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1:07

Lemonado Lemonado

1:30

This is In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt. So

1:32

glad you could join us today. Get a hold of

1:34

me, andy at lemonadomedia.com

1:37

I've had this emerging point of view as I've

1:40

been watching the landscape of the

1:42

lives we're all leading here in the U.S. and the political

1:45

changes that we're seeing. You

1:48

know, stepping back from a second,

1:50

from I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican. This is

1:52

I'm conservative, I'm not. But just sort of

1:54

looking at overall trends. I'm

1:57

sensing a sea change going on. I think others

1:59

are seeing it.

1:59

sensing it as well. And it is

2:02

really a shift that both parties are

2:04

making towards fighting for working

2:06

people and putting

2:10

corporations on the sidelines.

2:13

They're doing it in different ways, you know, Republicans,

2:15

anti-wokeism, they're still for low taxes, but

2:18

there's a lot of rhetoric and of course

2:20

a greater appeal as we see in the last few elections

2:23

to people who are non-college

2:25

educated, maybe rural, maybe

2:28

white, maybe even increasingly non-white.

2:31

And Democrats I think have always been able to lay claim

2:33

to they've got policies that really

2:35

benefit this group, but I

2:38

think they've sort of always fallen on the

2:40

policies around social safety net

2:43

and minimum wage and

2:45

now with Biden's latest wins around manufacturing

2:48

that they can say, you know, this is

2:50

where we're focused. But I

2:53

think a couple things are shifting in this.

2:55

One is that increasingly Democrats

2:58

are the realization that they may intellectually

3:00

have some appeal to policies

3:04

and they lay claim to the policies that support these

3:06

communities, but they in no way

3:08

are effective at making an emotional connection

3:10

and an emotional appeal than Republicans

3:13

are. And Republicans are

3:15

sort of in an opposite position. They

3:18

are maybe emotionally resonant, they're

3:20

showing that they're listening better, but the policies

3:23

still really reflect, you know, lower corporate taxes

3:27

and many things that are anathema

3:30

to these communities. So I think there's a political shift going

3:32

on and it's towards a sort of populism

3:34

on both sides fighting

3:37

for the both emotional resonance,

3:40

the identification of working

3:42

people against corporations. This

3:45

is very much on display with the UAW strike.

3:47

We saw yesterday President

3:50

Biden jumping on the picket line, we've

3:52

seen President Trump trying to

3:54

hold sessions with workers and seeing

3:57

both parties trying to out labor

3:59

one side. Well, could you have pictured that 20 years ago?

4:02

During the Clinton administration or the Bush administration,

4:05

could you have pictured two parties that

4:07

were both trying to identify with organized labor?

4:10

So that's a change. So I

4:12

wanted to call someone I thought would be one

4:15

of the best thought leaders we

4:17

have in the country, thinking

4:19

through major, major political

4:22

and policy shifts, social shifts in

4:24

our country, and that's Nick Kristof. Maybe

4:26

you know Nicholas Kristof as

4:29

the op-ed columnist

4:31

for the New York Times for many, many years. He

4:34

is sort of a, in many ways, a liberal

4:36

lion and is champion causes

4:39

that are certainly resident on

4:41

the left. But I wanted to also

4:43

challenge him about not just

4:46

why he has been right, but where he has been

4:48

wrong, and not just

4:50

where he's been wrong, more importantly, where some

4:53

of the liberal thinking has gone astray,

4:56

testing this perspective around

4:59

globalization, which has been

5:01

a hot button driver,

5:04

testing even notions around some

5:06

of the social policies around Medicare,

5:09

around abortion and labor

5:11

and some of this shift. And

5:13

then, of course, you've got all this great theory

5:15

and then you've got the reality that here in

5:18

this country, in Washington, D.C., right now, Speaker

5:21

McCarthy can't even

5:24

have a successful debate within

5:26

his own party, within

5:28

his own party, about keeping

5:30

the government funded. In fact, he can't even

5:33

have a consensus about how to

5:35

put forward something that he knows would never

5:37

pass to make the Democrats look

5:39

bad. And as a result, as we'll

5:41

talk about, they're headed for a

5:44

government shutdown. There are other things

5:46

that are part of the sea change, the

5:49

Republican views of the war in Ukraine,

5:52

something else that may be a little bit beneath the radar,

5:55

how Republicans are viewing one of the

5:57

greatest Republican achievements of the last... 20 years,

6:00

in fact, one of our country's greatest achievements over the

6:02

last 20, 30 years. And that's something

6:05

called PEPFAR, which is how we basically

6:07

have saved lives in Africa with

6:09

extraordinary intervention led

6:12

by George W. Bush.

6:14

So

6:15

we're going to get into all of these

6:17

topics. I think it is

6:20

a terrific, terrific

6:24

person to have this conversation with. And

6:27

it's just so important. By the

6:29

way, as we get into the interview, one

6:31

more thing. If you like Nick

6:33

Kristoff like I do, you

6:36

should know he's got a new memoir coming out.

6:38

I think it doesn't come out until the spring. It's

6:40

all Chasing Hope. You can pre-order

6:43

it. You know, I probably will do that. Here's

6:46

Nick. One

6:57

of our favorite guests, welcome back to the bubble,

6:59

Nick Kristoff. Great to be with

7:01

you. So fun having you. And

7:03

we have a lot to talk about, which I think

7:05

we're both going to have opinions on. Let's

7:08

start with this very interesting development

7:11

as it relates to the strike of

7:13

the United Auto Workers. It

7:15

wasn't that long ago that I

7:18

think people would have said, boy, we have

7:20

a very corporatist country. We

7:22

have a country that, you know, center left,

7:25

center right, Bush Gore, a

7:27

lot of power in the lobbies and so

7:30

forth. And putting

7:32

aside whatever you think of these two men, the

7:34

leading Republican and Democratic candidates

7:37

for president are both trying to

7:39

out labor and out working person

7:42

themselves with Donald Trump,

7:45

foregoing the debate in

7:48

his spectacle du jour is going to be speaking

7:50

to auto workers. Yesterday, Joe

7:53

Biden was on the picket line with workers.

7:56

What do you make of this, Nick? So

7:58

I think that...

7:59

Americans generally have

8:02

come around and realized

8:05

kind of what I've also realized over

8:07

the years and that, you know, I mean, looking

8:09

back, I think that I had a certain

8:11

disdain for labor unions

8:15

that I think was characteristic of a lot of educated

8:17

professionals. And we saw the corruption.

8:20

We saw a certain amount of racial discrimination,

8:23

gender discrimination. And

8:25

you know, if you will, we perceived I

8:28

think unions sometimes as luddites. And

8:31

the critiques had something to them. But

8:33

I think what we also saw was that as

8:36

economic inequality increased and you

8:38

saw just all the catastrophes

8:40

that flowed from that, we realized that one

8:43

of the best forces to fight inequality

8:46

was labor unions. And one of the – and

8:49

if you didn't have labor union feather bedding, you had corporate

8:51

feather bedding. And so, you know,

8:53

I've changed my views quite dramatically

8:55

over the last 15 years or

8:57

so. And I think an awful lot of other people

9:00

have as well.

9:01

Are we in a race to populism? Is

9:04

this 2024 election going to be about trying to outworking

9:07

person the other side? And

9:10

is this a sea change towards some sort of progressivism

9:13

or populism?

9:14

You know, Andy, I don't

9:16

know. But I guess I – you know, it seems to me that what

9:18

makes a difference is not the rhetoric,

9:21

but is the policies. And you know, if you look at what

9:23

would make a difference to working class Americans is

9:25

things like daycare, things like pre-K

9:28

for all, you know, fixing some of the

9:30

health insurance gaps and realizing

9:32

that dental care is part of medical

9:34

care. Higher wages. And higher

9:36

wages. I mean, you know, the fact that minimum wage

9:39

hasn't remotely kept up – the federal

9:41

minimum wage hasn't remotely kept up with

9:43

increases in productivity. I mean,

9:46

I'm very focused on the sort of the surge

9:49

in addiction and deaths of despair because I'm speaking

9:51

to you right now from Oregon. I see this around

9:53

me. And it just strikes me as outrageous

9:56

that we have more than 100,000 Americans dying right

9:59

now. annually from overdoses. And

10:02

if you include alcohol and

10:04

suicide, it's more than a quarter million a year.

10:08

And so many other people aren't dying

10:11

but are greatly suffering. So many families

10:13

are. And yet we haven't, you

10:15

know, been able to tackle this

10:18

effectively. And I think one way we can tackle that

10:20

is to give people a sense of hope

10:22

that they can live better lives. And that is going to come through

10:25

some capacity to earn more incomes, which

10:27

in turn relates to labor unions where we started.

10:30

Yeah. Well, look, you're talking about

10:32

different and better policies, whether

10:34

it's social safety net or minimum

10:36

wage. But if you believe, like

10:39

I suspect both of us do, that

10:42

culture influences politics and politics

10:44

influences policy, is it

10:47

a peer that parties, both parties for

10:49

all their differences, are kind of getting the message

10:53

that there are enough people, whether

10:56

they're living in despair, whether

10:58

they're just trying to make ends meet and

11:01

living too close to the poverty line and

11:03

watching enough people do really,

11:06

really, really well that dominate the

11:08

political power in our society, that

11:11

this is going to drive some sort of transformation

11:14

that if the only way to end up in better

11:16

policies is if

11:19

this is the sentiment and the mood of the country

11:21

or one way to end up there, that

11:23

forces both parties in that direction.

11:26

I'd like to think so, but I'm

11:29

still a little bit skeptical. I think

11:31

that it's true that Republicans

11:34

increasingly perceive themselves as beneficiaries

11:37

of the white working class, and so they make all the right noises.

11:40

On the other hand, while Democrats

11:42

have policies that would help, I think

11:45

frankly that as Democrats have become more

11:47

the party of the educated,

11:49

that there has been a

11:51

certain amount of disdain for people

11:53

who were less educated. I think that has been

11:56

compounded by the degree to which

11:59

the white working class... is often supported

12:01

Trump. And I just

12:04

see with the

12:06

song, you know, North of Richmond,

12:08

I thought that

12:11

there was much too much of this liberal

12:13

push to kind of

12:15

wag fingers at it and that,

12:18

you know, we should be reaching out to folks

12:20

who were really frustrated

12:23

by the way labor was going.

12:25

You know, it's interesting what you say is it's sort of like

12:27

both parties could do better in

12:30

almost the opposite ways. Yes. Democrats

12:33

could do better culturally and with

12:35

an identification standpoint and Republicans could

12:37

do better by actually doing something of substance.

12:41

They've got the we're with you part down.

12:43

Exactly. But all the policies, you

12:45

know, in effect are doing the exact

12:47

opposite. Yep. That's exactly

12:50

right. And that, you know, Democrats

12:53

don't realize the degree to which they sometimes come

12:55

across as condescending. But

12:58

they have policies that would really make

13:00

a difference. And on the other

13:02

hand, you know, you've got Republicans

13:04

who talk the talk, but they don't remotely

13:07

walk the walk.

13:08

Yeah. Yeah. No,

13:10

it's interesting. I asked someone

13:12

once who is a conservative, who

13:14

I was, who was among

13:17

a group of friends that I spending the weekend with, who I didn't know very

13:19

well. And he said,

13:21

I hate, he's an educated person. He said,

13:23

I hate Democrats. I hate liberals.

13:26

I hate progressives. And

13:28

I said, why? And he said,

13:30

because a progressive and a liberal is someone

13:33

who just thinks they know better about what's good for the

13:35

rest of us.

13:36

And

13:38

from a cultural standpoint, like

13:41

I can go through policy by policy by policy

13:44

about why what Democrats have done

13:46

better for the economy, what Democrats have done better for the

13:48

world and so forth.

13:50

And

13:51

his perspective was, you know, it doesn't sell.

13:53

It just doesn't sell. There's another

13:56

element to this, Nick, which is the

13:58

extent to which globalization,

14:01

which is something that was pushed for, certainly

14:03

by the Clinton administration, by the Bush

14:06

administration, certainly to the Obama

14:08

administration, is something

14:10

that when you look at the impact

14:13

on working class people, it's

14:15

been a sort of center-left, center-right kind

14:17

of globalism, free trade, let

14:19

China in, and you

14:22

end up in a spot where I think

14:25

large parts of the country are kind

14:27

of reacting to that and as a result, maybe

14:30

somewhat belatedly, both parties seem

14:33

also to be responding.

14:35

Yeah,

14:37

I sort of complicated

14:40

feelings about this. On the one hand, I

14:42

do think that the world largely

14:45

benefited from globalization and that

14:47

certainly the American pie got bigger

14:49

from globalization, but our

14:52

promise is to divide that pie more fairly

14:54

and have the winners compensate the losers, that

14:56

just did not happen. And I think that one

14:58

of the problems was that

15:01

those of us on the left who we believed

15:03

in that compensation, we

15:06

thought of it in terms of income streams

15:08

and we thought that the losses were fundamentally

15:10

income and that there were an awful lot

15:13

of blue collar factory workers

15:16

who what they lost was not only that income,

15:18

it was their sense of identity, their sense of purpose,

15:21

their sense of who they were. And

15:23

one of the things we weren't very good at was

15:26

job training and that's a hard thing to

15:29

do, but there have been some programs that

15:31

have actually worked pretty well at it and we

15:34

just didn't even try and we let

15:36

communities crumble and ... Andy,

15:39

one of the things that I

15:41

found was really fascinating was when in

15:44

the 2008, 2009 financial crisis, auto plants were

15:48

going bust in both Detroit and the Canadian

15:50

side in Windsor, Ontario and

15:53

the US remedy was basically unemployment

15:57

compensation, long-term unemployment and

15:59

on the Canadian side, we side, it was job training.

16:02

And you look at the consequences and

16:05

those Canadians end up

16:07

much better today. And on the US

16:09

side, we gave them an income, but we didn't

16:12

fit them into the economy again and

16:14

we all lost.

16:16

So now you take this sort of, I don't

16:19

know if it's a seismic shift, but this sort of shift

16:22

that's going on, this progressive shift

16:24

towards many of the things

16:27

troubling Americans that want change in

16:29

this country. And

16:32

if nothing else,

16:34

you've got

16:35

someone in Donald Trump who

16:38

takes the temperature of the populace,

16:41

kind of like the Chinese rulers do. They kind of know

16:43

when to sort of change their tune. And

16:46

hearing him talk about abortion now,

16:49

the guy who effectively ended abortion

16:52

in this country, ended legal abortion. Isn't

16:54

that incredible? It is incredible and it's

16:56

so predictable. It's just so hypocritical.

16:59

And I think he's pretty confident and get away with it. Likewise,

17:03

Medicare, he signed

17:05

in proposed budgets. It's all

17:07

his years as president that were cutting Medicare. And of course

17:09

now he's like, hey, during this election

17:11

season, we can't be cutting Medicare. And

17:14

so this is the guy who is

17:16

adopting these positions. Part

17:18

of it he benefits from not really feeling like he has

17:20

to run in

17:22

the primary. He's just sort of running in the general

17:24

from the start, which means he doesn't

17:27

have to tack back. And

17:29

all that makes me think it's even more important

17:31

for Democrats to not just have great

17:35

policies, but also to do better

17:37

on the outreach and to look

17:40

at those ways in which we manage to

17:42

turn people off. Sometimes that's the way

17:45

we talk about faith. Sometimes it's the way we talk about

17:47

language. There are just all kinds of ways

17:49

in which we come across as condescending

17:51

without understanding that. We

17:54

think we're being incredibly inclusive and

17:56

we're being inclusive toward many groups, but

17:59

in the process of... that inclusiveness, we're sometimes

18:01

pissing off other folks. And

18:03

it's a very hard thing to navigate,

18:06

but I don't think we're doing a great job at it.

18:08

Yes. And too cerebral.

18:10

They're too cerebral. Why

18:12

don't they read our website and see how good our policy

18:15

is? They're missing the

18:17

point. And meanwhile, you're

18:19

not going into the communities and neighborhoods and relating

18:22

to people. All right. Hang on. Hold

18:25

that thought, Nick. We're going to do a quick break. I'm going to come right

18:27

back with Nick Christophe. Social

18:39

media, climate change, the pandemic,

18:41

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18:43

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19:32

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19:35

behavioralhealth.com.

19:39

Last Day is a show about the moments that

19:41

change us. I just don't think I will ever

19:44

get used to this. I'm Stephanie Wittles-Wax,

19:47

and I have had one of these moments. We

19:49

all have. Let's unpack the chaos

19:51

that is our human existence together. I

19:54

don't believe things happen for a reason. I don't believe

19:56

the universe has a plan. Each week, I

19:58

sit down with a new guest to explore the world. explore happy,

20:01

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transformation. It's leaning far,

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far into the pain. That's

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what it is. Listen to Last Day, wherever you get your podcasts.

20:22

Now let's talk about another irony. We

20:25

just talked about how we've got a massive

20:27

deficit spending producing guy and a

20:29

Republican ticket. You've got a Congress,

20:31

which he's egging on, that

20:34

doesn't seem to know how to do anything but

20:37

head for a government shutdown. Before they,

20:39

by the way, they've even talked to a Democrat. This is not

20:41

a dispute, to be clear, between a Democrat

20:43

and a Republican about keeping

20:45

the country open. That's not even...we're

20:47

not even at that stage yet. These

20:50

are Republicans who

20:52

don't

20:53

even believe...let me see if I can get this right, because

20:55

I can barely say it. There

20:58

are Republicans that don't even believe that other Republicans should

21:00

put forward a fake set

21:02

of policies that would never pass and are super

21:04

conservative. They believe that's going

21:06

too far.

21:08

Yeah, I mean it reflects the whole drift

21:11

of politics away

21:14

from governing toward

21:16

this performative art. I

21:18

think that there are some Republicans

21:20

who have completely mastered that performative

21:22

element to it in ways that just

21:25

kind of break my heart. I

21:29

guess it's also worth noting that historically

21:31

the advantage

21:33

that Republicans sometimes had in some parts

21:35

of the country had to do with national security.

21:38

They were perceived as tough on national security and

21:41

on economic governance, on being

21:43

fiscal conservatives and kind of making things

21:45

work. They're

21:48

just so pathetic

21:50

now on both. I mean, you look at national security,

21:53

what is the Republican position on Ukraine

21:55

or Russia? Who knows? Meanwhile,

21:58

they've been talking about the

21:59

They can't keep the government open, which is a

22:02

pretty basic responsibility if

22:04

you're running the House of Representatives. Yeah. I

22:06

want to come back to Ukraine and talk about J.D. Vance in

22:09

a second. But you made me think about something in

22:11

the House, which is like it felt like in

22:13

the first two years of Biden's

22:16

term, Joe Manchin was the power

22:18

center. Now it feels like

22:20

it's Matt Gaetz

22:22

because we have a speaker who

22:24

has let himself be taken hostage by

22:27

Matt Gaetz and by a few other people. And

22:30

the speaker is a willing

22:32

hostage of that tiny group. Well,

22:35

in part, to be fair to everybody, it's a reflection

22:38

of having such a close margin first

22:40

in the Senate,

22:42

still in the Senate, and now in the House that

22:45

anyone who decides to grandstand

22:48

and can pull, in this case, just

22:50

five or six people with them has

22:53

an incredible amount of power. And

22:55

historically, I think we've had these situations

22:57

before, but you've been able to co-opt

23:00

the five or six people, just as, by the way, we were able

23:03

to get Manchin to compromise and push forward

23:05

the big Climate Legislation and Inflation

23:07

Reduction Act, because there's things that they

23:10

want because there

23:12

are coalitions that work together. And

23:16

maybe that'll happen here. But what appears to be different

23:18

here is there

23:20

are kind of kamikaze pilots on

23:23

the Republican extreme here

23:26

who would be more than happy to see

23:29

a little crash and burn and a reckoning. And

23:31

maybe that is also reflective of what they believe to be

23:33

the mood of at least their districts, but

23:36

certainly a part of the Republican base.

23:39

Yeah, I must say that I've... I

23:42

mean, that handful of a half dozen

23:44

people, they are kind of

23:46

more wacky a tail in Congress

23:49

than we typically had as a

23:51

tail in Congress on either side. I

23:55

have heard from members that

23:57

the other Republicans...

24:00

are just increasingly outraged

24:02

at them and think they're going to lose some

24:05

seats because of the antics of those

24:08

folks. It is not impossible

24:10

that the governance of the

24:12

Republican Party will actually

24:15

try to take some steps to work with Democrats

24:18

to actually get things done if

24:20

the alternative is they just are

24:23

embarrassed and lose a bunch of seats. Yeah, and

24:26

look, that's what happens when you're like, nihilists, right?

24:28

They just don't care. I would imagine

24:30

like if I put myself in the shoes

24:33

of these small groups who

24:35

don't historically have power to get these moments in the sun,

24:38

and by the way, I would also include the sort of problem

24:40

solvers caucus who I think are

24:42

also trying to take advantage of the moment. It happens.

24:45

It's how politics works. But I can't

24:47

think of a better speaker

24:49

for that group than Kevin McCarthy. Like

24:52

what more could they ask for? He's

24:54

worried that they're going to kick

24:57

him out, but in some ways,

24:59

having a guy that you can kick out

25:02

is

25:03

all you need.

25:04

Yeah, I think that's right. I

25:07

think that the media landscape

25:09

also helps them, that this

25:11

fringe ... Remember John

25:14

Le Voutilier as a wacky

25:16

member of Congress way back in late 70s,

25:19

early 80s? I don't.

25:21

I don't. Tell us about him. He

25:24

was a complete wacky

25:26

fringe guy, but he kind of made a mockery

25:28

of himself, and it was promptly pushed

25:31

out. But if he existed

25:33

today, he'd be all over the news,

25:35

and he would get positive reinforcement from it.

25:38

I think that that is partly

25:40

why some of these wacky members are

25:43

as wacky as they are, that they actually

25:46

can make a calculation that they will

25:48

benefit by being completely

25:50

extremists and as you say, nihilists.

25:54

So do you think we end up in a shutdown? My

25:56

guess is we probably do.

25:58

How is that

26:03

Likely to play I mean, what do you see remind

26:05

us of the moves that are likely to happen What

26:08

the escape route is? Yeah, I don't know what

26:10

the escape route is I mean except

26:13

I guess that my hope

26:16

is that a lot of mainstream

26:18

Republicans especially those

26:20

in seats that that are swing

26:23

districts that they realize that this

26:25

is just deadly for them and that

26:28

they become so frantic

26:31

to actually reopen government

26:33

that they're That's you're willing to

26:35

you know to take that I mean that

26:37

the problem with that theory with my more

26:40

optimistic theory is that a lot of them are in districts

26:42

where if they do That they may be challenged from the

26:44

right in the primary and so that's not

26:46

gonna help them, you know stay in Congress

26:49

What do you think?

26:50

Yeah, I think that There

26:54

is a majority to keep the government open. It's called

26:57

all the Democrats and many of the Republicans I

26:59

think Kevin McCarthy is an interesting

27:02

situation Because you know

27:05

if his job basically is to keep

27:07

the majority in 2024 You

27:10

know the calculus is if I shut

27:12

down the government and I'm seen to be responsible for

27:14

it That doesn't seem to hope my chances.

27:17

That's right. If I cut out

27:19

a bunch of the right and do a deal with

27:21

the Democrats There's a

27:23

world in which that doesn't help my chances

27:27

So I think there are more capable

27:29

of people than that guy to do the job

27:31

having said that he's in a very tight

27:33

box and We'll see

27:35

what kind of magician he is. He's ready to get

27:37

out of it. Okay, you talked about Ukraine

27:40

before and I was really interested

27:42

in this other take which

27:45

is just in the head-scratching world of progressive

27:48

action by Republicans there's also

27:51

been this if not a full-out embrace

27:53

of Russia a certainly a embrace

27:56

of isolationism and a skepticism

27:59

about Ukraine and

28:01

you know as articulated by JD Vance

28:04

and I think it let you know five

28:06

other Republican senators a

28:08

dozen or so Republican Congress people

28:10

you were kind of laying down a marker

28:13

to say you need our votes to

28:16

continue to support Ukraine and

28:19

you currently don't have them. Now

28:21

we'll say that I think you and I probably both agree that

28:25

there are important questions that Congress should ask

28:27

and should be able to ask around accountability,

28:30

around the progress of the war, around

28:33

the hearts and minds of the American public. So I

28:36

you know what I what I at least I'm not saying is

28:38

hey take it on faith give

28:41

Zelensky everything he wants no

28:43

questions asked. So what are we

28:45

here what do you think we're hearing from at least

28:48

this call it a big

28:50

enough group to block set of Republicans

28:53

and you know

28:54

certainly Donald Trump seems

28:56

to be in that in that category as well

29:00

and Republican voters by polls seem

29:02

to think we're doing too much for Ukraine.

29:05

So you know there has been

29:07

this constituency around for a while

29:10

you know that we should do that you know

29:13

we should worry about nation building at home and

29:16

I think that the there are elements in the Republican

29:18

Party that now trying to drive that for political purposes

29:20

and you know they have a certain conjunction of values

29:23

with Putin etc.

29:25

I've got to say that I I

29:27

mean I'm back in Oregon right now but I was in

29:30

New York for UN week and

29:32

talking to various European

29:34

leaders and that they're

29:37

just terrified that Trump

29:40

is reelected and that Trump and

29:42

Republicans and support for

29:45

Ukraine and Europe

29:48

would you know at that point

29:50

I don't know Europe it's hard to see

29:52

how Europe could sustain Ukraine

29:54

and it's and just the possibility

29:57

that that might happen I think

29:59

is what is driving Putin forward.

30:02

Things aren't going that well for him right now, but

30:04

if he can outlast Europe and outlast

30:07

America until the end of

30:09

next year when Trump is elected, then he's

30:11

got a strategy, which is Zelensky

30:14

and Ukraine will fall apart and

30:17

he will be able to control Ukraine. And

30:20

more people will die as

30:22

a result of that possibility that

30:25

Trump is backing off with the support

30:27

of a fairly

30:29

modest number of people in Congress who want

30:32

to cut off aid. Interesting.

30:34

Just as Zelensky comes over here to show up,

30:37

allies,

30:39

you've got this very interesting notion

30:41

you point out, which is that your strategy in this war

30:44

is wait out the

30:47

next election, hope for Trump.

30:50

God knows you got incentive to meddle again, right,

30:53

if you're Russia? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. In

30:56

this next election, it'll be both Russia

30:58

and China interfering in the election

31:01

on behalf of Trump. And

31:04

that sort of goes to a certain amount of hypocrisy. And

31:06

if you talk to, like the JD

31:09

Vanses and a lot of other conservative Republicans

31:12

are so focused on China

31:14

and the threat from China, and they want to

31:16

do everything possible for Taiwan except

31:19

the one thing that would really matter, which is

31:21

supporting Ukraine. If we want to affect

31:24

Xi Jinping's calculations about whether

31:26

or not he is aggressive towards Taiwan,

31:29

one of the best ways we can affect those calculations

31:31

is to make sure that Ukraine

31:34

succeeds and that Russia,

31:37

that its aggression does not

31:39

pay. And yet it's just

31:41

so hard to make people see that.

31:44

Let's take one final break and

31:47

come back with Nick Kristof.

31:58

Hi, Emily. I'm

32:00

a content creator and comedian. You might know

32:02

me since it's off. Why am I in your

32:04

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33:14

So look, we're being critical of the Republican

33:16

Party right now, but there was

33:18

an era not that long ago, and you've

33:20

recently written about this, when

33:22

arguably a Republican

33:25

administration and a Republican president created

33:28

one of the most impactful, long-lasting achievements

33:32

that is probably as reflective of who we

33:34

want to be, of our ideals, of

33:36

anybody. And that's something that's

33:38

a household name to everybody. It's called PEPFAR.

33:41

I wonder if you can just explain to people

33:43

what PEPFAR is and

33:46

the leaders who made it come about.

33:50

PEPFAR stands

33:52

for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS

33:54

Relief. In the

33:57

late 90s and early 2000s, we've been working on the

33:59

PEPFAR. AIDS,

34:02

I think people today just don't quite understand just

34:04

how devastating it was. There was talk that 100

34:06

million people were going to die from

34:08

AIDS. It just wiped out generations

34:11

of schoolteachers, of

34:13

nurses, of doctors, of professionals,

34:16

engineers in southern Africa

34:19

in particular. It was a devastating economy. Farmers

34:22

didn't have the strength to go in their fields. You'd

34:24

go through villages and because parents

34:26

and grandparents were dying, so there were

34:28

these households of kids who were

34:30

left forming, looking after themselves.

34:34

Then in his State of the Union

34:36

address in 2003, President

34:39

George W. Bush announced this monster

34:41

plan of PEPFAR, which

34:44

was going to fight AIDS around the world

34:46

and pour billions of dollars into it. He

34:50

came up with this and with a

34:53

small number of advisors, Michael

34:55

Gerson, who was his lead speech

34:58

writer and a prominent evangelical

35:00

was a crucial figure in that. Conde

35:02

Rice played an important role. He

35:07

proposed it as an expression of American values.

35:11

Net money just transformed

35:13

the tide of AIDS around

35:15

the world. It operates in more than 50 countries.

35:18

It paid for treatment.

35:21

It worked with multilateral organizations,

35:23

the Life of Global Fund. I

35:27

first sensed how transformative PEPFAR

35:29

was when some years later

35:31

I was traveling in southern Africa and

35:34

in Lesotho and Malawi. I

35:36

met coffin makers and

35:38

they were complaining that the coffin making business

35:41

had collapsed because people weren't dying

35:43

as much anymore because of

35:46

President Bush's AIDS plan. Right

35:50

now the estimates are that it saved 25 million

35:54

lives, making it just,

35:57

I think, the most important humanitarian initiative.

35:59

ever. And we're

36:02

talking about what was column

36:23

after column after column, mostly

36:29

before. I wrote a lot about PEPFAR, but I

36:33

kept whacking him, in retrospect,

36:35

somewhat unfairly because a share

36:38

of the PEPFAR money, a third of the prevention

36:40

money was going to abstinence-only

36:43

programs, which I thought were ridiculous,

36:45

which were indeed unproven and

36:47

later studies showed that part of it to be ineffective.

36:51

So I

36:52

think my critique of that was right.

36:54

But it missed the larger point, that here

36:57

is this extraordinary program that turned

36:59

the tide of AIDS. And

37:01

I don't think that in general we

37:03

in the left, you know, we

37:06

rightly hold Bush accountable for hundreds

37:09

of thousands of people slaughtered in Iraq

37:12

and the devastation there. We don't

37:14

adequately appreciate the

37:16

extraordinary thing he did in saving 25 million

37:19

lives. So

37:21

the reason you've written about PEPFAR recently is

37:24

because it is due to be renewed it

37:29

is not at all clear that

37:31

a Republican House, which

37:34

should be quite proud, quite proud, deservedly

37:38

so, of this achievement, doesn't appear

37:40

to be supporting it. What's going on?

37:42

You know, Republicans should be shoving

37:45

this in our face. They should be saying, look

37:47

at this incredible thing that we did that

37:50

you Democrats, you liberals couldn't do and didn't

37:52

do. And instead, PEPFAR,

37:55

the authorization for it expires at the end

37:57

of this month and It

38:00

appears it may not be reauthorized

38:03

and that's because of this madness

38:07

that has infected parts of the party and there

38:10

were critiques partly

38:12

from the Heritage Foundation

38:15

and it said that PEPFAR was

38:18

responsible for funding for abortions

38:20

indirectly. And, you

38:22

know, this is nonsense. Of course, we have the

38:25

Hyde Amendment that in the US says federal

38:27

funds can't go to pay for abortions and

38:29

so some PEPFAR money goes to some organizations

38:32

who use other money to support abortions

38:34

but it's not PEPFAR money. And

38:39

it just is sort

38:41

of extraordinary that the same

38:43

party that birthed this extraordinary

38:45

humanitarian program is

38:48

now fighting

38:50

it in its current form and

38:53

that as a result it may not continue.

38:55

Yeah. And so that's... You said

38:58

about... We'll

39:00

provide a link to your column

39:02

on the show notes that provide even a little bit more

39:05

depth.

39:07

But yeah, just a whole set of things

39:09

that would... I think standard

39:12

political thought would not

39:14

have predicted, you know, what's

39:17

going on with labor, how this government

39:19

showdown is playing out, PEPFAR,

39:22

you know, Ukraine, there is

39:24

a lot of other stuff obviously going on. Four

39:27

trials for Donald Trump, a trial,

39:29

the indictment of Senator Bernendez,

39:32

an indictment of Hunter Biden, a

39:35

new Office of Gun Violence out of the White House,

39:37

which I don't know what they're going to do but by

39:39

God it feels like that

39:41

is a really strong move, a new focus

39:44

on mental health, just something you've written a

39:46

lot about coming out of the White House. Anything

39:49

else in this whole picture that you think

39:52

we should be paying attention to, either those items

39:55

or anything else? So

39:58

I think, you know, this broader question... which we

40:00

sort of did discuss a little

40:02

bit about, you know, the collapse of America's

40:04

working class. I think that is

40:07

just such a central issue that there are these

40:09

pathologies that are linked

40:12

and we don't fully understand how they're linked

40:14

or why they're linked, but

40:17

it pains me, it bewilders me

40:19

to see Republicans making hay

40:22

on this and Democrats

40:24

struggling. And I think

40:26

that Biden, you know, I do

40:29

think that Biden gets it with his

40:31

background. Biden

40:33

tells a wonderful, maybe my favorite Biden

40:36

story is he tells about, at one

40:38

point his dad was working for a car dealership

40:41

and there was a Christmas party

40:44

and so, you know,

40:47

the elder Biden and his wife

40:50

were at the Christmas party and the owner of the

40:52

car dealership threw out

40:54

silver dollars on the floor

40:56

for the employees to scramble at.

41:00

And Biden's father and mother just were

41:02

so repulsed by that they walked

41:05

out and Biden quit the job.

41:09

And the president tells that story to sort of

41:11

convey the importance of dignity.

41:14

And I think that word dignity is something

41:17

that

41:18

maybe

41:19

we don't talk enough about, but I think

41:21

it's very much related to

41:25

all these issues that

41:28

are going around against one reason, the

41:30

lack of dignity is one reason people self-medicate. And

41:33

I do think that Biden kind of gets that,

41:36

although I think he does have trouble communicating

41:39

that. Yeah.

41:41

Well, Democrats didn't

41:43

work on emotional resonance because,

41:46

you know, I think the

41:48

last 30 years shows me at least

41:50

my perspective. They've

41:53

got much better ideas. They actually don't implement

41:55

them better. They actually want to do something

41:58

to fix the world instead of complain about it. But

42:00

there's no doubt they need to work on emotional

42:03

resonance of people who are going through challenges, not

42:06

just policies, but actually a way

42:08

of showing that you get it. So

42:11

thank you for being in the bubble. For those of you

42:13

who have a few more minutes, don't listen

42:15

to, I'm about to have a conversation with Nick on premium

42:18

about loneliness, which is something

42:20

we're going to get into. Nick, thanks again

42:22

for being in the bubble. Great to be with you.

42:37

Thank you so much to Nick for

42:39

that far-ranging interview. We

42:41

also had a fascinating conversation

42:44

on premium for those of

42:46

you who listened to those episodes. It

42:48

was even deeper than our dad joke conversations

42:51

have been, if you can believe that. We

42:53

were talking about loneliness. My

42:55

first question to Nick is, have you ever been lonely? Then

42:59

we got into it, and it was just

43:01

a very interesting topic that we've all thought about

43:04

to some degree. Next

43:06

week, we have an episode about what will probably

43:09

be one of the most important factors in

43:11

the upcoming election, but also possibly

43:14

what's going to shape the next couple decades. That

43:17

is the new band of lawmakers that

43:20

is under 45. There

43:23

are thousands of them around the country, 1,300 of

43:25

them that have been organized into

43:28

group Democrats and Republicans, by the way. Their

43:33

views are more aligned

43:35

with one another, it seems.

43:38

There are thousands of them around the country, 1,300 of

43:41

them that have been organized into

43:44

group Democrats and Republicans, by the way. Their

43:48

views are more aligned

43:51

with one another, it seems,

43:54

than they are with their parties sometimes.

43:57

How are they thinking differently? will

44:00

young people play in the 2024 election

44:03

is what I want to talk to my guest next week. I've

44:05

got Leila Zayden on. Leila

44:08

is from the Millennial Action Project and

44:11

I gotta tell you she is an incredibly

44:14

impressive person who

44:16

has done some serious thinking about this and all the

44:18

issues that are connected to this. So that will

44:20

be next week. David Leonhardt

44:23

coming up later in the month. That will

44:25

be fun. He always is fun and

44:29

that's all I can think to say right now except

44:31

see you next week. Thank

44:39

you for listening to In the Bubble. If you like what

44:41

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from my new podcast, Choice Words, which

46:55

is another 11-hour media show as

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well. Each week on Choice Words,

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I interview people I admire about the biggest

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decisions they've made in their lives and what they've learned

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from those experiences. That's why I'm

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so excited to

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partner with Maker's Mark on Choice Words,

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because just like our show, Maker celebrates

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those who live life with a curious mindset.

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And now, thanks to the Maker's Mark personalized

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label program, you can create a

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custom label for the people in your life

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who you admire. And best of all, the

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label program is free. Go

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to makersmarkpersonalized.com to

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order your personalized label today.

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Must be 21 or older, labels currently

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available for 750 milliliter bottles only. Bottle

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must be purchased separately.

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Maker's Mark makes their bourbon carefully, so

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please enjoy it that way. Maker's Mark

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Kentucky Straight Bourbon,