Played golf today with Prime Minister Abe of Japan and @TheBig_Easy, Ernie Els, and had a great time. Japan is very well represented!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2017

[embedded content]

.@realDonaldTrump You criticized Obama for golfing A LOT. pic.twitter.com/UOaGKFLoPj

— Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) February 11, 2017

[embedded content]

Several New England Patriots players say they won’t attend the White House ceremony to honor their Super Bowl victory. NPR’s Scott Simon talks with ESPN.com’s Howard Bryant about this ritual.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Finally, time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: Winners go to the White House – or will they? Only their agents may know for sure. I’m joined now as always by Howard Bryant of espn.com. Howard, thanks so much for being with us.

HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning, Scott. How are you?

SIMON: I’m fine, thank you. The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl this week in the most spectacular fashion on Sunday. They’ve been invited to the White House, as major sports champions are. I was there just three weeks ago with the Chicago Cubs.

BRYANT: Who?

SIMON: I knew you’d say that. I knew you’d say that. That’s why I paused. But now six or seven Patriots say they’re not going on principle. What do you make of all this?

BRYANT: Well, this is where we are. And I think it’s an important thing to remember that the New England Patriots didn’t start this trend. This has really been going on for about 25 years. Let’s not forget that Tom Brady did not go to the White House when the Patriots beat the Seahawks. And then Tim Thomas, the Bruins goaltender, when the Bruins beat Vancouver, had his Facebook screed against the Obama administration and chose not to go. James Harrison from the Steelers didn’t go for either Super Bowl victory when George Bush was in the White House or when President Obama was in the White House. So this is where we are.

On the one hand, we say that we don’t want our athletes to be bland. We say we don’t want the canned cliches. And so this is the price for that. Now you have athletes expressing themselves and expressing their politics. And I would like to think, Scott – I would like to think that there is a respect for the office of the presidency regardless of who’s in it, that that office means something to all of us. However, we’re at a point right now where it really doesn’t. That – those days seem to be gone.

SIMON: Here’s a hypothetical that’s not so hypothetical. If either the Golden State Warriors or Cleveland Cavaliers win the NBA title this year, I don’t see Coach Steve Kerr of the Warriors or LeBron James of the Cavs wanting to shake hands with President Trump and perhaps vice versa. Is it time for just – just to retire this event?

BRYANT: Well, on the one hand, I think so simply because you can’t have it both ways. You say that you don’t want politics. People always say stick to sports. But this is a political time. This is a – it’s a political event when you care about who’s in the White House. And these times are very, very, very different. We’re in an extremely incendiary, divisive moment. We have a divisive person in the White House. We have a moment where the decision to put that person in the White House was very different in a lot of ways from elections past. And maybe we have to change with the times.

But once again, I like the citizenship of these players. I like the fact that we’re getting – that we’re getting these athletes – what did we always say about the players over the years? Too rich to care. And now you see ballplayers out there and they’re protesting and they’re expressing themselves. And this latest – this latest trip with Michael Bennett, one of the NFL players who was asked to go on this trip to Israel, came out and said that he’s not going to go and a lot of NFL players aren’t going on this trip because they don’t want to be used. They want to see both sides. And this is, I think, what citizenship is. I appreciate it, actually.

SIMON: Yeah. I was struck by Tom Ricketts, owner of the Cubs. He’s got a sister who’s a big liberal activist, a brother, Republican governor of one state, and one coming to work for the Trump administration. He says, look, we’re a typical American family. We’re all over the ballpark. No pun intended – or maybe pun intended.

BRYANT: Not all going to agree on things. But I can say one thing, Scott.

SIMON: Yeah?

BRYANT: This is where we are, and I don’t think it’s going to change at all. It’s going to intensify.

SIMON: Howard Bryant, thanks so much. You’re listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.

Copyright © 2017 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 Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. 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 NPR’s programming is the audio record.

From being thrown into poverty as a child to becoming a Rhodes Scholar, Texas Christian University senior football player Caylin Moore has come a long way and overcame seemingly insurmountable odds.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It’s Super Bowl Sunday. You knew that, but we wanted to take a few minutes to share a football story you might not otherwise be hearing today. We wanted to tell you about Caylin Moore. He grew up outside of Los Angeles in Carson. After his parents split up, poverty became the new normal as his mother struggled to support the family, especially after falling into a deep depression after surviving a sexual assault. Sometime after that, his father went to prison for killing a girlfriend.

Through all of this, Caylin Moore kept himself motivated by working hard at school and at football. Now he’s on the verge of finishing his economics degree with a near-perfect GPA at Texas Christian University. He is a safety on the college football team which competed in the Liberty Bowl last December. And this fall, Caylin Moore is preparing to attend the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. I called him up recently, and I started our conversation by asking him to describe how he’s seen his life change.

CAYLIN MOORE: I don’t think it was really until I took myself outside of that environment to see what other people had that I kind of started to understand that, wow, we were really going through it.

I remember when I went to college, you know – I went to go wash my hands under the sink. And I turned the left knob, you know – the hot knob – and I felt that hot water on my hands. And we didn’t have hot water at the house that I group up in, so it immediately brought me to tears just washing my hands with that hot water. And it made me think about, wow, I made it. I did it.

MARTIN: Well, what role did football play in your life growing up?

MOORE: Football played a very key role. So in the inner city where I come from, everyone around doesn’t have positive male role models, so a lot of times you may fall victim to the streets or things of that nature. So my mom placed us in football, and that gave us positive male role models, gave us something positive to do and something to work towards and kind of gave you a vision of a way that you can make it out of poverty and out of your current situation. It gave us hope, to be honest.

MARTIN: You know, the – one of the things that I like about your story is it isn’t like a football fairytale. You went to Marist College at first, and you were quarterback there which is a prime position. You even won a summer Fulbright to study in England over the summer, but then you got hurt and couldn’t play. So you had to work as a janitor. I assume that you took that job as it pays pretty well. You know, it pays better than a lot of other campus jobs that you can take.

MOORE: Right.

MARTIN: So if you need the money, that’s what you do, but it had to have been – I’m just assuming – it had to have been a little bit hard to go from being kind of star quarterback to then being a janitor.

MOORE: Yeah. It was extremely humbling. I remember – you know, I used to mop and sweep with my head down. And then one day I just kind of changed my mindset, and I said, you know, I started listening – the Wale album had just came out – so the same songs on repeat, “The Bloom” and a couple different songs on the album. And I would just mop and sweep to those songs, and I would dance while I did it because I started to have hope and encouragement in my heart that, one, I could play football again, and that, two, I would chase some academic pursuits that had never been done before.

MARTIN: Did anybody ever say anything to you, though, anybody who kind of knew you as a football player and then saw that you were cleaning up? Did anybody ever say anything to you?

MOORE: I had times where people kind of looked down on me or, hey, you missed a spot or, you know, little slick remarks here and there. But I made a concerted effort never to let it get me or never let it discourage me.

MARTIN: Why was it so important to you to get to a D1 school – or a division-one school? For people who are not aware, that’s the most competitive level of college athletics. Why was that so important to you?

MOORE: I actually had personal reasons. But my father is in life in prison for murder, and I told myself I would never stop playing football. And so he could see me on TV. So, you know, I did that through eventually transferring to Texas Christian University.

MARTIN: Has he been able to see on TV?

MOORE: Yes, ma’am. He has.

MARTIN: And what does that mean to you?

MOORE: It’s indescribable.

MARTIN: Why did you want to be a Rhodes Scholar?

MOORE: Ultimately so I can make a positive change in my word in my community. But I will say one of the short-term reasons is that I had heard about it long ago when I was in eighth grade from Myron Rolle. He was a role model for me, and I said, you know, I want to be able to succeed in football like this man and also use my mind to take me to different places that I never even thought of before.

So I kind of always, you know, had in the back of my mind, but I didn’t really think I could become a Rhodes Scholar. And then my mom sent me a text in July to say, hey, make sure you apply for this. I had totally forgot about it, to be honest with you. And then I started kind of looking into it, and I thought about how the opportunity will open doors for me. So I had to jump on that opportunity.

MARTIN: Can you tell me about the moment that you found out you’d won?

MOORE: I had been in the waiting room after my interview just kind of like watching little dance videos and stuff like that to take my mind off of it. Everyone else was kind of like talking and, perhaps, comparing each other’s accomplishments to each other because they wanted to see who would win.

But I was just super, super quiet. And when they called us in, they announced me. And when they announced me, I just stared at the floor for like an awkwardly long time, like about 37 seconds. And that – mind you, 37 seconds is a super long time for such a tense environment. And I just stared at the floor because I felt like if I move my body and move towards the lady to shake her hands that would be me acknowledging that anything is possible. And for those 37 seconds, I wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.

MARTIN: Well, eventually you – hopefully you did move (laughter) and shake her hand, I hope.

MOORE: Eventually I did. I did.

MARTIN: What did your mom say when you called her?

MOORE: She always had a mindset that even though we live in the hood, the hood will not live in us. So it gives her confirmation that she did raise us right, that, you know, I was right. You know – her – she was right. So I think that’s what it kind of did for her.

MARTIN: Your mom sounds very special.

MOORE: Very special.

MARTIN: That is Caylin Moore. He’s a senior at Texas Christian University. He’s been playing as a safety on the football team. He is headed to Oxford this fall on a Rhodes Scholarship. And we were really pleased to talk with him from Texas Christian University. Caylin, thanks so much for joining us. Congratulations on everything. The best of luck to you.

MOORE: Yes, ma’am. Thank you as well. I appreciate it.

Copyright © 2017 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 Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. 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 NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Washington Post sports columnist Kevin Blackistone, conservative commentator Lenny McAllister and ESPN magazine writer Pablo Torre discuss whether sports and politics can be separated.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now it’s time for a trip to the Barbershop. That’s where we gather a group of interesting folks to talk about what’s in the news and what’s on our minds. So joining us for a shape-up today are Kevin Blackistone. He’s a sports columnist at The Washington Post and a professor of journalism at the University of Maryland. He’s here with me at our studios in Washington D.C. Professor Blackistone, welcome back.

KEVIN BLACKISTONE: Thank you very much.

MARTIN: Lenny McAllister is a conservative political commentator. He’s been a recent congressional candidate. He writes for many outlets including The Root. He’s at member station WESA in Pittsburgh. Lenny, welcome back to you as well.

LENNY MCALLISTER: Hey, Michel. How are you?

MARTIN: I’m great. And Pablo Torre is a senior writer at ESPN joining us from our New York bureau. Pablo, welcome back to you as well.

PABLO TORRE: It is good to be back, Michel. Thank you.

MARTIN: Thank you. So Beyonce’s having twins. Oh, wait. I hear there’s a big…

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: …I hear there’s a big sporting event tomorrow. I’m just kidding. So the Super Bowl is tomorrow in Houston.

TORRE: All right. Yes.

MARTIN: Yes that – the New England Patriots take on the Atlanta Falcons. But the political news is kind of right in there with the football and even those Super Bowl ads that we talk about so much are intertwined with this. And let me play one that’s getting a lot of attention. It’s a Budweiser ad, and it traces kind of the immigration story of one of the company’s founders, Adolphus. Busch. Let’s hear a quick clip.

(SOUNDBITE OF COMMERCIAL)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Welcome to America.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) You’re not wanted here. Go back home.

MARTIN: It just shows this arduous journey getting here from Germany. And I just – and you can see why given all the news that this one kind of stands out to a lot of people and is getting a lot of mention. So Kevin, I want to start with you because there’s also kind of a counter move to this. There’s even a hashtag telling people, like yourself…

BLACKISTONE: Right

MARTIN: …To stick with the sports. Just…

BLACKISTONE: (Laughter).

MARTIN: And I now have to ask you how you react to that.

BLACKISTONE: I laugh at that because if you’ve been a black sports columnist or you’ve been a woman sports columnist and are, you’ve been hearing that for years. So it’s kind of funny now that my white columnist colleagues are getting the same thing because they dare to venture where sports is not supposed to walk. So, you know, this is not going to be the first politicized sporting event, not even the first politicized Super Bowl. But certainly because of our – the temperature of our political climate, it’s going to be one that will probably be more heated and discussed more than anything.

MARTIN: And why is that?

BLACKISTONE: Well, I think just because, obviously, Donald Trump and his administration have really impacted things like never before. And going into the Super Bowl, you know, one of the conversations we’ve had since December of 2015 was about Tom Brady who will quarterback the New England Patriots in this, who was asked about a red cap that was in his cubby hole up in New England which said make America great again. And people asked him about his relationship with Donald Trump and the fact that he had the campaign slogan there in his room and whether or not he supported Donald Trump in many of the things that Donald Trump stood for. And that has been talked about this week.

MARTIN: So is the argument that if you support the Patriots, then you support Donald Trump? Is that supposed to be…

BLACKISTONE: I think some people have made that leap, but I don’t think that’s fair or true. But I think the question is for Tom Brady since you are a face of the NFL and certainly the face of the Patriots how you stand or how you square with Donald Trump on the outrageous things that a lot of people say that he has said and done.

MARTIN: OK. Pablo, what about you? Is it stick with sports?

TORRE: Look, Michel, we just spent a time not too long ago celebrating the life and death of Muhammad Ali. And one of the fascinating roles that Muhammad Ali should be playing for us, but never really ends up playing for us is that of the patron saint of not sticking to sports – sports and culture, sports and politics. There’s never been a bright line dividing those two, and it’s not just Ali. You look at, for instance, the people even in Trump’s administration – Woody Johnson, the owner of the Jets was just nominated – named to be an ambassador to the United Kingdom.

We have Betsy DeVos, a part owner of the Orlando Magic who is certainly being nominated for the secretary of education. And I would also like to point out even beyond the Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, that triumvirate of people who Trump claims as friends and has used as campaign tools – there’s also just this idea that – you played that clip from that Budweiser ad – like in a vacuum – in a vacuum that’s not 2017, I should say – that’s not partisan.

That’s not a partisan concept to stand up for immigrants. So what’s happening here, too, is not just that bright line being just eradicated by the Donald Trumpiness (ph) of it. It’s the idea that, oh, right, there are issues affecting people of color, immigrants many of whom, by the way, populate sports, including this very Super Bowl. And people are probably going to end up speaking on that as well.

MARTIN: So are your fans asking you to stay out of talking about these things? I mean, Kevin, obviously, your identity is so clear on this that you’ve talked about these issues for so long. I kind of have a hard time imagining people saying don’t talk about it anymore. But, Pablo, what about you? I mean…

TORRE: I’m trying to desensitize them in the way that KB has done to his readership. I’m trying to get people to realize – and yes. To answer your question – yes, many people – they want the escapism. And, by the way, I do, too, at this point. I would love to be able to seek refuge in a place that is free from the pressures and the reality of a normal life today. But, look, reality is a wave, and sports is a part of culture that sits underneath that wave. And that’s what we’re seeing as always.

MARTIN: Lenny, what about you? And you’ve run for Congress three times, and, you know…

MCALLISTER: Twice. Twice.

MARTIN: Twice. OK, sorry. But you’re here with us, so we know how that turned out. Sorry.

MCALLISTER: Yes.

MARTIN: (Laughter) But – so is kind of football your safe haven? Do you not want people to talk politics around football or sport? Where are you on this?

MCALLISTER: Well, number one, you have to realize that I’m sitting in Pittsburgh, Pa., as a native Pittsburgher, so it was a refuge until two weeks ago in Foxboro, Mass. Now with that said, you know, I don’t understand why people think that folks stop being American just because they play a sport or folks stop being Americans just because they play an instrument. You know, I think that’s very insulting, and you can’t say that you’re for the Constitution and you’re for the First Amendment.

And I look at fellow conservatives a lot of times, and I look at the hypocrisy of this. And I say you are for the Constitution, but you want somebody that can dunk a basketball to just be an entertainer that dunks a basketball. And then when people see how that could be racist or how it could be sexist to say it to a woman or how it could be, you know, just insulting overall when it comes to entertainment, they don’t understand the duplicity in the statement.

I have no problems with these types of things. In fact, I encourage it. I think that we’re going to heal past the animus that we have seen over the last several years by debating and trusting each other as Americans across things such as sports and entertainment.

MARTIN: During the game, too?

MCALLISTER: Unfortunately…

MARTIN: During the game, too?

MCALLISTER: Even during – I mean, why? We are still Americans, and so the – see the ad – with the Bush ad or even the things, you know – a couple years ago there was a controversy with Tim Tebow and his mom. And people flipped out about that. We should be able to still have our values and have those discussions because we’re having it at the water cooler or on social media.

But now we’re not having discussions. We’re having arguments constantly. And if we don’t regain the skill to talk to each other in love and in respect, this is going to continue to spiral.

MARTIN: And especially over wings.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: I mean, if you can’t have a loving conversation over wings, I don’t even understand, you know, who you are.

MCALLISTER: Yes. I agree.

MARTIN: OK. So here’s another side of the story. You remember for people who maybe don’t follow the game, but for the people who do, clearly people know this – that the Patriots are back after Deflategate. I mean, the league claims that the Patriots used underinflated footballs to give quarterback Tom Brady an advantage.

This all started in 2015. Then after a lot of toing and froing, Tom Brady accepted the league’s punishment, a four-game suspension, and despite all that, back at the Super Bowl again. So, Kevin, is it – you’ve got to give it – is it time to give the man his props?

BLACKISTONE: Well, of course. But the only really – the only way to really see him get his props and to enjoy it would be for the Patriots to win and for Roger Goodell to have to shake his hand and hand him the trophy – and maybe the MVP trophy. I mean, that’s the comic cynic in me that wants to see that happen.

And remember, it’s not only Deflategate, but there was also Spygate back in 2007 which really begin to discolor the white hat that the Patriots had worn since 9/11 into the NFL and really painted them as this kind of Darth Vader, diabolical team that you can’t trust and is always up to something underhanded in order to get ahead. So this is going to be – this could be a real comedy at the end.

MARTIN: So who do we think is taking the game tomorrow? Yes, I am asking you to speculate. I want to hear from everybody really briefly. And who do you – what do you think Beyonce and Jay-Z should name their twins?

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: Getting back to what really matters here.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: So who takes it? Kevin, quick.

BLACKISTONE: I’ll the – Patriots 27-24.

MARTIN: OK. Pablo.

TORRE: Patriots 31, Falcons 28. And Pablo and, you know, Michel, I guess, would be good names.

MARTIN: You know, you’re right.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: You are so right about that. OK and Billy – I’m sorry. Billy – I was going to say that’s my husband’s name. It’s like Michel and Billy.

MCALLISTER: Billy’s also a good name.

MARTIN: That was my – that’s a good name, too. Lenny. OK (laughter).

MCALLISTER: I will second Pablo with the Pablo and Michel…

TORRE: Thank you.

MCALLISTER: And I – unfortunately, I think that the Patriots are going to win by six points.

MARTIN: OK. And the names? Lenny.

MCALLISTER: I’m going to second…

MARTIN: What do – Beyonce and Jay-Z should name their kids?

MCALLISTER: I’m going to second Pablo’s choices.

TORRE: This is a hashtag, Michel.

MCALLISTER: Pablo and Michel work.

TORRE: Lenny’s…

MCALLISTER: Absolutely.

TORRE: …Going to help us trend this.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: OK. What is it? I didn’t hear. I couldn’t hear.

MCALLISTER: Pablo and Michel.

TORRE: Pablo and Michel. We’re going to make this work.

MARTIN: Pablo and Michel. You know, you’re right. And – well, OK. Wait. That was Kevin Blackistone, sports columnist for The Washington Post, professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, Lenny McAllister, conservative commentator with us from member station WESA in Pittsburgh and Pablo Torre, senior writer at ESPN with us from our bureau in New York and namesake of Beyonce’s twins. Thank you all so much for joining us.

(LAUGHTER)

TORRE: Thank you.

MCALLISTER: God bless.

Copyright © 2017 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 Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. 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 NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Atlanta and New England face off in this Sunday’s Super Bowl in Houston. The big game offers a massive party in the host city. But the current political divide could ruin the fun leading up to game day.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Super Bowl Sunday – pretty much an American holiday. Atlanta and New England are facing off Sunday in Houston for the NFL title. It’s usually an excuse for fans and more fans to flood into the host city and party in the streets. NPR’s Tom Goldman wondered if that will hold true this year when we’ve seen a lot more people speaking out on politics and marching in the streets.

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Hey, Christians, don’t you see? Jesus was a refugee.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Last weekend, before the party really started, the anti-Trump protests about immigration that swept the country – they hit Houston, as well. Marchers showed up at Discovery Green, the 12-acre downtown Houston park that’s hosting a massive Super Bowl fan festival. But by last night, the Super Bowl bubble separating the world’s problems from football and fun had enveloped the park.

DISCLOSURE: (Singing) Now I got you in my space. I won’t let go of you.

GOLDMAN: Hundreds of people strolled the Green, and there were no political signs, shirts or hats in sight. Just a lot of Patriot’s and Falcon’s jerseys and lots of Houston Texan’s gear, too. The Super Bowl has been a welcome distraction this year. Although, there have been attempts to pierce the bubble.

WILLIE MCGINEST: Did Trump call you? I’m joking. Don’t answer that question (laughter).

TOM BRADY: Not you.

GOLDMAN: That was former New England Patriot’s linebacker Willie McGinest – now working for the NFL Network – asking Patriot’s quarterback Tom Brady this week about Brady’s friendship with President Trump, and that was Tom Brady not answering. Brady has repeatedly deflected the question in Houston. The Patriots are expert at not saying anything controversial. And, really, there wasn’t much talk about the president at all inside the bubble.

LEIGH STEINBERG: Nobody here is reading the paper about the latest Trump move (laughter), OK? We’re reading the sports section (laughter). And so it’s a respite for a week.

GOLDMAN: But legendary sports agent Leigh Steinberg says while heads are buried in the sports pages, they are not, figuratively speaking, buried in the sand.

STEINBERG: There are more charitable role-modeling events going on this week that have the potential to be real change.

GOLDMAN: Steinberg insists the real world, minus the political discord, is alive and well at the Super Bowl, and it’ll be a big part of his 30th Annual Super Bowl Party tomorrow. Politicians, Republicans and Democrats, entertainers, athletes, coaches, NFL owners – they’ll all mingle during the afternoon event and learn about charities for abandoned kids who go into foster care, for environmental causes, for the fight against domestic violence. There will be a workshop on football-related concussions.

STEINBERG: The only reason that I’m happy about publicizing it is because there’s so much negative news.

GOLDMAN: There will be a reminder of that as well this weekend – an anti-Trump march tomorrow downtown. And then Super Bowl Sunday – a demonstration at NRG Stadium – site of the game. Organizer Gina Maganya says it’s nothing against the Super Bowl.

GINA MAGANYA: I think we’re just taking advantage of the people coming together and being able to spread that message far and wide as far we can spread it.

GOLDMAN: As she spoke you could see and hear the fireworks coming from Discovery Green a couple of miles away. Tom Goldman, NPR News, Houston.

Copyright © 2017 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 Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. 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 NPR’s programming is the audio record.