[MUSIC - Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. While the presidential race dominates the political headlines, there's a drama unfolding in Congress that at other times might be getting much more attention than it is. The federal government's fiscal year ends in 10 days and they can't agree on a new budget. People's lives would be affected beginning October 1st if various government agencies have to shut down.

The holdup for now is an insistence by House Republicans on including a non-budget item, a provision to require proof of citizenship to register to vote. This is even though non-citizens voting illegally is a minuscule problem, according to election officials around the country. We'll talk about that and more now with New Jersey Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, including Donald Trump's new promise to reinstate the full state and local tax deduction.

Remember, it was his own tax bill as president that severely limited the so-called SALT deduction and hurt a lot of New Jersey taxpayers, and including a bill in this discussion that Congresswoman Sherrill did get through the House to award a unique honor to Billie Jean King. That happened yesterday. Mikie Sherrill is the Democrat who represents New Jersey's 11th congressional district, which includes parts of Morris, Essex, and Passaic counties in North Jersey, due west of Manhattan, including Montclair, Morristown, Parsippany, all around there. She is also considered a potential leading candidate for governor next year after Governor Murphy is term-limited. She told Axios and MSNBC last month that she is seriously considering a run. Congresswoman Sherrill, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill: Well, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start here. How would you explain to our listeners who haven't gotten engaged in this story, what's going on with the budget? What's at stake? How did you vote on the budget resolution that came to a vote and was defeated yesterday?

Congresswoman Sherrill: [sighs] Okay, [chuckles] so we have an appropriations process. It's fairly broken at this point in many ways, meaning we don't pass the bills in regular order. We were working on it in the House and the Senate didn't take that up when we were in the majority. Again and again and again, we get to this point where we are facing the fact that right before an election, things have become incredibly partisan. We can't get the budget passed.

What we do is we pass continuing resolutions, meaning we're just going to operate off of last year's budget and keep the government open until we can come to some agreement on the appropriations bills. That probably doesn't sound too bad to many of your listeners. It's incredibly bad for the DoD. For example, I sit on the House Armed Services Committee and we now can't start in any new start programs that maybe are ready to go for innovation and research and development. If we are expanding a program, we can't expand that.

We might have to lay people off, shut down different programs because we can't expand the program as it's set to do to get some of the manufacturing done. It costs tons of money as we shut these programs out to restart them once we get the budget passed. It's very, very expensive. As we are facing instability across the world, we need to spend every dollar wisely. This is a broken process. Right now, what has happened is the Republicans have put a very partisan continuing resolution on the floor.

There was an agreement with the President months ago that we would simply have a clean, continuing resolution until we get the budget passed. That is not what was put on the floor by the Republicans. What they put on the floor was something that called into question some of our election processes. We've already gotten a lot of calls to my office about people who are concerns about different people voting when we've said, "Look, the law of the land is they cannot vote already."

This was just a strike to try to, I think, support Donald Trump's attempt to message that our elections aren't fair. I voted against it as did most Democrats. Now, we think we'll continue to negotiate. It sounds as if we are getting closer to what we would call a clean CR, meaning not a continuing resolution filled with culture war topics or other partisan feuds, but rather simply continuing last year's budget, which was the agreement, until we can get through the election and really get to work on these appropriations bills.

Brian Lehrer: Is it so bad to require proof of citizenship to be allowed to vote? That's almost the only actual requirement to vote, right?

Congresswoman Sherrill: Well, I think to register to vote, you have to show this. When you go, for example, in New Jersey, you often register to vote at the DMV because you have all your paperwork there to get a driver's license. They see all your paperwork. You are a citizen. You register to vote. You get your driver's license. I think that's pretty true of most states. Nobody who's not a citizen can vote in our federal elections already. That is already the law.

I think constant attacks on our election system by Trump, by others to try to insinuate that all types of people are voting that shouldn't be voting or that it's unfair, and then on top of that, to threaten a lot of the people who run our election systems, we're hearing they're very afraid now if he becomes president, he said he's going to go after them. That's really dangerous in a democracy.

Brian Lehrer: Just to clarify one thing that you said, if being a citizen is a requirement already to register to vote or requirement to vote, is it part of the registration process already?

Congresswoman Sherrill: Certainly, in New Jersey and I believe in every state.

Brian Lehrer: If there is no evidence of non-citizen immigrant voting fraud, flipping elections, which nobody in positions of authority and elections officers around the country says there is no evidence of such fraud, except in minuscule numbers, not flipping any election certainly, why do you think they're pushing this at the risk of shutting down some government services?

Congresswoman Sherrill: Well, I think because Republicans want to, or Trump, especially MAGA Republicans want to create a sense that our elections aren't fair, that this is not a fair process. It seems to me that Trump is constantly undermining our democracy. He was speaking approvingly of Putin and Orbán, dictators in Europe. He has suggested without evidence many times that there are great flaws in our election system.

He has said he is going to prosecute the people who run the election system. I don't believe he's ever said that he would accept the results of our elections. He certainly didn't in the last election that he was involved in when he developed an insurrection and incited an insurrection as he attempted to stay in office despite the democratic election. I think we've seen not just Trump, but other far-right Republicans trying to undermine our process.

Even our own speaker put forth an amicus brief, which he encouraged members across the Republican Party to sign, and many did, telling me behind closed doors, they decided to sign on to it even though they knew it was wrong. The amicus brief, the information in it was wrong, but they knew the Supreme Court would never agree to it. It was just an easy political thing to do. This is all very dangerous when we are in a democratic system and we are trying very hard to support that.

Brian Lehrer: The fiscal year ends on September 30th. What would actually get defunded if Congress doesn't meet that deadline? Can you explain how that works and who would or wouldn't feel it right away?

Congresswoman Sherrill: Well, it gets felt pretty quickly. A lot of agencies start to shut down. Non-essential personnel are told to not come to work. Pay is shut off. I remember when I worked at the US Attorney's Office, there were briefings for people who were living paycheck to paycheck, how they might be able to get loans should the government shut down. You might hear from some people. I'm not hearing a lot of it. This is something that Trump's done. This is something that we've seen before a shutdown.

I think most people realize that a shutdown is a very bad idea. I don't hear a lot of talk right now that people-- the only person I hear really talking about a shutdown and really pushing a shutdown is former President Trump. I'm hoping we don't do this, but the last time we were approaching this or the time we were approaching this when I was in the US Attorney's Office, we were having briefs for people about how they might meet their financial obligations.

Then you might hear some people in office say, "Oh, well, it's fine. They all get back pay." Well, back pay doesn't cover interest. Back pay doesn't cover loan. If you have interest on your loan payment, if you have any fees on that, back pay doesn't cover that. You incur all kinds of expenses as a government employee as your pay is halted. It puts families in a sense of real insecurity. At the time when I first got into Congress, that was during the largest government shutdown that Trump had done in 2018.

Because of these government shutdowns, it wasn't the first then, people were starting to think about not going into government service because it was unstable like that. We're seeing national parks shut down. It just becomes really onerous on a lot of families, a lot of people who work for the federal government, and then a lot of people trying to get government services.

Brian Lehrer: Historically, the Republicans get blamed by the voters, I don't have to tell you as a Democrat in Congress, for these kinds of government shutdowns where there's no actual budgetary issue. Just some pet social issue tacked on for publicity, for electoral advantage, whatever. History would suggest they're going to cave and pull the citizenship ID provision because this potential government shutdown would happen so close to Election Day, or could it come out differently this time?

Congresswoman Sherrill: I think everything is moving towards an agreement on a clean CR, a clean continuing resolution where we continue to keep the government open. The one concern I have is, of course, former President Trump, who has said that everyone should vote to shut the government down, that they should not move off of this, that they should shut the government down. I am very much hoping that he doesn't really push members to do that.

Because even though I think it would be very bad for other Republicans on the ballot, even though I think it would be very bad for the country, even though I think it would be horrible for people who work for the federal government, he seems to be able to, in absentia, still control large parts of the Republican Party. I'm very much hoping that he doesn't continue to push people on this. I'm very much hoping that the speaker continues to move forward in a way that's going to be better for the country and certainly better for people who serve.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing on this, unless we get calls on the topic, do you think Mike Johnson's speakership is at risk from the right if he allows a funding bill without the citizenship ID for registration provision?

Congresswoman Sherrill: I'm really not sure. This Republican majority has been more dysfunctional than anything I've seen, I think than anything the country seen maybe ever. Just with the motion to vacate the chair, the difficulty in getting a new speaker. I think there's a real sense in the Republican Party because, as you remember, I think it was Marjorie Taylor Greene who tried to vacate the chair again, but Republicans didn't join her, I think largely understanding that nobody would be able to get a majority.

If we lost this speaker, we would not be able to get another speaker because of the divisions within the Republican majority. It's very unclear who will be able to stay in power if it's Speaker Johnson or if we take over the majority, if they'll still be the minority leader. I think there's a lot of angling for that. Really, I think at this point, we all just need to focus on doing what's best for the country, keeping the government open, finding the votes to do that, getting this continuing resolution passed so people can rest easy until we get past these elections.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some calls and texts for New Jersey Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Your comments, questions, or stories about requiring proof of citizenship for registering to vote, which Republicans want to attach to the budget bill and Democrats are resisting. There could be a partial government shutdown on October 1st if they don't have a budget by then, or on the SALT deduction, which we'll talk about next. The state and local tax deduction on your federal income taxes.

Tell us a story about that, and you, a story of how the Trump limits on that deduction have affected your taxes and your household finances generally in New York, New Jersey, or anywhere else. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, and is it good policy or bad? Now, Trump is claiming he'll restore it. Is that claim credible to you or anything else, for New Jersey Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, Democrat from NJ 11, west of Manhattan, Morristown, Montclair, Parsippany, and around there? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Congresswoman, let's talk about the SALT tax deduction. Trump was responsible for limiting it to $10,000 of state and local taxes that could be deducted from your federal income tax. Now, he claimed this week on Long Island that he would work to restore it. Many Democrats don't believe him and are reminding everyone this is an issue he created. It's kind of like saying he's against six-week abortion bans after he's the one who got Roe v. Wade repealed to allow them. For listeners whose eyes glaze over when they hear about a tax deduction on your taxes or a $10,000 limit on something, can you describe the effect of what Trump got passed on your district?

Congresswoman Sherrill: Yes, it was incredibly punitive. New Jersey has high state and local taxes. New Jersey also has the best public school system in the nation. We're working to fully pay into our pension system so that people have that security. I think we run a state with some of the most high-end businesses and the defense sector and space and pharmaceuticals, bioengineering, etcetera, and some fantastic secondary schools as well.

We work really hard on a lot of things in the state that are the reason many people live in New Jersey, but it is, unfortunately, a high-cost state. We're always trying to make life more affordable for people there. One of the things that was important as we try to invest in the things that our citizens care about while, at the same, time keeping costs down was the ability to deduct those state and local taxes.

That money wasn't taxed twice. First, by the state, and then by the federal government, especially given that New Jersey is one of the biggest net donor states. Most of our taxes that go to the federal government go to other states unlike other states in the South, for example, who often get our net recipient state, who get a lot more money from the federal government than they pay into it.

The state and local tax deduction was really important to citizens, really important across the board. That's why when I've been fighting to get rid of it, I've had teachers' unions. I've had firefighters' unions. I've had groups that work for minority communities because they want to develop generational wealth and homeownership. There are all kinds of people that are incredibly affected by this, retirees, etcetera. That's why we fight so hard.

This was implemented and it was pretty clearly implemented and stated that this was an attack on blue states, that capping the state and local tax deduction was an attack on blue states, a way to create more of a partisan divide as Trump has often want to do. It was really harmful to my state as we are trying to drive costs down. We fought it. We've gotten several fixes passed through the House of Representatives when we were in the majority.

Yet, in 2022, as part of a negotiation for some of our bills, leadership in the Republican Party worked very hard to extend the state and local tax deduction cap because it lapses in 2025 next year. They're working very hard to extend it even further. This is something that Project 2025, which all of Trump's team has worked to put together as a roadmap for his presidency, in Project 2025, they said not only did they want to capsule, they wanted to get rid of the deduction altogether, further harming people in my state, people in my district.

I've been a huge advocate to get rid of the cap and there are pieces of legislation now that the speaker could call up at any time. If Trump is serious about getting rid of this cap, he should encourage that to happen right now. We should put a bill on the floor. I'd vote for it tomorrow. I'd vote for it any day of the week. I'd be happy to come back on the weekend. This is something that I've been working hard on for years now. I would love to see a fix to this. I would love to see a piece of legislation, a resolution from Republicans saying they're not going to reimplement SALT when it lapses next year.

There are so many ways that we could actually do something about this. I find the fact that Trump, while he's in some Long Island rally with people in Long Island, he's not talking to anybody else, where he's suddenly saying he's against it. I find that completely not credible. If he's against it, then do something about it. He seems to try to tell Congress what to do every day and telling Speaker Johnson how to legislate every single day. Tell him to legislate on SALT. Let's get it done.

Brian Lehrer: Bill in Seaford on Long island is calling with experience of what happens when a government shutdown occurs. Bill, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Bill: Yes. Hi, Brian. Thank you very much. I just want to say how strongly I feel about Ms. Sherrill's comments with Donald Trump and his undermining of the government processes. I fully support that thought that she's had or the explanations that she just gave. I was with Social Security for 42 years. We experienced a few furloughs prior to the most recent one in Donald Trump's administration.

They, over the years, declared us essential, so we had to work without getting checks, which was okay. The higher ups, unfortunately, the way it splits out in the government, people that have the more lucrative jobs in Baltimore in the headquarters would be furloughed and stay home because they weren't considered essential, which, eventually, they all got paid back. I understand what she was saying about interests accruing and things of that sort. It was a split, a dichotomy of the rich versus the middle, which is us in the belly of the beast working every day.

That's why her comments were so important to me because in my 42 years there, I felt I was an educator as well as an administrator or a bureaucrat because we were trying to restore people's faith in the program of Social Security. That's what you met with pretty much every day like, "Why are you taking all this money from me?" and "My checks going to be so small," etcetera. We served as educators and I just thought that was part of the discussion.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Bill. That is, I think, very educational for a lot of our listeners who haven't worked in government. I want to go right on to another call. Alicia in Queens has a potential solution to even having a debate over whether every individual should have to show proof of citizenship in order to register to vote at the individual level. Right, Alicia? Hi, you're on WNYC.

Alicia: Good morning. I'm a New York resident, but I love Mikie Sherrill. [chuckles] I do have to disagree. I think that there are lot of places where you don't have to bring your birth certificate or your passport to register to vote. I'd like to just take that whole conversation off the table. Let's just give the conservatives what they want, making a national voter registration card. When a person or a citizen turns 18, they get that.

When I was growing up, when we turned 18, we got our Social Security cards, our Social Security notes. Do the same thing that they used to do back then. Give a federal voting card. Those who are older, they have to go into an office and get their photo taken and show proof of citizenship. They get a national card that lasts them for their entire life. Maybe every five years, you get a renewal form that you have to fill out. You just get renewed saying that you're still alive. I'm so tired of that conversation. Let's just give it to them.

Brian Lehrer: You like that idea, Congresswoman?

Congresswoman Sherrill: I guess this is often how you run elections is often down to this state. I can't speak for all of the states, but I will say in the majority and I think it's a requirement to have some form of ID to prove your citizenship. In New Jersey, it can be a passport. It can be birth certificate. It can be other means of showing that. Then you are registered to vote and then you are on the registration roll so that when I go in to vote, I am there. I have to give my signature. They know who I am. I vote in the same place.

Those are on the voter rolls. I think as we're hearing across the country, this is not a problem as far as having people voting who aren't supposed to be voting. The reason I guess I'm a little skeptical of this is I was in the military and I moved all the time. I was constantly moving in the military, at least every three years, but usually, less than that. Packing up and moving overseas and then coming back and then finding things.

The thought of having to keep track of this card would be very difficult and especially if you had to change and stuff. I love the idea that I can go in. I can get registered. I can be registered. I go into there. In the system, I'm right there. I think that a different idea might be to just put people in the system. They can pull it up on the computer. Now, much of it is automated. If I go into my voting place, they can just pull me up. They can see I'm a citizen. They can see I'm registered. They can see the identification and then I can vote.

I don't love putting the onus on people. I like making voting as easy as possible. I want people to come vote. I want people engaged in democracy. I think that with all of the tools we have, if your concern really is that you want to make sure everybody who's voting is a citizen of the United States, we can do that but still make it easy for people to vote. If you, however, are trying to limit the type of people who vote, which we've seen in court cases, they've said, "No, I'm not trying to limit the Black vote. I'm trying to limit the Democratic vote," which is actually evidently legal according to our Supreme Court.

They have said point blank, they are trying to limit voters. If your desire is to actually limit the people who can vote, make it harder to vote, make it more difficult, make it more onerous, and try to move some people out of the system, well, then I'm against that. That's what this feels like to me. This seems to be a constant drive to promote misinformation about who is able to vote, about whether or not our elections are fair.

I'm having calls to my office. When we tell them, "No, the law is, in New Jersey, that this is the proof you show when you go to get your voting registration," people say, "No, it's not." I'm like, "Well, go to the DMV and check it out," right? This misinformation online is actually trying to create a sense that our elections aren't fair and then trying to undermine it. That's what I guess I'm so adamantly opposed to.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to take a break. When we come back, our next caller is going to be Peter, who lives in your district, who wants to talk about the SALT deduction. We'll take it from there and then talk about a few other things you're doing. This Billie Jean King Congressional Gold Medal bill that you actually got passed yesterday is interesting. We'll get to that. Listeners, stay with us with Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill from New Jersey and also to her apparently likely gubernatorial run next year. Stay with us.

[MUSIC - Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with New Jersey Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill. Peter in Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hello, Peter.

Peter: Hi, Brian. How are you doing today? Hey, Mikie. Great supporter of yours.

Congresswoman Sherrill: Hi.

Peter: Hi. I think you're doing a great job mostly. [chuckles] I wanted to talk about SALT. Thanks for your advocacy on SALT. Couple of points. I am all for income equality and want to see a reduction in the great income disparities and wealth disparities that we see in our country. That said, if there's one time I'm going to bat for our local New Jersey and New York billionaires, it's on the SALT tax. This is one tax that they should absolutely benefit from.

Raising the cap from $10,000 to $50,000 or $100,000 won't cut it. The federal government cannot discriminate against our billionaires who choose to live and work in our tri-state area pay a vast majority of our taxes. I will always want our congressional delegation to go to bat for our New Jersey and New York billionaires to make sure that they're not disadvantaged by the federal government versus a Texas or a Florida billionaire. That's number one.

Number two, economically, this does not make sense because, say, if Congress went crazy and they said, "We are going to tax 100% of your income," what the SALT rules that the Republicans put in place would do is that New Jersey residents would now have to pay 108% or 105% of the income in taxes if that were come to be. That's how stupid this is. The third point is this is like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. It's a tax on our productive states that actually pay the national bills and you harm them.

You make them less competitive. In the long run, you're hurting the competitiveness of the United States. Nothing good can come of this tax, this SALT deduction that was taken away by the Republicans and by Donald Trump specifically and by Rodney Frelinghuysen, who you displaced, who essentially stabbed New Jersey on the back. Please, back for it. No compromises on this. Don't vote on anything that, in any way, would prevent the restoration of this deduction in 2025.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, thank you very much. Very heartfelt and a very interesting argument. Even though it's for the rich in New Jersey, it would prevent the rich from moving to other states to get that tax deduction there. There are some progressives, Congresswoman, like your New York colleague, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who oppose a big SALT deduction. Their argument is, "This is a tax break for the affluent," because you have to make a certain fairly high income to pay more than $10,000 of state and local taxes in the first place. Do you agree that the SALT deduction is regressive?

Congresswoman Sherrill: No. No, not at all. In fact, New Jersey is one of only five states in the nation that runs a progressive taxation system. The way we do that is through the state and local taxes. It is based on your ownership of certain homes and the stuff that you get taxed on for your school system, for pensions, et cetera. This is actually how a progressive state invest in things like fantastic public schools, invest in things like a pension program, invest in having a great police force, invest in having fantastic teachers.

This is the way we do it. To double-tax people, not only could you drive out billionaires as we saw, which we've done already in New Jersey and really has harmed some of our state budget, but also you really harm the ability to have people move to your state and invest in the things that we most care about because you start to come up with all of this double taxation. As you know, Brian, people can choose to move in the area. If you're working in New Jersey, you could live in Pennsylvania. You could live in New York. You could live in Connecticut.

There are other choices people are making. They choose to live in New Jersey because, well, I would say the best state in the nation, but we're fantastic state with fantastic schools, a fantastic quality of life. The costs are high and we're trying to drive it down. We don't want anyone to leave our state because of high costs, so how do we do that? I would just disagree that this is a regressive tax. I agree with Peter.

Brian Lehrer: I know you got to go very soon. Speaking of property taxes, you said last month, you're seriously considering a run for governor next year when Governor Murphy is term-limited. Property taxes are often issue number one in Jersey elections. Why are you considering running for governor? Do you have a property tax policy brewing on your desk? Then if you want to take a minute on the way out the door to talk about your bill that got passed yesterday, I see, to give the Congressional Gold Medal to Billie Jean King.

Congresswoman Sherrill: Wow, that's a lot. Okay. [chuckles] Sorry. That's our voting bell here in Congress you might hear in the background. Right now, I'm really focused on 2024 and making sure that we have fantastic candidates up and down the ticket, including our wonderful presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. Then I'll be strongly considering running for governor in the 2025 cycle. One of the things that I have been looking at and would be constantly focused on would be affordability. Yes, that would involve taxes.

Certainly, that involves the cost of home prices, how we get services into our state, and how we bring equity. I say we have the best public school system in the nation. That's true by the numbers, but it's not true everywhere in my state, which is really concerning to me because we're leaving too much talent on the table in New Jersey. Yes, we were able to get the Billie Jean King Congressional Gold Medal legislation through the House this week, which was so exciting to me.

We had over 300 people vote for it, which is you rarely, in Congress right now, have that many people agree on anything, Democrats and Republicans alike. The Senate had already passed it. I'm really excited that we will now be moving forward on getting with the mint and making sure that we have a great Congressional Gold Medal to give to Billie Jean King, who will be the first individual female athlete to ever receive it. Not just because of her fantastic athleticism and her iconic status as we'll celebrate today, 51 years from the "Battle of the Sexes" with Bobby Riggs, but also the work that she has done on Title IX.

I'll tell you, Brian, I was just, last night, at the Mystics and the Fever. They set a record for the largest-attended WNBA sporting event here in DC last night. To look around and to see an arena full of people watching the WNBA after years of having women's sports the second class was so amazing to me. Then I also just have to get in there, another vote or another resolution I just introduced last week was the EMTALA resolution with Emilia Sykes, my colleague, so that we can protect women's access to just basic emergency care. We did that last week. Certainly, the news has come out this week of the women who have now died in Georgia, where they died over a year ago. It's just coming out now.

We had suspected that with the horrible care that people are receiving in states across the nation and the felonies that are being threatened against OB-GYNs for performing abortions that we would start to see some of these horrific outcomes. We've seen women miscarrying in public restrooms. Now, we've seen that women have died from sepsis, one of them in a hospital where the doctors were waiting for her fever to get higher and her heartbeat to get more erratic so they could determine that she was, yes, going to die before they gave her an abortion. They made the wrong call and she did die.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, my God. Your bill would just make sure that cases like that are covered under an existing law?

Congresswoman Sherrill: They are covered under existing law. This is a resolution reminding people of that, what EMTALA states, and supporting EMTALA. We need to get the word out because doctors across the nation are afraid because there are felony laws on the books now in states like Georgia, where doctors are now afraid to give basic emergency room care to pregnant women.

Brian Lehrer: Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, thank you very much.

Congresswoman Sherrill: Thank you, Brian. Always a pleasure to be on. Thanks for everyone who called in. Hopefully, we'll talk soon.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, listeners, that 51st anniversary that the congresswoman referred to regarding Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, for those of you who don't know that history, today, September 20th in 1973, was when Billie Jean King defeated the male tennis player, Bobby Riggs, he had won Wimbledon, among other things, in a really weird thing in history. Riggs, who was 55 at the time, challenged King at the height of her career. She was 29.

Because for some reason, he got it into his head that it would be an important thing to prove that a male player, even in his 50s, could defeat one of the best women players in her prime. A weird thing to want to prove, right? She won in straight sets. Hopefully, no guy would feel like that was his mission in life, to prove that men were so superior to women that they could beat them at sports when they were twice their age. 55, 29, roughly. There's that piece of history in case you didn't know it. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come.

 

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.