President Biden's supporters packed a rally in North Carolina yesterday. Despite his stumbling performance at the debate against Donald Trump, I'm Aisha Roscoe, and I'm Danielle Kurtzlavin, and this is Up First from NPR News. Coming up, Biden and Trump take to the road after their first debate. I thought it was awesome. I thought that was Joe Biden today. He hit on some very strong points, and democracy is on the line.
Plus, what did Trump say about accepting the results of this year's election? Or not? And the federal government relaxes his stance on who should pay to keep public housing residents cool the summer. Stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend. I'm Rachel Martin. In this week's episode of Wild Card, actress and producer Lena Weight draws a card from the deck. What makes you a rationally defensive?
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From your car radio to your smart speaker, NPR meets you where you are in a lot of different ways. Now we're in your pocket. Download the NPR app today. The first presidential debate of the general election season plus Supreme Court decisions keep rolling in. Let's look back on a busy weekend politics with NPR senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving. Ron, thanks for being with us. Good to be with you, Daniel. Okay, Ron, this week's debate. President Biden was visibly
shaky. Meanwhile, former President Trump issued a torrent of ad hominem attacks on a whole lot of lies. How well was the electorate served on Thursday night? Obviously, the electorate was not well served on Thursday night. There was a feast of red meat for partisans in both camps. But regular folks and swing boaters had to be left feeling distinctly undernourished. That was also largely the case when these two men debated four
years ago. One big difference this time was they couldn't talk over each other or ignore the moderators because the moderators could cut off the mics. That was supposed to restrain Trump's ranting and rudeness. And it did a bit, which probably helped him because he seemed not only energetic and animated as always, but also more disciplined than we have seen him enforce to be in the past. Okay, so this was a repeat matchup, but did you learn anything new here?
I'm not sure it counts as learning something new, but it's a never-ending source of amazement how Trump can take a real important issue, such as illegal border crossings and exaggerated and distorted beyond recognition, escalating his numbers and superlatives ever higher even within the space and length of one answer. But the news from this debate was all about Joe Biden. I used to say he was shaky. He was shocking to a lot of his sympathizers and
maybe even to his detractors. So now we have major newspaper editorials urging him to drop out and give the Democrats a chance to find a better champion even at this late date. And another thing we're learning is how difficult it is to remove a presumptive nominee who has all the delegates or nearly all the delegates already committed to him, even if the party wants to.
Right. Well, now January 6th figured prominently into this debate with Trump pointedly not saying he would accept the results of this year's election in much the same way he didn't accept the 2020 results. And then the very next day, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of some of the January 6th defendants. So what did the court say and does it also apply to the charges that Trump faces? The court ruled that the specific charge of obstructing Congress was written to refer
to documents and records being altered or destroyed. So because the rioters did not get their hands on the actual certificates, the actual documents from the 2020 electoral college, much as they wanted to, the court said the prosecutors had overstepped in using that charge, broadening it to include any kind of impediment or obstruction of an official proceeding. Now this charge was used in more than 300 cases stemming from the January 6th riot.
So a number of the rioters will need to be resent and a story tried or just released. And it could also affect two of the four charges in the election's subversion case against Trump, although that remains to be determined as his specific actions to interfere with the counting of the electoral college may still meet the statutory test. There was also that other huge decision with the chevron ruling. What do people need to know about that one?
It's another landmark for the Roberts Court and its 6-3 majority that usually includes the three Trump appointees among the six. This was a challenge to a key element of the federal regulatory regime that's been in place for decades. The target here being a case involving the chevron oil company back in the early 1980s.
In 1984 the Supreme Court said that when Congress makes laws protecting public health and safety or the environment or other things, it's okay for Congress to delegate the writing of specific rules and standards to executive agencies. The idea there being those agencies would have more time and expertise to do this and to evolve them over time as they will
have the task of carrying out and enforcing those laws. So the chevron decision back then ordered lower courts to defer to these agency interpretations of the law when there were challenges. And lots of industry groups and others have long challenged these regulations saying they were written by bureaucrats and not by Congress and should not have the force
of law unless they can withstand a challenge in court. Now Chief Justice Roberts wrote on Friday, this was unconstitutional because it meant executive branch people were deciding what the law was when it seemed ambiguous or subject to interpretation.
Roberts said having agencies do that violated the separation of powers. So critics of this ruling warn that if you make Congress get into this kind of detail when passing bills, you will slow their process down and make laws protecting the public much more difficult to enact in the first place. That's NPR's Ron Elving Ron, thanks so much. Thank you Daniel. President Biden did his best to put his poor debate performance behind him and headed
up from Atlanta to Raleigh, North Carolina. Trump meanwhile traveled to Virginia, which is potentially in play for both parties this year, though it's lean democratic and recent elections. NPR Stephen Fowler watched both events and joins us from Raleigh. Hey Stephen. Good morning Daniel. Now Stephen, Democrats were concerned, alarmed even by Biden's poor performance at the debate on Thursday. And that started a lot of talk about replacing him on the
ticket. How did he show up at the rally that you saw? I mean, Daniel, it was almost like the debate and debate Biden didn't exist. This was a high energy, big crowd of about 2,000 people and Biden hammered Trump on abortion, the future of democracy and all of these other topics that didn't show up in the debate. Biden acknowledged he didn't fully show up then either. I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate
as well as I used to. Well, I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I mean, this was Joe Biden that Joe Biden supporters knew and it's a total disconnect from the current DC discourse about Biden, especially after talking with voters. Well, what did those voters have to say? Were they as shocked as some of those top Democrats in DC and pundits? I mean, no, they weren't shocked at Biden's performance. Every voter
I talked to said they'd basically crawl over broken glass to support him. They didn't really like his debate performance, but they also weren't expecting a lot from him there. There's 25 year old Kendrick Green. He's a recent law school graduate who said rallies like this are important to Biden gaining more support. I think he was good on the issues
last night, but I think he was a little slow in his feet, which is like him. You know, he's not normally the, you know, the attack person, but I definitely think that he definitely rebinded Gray and I was impressed today. There's also Rob Kushman who said Biden was probably too old to debate somebody like Trump
who doesn't tell the truth at times. He's not as most nimble as conversationally, but I can tell his heart's in the right place and he has my issues in mind and the things he's done to bring this country forward are amazing. Okay, so they support Biden. The technology has some weaknesses. Now, how much did Biden go on the offensive against Trump?
I mean, quite a bit. I mean, because think of it this way, Danielle, support for Joe Biden has also been explicitly about opposing Trump and his vision for the future, which the President constantly reminds people in his remarks. That is one of the stake in America this election. You're freedom, you're democracy, American self is at stake. Okay, Biden wants to put the attention on Trump in some ways. So what argument is Trump making post-abate?
Pretty much the same argument that he made during the debate and makes all the time at his campaign rallies. America has gone to hell under Joe Biden because of things like immigration and inflation and other policies. Interestingly, there's not as much emphasis on Biden's age or mental fitness, as you might think. Some of that is because Trump
is also old. He also rambles and stumbles over his words, but also because a key part of Trump's narrative is that Biden is this mastermind of all of these policies that make America not great. But remember the biggest problem for our country is not Joe Biden's personal decline. It's that Joe Biden's policies are causing America's decline at a level that we've never seen before.
Okay, back to Biden. If Democrats fears about his performance are true, can he make up the ground he lost at the debate by doing these rallies? Well, Danielle, I'd argue that it's not really evident yet that Biden lost any ground, at least not among voters and groups that will actually matter come November. The people obsessively reading the opinion section of the New York Times telling Biden to step aside or watching an eight person cable news panel hypothesizing replacements or doom
scrolling social media. Those aren't the ones who need to be convinced of vote for Biden. For example, there's these people out there called double haters who don't like Trump or Biden. And they're deciding more if they vote at all in this rematch of 2020 because it's a rematch. So the undecided factor is not, oh, who's this Trump guy? Who's this Biden guy? Polls right now show these voters, which cut across the wide coalition that elected Biden
the first time younger voters, nonwhite voters. They could be the ones that make a break who wins in states like North Carolina that'll be close. So that's who they have to reach in the next four months. That's NPR Stephen Fowler and Raleigh North Carolina. Thank you so much, Stephen. Thank you. Until now, federal rules have prohibited public housing authorities around the country from covering the cost of air conditioning for their tenants. That's even though their
tenants are overwhelmingly low or very low income. But just this month, the Biden administration announced that local authorities can pay for those costs in PR's Jennifer Lutton is here to explain. Hi, Jennifer. Hey, Aisha. So this might be a surprise to some listeners that public housing agencies have not been allowed to pay for cooling. What's the reasoning behind that? It does seem odd these days. But, you know, first of all, most public housing buildings are
decades old. They were built before central air was really common. And this policy is decades old back to when in a lot of the country, you really did not need air conditioning. So it has meant that agencies can subsidize people's heating bills. But if residents want to get an AC unit, they have to buy it themselves. And with some exceptions, residents largely pay for that extra electricity themselves. If utilities are included with rent, this
means a surcharge. And, you know, for people with extremely low incomes, even a small bit extra every month can be too much. So a lot of people don't use their AC to save money. And this is especially dangerous because public housing residents are disproportionately vulnerable to extreme heat. Many of them are seniors or children or they have chronic health problems. Back in 2021, this got a lot of attention because seven people in public housing died in a heat wave in Portland, Oregon.
So what is the new guidance from the Biden administration? Basically it says during a period of extreme heat, public housing agencies are now allowed to pay for an individual resident's cooling cost, not an AC unit, just the utility bill.
But this is an option, not a mandate. And the resident has to ask for that help. And with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, defined what it means by extreme heat event, it says that's a period of severe heat and humidity with temperatures 90 degrees or more for at least two to three days. But local agencies can use their own definition of what
will trigger these payments. Now, how do officials say this is going to let people use AC when they need it without risking heat-related illness, knowing they don't have to worry about cutting back on food or medicine in order to just stay cool. And as you say, this is only an option and public housing authorities are not required to pay for AC. So how much difference will this make? I spoke with Daniel Carpenter Gold with the Public Health Law Center. He says, okay, it
is good. Hud has taken this step, but he calls it a very small step and worries it won't change much. For one thing, it doesn't do anything for people who don't already have AC. And for those who do, he says the agency is basically their landlord. So that can be a tricky relationship and it might be a hard ask for some people. And Carpenter Gold says, we don't know how this message is going to be put out to tenants.
It might not get the notice in the first place, but this is a thing. And the residents might not apply in time for them to actually feel like they can turn on their AC or whatever they have when they heat strikes. He also says agencies would need to come up with a whole system for approving and organizing these payments, but many of them are cash-dropped, they're understaffed. And he says, look, there's a much simpler way. They're already our
federal subsidies for heating bills. So his group and others have petitioned to get Washington to include cool and cost in the summer for everybody. Of course, that would be a long bureaucratic process to get done. I'm curious, how does clean energy fit into all this? President Biden got Congress to approve massive funding for communities to switch to heat pumps and solar. Is there money for local public housing agencies to do something like that?
Yes, there is. And the administration is pushing this for public housing. Absolutely. They say that, you know, for people with very low incomes, this not only reduces planet warming emissions that brings down their utility bills, but only a sliver of that funding that Congress approved is for public housing. Carpenter Gold, the analyst says that for a real solution here, he'd like to see Congress devote a much larger chunk specifically for these retrofits
in public housing. NPR's Jennifer Letton, thank you so much. Thank you. And that's up first for Saturday, June 29, 2024. I'm Aisha Roscoe. And I'm Danielle Kurtz-Layman for Nando Naro, produced today's episode with help from Elena Torek and Martin Patients. Andrew Craig was the director. It was edited by Megan Pratt's Catherine
Lay Law, Ed McNulty and Matthew Sherman. Our technical director is Hannah Glovna with engineering support from Nisha Hainas, David Greenberg, Andy Huthur, Tom Marquido, and David Melmer. PV Stone is our senior supervising editor, Sarah Oliver is our executive producer. Jim Kane is our deputy managing editor. Tomorrow on the Sunday Story podcast, we travel to Haiti. The gangs that have occupied the capital city are getting ready to confront a multinational
police force that has just begun to arrive. You can listen to more news, interviews, and sports all weekend long on your NPR station. To find your station, go to stations dot NPR dot org. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to up first sponsor free through Amazon music, or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get up first plus at plus dot NPR dot org. That's plus dot NPR dot org.
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