(gentle music) - [Mike] A mob incited by the president breached the US Capitol Building this week.

How did Ohio lawmakers react?

COVID-19 vaccine distribution continues with an expanded roster of eligible recipients and a lot of questions about the process.

And strong reactions after Governor Mike DeWine signs the controversial "Stand Your Ground Bill."

i-Ideas is next.

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(gentle music) - Hello, and welcome to i-Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre I-Idea streams executive editor.

The nation is still reeling from Wednesday when a mob incited during a speech by president Donald Trump breached the Capitol Building and a violent protest of president elect Joe Biden's victory.

It turned deadly as five people including a Capitol police officer and a woman shot by Capitol police died.

Congress reconvened Wednesday night into Thursday morning and Biden's win was affirmed though a good number of Trump's Republican loyalists in the Congress, including five representatives from Ohio opposed it.

Representative Tim Ryan of Niles a Democrat criticized the Capitol police for being ill-prepared to handle the angry mob and he and other democratic lawmakers are calling for the removal of the president from office right now not on January 20th when his term ends.

We'll talk about all of that and we'll discuss details for the next phase of the state's COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

And we'll discuss Governor Mike DeWine's decision to sign the controversial, "Stand Your Ground Bill."

Joining me for these stories and more ideas, streams political reporter, Nick Castele, health reporter and a Huntsman and Ohio public radio statehouse news Bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

- [Mike] Nick, you've covered a lot of politics and covered this in the aftermath talking to Ohio officials and federal officials from Ohio and what their thoughts were on, what was playing out.

What are your thoughts though?

- Well you know, I think that there.. On the one hand, you know I think that I had a belief, like probably a lot of people did that, buildings in Washington DC whether it's the U S Capitol or the White House are secured and secured pretty aggressively particularly in these 20 years, since 9/11 and that a mob of people can't just bust down the doors and get in and cause trouble.

But that's exactly what happened here and you know overwhelming Capitol police and the process.

And now we know, you know creating a situation in which one officer was killed.

You know, I know a lot of people have said this is unprecedented.

And in certainly you know, the idea of people barging into the Capitol in order obstruct the business of Congress ratifying the, the election of a president in a fair election is, is pretty stunning.

It's also the reality that there is a history of political violence in this country.

Particularly if you look at the Reconstruction & Jim Crow era.

And so you know, we have seen these things happen before.

And even at the very beginning of of Donald Trump's political career, 2015, 2016 there were a lot of people paying attention to you know rallies that were pretty raucous and where people were roughed up and sometimes Trump himself even encouraged it.

And so you know, it's hard to say that the warning signs weren't there from the beginning.

- [Mike] Right, I say unprecedented but the capital was breached in the war of 1812.

- [Nick] Well and not just that but there was a bomb that went off in the Capitol building in the 1970s, there were folks who actually shot members of Congress in the 50's on the floor.

So I mean, we have seen these kinds of things happen before - [Mike] You know, democratic lawmakers in Ohio are adding their voices to a growing chorus calling for the removal of president Trump right now for his role in inciting that mob how speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday, "If the president is not removed using the 25th amendment, "then Congress should go forward with another "impeachment proceeding has term ends January 20th."

Earlier, Senator Sherrod Brown a Cleveland Democrat said in a statement that he supports invoking the 25th amendment to house Trump.

He has a media briefing scheduled for later this morning, Nick you'll be there.

And Brown echo the sentiments of Democrat Tim Ryan from Niles, the representative from the 13th Ohio congressional district who also wants to president removed and said so Wednesday night in a media call where he was on lockdown.

- We can't have him in power for the next two weeks.

I mean, what's he gonna do?

He's getting more and more dangerous as time goes on.

And to just think about what's gonna happen in the next couple of weeks before the inauguration is he going to continue to incite this?

We can't take any chances.

This is like a teenager, you can't discipline anymore.

That's completely out of control.

- So he made that point in his press conference.

He also made it yesterday and that's where that soundbite comes from yesterday here on the sound of i-Ideas.

Karen, the talk of utilizing the 25th amendment has picked up steam but it doesn't sound like it would pick up steam as something that would actually happen.

You need vice-president Pence, you would need the cabinet.

It doesn't sound like that's likely.

- It was not even a year ago that the president was impeached.

(laughs) So, this would be the second time potentially but you're absolutely right that there would take a real effort on part of Republicans in the Senate to remove him.

And there's some reporting out there now that suggests that at least two Republican senators say that they would vote to remove him.

And one of them is Senator Ben Sasse but no real confirmation on whether that would happen.

And there's not a lot of time but certainly that's something that has been talked about that the idea like you just heard a Congressman Tim Ryan saying that, "What could happen in the next two weeks "as we get ready for the inauguration "and moving through that transition, what could happen?"

What could he possibly say?

Also I've heard some reporting about the first family leaving the white house entirely the day before the inauguration.

These are just extraordinary questions and circumstances to be considering right now.

I mean the peaceful transfer of power.

We've talked about that a lot as being something that's a hallmark of American democracy.

And now what we saw on Wednesday really suggests that that is really fragile.

And that's terrifying when you really want people to get out and vote, to express their beliefs on who should run the country, the state, the city whatever.

People have got to trust that elections are fair and secure.

And it's been said many, many times that this was the most secure election in us history.

And even by Trump's own people, his own appointees have said this and the those elections do have consequences.

And so I don't know what's coming in the next couple of days but we know one thing, and that is on January 20th Joe Biden will be sworn in as the next president.

- And Karen was mentioning the idea of some senators voting to remove the president that would be in the impeachment process.

The beginning part of that we've mentioned the 25th amendment.

That would be something where vice president Mike Pence would have to initiate that as we've heard on NPR news, not likely to happen.

Nick, you've been following the reaction from Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman.

What has been his position?

- Well, Portman was among the Republicans who even in November were saying that you know, it was seeming clear that Donald Trump lost this election and Joe Biden won it.

And so Portman was not a part of this group that was really amplifying aggressively these kinds of wild, false conspiracy theories about dominion voting machines and all the rest.

At the same time, you know Portman has long been I think, careful about you know, attacking or criticizing Donald Trump.

I mean, they're both Republicans, you know Portman has said that he supported Trump in the 2020 election and you know, is also going to be on the ballot in 2022.

And you know, presumably would be mindful of a primary challenge but you know Portman was not also a part of this group that tried to challenge the electors.

He gave a speech on the floor of the Senate saying that he was going to follow the constitution and affirm the results of this election that although he believed that Trump had the legal right to pursue challenges in court, Portman pointed out that judge after judge after judge including Republican judges you know, throughout those challenges and even Trump's own justice department said they didn't find evidence of widespread fraud that would overturn the election.

- I got an email from Keith in Akron who is critical of Governor DeWine.

He says, "To be fair, he criticized president Trump "for fanning the flames of Wednesday's riot "at the U S Capitol.

"But then DeWine declared that he still supports "the president."

And Karen, what about that?

He was asked about it yesterday.

And even there was a question about what do you support them if he ever ran again or something?

And he didn't say, no, I definitely would not.

So he's definitely walking a line.

- He has been asked about support of president Trump for a long time.

I've asked him, he was asked all throughout this whole pandemic.

And some of the things that Trump was saying that were coming into direct conflict with what Dwayne was trying to do in terms of getting people to wear masks and and take these pandemic guidelines more seriously.

And he is not criticized the president.

And he's in arguably a difficult position in that it was pretty clear that Trump was vindictive when it came to how he treated certain governors.

I mean, look what the things that he had said about Gretchen Whitmer, the Governor of Michigan and the things that she had to endure the fact that there was a plot to kidnap her that was found out this summer.

And so I think that Dwayne has been careful in his comments about the president, but he has still been a supporter he's told me and other reporters several times he supports the president on what he's done on judicial appointments on the three justices on the US Supreme court.

And yesterday he did specifically say though that "Trump's continued refusal to accept the election "results without producing credible evidence "of a rigged election has started a fire "that's threatened to burn down our democracy."

- You know, Ohio representatives, Jim Jordan, Bill Johnson Bob Gibbs, Steve Shabbat and Warren Davidson all voted against the affirmation of the vote for Joe Biden.

What about the rest of the Ohio delegation?

Or what about what they're saying about it, Karen?

- Well, there hasn't been a whole lot said except I should add that there were two other representatives who were Republican representatives who came out against the effort to try to overturn the election representative Anthony Gonzalez from Rocky river and also representative Troy Balderson from North of Columbus.

And I think that speaks not only to obviously what their opinions were, but also how they are looking at their own constituencies because they're in areas that have started to become more blue.

And so there's less support for Donald Trump in those areas though once again, it should be said Donald Trump did win the state by about the same margin he won it in 2016.

So those things are out there.

There's been a lot of criticism among democratic activists aimed at Republican members of Congress who are now saying that they were horrified that what happened on Wednesday shouldn't have happened.

And then you know, producing pictures of these members of Congress campaigning with president Trump.

I mean yesterday, Mike DeWine was asked, "Do you regret being a, an honorary co-chair "for president Trump's reelection campaign "which every single Ohio member of Congress "who's a Republican and every state elected officer, "other than secretary of state Franklin Rose, "they were all honorary co-chairs "of the president's reelection campaign."

And one says, "No, he didn't because once again, "he thought what the president did with judicial "appointments was good."

And also he is praised some of what Trump has done and vice president Pence in particular on the pandemic response.

And so you know, the question I think is, how much are we going to retain in our memories of this as we go forward?

I mean, these members of Congress are up for reelection in 2022.

So as governor Mike DeWine, so is Senator Rob Portman could some of these folks face primaries because this is a conservative state?

Are Democrats going to respond with really great candidates to try to unseat these people?

You've already seen Nan Whaley, the Mayor of Dayton, says she's not gonna run for Mayor again that opens the door for her to possibly be a candidate for governor or US Senate.

These are all things that I think in the next couple of weeks and months we're gonna see moving on.

- I wanna talk a little bit about the idea that I've heard many talk about and that is "Had this been a black mob?

"What are the men allowed to enter the US Capitol "and leave freely?"

Many have asked that question.

Meanwhile, Trump supporters told I-Idea streams Taylor Haggerty yesterday that there is a double standard regarding this mob and racial justice protesters, but they believe it's the Trump supporters being unfairly characterized while the media and others had no such disdain for racial justice protests that turned destructive.

Nick, Tim Ryan has a lot of questions about this as well about how Capitol police handled the situation including whether they were prepared about why people were allowed to essentially not allowed, but they were able to and then it seemed as though pretty freely we're able to leave as well.

This wasn't the kind of crackdown you might've seen at other protests.

- Well, yes.

And Tim Ryan is the chair of the committee in Congress that oversees the funding for Capitol police.

So he actually has some say in this and I believe he and the chair of the house appropriations committee Rosa DeLauro have said that they are going to try to investigate this.

So I would expect that you'll see some hearings at some point where they will try to dig into what went wrong.

And why is it that Capitol police were overwhelmed by this crowd?

Where were other law enforcement agencies?

And why were they not able to prevent people from getting into the Capitol?

Not a lot of answers at this point as to what exactly happened specifically that, you know led the police barrier to break down here.

But I expect we'll be those answers coming out once this investigation continues (gentle music) - Governor Mike DeWine unveiled details for the next phase of COVID 19 vaccinations in Ohio.

Phase 1B will include Ohio wins over age 80 and begins later this month.

Teachers are on the list for February 1st but only if there'll be teaching in person.

The governor said vaccines will be distributed by health departments, doctor's offices, pharmacies, hospitals and home health providers though supply is still scarce.

Meanwhile, phase 1A vaccination continues for healthcare providers and residents of nursing homes and other congregate living facilities.

Anna, how many people will be eligible for this next round of vaccinations and when will the shots be distributed?

As I mentioned, many questions are coming in.

You are doing a Q&A work and I think there's a whole lot more cues than we can provide answers for.

- DeWine said in his press conference that, "This next group "is gonna be a little over 2 million people."

And it's kind of interesting because if you look at the numbers so far just a little over 200,000 have received the first dose of the vaccine in phase 1A as you mentioned, Mike this is rolling out a little slower than expected we're also seeing people declining the vaccine, people in nursing homes who work there.

Dwayne has said, he's concerned about the number of people who get the vaccine in this first round but this next round is set to start toward the end of the month in a couple of weeks January 19th is the expected first date of that rollout.

It will be interesting to see if all counties and all areas can actually start around that time.

I spoke with Cuyahoga County officials earlier this week and they're not quite sure that they'll actually be able to start then because they have so many people in this phase one age group to get through.

So that's the health care workers.

Now it's healthcare workers that aren't on the front lines.

So for example, dentists, OB/GYN that don't work at the hospital.

You know, people who are EMS responders and workers, people in group homes.

So they have so many people in this group that they are not quite sure that they're gonna be ready when the other say smaller counties.

They said you know, this is maybe something to be expected in other urban counties, the larger counties, for example.

But yeah, so this is gonna start potentially toward the end of the month.

It's very interesting that teachers are in this first group.

That's kind of different than, than other States.

And I do want to point out that there is a condition for schools to get the vaccine.

They have to commit to fully in-person learning in order to get their vaccines apply.

So that's kind of...

I think there's mixed reactions on that point.

- Also, it's interesting that it's going to be different county by county.

The governor said, "Your local emergency management agency "or your health department will have an announcement "next Wednesday or Thursday, so stay tuned."

"Some people are gonna have to make appointments "some are not, some are gonna be walking.

"Some will be drive up.

"It's going to be a completely different county "to county throughout the state."

- Yeah, and it's a lot of back and forth because when I talked to the county officials earlier this week they told me they were still waiting on more details.

They couldn't give me, you know actual locations of where people can go.

They speculated that you can go to your county fairgrounds perhaps that's they have those large buildings where cars can drive up.

In fact, the Cuyahoga County fairgrounds is where people are getting vaccinated this week.

They have you know, eight lanes in this home and hobby building where people drive up and get the shots.

So they're thinking that that's a potential place.

Schools that's where summit county expects that people will be able to go and get their vaccine when they're eligible, churches, rec centers, so these community areas where you drive up that's the current thought.

But like I said, the County officials are still waiting on state officials to say, yes this is kind of what we want.

And then you hear DeWine in his briefing yesterday say, "Local emergency management officials, "it's up to you to kind of do this."

So I think that there's you know, obviously it's not unprecedented for a vaccine to be out and for counties to have to give out a vaccine.

This happened with the swine flu a couple of years ago.

However, I think with the global health emergency, that it is there's so many communication that has to be worked out and plans that have to be in place.

And like I said, it's back and forth between who's really in charge here?

Who's really setting the rules here?

- Next, some counties are pre-registering people for vaccines.

Cuyahoga County ran into a bit of a problem with that effort?

- Well, they did, I think earlier on I believe at the end of December, you know they had to circulated a link to folks who are on the priority for the vaccine giving them a way to sign up online.

And then the link got out a lot further than they intended it to.

And I apparently was being shared with other people who weren't eligible for it yet.

And so then they had to cancel some of those signups just to get things back in order.

- Yeah, it was actually the link that was telling people you could go to the fairgrounds this week to get your vaccine.

And again, this is only for phase 1A in that first priority group but it got circulated to others like Nick said.

And so people were signing up.

And right now that link is exclusively for people who are in 1A and they also told me that they're not allowing people to sort of pre-register in summit County.

You can register to get information about the vaccine but it's not that you're registering to say, "Hey, I'm interested.

"Let me know when I'm eligible."

It's not that it's still just I can get information about the vaccine.

I'm not aware of perhaps some smaller counties are able to pre-register but that's not something that's happening here in Northeast Ohio.

- Karen, let's get some of the latest update to how the department of health a number of new cases yesterday, is it higher or lower?

Do those numbers...

They'd seems now we were kind of inured to that.

It's the numbers come out and it's going to be high.

And people are kind of blending one in with the other but what do we know?

- Yeah, the numbers have been kind of all over the place.

And again, I track confirmed cases rather than total cases which is confirmed plus probable cases.

That's what the state tracks.

Is my tracking of confirmed cases goes we've been kind of up and down here.

There were obviously a couple of days during the holidays where we really didn't get a whole lot of reporting because there wasn't reporting on Christmas day.

There wasn't reporting on new year's day.

So some of these numbers kind of jumped up and then back down again but it looks like we're around 6,000 cases per day on average for this year, for the year 2021.

That seems like a lot.

That's certainly back in those numbers that we had been told back in April that we could be at and we were horrified then but we've gotten kind of used to these numbers especially as they went up into the 10,000 range, the deaths which are a lagging indicator, you know in the last couple of days, I think since January 1st we've lost 410 people in Ohio confirmed COVID-19 deaths.

These are still happening.

And the hospital numbers, while they're down there's a real concern that they're gonna go back up again because of potential surges after the holidays, people getting together even though they were advised not to.

And so it's not over.

And it's frustrating.

I think for people in public health as we're finally getting to the point where the vaccine is on the horizon, that we're so close, but it's not over yet.

(gentle music) - The biggest legislative story of this week was governor Mike DeWine, signing of a "Stand your Ground Bill" that was passed last month by lawmakers.

He hinted he might veto it.

The bill removes the requirement for a person to retreat before using force in self-defense.

Supporters say it removes confusion in the law.

As the duty to retreat already does not apply to a person's home or vehicle.

Opponents say it'll mean more people will be shot dead, especially black men.

Karen where's the governor stand on this at one point he says veto it because I've got some better ideas and you haven't taken them up and then in the next he signing it?

- Well, he has been supportive of the idea as a concept.

And he said in his statement that he has always believed that it's vital for law abiding citizens to have the right to legally protect themselves when confronted with a life-threatening situation.

So the hinting that he was going to veto stand your ground which is how I put it.

I never said that he said he was going to veto it.

He just hinted at it in a call with reporters over like right before Christmas he was asked about that and said that he was very concerned that lawmakers had not taken up the bill that he had pushed forward after the date and mass shootings in 2019 that was a bill that you might recall would we create a system for background checks for private gun sales.

It would also really up the reporting of information to state and federal databases that are used by gun dealers to determine who should not have access to weapons and lawmakers didn't move on that.

And DeWine was really frustrated with that.

He talked about that a lot during his press conferences over the last couple of months.

And so there was a thought that maybe he would veto this kind of to push back on that.

But as we were talking about earlier, there's real question about whether DeWine is going to face a primary.

Jim Renacci, the former Northeast Ohio Congressman did a town hall last night where he was specifically asked about that and said he's going to do anything that he has to do to try to get the things that he wants to see done in policy done.

So there's a possibility that he, with a lot of money that comes with him could end up trying to challenge DeWine in a primary.

And so that certainly suggests that maybe this is why he signed this stand your ground bill.

But he had said all along that this was something that he was supportive of.

- A lot of pushback on that we heard from a number of legislators.

I mentioned democratic black law legislators particularly were incensed by this.

But in addition Dayton Mayor, Nan Whaley, her city dealt with the mass shooting, August 2019, killed nine people.

She stood beside the governor and said he's in going in the right direction.

Not as much as I'd want but at least he's trying to get something done.

And then he signed, stand your ground.

She distanced herself from that as well.

I think there's been a lot of criticism of this.

It's not in the view of opponents just an issue of someone being able to protect themselves.

It's an issue of more people are going to die as a result of this.

- Yeah and the fact that she did announce like I said earlier this week that she's not going to run for Mayor again, very, very close to this announcement that stand your ground had been signed.

I don't think that that timing is coincidental.

I mean, I think that she's been very very public about her support for as advocates on the gun control side, say, do something.

And this was not the thing that they wanted to see Mike DeWine do.

- And sad news for fans of Cleveland baseball, Francisco Lindor and Carlos Cookie Carrasco have been traded to the New York Mets.

I think we were all ready for Frankie Lindor to go because we knew that was going to happen last year his last contract year but Cookie Carrasco, that one's tough.

- I know, I know he was just such a part of the team.

I really loved watching him in all the coalescing around him whereas he fought cancer.

It's just oh, my heart's broken twice.

I didn't want...

I mean, I watched Francisco Lindor play at the Columbus Clippers.

You know, I feel like we, we kind of raised him and to have him go away is just really, really hard.

- That's going to wrap up our show coming up Monday on the sound of i-Ideas I'll be in the host chair as Rick Jackson has a day off.

I'll talk with Lee Fisher and Peggy zone Fisher both honored this year by the Cuyahoga County Bar Association for their decades of community service.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching and stay safe.

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