants to make sure these friendly, relationship-building cops don't start asking questions about religion or social customs. And, he says, people need to be clear about what should be reported to police and what shouldn't.

"I mean, if it's stockpiling ammunition in somebody's apartment and buying explosives, of course they should report that kind of behavior. But if it's just about how a person is dressed, or how a person is religious, then no," Marayati says.

While some local police have embraced the CVE concept with community engagement officers, Strindberg says those efforts are often hard to maintain, in part because they're hard to quantify.

"The problem with community policing is the metrics are terrible," he says. "The metrics are not about tangible achievements in the sense that a lot of bureaucracies want to have available to them, but rather it's about things that didn't happen."



Alexander (at left), a practicing Muslim, prays during a visit to a Los Angeles-area madrassa, part of his unit's outreach to the Muslim community.Martin Kaste/NPR


Still, some cities are pressing forward with this approach. The Los Angeles Police Department's counterterrorism bureau has officers who are dedicated primarily to building relationships with what they call the city's "diaspora" communities. Shawn Alexander, one of those officers, makes a point of telling the people he works with that he's not focused on investigations — even though he's part of counterterrorism. He and his partner, Officer Ashley Jimenez, work in community engagement.

"We're totally separated from our investigators. The hunters and pursuers, we don't engage with them, they don't engage with us," he says. A practicing Muslim, Alexander says that when he visits a mosque or a madrassa in the LA area, he wants to make it clear that he's not there to spy.

"If we're there for information-gathering or investigation purposes or we're trying to get information on the community, it's kind of a slap in the face of the community," Alexander says. "It's like telling the community we're here because we think something is going to happen here. But that's not why we're there."

Does he believe this approach has prevented radicalization or violence? It's impossible to know, Alexander says, but he is convinced of the value of approaching these communities in the role of a public servant and not an investigator.


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Is the U.S.' Counterterrorism Message Working?

Alberto Fernandez used to run the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications at the U.S. State Department

NATIONAL SECURITY


Updated December 7, 20153:22 PM ET



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David Greene talks to Alberto Fernandez about U.S. efforts to defeat ISIS. Fernandez used to run the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications at the State Department.


DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And let's hear one perspective on the president's speech now. It comes from Alberto Fernandez. From 2012 until earlier this year he was President Obama's coordinator for strategic counterterrorism communications. The office he worked for at the State Department counters terror groups in the digital world. Fernandez has become an outspoken critic of the president. He called the administration's response to San Bernardino flailing and tone deaf. And his criticism doesn't stop there.

ALBERTO FERNANDEZ: There are problems with the administration's policy going back during the years when the Islamic State grew from 2011 to 2014. I mean, there was a sense in Washington - I was in the U.S. government - there was a sense that basically we had this taken care of. And it got away from us. I actually think that the president's speech is indicative that they are slowly, clumsily, beginning to do the right things. And all the elements of a successful strategy are there, you know, like raisins in a pudding in that speech.

GREENE: Raisins in a pudding. What exactly did you mean by that?

FERNANDEZ: I mean, there are good things in the speech. The question of course is a lot of what the president said was about process not necessarily about results. So there was a lot of language about more training, more info sharing. I'm surprised we haven't been sharing information with our allies. More hope of a Syrian solution. But the remarks were not very detailed, in terms of actual results.

GREENE: What is an example of something you saw in the speech that gave you confidence that you are seeing a policy improve?

FERNANDEZ: Well, there are a couple of things which I thought were good. One, I think the president made a good kind of summary about the challenge of this extremist ideology. He was a lot more clear about that and he has been. Also his comments about reviewing the visa process. And looking at stronger screening of those people who don't have visas and can come to the United States. Those are good things to say. Again the challenge is to turn those into results.

GREENE: Alberto Fernandez, you when you were in the government were focusing in large part on combating terror groups in the digital space. Is there anything the administration you feel should have been doing more urgently? Could now be doing more urgently, when it comes to going after the ISIS brand online?

FERNANDEZ: There's a lot that you could've done. You certainly could've tried to match volume against volume. In other words, the ISIS network is something that exists. I mean, you saw Secretary Clinton yesterday talk about how we need to - we need to get the social media companies to do more. She's saying this now. This is something that was known a year ago or two years ago or three years ago. So once again, I mean, they are figuring out the right things to do but it's being done in a kind of slow way.

GREENE: All right Alberto Fernandez used to run the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications at the U.S. State Department. Thanks so much for coming on the program sir.

FERNANDEZ: Thank you.


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GOP Event Underscores That Religious Voters Aren't Forgotten (Update: Transcript)

GOP Event Underscores That Religious Voters Aren't Forgotten

OCTOBER 19, 2015 5:14 AM ET

SAM SANDERS


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GOP presidential candidates spoke about faith and politics at a Dallas-area megachurch on Sunday. The event reaffirmed that those voters' and their issues will matter in this election.

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Update 10/24/2015

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And a mega-church near Dallas invited every presidential candidate, Democrat and Republican, to a forum on faith and politics yesterday. Six showed up. NPR's Sam Sanders was there too and has this report.

SAM SANDERS, BYLINE: Hours before the North Texas Presidential Forum kicked off in Plano, Texas, at Prestonwood Baptist Church you could tell easily who the big star of the show would be.

MAGGIE WRIGHT: My sign says Ted Cruz for president in 2016. He is the only one that can help us to lead us to take our country back.

SANDERS: Maggie Wright was one of several Cruz supporters outside of the church waiting to see Cruz arrive.

WRIGHT: We've already talked to his driver to tell him, you bring Ted this way. We're waving signs for you (laughter).

SANDERS: It made sense that Cruz supporters were there in strong numbers. The Texas senator was on his home turf. Prestonwood Baptist seats thousands, and it was packed. Conservative activist Ralph Reed was there. And he perhaps best summed up what this event was about, a rallying call for conservative evangelical voters, a group whose turnout has dropped in the last few elections. Reed said evangelicals tens of millions strong could shift this election.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RALPH REED: That is larger than the African-American vote, the Latino vote, the feminist vote, the gay vote and the union vote combined.

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Well, there you go.

REED: Just that one vote.

SANDERS: Each candidate appeared separately, talked for 10 minutes, then took questions from the pastor. All of the six candidates there - Cruz, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee - played up their connection to evangelicals, in part by reaffirming their faith. Carly Fiorina did it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CARLY FIORINA: I have battled breast cancer. I have buried a child. And through it all, the love of my family and my personal relationship with Jesus Christ has seen me through.

SANDERS: And Ted Cruz did too. He talked about how his once absent father gave his life to Christ and then came back home.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TED CRUZ: If it were not for the redemptive love of Jesus Christ, I would've been raised by a single mom without my dad in the house.

SANDERS: And Rick Santorum.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RICK SANTORUM: Now, some of you may know I'm a Catholic. But I'm an evangelical Catholic.

SANDERS: Neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BEN CARSON: And I said, Lord, you be the neurosurgeon, and I'll be the hands.

SANDERS: And Jeb Bush.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JEB BUSH: I decided to read the Bible from cover to cover. And I got about halfway through Romans, and I realized that Jesus was my savior.

SANDERS: Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee pointed that he's a former Baptist pastor. They talked about issues too. Carly Fiorina drew applause when she spoke out against abortion and Planned Parenthood. Mike Huckabee talked about standing with Kentucky clerk Kim Davis when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The toughest question from Pastor Jack Graham went to Jeb Bush.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JACK GRAHAM: Is Jeb Bush a conservative?

SANDERS: Bush said he is, that he defends free markets and individual responsibility and freedom for schools.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BUSH: The federal government should have no say in the creation of content, curriculum, standards. That's a totally state issue.

SANDERS: But Cruz drew the most applause by tying ISIS, abortion, gay marriage and more to the idea that these issues represent an attack on Christians' religious freedom.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CRUZ: If believers are staying home, if we are allowing our leaders to be elected by nonbelievers, is it any wonder we have a federal government that is assaulting life and marriage and religious liberty?

(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Cruz and the other candidates' remarks were really warning conservative Christian voters across the country that they need to fight back with their vote, preferably for one of those candidates who took that church stage. Sam Sanders, NPR News, Plano, Texas.


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