Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on the battle over voting rights, the fight against COVID-19

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• Judy Woodruff:

  From the battle over voting rights to the fight against COVID-19, it's a good time for our Politics Monday team.

  That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report and Tamara Keith of NPR.

  And it is very good to see both of you.

  Amy is away, but we can still see you just like you're here with us in the studio.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Judy Woodruff:

  I have to say, first of all, what a privilege it was, Tam and Amy, to be able to go to Plains, Georgia, to sit down with former President Carter and Mrs. Carter, 75th wedding anniversary.

  They're still following the news, as you heard them say, Amy. It is really something.

• Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

  I loved the plug for the "NewsHour," of course, Judy, and for your leadership of it, which was wonderful.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Amy Walter:

  But, obviously, their engagement not with just American politics, but American life, has been quite remarkable over these last many years, whether it was Habitat for Humanity, and, of course, the work that President Carter has done internationally.

  I do think you're correct, that he is sort of remaking his assessment of his presidency. And it's one of the good and bad things about being a president who lived so long, is you get to see your legacy written and rewritten over and over and over again.

• Judy Woodruff:

  It is hard to believe, Tam, it has been 41 years since this president left office, and we're still asking him these news — these questions.

• Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

  He has had quite the post-presidency. They both have. It has been truly remarkable.

• Judy Woodruff:

  It really has.

  And, Amy, I want to — I do want to come back to something that I talked to them about, because it is so much in the news right now. And, of course, that is voting rights. We had the Supreme Court decision last week upholding Arizona's laws around more restrictive voting.

  And then — and you heard President — former President Carter say that, we will just have to grin and bear it, this situation, as it is around the country.

  But we are — given what has gone on in the Congress and in the state legislatures, this is a situation that we're looking at for years to come.

• Amy Walter:

  It is.

  That's why I thought it was so interesting he said — that President Carter said, we have to grin and bear it until the time comes to change it.

  And, to me, Judy, that's the real big issue here, because Democrats and Republicans feel very differently about what needs to change. We saw this in that most recent "NewsHour"/PBS/Marist poll. When asked, what do you think is the bigger problem in America, that not everybody can vote or that people are voting who are ineligible, overwhelming percentage of Democrats say it's that people don't have access to voting.

  Very few Republicans feel that way. Overwhelming percentage of Republicans feel the big issue is people who are ineligible shouldn't be able to vote. Very few Democrats feel that way. And independents are kind of split, a little more leaning toward that the bigger problem is access to voting.

  But that leaves us in a very precarious position. And it is a reason why also in that same poll almost 70 percent of Americans say they're worried about the future of democracy in this country. That's a very depressing place to be.

• Judy Woodruff:

  It does feel as if the country is stuck on this issue right now, doesn't it, Tam?

• Tamara Keith:

  Certainly.

  And there was a second Supreme Court decision that essentially said, Congress, you need to fix this, if you want to. And, for years now, Congress — and Congress obviously isn't a monolith — Congress has been unable to fix it, in part because of what Amy said, because there's simply no agreement about what needs fixing.

  Republicans and Democrats have very different views on voting. And I think that there are some items that they probably would agree on, or adjustments that they could agree on, but then there are all of the other parts that they just simply can't come together on.

  And so the Biden administration, the president, and the vice president are talking not about really getting legislation done, though they're trying, but they're talking about using their bully pulpit to go out essentially on the campaign trail heading into the 2022 midterms to campaign for voting rights and make that a campaign issue, while, at the same time, trying to mobilize Democratic voters and teach people how to vote under the state laws that they have no power to fix or change.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And we will see how much they can mobilize people to vote over this issue one way or the other.

• Tamara Keith:

  Right.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Amy, the other thing I want to talk to the two of you about, Fourth of July. Here we are the day after. We saw President Biden at the White House yesterday speaking to the American people to mark the day, but also noting — he spoke about an independence from COVID, from the pandemic.

  But it is tough right now, because, yes, the numbers have been coming down in this country, but we're kind of stuck there, too.

• Amy Walter:

  Right.

• Judy Woodruff:

  They have stopped, though. We're seeing cases rise, as we reported earlier, because of this Delta variant.

  You have got an administration that promised that they'd have 70 percent of adults at least one vaccination by now. That hasn't happened. It is a tough one for the administration.

• Amy Walter:

  It is very tough, too, in this place which we have just been discussing, red and blue America, where blue America is seeing numbers in the 70s and 80 percent of vaccinations, red states in the much lower percentage, in some cases, 40 percent, 50 percent.

  That's not something that President Biden himself is going to fix. It is going to take Republican leaders in those states to do that.

  But the other piece, Judy, that really struck me is the fact that voters are giving, both Democrats and Republicans, and also independents, giving the president credit for his handling of COVID. He has something like a 64 percent, 65 percent approval rating on this issue.

  And yet his overall approval rating in this "PBS NewsHour"/Marist poll and the most recent Washington Post poll still stuck at 50 percent. And what that says to me is that even an issue that — so dramatic, changed all of our lives in such an unbelievable way, so much tragedy brought upon us, it — and we are now hopefully looking at the end of this — we really are in a very different place this Fourth of July than we were last year.

  And still voters are as divided as ever on the issue about COVID and whether they should give President Biden not just credit on COVID, but for being a president who is doing the right thing.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And, meanwhile, Tam, a larger pressure of Republicans saying they won't get the vaccine.

• Tamara Keith:

  Absolutely.

  If you overlay the map of the election with the map of percent of the population, percent of adults that are fully vaccinated or partially vaccinated, it looks just like that election map, with Biden states going for the vaccine, and Trump states less so.

  But there are other things that you have to overlay, things like rural areas, access to health care, sort of the preexisting conditions of health access and availability in some of these states, poverty, education levels. All of that is part of the mix.

  I was talking to the Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who was trying to get people to get vaccinated, specifically trying to figure out the right message to get Republicans vaccinated. He said that the Biden White House basically did everything that they could. They did the right things.

  What we know is that the administration does plan to keep pushing on this, keep trying to get people vaccinated. But they did celebrate this past weekend. And part of that is a lesson of the Obama administration. They're trying to sort of bank their political wins on this, trying to celebrate where celebrating can happen.

• Judy Woodruff:

  It's a tricky line to walk, Amy, as Tam is saying, celebrating the good, but knowing that we are still far away from a place that it's safe when it comes to this virus.

• Amy Walter:

  That's right.

  And I think, once we get past the summer months, we know where the danger place is, Judy. And that's kids going back to school. That's going back indoors, that and potentially a new variant or one that has been mutated.

  But I do think it is time to celebrate. We have had a Fourth of July where we're able to do the things that last year seemed like they might not happen again for a very long time. So, I do think this is a time to be, yes, cautious, but also optimistic.

• Judy Woodruff:

  As we heard from President Carter just a few moments ago.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Judy Woodruff:

  Given a choice, we will take a few minutes to celebrate.

  Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, on the 5th of July, so good to see you both. Thank you.

• Tamara Keith:

  Good to see you.