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0:51

This

0:55

is Words Matter with Norm

0:57

Ornstein. We've got the

0:59

votes and screw the rest of

1:01

you. And Dr. Kavita Patel. These

1:04

might be some of the smaller moments, you know,

1:07

with all the bombshells. Didn't catch people's eyes.

1:16

Hello and welcome to a very special

1:18

episode of Words Matter. You

1:21

may notice as you listen to voices

1:23

or if you look at any of our video

1:25

feeds that you'll see a different,

1:27

beautiful, bright face that is

1:30

not Norm Ornstein. And I can't

1:32

tell you how happy and pleased I was. Norm

1:34

is

1:35

doing lots of things, including

1:37

going

1:38

to weddings, being out of the

1:40

state and country to do some other work. And

1:44

this is somebody we've been vying

1:46

desperately to have as a guest on our podcast.

1:49

And we took the time that Norm was out to

1:51

have none other than the famous

1:53

and wonderful and brilliant colleague Lori Garrett,

1:55

who is a friend, friend to myself,

1:58

Norm, the deep state.

1:59

kind of network, David Rothkopf,

2:02

and is someone who in her own right

2:06

has commanded an audience, not

2:08

just across social media, but is a sought after

2:10

expert on many things, not

2:13

just science and biology related, but

2:15

Lori is very articulate and

2:17

passionate about all of the political

2:19

occurrences, which is why she is a perfect co-host

2:22

for this week for Words Matter. And

2:25

hopefully we will get into knowing

2:27

Lori. We are not going to stick to any script,

2:29

not that we ever have on Words Matter, but

2:32

Lori, it gives me great pleasure to welcome

2:34

you to the podcast. And we were talking

2:37

just free handed before we started recording

2:40

about what Lori was interested in.

2:42

And as I expected, it was a little bit of everything.

2:44

So we're going to call today's episode, a

2:47

little bit of everything from Lori's Wisdom

2:50

episode, because that's exactly what I hope it

2:52

will be. Lori, welcome. Glad

2:54

to have you for the first time on this podcast,

2:56

but I know you and I have been together on other ones before,

2:59

but thank you for coming. It's so

3:01

great to see you. You know, you were one of the people

3:03

that helped keep me sane through the worst

3:06

of COVID. When we

3:08

were all going bananas and couldn't believe

3:10

how much our

3:11

own government was screwing everything up, and

3:14

needed to be speaking with smart sounding

3:17

boards, people who got it,

3:19

who understood and

3:21

well, thankfully, there you were, over and

3:25

same, same, same back at

3:27

you. And we can have another conversation

3:29

about the kind of how the media is

3:32

covered or not covered COVID. So we can definitely

3:34

get into I think there's a lot we can get into.

3:36

And I would love to let you

3:39

as we're recording this, it's there

3:42

is no question that I think,

3:44

and you and I have probably

3:46

one degree of separation, maybe more directly

3:49

for you, Lori, I have

3:51

friends that are Americans, as

3:54

well as Israelis kind of in country

3:56

in Israel. And so

3:57

it would be really kind of naive

3:59

and just dumb if we didn't

4:01

spend a moment.

4:03

But maybe something to kind of offer

4:05

would be a little bit of context. You've

4:07

made some interesting comments, I think, about

4:10

this time, this moment, this tragedy,

4:12

this terrorist acts that are unfolding,

4:15

and kind of some of what's been used

4:18

kind of as the geopolitical forces. And

4:21

interestingly enough, I think you and I were about to

4:23

talk as we decided, let's just hit record,

4:26

what is Donald Trump watching and doing or

4:28

not saying? Because I thought it was very interesting

4:30

how on MSNBC,

4:33

Monday morning, Tuesday

4:36

morning,

4:36

the MSNBC kind of 6am

4:39

to 10am hour, kind of that morning

4:41

Joe hour. I won't lie, Lori,

4:43

it was, you know, Ron DeSantis,

4:46

Barry Weiss, like they had a number of

4:48

conservatives who were kind

4:50

of offering, you know, just their perspectives

4:52

on what Joe Biden should do, what Joe Biden could do.

4:55

And not one of them were asked, nor

4:57

did, you know, anyone kind of say

5:00

like, well, have you heard from like

5:02

the presumptive nominee for your party? Of course,

5:04

Ron DeSantis wouldn't have answered that question, but Vivek

5:06

Ramaswamy, all these other people, as well

5:08

as Barry Weiss and other kind of known conservatives,

5:11

not one was asked about what Trump was doing

5:13

or not doing. And I thought that was interesting. But

5:15

tell me, tell me your reactions, Lori, and

5:17

just kind of what's been in your mind

5:19

and heart lately. Well,

5:22

Kavita, I have been

5:24

tracking the changes in Israel

5:26

over the last year pretty closely.

5:30

And

5:31

with colleagues that are far

5:34

more steeped in Middle East politics

5:36

than I, looking

5:40

at what B.B. Netanyahu and

5:43

Ben Gavir and their

5:45

associated

5:46

ultra, ultra

5:48

right wing, ultra conservative

5:52

constituency we're trying to do to Israel.

5:55

And you know, you

5:56

have to recall, you only have

5:58

to go back two months. And

6:00

you're seeing mass demonstrations where

6:03

in some cases in excess of 5% of the total population

6:07

of Israel was in the streets at a given

6:09

moment protesting against Netanyahu.

6:12

He has a truly

6:14

illegitimate government,

6:16

one that it's

6:18

not clear he really won reelection

6:21

or what the heck happened, but by

6:24

trying to destroy the independence of

6:26

the Supreme Court of Israel,

6:27

defying the nation's constitution,

6:30

if you will, and setting up an apparatus

6:33

where he can appoint at will

6:36

people throughout the Justice Department. I

6:38

mean, it's kind of Donald Trump's wet dream. It's

6:41

what he wants to do to the American Justice

6:43

Department. So we need to keep

6:45

in mind that

6:47

not only was there

6:48

massive protests inside of Israel

6:51

and that many,

6:54

many members of the reserves, especially

6:57

high level officers in

6:59

protest to what Netanyahu was doing,

7:02

were refusing to do service.

7:05

They were at stay at home

7:07

in protest.

7:08

And across the medical system, there

7:10

was increasingly protest against

7:13

the ultra conservative edicts coming out

7:15

from the Ministry

7:18

of Health. And

7:20

in alliance with those who were angry

7:23

about what Netanyahu

7:24

was trying to do to the Supreme Court, they

7:27

were out

7:28

in the streets joining in the protests.

7:31

And there were walkouts from hospitals

7:34

and clinics and so on all over Israel.

7:37

So you had already well

7:39

before things explode

7:42

in the last few days, you had

7:44

a really divided nation.

7:47

And in many cases, major

7:50

newspapers like Haaretz

7:52

were speculating that civil

7:54

war was about to erupt

7:56

in Israel.

7:59

of mine, they have a different situation than we

8:02

in that every single person

8:04

essentially does IDF service,

8:06

the Israeli Defense Forces, unless

8:09

they are of the ultra-orthodox and then they get

8:11

a waiver and they don't have to serve

8:13

in the military.

8:14

So it is not,

8:17

you know, they don't have a sort of professionalized

8:20

volunteer military service such

8:22

as we do.

8:23

And every single citizen is armed,

8:27

but armed by the state

8:30

with a sense that you're there to protect.

8:33

So when things were so broken

8:35

down and so divided in

8:37

the last several months in

8:39

Israel,

8:40

needless to say, a lot

8:42

about the IDF seems to have gone

8:45

flaky in the process and

8:48

a lot about the behavior

8:50

of settlers. They were expanding

8:52

into the West Bank,

8:55

trying to take more real estate. Tensions

8:57

were rising. Things

8:59

were getting uglier between the

9:02

settler communities, which tend to be very right-wing,

9:06

and

9:06

the

9:08

Palestinians on both sides

9:10

of Israel. And

9:12

I guess we should remind listeners

9:14

that Palestine is not a single nation and

9:17

it is separated by the entire

9:19

Israeli state

9:20

between the two parts of Palestine.

9:23

The part of Palestine that's always been the

9:26

most left-wing,

9:28

if you will,

9:28

or however you want to phrase it, I don't know if left and

9:30

right is really appropriate, but at any rate, militant

9:34

is run by Hamas. And they're in

9:37

this thin strip of land with about

9:39

two million souls crammed

9:41

between Egypt

9:42

and Israel.

9:47

Even before everything broke

9:49

out, pretty much everything going in and

9:51

out of that strip of land

9:54

was somehow controlled by either Israel

9:56

or Egypt. So there was

9:59

a lack of free movement.

9:59

and of goods and well

10:02

before the latest episodes,

10:05

the health community

10:06

all across

10:08

the Gaza was complaining

10:10

about lack of medical supplies,

10:13

lack of trained personnel. There

10:15

were issues around

10:17

everything from basic

10:19

child vaccination

10:20

to water

10:22

purification and testing. So

10:25

all the sort of essentials of public health

10:27

were already problematic in

10:30

the Gaza, so much so that WHO,

10:32

the World Health Organization, had issued reports

10:35

on the matter, as had quite a number

10:37

of humanitarian organizations and

10:39

UNICEF. So that's

10:41

how things set up.

10:43

And then you have this

10:44

absolutely

10:46

horrible nightmare unfold

10:48

over the last several days. And

10:50

you

10:51

know,

10:52

you've seen all over the world,

10:56

communities struggling

10:58

to decide what their position is. Can

11:00

you actually support the beheading of children? Can

11:03

you actually support

11:05

armed men walking into a grandmother's

11:08

bedroom

11:09

and rousing her out at gunpoint and parading

11:11

her through the streets of Gaza? And conversely,

11:13

can you actually just support the carpet

11:16

bombing of Gaza City

11:18

by the Israelis? So we're in a situation

11:21

where both sides are, it's going

11:23

to get uglier and uglier and uglier. And

11:25

it's not just that the death toll is rising.

11:28

The trauma toll, which means

11:30

all the health system,

11:32

is becoming

11:34

enormous to the point where

11:36

both Israeli and Gaza

11:39

hospitals are complaining we're out of supplies,

11:42

where

11:42

our personnel need to get

11:44

some sleep. We need more people.

11:47

We need everything. And all of

11:50

this kind of, to me, symbolically

11:52

came to a head when I saw

11:54

a video circulating. And I'm very,

11:56

very careful now,

11:58

because there's so much false. symmetry,

12:01

lies, disinformation

12:03

on social media right now. You want to,

12:06

anything you hear, just when I heard

12:09

beheaded baby, I said, okay, that's

12:11

probably a lie. That's probably disinformation.

12:14

And I didn't want to post anything about

12:16

it until I had seen it

12:18

cross validated multiple times.

12:20

And then eventually President Biden himself

12:23

described the horror.

12:25

Well, the same with this video

12:27

and I don't speak Hebrew,

12:28

so I had to rely on Google translator

12:30

and so on to understand what was

12:32

going on. But

12:35

an official delegation from the Ministry

12:37

of Health in Jerusalem came

12:39

to one of the kibbutzim

12:42

that was attacked

12:44

two days ago to

12:47

see the conditions of the hospital.

12:50

And

12:51

the

12:52

hospital patients in the waiting room

12:54

and then eventually nurses and doctors screamed

12:58

at them

12:58

and

12:59

ordered them off the property. And

13:02

they were shouting, you have ruined our

13:04

country.

13:05

And where were

13:09

you when we needed you?

13:12

Where were you when

13:13

the halls were filled with

13:15

blood?

13:16

I think that there are going to be

13:18

reverberations from this across

13:20

Israel politically.

13:23

It's a game changer. It's as big

13:25

a game changing moment

13:26

for the politics of Israel,

13:28

reverberating all the way down into things like

13:31

the structure of its health system as

13:33

was the assassination of Yitzhak

13:35

Rabin. And

13:38

on the Palestinian side,

13:41

we're talking about people that

13:43

have been in hardship

13:45

in both the West Bank and Gaza for

13:47

years and years and years.

13:49

I've personally been in Israel

13:51

years ago, I spent time

13:54

in the so-called 1947 community.

13:59

which is people who lost their land

14:02

in the original formation of Israel and consider

14:05

themselves refugees even though now there are

14:08

three generations out

14:09

and

14:11

Everywhere you see the hardship

14:14

and the public health issues and

14:17

the stress on their health providing systems

14:20

so Even through the our lens

14:22

you and I looking at the world through

14:25

public health and medicine

14:26

we can see

14:30

The inequities and the

14:31

horrors of what's unfolding

14:34

yeah, and maybe a good way to

14:36

kind of also put that in context Lori is You

14:40

were one of the first people to kind of talk

14:42

about Israel being at the

14:45

lead at the forefront Granted they

14:47

were

14:47

the ones that Approved and kind

14:49

of launched the Pfizer vaccine earliest

14:52

amongst the global partners including the United States

14:55

They have been their universities

14:58

their Clinicians their scientists

15:00

have been the lead

15:02

authors on probably every seminal,

15:04

you know, New England Journal of Medicine article

15:06

that kind of cites efficacy

15:09

experience Looking

15:11

at kind of compare and contrast amongst

15:13

kind of age groups between those who

15:15

were given the original vaccine

15:18

and boosted those were not boosted etc

15:20

So I think it's just worth reminding

15:23

people that you know Not only will the

15:25

reverberations kind of in the health

15:27

and public health arena but you

15:29

know think about what this is doing to kind of

15:31

the Scientific foundation

15:34

from which we've taken for granted quite honestly

15:36

some of the learnings of COVID

15:38

one, I think Kavita one of the things

15:41

that's just so powerful in this moment

15:43

is that

15:45

We are watching ever since

15:47

Putin invaded Ukraine a

15:49

year and a half ago. We are watching

15:52

the deterioration of

15:54

all global networking systems that

15:57

particularly all the ones dealing with humanitarian

15:59

issues global health issues, development

16:03

issues, all the things that were

16:06

the sources of the great optimism

16:08

that led to the creation of the sustainable

16:10

development goals in 2015 and

16:13

the notion

16:13

that we were actually going to eradicate

16:16

extreme poverty on this planet and

16:18

address climate change. Gee, weren't

16:20

we, you know, filled with happy

16:22

little roses

16:24

and joyous views

16:26

of the future? It looks so naive

16:28

now. I mean at this moment

16:30

it looks like,

16:33

you know, the UNGA, the United

16:35

Nations General Assembly was just a month

16:37

ago here in

16:39

New York and you could feel the

16:41

desperation of trying to save the SDG.

16:44

You could feel the desperation of trying

16:46

to have anything work anymore in the UN

16:49

and essentially the Security Council is

16:51

dead

16:52

because the permanent

16:54

members can have veto power

16:57

and they never agree on anything. So Russia

16:59

is one of the permanent members, China is one

17:01

of the permanent members, the United

17:02

States is a permanent member. Needless

17:04

to say, just those three alone on the

17:06

Security Council means somebody

17:09

vetoes everything.

17:11

And so you have an excellent Secretary

17:14

General, Antonio Guterres,

17:16

former Prime Minister of Portugal, desperately

17:20

trying

17:21

to keep the UN dream alive.

17:24

The

17:25

notion of coming out

17:27

of World War II and solving problems

17:29

as a global community and creating

17:31

institutions to address specific

17:34

global issues such as the

17:36

World Health Organization, such as

17:38

UNICEF, the Children's Fund,

17:41

such as UNESCO to deal with education

17:43

and so on and so on. And then the Bretton

17:46

Woods agreements that created the

17:48

funding institutions such as the World Bank

17:50

and the IMF which you're meeting

17:53

in Marrakech and everywhere

17:55

you see a sense of desperation

17:58

by the leadership.

17:59

trying to keep any of it actually

18:02

functioning. And on

18:04

top of everything else, I mean, just

18:06

because this is the kind of way my mind works

18:08

now, it's poly crisis.

18:11

There's never one thing to focus on. It's

18:14

always this impinges on this,

18:16

impinges on that. It's a mess,

18:18

it's a gomish, excuse me. I

18:20

throw up the kiddushim because we're thinking of Israel.

18:24

But we never have a single

18:26

issue to focus on. And now

18:28

we're looking at

18:30

the worst

18:31

climate summer in global

18:33

history, or at least in the history of

18:36

known global records. The

18:39

hottest summer, a

18:40

summer that was so hot that

18:42

even in the Southern Hemisphere

18:43

in their winter, they were breaking

18:46

heat records, fires

18:49

and floods and massive catastrophic

18:51

storms

18:52

and so on and so forth. And

18:54

we're walking right towards four

18:57

weeks from now, the COP 28

19:00

round of negotiations on climate change.

19:02

And where is it? United Arab

19:05

Emirates, the sixth biggest

19:07

oil producing nation in the world and

19:10

a key factor in OPEC and all

19:12

the price fixing and controls of

19:15

levels of pumping the crap out

19:17

of the earth to burn and turn into destroying

19:19

our atmosphere. And it's being

19:21

run by the

19:22

head of

19:24

the largest petroleum

19:25

company, the nationalized

19:28

company of UAE.

19:30

So you

19:32

have a CEO oil executive running

19:35

the COP 28 negotiations.

19:37

And he pretty much made it clear, setting caps

19:40

on how much

19:40

we pump out of the ground, not open

19:42

for discussion.

19:44

So

19:45

if we go through this list and we just ask,

19:47

what does it feel like to be a human being alive today?

19:52

Say your age, not mine, I'm an old lady,

19:54

but put them in your box and you've

19:56

got kids, how old are your kids? Six

19:58

and eight. Six and eight, okay. You've got

20:00

a six-year-old, when

20:02

that six-year-old gets to be 26, it's

20:06

going to be 2040, we'll be in the middle

20:08

of the century.

20:10

And I hate to say it, but I don't think

20:12

we will have met any of our climate goals.

20:15

No, they won't. I think the planet will be

20:17

a terrifying place to live.

20:20

And we will see all the poly-crisis

20:22

implications of that, which

20:24

we're just looking out the window

20:26

for seeing today on

20:28

a comparatively modest level.

20:32

So just think of this summer

20:34

of the political events and the

20:36

climate-related events, and

20:39

are

20:39

quickly trying to put COVID in the rearview

20:42

mirror and pretend it never happened, and

20:44

are no lessons

20:47

learned, no money devoted to any real

20:49

pandemic preparedness globally

20:51

or even nationally at

20:52

all.

20:53

And then our internal, massive

20:55

domestic crises in every

20:58

single one of the most powerful nations. Germany's

21:01

barely being ruled. The

21:04

UK is in a virtual

21:07

state of political civil war. And

21:10

the latest round up, me and the UK is now saying,

21:13

we won't even abide by our COP21 agreements.

21:17

We're going to go back to burning oil like

21:19

crazy. You've got very

21:22

weak France leadership with

21:24

all the repercussions of the decolonization

21:27

fights and wars and

21:29

coups going on in the former French colonies

21:32

in Western Africa. So we watched eight

21:34

countries

21:35

topple their leaderships, all of them Francophone.

21:39

And Macron is absolutely

21:41

on the sidelines going,

21:42

I don't know.

21:45

Help me out here. And of course Ukraine. And

21:48

then Nagoro Karambakh, we had this

21:50

giant

21:51

genocide unfolding, an ethnic

21:53

cleansing, as all Armenians

21:56

are just purged right out across the

21:58

border there in Armenia.

21:59

several million people.

22:02

And, you

22:04

know, we can keep going down the list of these

22:06

horrors. And on top of everything else,

22:09

we're all conveniently forgetting

22:11

Afghanistan. Acting

22:13

as if Pakistan is actually has rational

22:15

political leadership.

22:17

Absolutely. And India,

22:19

you know, Modi just keeps turning

22:22

that country more and more

22:24

Hindu first, Hindu first, Hindu first,

22:27

into a giant Hindu

22:29

nationalist state. And,

22:31

you know, an incident

22:33

occurred that

22:35

in any rational time, even

22:37

as recently as say, five years ago, would

22:40

have been major front page news. And I don't think

22:42

most of the listeners even heard about it. And

22:44

that is that on the eve of the G 27,

22:47

which was convened in India by Modi.

22:51

China released a new map of

22:53

Asia. And in that

22:56

new map of Asia, they absorbed

22:58

a huge amount of Northern India

23:01

and maybe China. And needless

23:03

to say, she did not show up at the

23:05

G 20 summit.

23:07

And by the way, they have not issued new

23:09

corrected maps.

23:11

So you look

23:13

around the world and you say, where do we start? How

23:15

do we rule?

23:17

And you come back, and this is gonna be

23:19

my last thing I'm gonna say in this giant

23:21

chunk of spiel by me and leave,

23:23

I'll pass it over to you. But that you

23:26

look around the world, you say this level

23:28

of complexity of how each

23:30

crisis hits another one and another

23:33

one and another one so that you can't

23:35

come up with a singular solution

23:37

set. You have to figure out

23:40

where's the money going to come from for this solution

23:42

set, this solution set, this and everybody

23:44

turns and says it's going to come from

23:46

America.

23:47

Well, we have a leader right now, who

23:51

actually is

23:53

has a really skilled staff,

23:57

a

23:58

has appointed people who believe in God. governance,

24:01

has an agency after agency

24:03

after agency across the government,

24:06

has, you

24:07

know, people who could be running Fortune 500

24:10

companies.

24:10

Real talent is in there,

24:13

managing transportation, the

24:15

rollout of our Infrastructure Act, all

24:17

the, and the, trying to

24:20

deal with repairing the damage

24:22

that Pompeo and Tillerson

24:25

did to the State Department

24:27

to respond to all these international crises,

24:30

and trying to keep DOD in shape.

24:33

And what have we got? We've got Trump

24:35

over

24:36

here just today. He said, I

24:38

would have done so much better with this whole Israel

24:40

mess, you know. I mean, they're weak. They're

24:43

weak, those Israelis. And Netanyahu,

24:47

you know, I mean, you know, he slighted me. You

24:50

know, when we saw back in the past,

24:52

he wasn't nice to me. So I, you know, I

24:55

don't know, baby. I,

24:57

you know, you guys haven't shown appropriate

25:00

fealty to me.

25:02

So I'm not on your side.

25:04

I'm not saying I'm with Hamas. They're just devils,

25:06

you know, they're, yep, they're, they're evil. But,

25:09

you know, I'm not really there for you either. And I

25:11

don't know if we

25:11

should really put a bunch of money behind you.

25:14

And Ukraine, hey, you know, Russia

25:16

has a right to some of its old land,

25:19

you know, you're not going to try and get them

25:21

get back Crimea, are you? My

25:23

pal, Vladimir, you know, he's

25:25

a decent fellow. And then

25:28

finally, his acolytes

25:31

are destroying and paralyzing

25:33

the house.

25:35

And they have this jackass

25:37

tuberville,

25:39

Senator from Alabama, who's blocking all

25:41

the shifts and appointments in the

25:43

Department of Defense at a time when we

25:45

need a strong United States military.

25:48

And

25:48

when you hear the right

25:51

saying things like, well, why don't we send special forces

25:53

over to Israel to help them? Well, why don't

25:55

you appoint the heads of

25:56

special forces?

25:58

Why don't you appoint people to the

26:00

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Shut up!

26:03

So that's where

26:05

we are, Kavita.

26:06

I love it. I love that Lori

26:09

is, I love that only

26:11

Lori Garrett can cover global,

26:14

political, climate,

26:17

energy, you know, health, and

26:21

end it on

26:22

what I think is like the best truth bomb,

26:24

which

26:24

is we are doing everything possible

26:27

to kind

26:27

of undo what little progress

26:30

we've made. And I agree with you 2043, hell 2024, I mean, 2020, 2030, 2040, all these

26:32

initiatives

26:33

we

26:38

have

26:38

for, you know, what all the things

26:40

we were supposed to have done by 2020 on healthcare, none

26:43

of it's happened. And you can say, yes, COVID,

26:46

we were never even going to do it if COVID hadn't occurred,

26:48

and we're now set back so far.

26:51

So I can't help but

26:53

comment since you mentioned the G20, something

26:55

that has not come out publicly. And

26:57

I think it's because the media has been

27:00

struggling with how to cover it. There

27:03

have been on Twitter, you'll see some video, but

27:05

it didn't get the attention I think it deserved. Not only

27:07

did Modi, not only did you not see

27:10

China kind of at the table,

27:12

but what you also didn't realize is that Modi

27:15

in a city with millions of people

27:17

for the G20 took Delhi and

27:20

a city that on any given time,

27:22

day, hour, there's always somebody outside,

27:24

there's always something happening in the streets,

27:26

basically told that the kind of people of

27:28

the city

27:29

must stay in your homes. If we see you outside,

27:32

we have the right to arrest you. And

27:33

so the vans and the caravan taking

27:36

like kind of G20 leaders and all their

27:38

entourage, including the media, the press,

27:41

by the way, which included like Pakistani

27:43

press covering the G20 for

27:46

the United States and for other countries, people

27:48

of Pakistani origin, that they

27:50

were, it was just countless video of like empty

27:52

streets. And I will say

27:55

like, just because my

27:57

family is from the region that Modi came

27:59

from, this is

27:59

state of Gujarat, like,

28:01

that guy's a thug at best. I mean,

28:04

and it's very disturbing because of Hindu nationalism.

28:07

There's nothing in like Hinduism.

28:09

I was raised in a Hindu household. There's nothing

28:11

about Hinduism that puts people

28:14

kind of at odds with each other the way

28:16

that this is occurring or demonizes

28:19

Gandhi. Like there's just a crazy

28:21

unfortunate kind

28:23

of parallels what's happening in the United States

28:25

to what's happening in the Middle East

28:28

to what's happening in, well, let's

28:30

put it this way, Lori. It feels like it's happening everywhere.

28:32

It doesn't feel like we're alone anymore.

28:34

So maybe we can turn. How's this? We're

28:37

going to, we're going to do two topics.

28:39

We'll end with COVID because I think you get

28:41

a lot of questions. So do I, where

28:44

are we with COVID? I'm going to let you have kind of

28:46

the last word after I do that.

28:48

Tell me, I know you've got some

28:50

thoughts about Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan

28:52

and kind of what's unfolded where it seems like

28:55

Jim Jordan was defeated and sure,

28:57

maybe by votes you can say that you,

29:00

you, you discuss kind of what's happening

29:02

in Congress or what's not going to happen no

29:04

matter who comes into the white house in 2024,

29:06

Biden for

29:08

number two or potentially a Trump

29:10

administration again

29:11

or somebody else named

29:13

to be determined that we haven't seen emerge

29:15

yet as a front runner on either party, to

29:18

be honest. But,

29:20

but give your reactions to

29:22

how some of the issues you

29:24

just framed out in light of

29:26

now

29:28

it's less about Steve Scalise in my opinion.

29:30

And it's more about what the kind of state of

29:32

the houses and how they're being held hostage by

29:34

Matt Gaetz. But tell me your thoughts

29:36

on kind of Steve Scalise kind of, you know,

29:39

being a speaker and

29:42

what that could mean for now

29:44

between now and the next

29:46

election cycle.

29:49

Well, I think we're in the mess we're in

29:54

for reasons that actually predate

29:56

Donald Trump on

29:57

the political

29:58

stage. I think.

29:59

We're in the mess room because the

30:02

Republicans made

30:05

a,

30:06

what we can now see as a very smart decision

30:09

on their part

30:10

about 20 years ago,

30:12

that

30:13

the way they were going to eventually deal with the

30:15

abortion question and deal

30:17

with prayer in school

30:20

and with gun rights and all the

30:22

things that had risen in the

30:25

Reagan era to the top of an agenda

30:27

of

30:27

a party that once had been about big

30:29

business,

30:31

right? And it was transformed into this waka

30:33

doodle party where it's just

30:35

a series of like a Chinese

30:38

menu, we know one from column A, one from column

30:40

B, all sort of values

30:43

issues,

30:43

right?

30:44

I have the value, the right to carry an AK-47.

30:49

What they decided about 20

30:52

years ago was that the way they really get there

30:54

was to take over state legislatures and

30:56

they targeted

30:59

the Southern

31:00

states especially and

31:02

states in the Rocky Mountain West and

31:05

said, we're taking over the legislature

31:07

and we're going to install

31:09

Looney Tunes, these people that came right

31:12

out of somebody's prayer group or

31:15

somebody's take

31:18

over the libraries organization or

31:21

anti-abortion group.

31:23

And

31:25

so you had

31:27

everything from the Texas state legislature

31:30

to North Carolina, you name it. You

31:32

had people getting in there and

31:34

getting political chops, figuring out

31:37

how to run a bill, how to block

31:39

a bill, all these sort of basics of

31:41

gerrymandering, et cetera. And

31:44

a lot of them were frankly, truly

31:46

bananas. And from

31:49

that pool, we saw come

31:51

people who got elected to national

31:53

office

31:55

and they're bringing those tactics

31:57

to national office.

31:59

tactics that became a really big deal in

32:02

state legislatures was to block

32:04

essential bills that affect say

32:07

an entire budget

32:08

or all the schools

32:11

or

32:12

all job promotions for

32:14

all state employees and things like that sweeping

32:17

legislation that normally in real

32:19

time would just

32:19

be voted through as a matter

32:22

of routine

32:23

by your state rubber stamped and

32:25

the governor would sign these

32:27

would get blocked demanding

32:29

that

32:30

an attached bill be

32:32

passed with them and those attached

32:34

bills would be Looney Tunes like

32:37

every single classroom must open

32:40

with a prayer to God

32:41

in public schools

32:43

or

32:45

there can be no distribution or information

32:47

about birth control given to anybody

32:49

under 18 years of age under any

32:51

circumstances

32:52

and on and on and on. Some

32:54

of them would pass some would not

32:57

then along comes Trump then comes January 6

32:59

and a lot of these state legislatures

33:02

get filled with insurrectionists

33:05

and they

33:06

proudly they know the

33:08

only way to go forward is to be a Trumpster

33:10

and they proudly echo everything Donald

33:12

Trump says and anything

33:15

Donald says in passing at one

33:17

of his crazy extemporaneous 45 minute

33:20

speeches to a mob they

33:23

say well that's an idea let's write legislation

33:25

about that let's write legislation about that

33:28

and

33:30

then it becomes that the litmus test

33:33

is do you agree that

33:34

that Donald won the election

33:37

and you can't go forward in your

33:40

you know state Republican committee

33:43

and in your state legislature unless you

33:45

have said absolutely Donald

33:47

Trump is my president I don't

33:49

respect the legitimacy of the current government

33:52

so now where are we we're in a situation

33:55

where

33:57

dozens and dozens of essential

33:59

bills in both the Senate

34:01

and the House,

34:02

but especially the House, are being held

34:05

up

34:05

by people putting provisos in,

34:08

whether it's Tuberville trying to block

34:11

everything for the military, the United

34:13

States military, which used to be the

34:15

one thing the whole

34:16

right wing could look for, right? Right, exactly.

34:19

Now we're blocking it because the

34:21

military might allow money to be spent

34:24

for a pregnant officer

34:26

to go to another state

34:28

to get an abortion.

34:31

So it's better to have the United

34:33

States vulnerable to a Russian

34:36

nuclear attack

34:37

than to allow one

34:38

woman to have access to reproductive

34:40

health crossing state lines. And

34:43

we have

34:46

Rand Paul in the Senate

34:48

blocking one thing after another,

34:50

all because he wants the Senate to

34:53

basically, hang

34:55

Tony Fauci from the highest

34:58

rafters for his alleged

35:00

great sin. And he wants all

35:02

kinds of documents that he claims exist

35:05

proving that the United States government

35:07

offended or actually made the

35:09

COVID virus. Yeah,

35:12

it's, and you, Lori, I think,

35:15

you've got kind of

35:16

a nice like email group that you

35:19

send some of these messages to, I think

35:22

one of the ones that struck me visually, and

35:24

I think you may have pulled some of the images off

35:26

of either local, because you are very good about

35:28

trying to secondary source things.

35:30

And that just believe what floats on your social media

35:32

feed, the protests

35:33

in California against Fauci and

35:35

like how

35:36

popular they were, not only that doesn't

35:39

shock me as much as, I

35:41

haven't seen that many signs since I've

35:43

done like kind of

35:44

like abortion care and

35:46

I've kind of seen like the lines that form in

35:48

the groups that are forming around reproductive

35:50

clinics. And so it reminded me of that,

35:53

like that kind of mob like signs

35:55

of like kill Fauci. There was one

35:57

that I think you sent around where if you look in the back.

35:59

it says hang fauci. Like there's just,

36:02

I don't

36:03

know, just bizarre. And so

36:05

maybe, maybe, here,

36:06

maybe we can put some, let's

36:08

end with like

36:10

some positive. I'll say a silver lining.

36:12

COVID is not behind us.

36:14

But I've been pleased to

36:16

see not that COVID hospitalization

36:18

still lead in our kind of threat of

36:21

respiratory and

36:22

kind of viruses that we're seeing. So

36:24

it's still a critical hospitalization

36:27

deaths, particularly even

36:29

amongst vaccinated and boosted individuals with

36:31

other chronic conditions. So that's

36:33

just a reminder to everyone

36:34

to get boosted if they haven't

36:36

and fit into

36:38

the category of being concerned about getting

36:41

sick, which should be everybody.

36:43

But I was

36:45

pleased that there have been at least

36:48

attempts by the Biden administration to stand

36:50

up that office they had. I'm looking for silver linings

36:53

here. So we're looking at race of the virus

36:55

and we haven't seen them yet get

36:57

to where

36:57

I think they might be pointing to

36:59

with other countries reporting 286 kind

37:02

of in circulation and increasing

37:05

in numbers. So I do expect we'll see a winter surge.

37:07

But then I do think it's

37:09

the Biden administration kind of being ham,

37:12

kind of hamstrung by Congress is trying

37:14

to do what they can. I don't think it's

37:16

fast enough, but

37:18

I was pleased to also see the RSV vaccines

37:21

coming through. I'm not happy at how

37:23

insurance is causing those issues to be blocked.

37:25

But there have been some like positive

37:27

bright spots in all of this doom

37:30

and gloom, or at least let me ask you, Lori, where

37:32

are there some bright spots in your mind, and then also

37:34

some caveats. And we can end there with words

37:37

of caution at thinking that COVID is behind

37:39

us.

37:40

Well, COVID is not behind us, but and

37:43

we still have it's still definitely mutating,

37:46

evolving. Just the latest reports

37:49

and sequences coming out from several

37:52

nations reported to just

37:54

say the

37:55

open source

37:57

viral sequencing.

37:59

data bank,

38:02

highly, highly mutated

38:04

new forms

38:05

of the virus coming out. So

38:07

I think each time that we look

38:10

in the rearview mirror and say bye bye COVID,

38:12

COVID evolves. And we forget

38:15

that we're dealing with, you know, basic

38:17

principles of natural selection

38:19

underway. So we're throwing drugs at

38:22

COVID that are only partially effective.

38:24

We're throwing vaccines at COVID

38:26

that do not stop transmission. And

38:28

we're allowing circulation now

38:31

because we're not wearing masks. And we're not, I

38:33

mean,

38:34

not all of us are not wearing masks, but most of the population

38:36

is not wearing masks.

38:37

And CDC

38:39

has said it's even, you know, kind of like you can

38:41

do your hospital can decide, you

38:43

want your nurses to be masked or not, it's

38:46

up to you. So we're, and

38:48

we don't have databases anymore. CDC

38:51

has taken a lot of the tracking

38:54

off their websites.

38:57

Hospitals are not

38:57

required to report certain things. So,

39:01

and if I look globally, I just

39:04

recently returned from South

39:05

Africa, and I had a chance to spend

39:08

time with a really

39:10

exciting

39:11

research team at the

39:13

University of Stellenbosch. This

39:15

is the team that discovered the Omicron virus.

39:18

Remember, that was, that was the one that evolved

39:21

out of nowhere, seemingly, and suddenly

39:23

was the responsible for the gigantic

39:26

second surge of COVID

39:28

in over the last three years. And

39:32

this, you know, these, these folks have

39:34

set up

39:36

what I think is the model for where

39:38

we go next. So, you know, Americans,

39:41

we tend to always think that whatever we're doing

39:43

is the right way to do it. Yeah,

39:45

we're the best. And in fact,

39:48

when you go out,

39:49

um,

39:50

you know, especially in developing countries like South

39:52

Africa, people are like, you guys were

39:54

pathetic. You had the highest

39:57

death rate on the planet.

39:58

Why should we emulate America?

40:00

Stop acting like your appropriate

40:03

foreign

40:03

policy in the global health

40:05

space

40:05

is to offer up your expertise.

40:09

What damned expertise? Don't

40:11

throw your CDC

40:11

at us. Respect that we

40:14

did better than you.

40:15

So South Africa, you know, their

40:17

response was brilliant, actually.

40:20

They had a very low death rate, certainly

40:22

far lower than we. And why was that

40:24

the case? First of all, they

40:27

have a huge background of HIV and experience

40:29

of dealing with AIDS and a vast

40:31

infrastructure of public health that was

40:33

set up to deal with tuberculosis, AIDS

40:36

and malaria across South Africa

40:39

and other infectious diseases. So

40:41

they never, like us, got so arrogant

40:44

as if to act like infectious

40:46

problems were somebody else's, not us.

40:48

We're too advanced

40:49

for that, right? And

40:53

they have an infrastructure that

40:54

goes all the way down into the townships,

40:57

into the village level, across

40:59

the country. So COVID comes along

41:01

and they immediately activate that infrastructure

41:04

and say, everybody, keep your ears and

41:06

eyes open.

41:07

And then they set up

41:08

this spectacular genomic

41:11

laboratory at University of Stellenbosch.

41:14

And inside, I mean, this would be the envy

41:16

of any biologist in the world.

41:18

I mean, people who visit it, like myself,

41:21

say, wow, I want to work here. This

41:23

is how it should be. And they

41:25

understand that

41:28

you have to integrate environmental

41:30

sampling,

41:31

wastewater samples drawn

41:34

from hospitals, and

41:36

then general, you

41:38

know, patient sampling. You

41:40

have to integrate that to find, constantly

41:42

look for missing viruses,

41:45

for mutations, for new

41:47

viruses that may come unexpected

41:49

from sources you didn't imagine as COVID

41:52

did. And so not surprisingly,

41:54

they're the ones that found

41:55

Omicron, not because it was in circulation

41:57

in South Africa. It was not. It was

41:59

actually.

41:59

found in a traveler at the

42:02

Johannesburg Airport.

42:03

But they were the only

42:06

place where the integration of all forms

42:08

of sampling went straight to a central

42:11

spectacular laboratory where

42:15

the highest tech possible machines are

42:17

24-7 testing and

42:20

screening, multiple samples coming

42:22

up with their RNA or DNA sequences,

42:25

as the case may be, and then matching them

42:27

against known sequences and determining. Oh

42:29

my god, we see. So for example, that

42:32

lab

42:33

like that, faster than our CDC could

42:35

ever have done,

42:36

identified that a new mutant strain of

42:39

falciparum malaria, I mean,

42:41

not falciparum, sorry, a

42:43

wrong thing of your cenia.

42:46

I

42:48

have to put my brain

42:51

on rewind.

42:51

Sorry, back.

42:52

OK. That

42:54

a new form

42:56

of Vibrio cholera had emerged

42:58

in Malawi. And

43:01

it took a huge toll

43:02

last year across Malawi. They

43:05

spotted it. They identified the genetic

43:07

difference.

43:09

That went straight to whether or not the

43:11

vaccines would work and straight to

43:14

what kind of antibiotic treatment might be most

43:16

efficacious for the patients. And

43:19

as you know, as a physician,

43:21

treating cholera is really tricky

43:23

because when the cholera

43:25

Vibrio dies, it releases this

43:28

really powerful toxin and

43:30

poisons the human body. So

43:33

treating with antibiotics could actually make

43:36

the patient worse if you don't know what you're

43:38

doing. If you don't know what you're doing, yeah. And

43:41

certainly,

43:41

it's interesting having done

43:43

work in other countries because

43:45

they're used to seeing it and they're ready to

43:47

screen for it. So I was the

43:49

first person who was about to say, oh, we should do antibiotics.

43:52

No, this is cholera. No, no, no, this is cholera, baby.

43:56

This is a nasty one. And you don't know what

43:58

you're doing. Yeah, basically.

43:59

like, oh, you know, we have to prevent them from going to the sepsis

44:02

given antibiotics. And so it was,

44:04

yeah, no, you're, you're,

44:06

well, Laurie, as much as, as much as I'd

44:08

like to say that I feel better after

44:10

talking to you, I'm, I'm,

44:12

I feel better for having spoken

44:14

to you. I don't know if I feel better about our country

44:17

after sitting in and that's okay.

44:19

I think, I think that's the,

44:21

maybe the connection that we're all seeking. I

44:23

think a lot of us are talking about this kind of

44:25

offline with you, with

44:28

friends, like,

44:29

how do we make meaning, especially like,

44:31

just how do you make sense that it was insensible?

44:33

I

44:34

felt that way actually when Kevin McCarthy

44:36

became speaker to

44:37

be honest, after 15 rounds

44:40

of going through that. And when

44:41

the key vote was a guy

44:44

who's now under what, 21 indictments,

44:46

indictments, 21, our long Island,

44:48

right? Congressman, should we call him

44:51

real boss? I don't even know what

44:53

his name is. Nobody does. Nobody

44:55

does. So I agree. And so I, I

44:58

thought that's when we were kind of, wow,

45:00

I really need to understand meaning in life and

45:02

connections. I actually went back. That was a moment

45:05

that for me, it, I had been reading

45:08

books like yours. I had been a consumer

45:10

of nonfiction just because of the chaos, the COVID,

45:13

and wanting to kind of get back to reading

45:15

science and truth and facts and

45:17

separating it from fiction. I have

45:19

been reading fiction because it's just not possible.

45:21

It is impossible to get through

45:24

the newspapers, just get through

45:26

news

45:27

and not feel this like pit in your stomach,

45:30

this sense of despair. And so what

45:32

I appreciate about our conversation is we're not

45:35

trying to, we're not trying to put rose colored

45:37

glasses on anything in this. In fact, we're

45:39

actually encouraging people to take them off because I think

45:41

you're illustrating that

45:43

just focusing and maybe

45:45

focusing on Donald Trump too much. We're missing

45:47

the forest from the trees to your point that started before

45:49

that. If we're focusing on Israel

45:52

and with unfolding from terrorist

45:55

actions in the Gaza Strip,

45:56

we're missing what unfolded before that. And

45:59

that holds true for

45:59

Palestine too. So I think

46:02

there's a lot to hopefully listeners

46:05

will pause, go back, listen,

46:07

pause, go back and listen, because I think there's

46:09

a lot of like really important themes

46:12

that have come out that I know we're going to benefit

46:14

from on words matter. And I'm going to

46:16

be so bold as to invite

46:17

you back

46:18

kind of whenever I'm going to tell a

46:21

norm that I think we

46:23

found an incredible partner in

46:26

pushing our thinking. He's the one that often does

46:28

this

46:28

for me because he

46:30

spends an incredible amount of time like thinking

46:32

through as you know these issues and

46:35

talks about them very publicly, which

46:37

I think is important. But

46:38

you really do

46:41

give us a healthy dose of what

46:44

we needed and I thank you for that. So

46:46

with that, I want to thank Laurie Garrett,

46:48

our incredible co-host for this week and

46:50

thank all the listeners. And I'll just close

46:53

with kind of a

46:54

true like reflection that it

46:57

is okay to turn off all the media, social

46:59

media, real newsfeeds, fake

47:01

newsfeeds, whatever your feeds might be if

47:03

you need to because of when

47:06

Laurie talks about kind of the images that she

47:08

went back and had to actually kind of validate

47:10

and verify and lo and behold, many of the horrible

47:13

ones are validated and verified.

47:16

You wouldn't be human if it didn't get to

47:17

you. So I do think that it's okay to kind

47:19

of stop and regroup and I hope that that can

47:21

be a prescription for everybody. I also want to thank

47:23

our incredible producer, Riley Fessler, and

47:26

our executive producer, Chris Cottmarr. And

47:28

the next episode of Words Matter will be,

47:31

please share this one, but the next episode should be

47:33

in your in baskets around October

47:36

19th. Thank you. you