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Transcript

“Third shot’s the charm.” · Pod Save America

0:01
Speaker 1: Thank you. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 1: On today's show, President Biden grapples with criticism from Republicans
0:26
Speaker 1: like Donald Trump, journalists, pundits, and fellow Democrats over his
0:29
Speaker 1: decision to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan. Then Surgeon General
0:34
Speaker 1: Vivek Murthy chats with me about the administration's announcement that
0:37
Speaker 1: Americans will be offered COVID-19 booster shots starting in late September.
0:43
Speaker 1: One quick note before we start. This week is the
0:46
Speaker 1: season finale of All Caps on YouTube, hosted by Jason Concepcion.
0:50
Speaker 1: All Caps will be back in the fall, but until then,
0:53
Speaker 1: you can catch Jason on his podcast, Take Line, as
0:56
Speaker 1: well as a brand new podcast we're launching called X-Ray Vision.
1:00
Speaker 1: Each week, Jason will deep dive into your favorite films,
1:03
Speaker 1: TV shows, and comics, including Shang-Chi, The Legend of the
1:07
Speaker 1: Ten Rings, and Why the Last Man. The X-Ray Vision
1:11
Speaker 1: trailer is out now. And the first episode drops on
1:14
Speaker 1: August 30th. Subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. All right,
1:19
Speaker 1: let's get to the news, which has been dominated by Afghanistan.
1:22
Speaker 1: I would highly recommend listening to the latest pod save
1:26
Speaker 1: the world on this subject. I think Tommy and Ben
1:29
Speaker 1: did an outstanding job providing context, perspective, history, nuance takes
1:36
Speaker 1: that are hard to find on, uh, social media and
1:39
Speaker 1: cable news. Um, As for us, you know, unlike many
1:43
Speaker 1: Twitter users, Dan and I did not suddenly become foreign
1:45
Speaker 1: policy experts shortly after the fall of Kabul. But we
1:49
Speaker 1: do have some experience in politics and media. So we're
1:51
Speaker 1: going to spend most of this episode talking about how
1:53
Speaker 1: the events in Afghanistan are shaping domestic politics and media
1:57
Speaker 1: coverage here in the U.S. That obviously starts with President Biden,
2:00
Speaker 1: who sat down with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday for
2:03
Speaker 1: his first one-on-one interview since the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
2:07
Speaker 1: Here's a clip.
2:08
Speaker 3: Look, I don't think it was a fair. Look, it
2:10
Speaker 3: was a simple choice, George. When the Taliban, let me
2:15
Speaker 3: put it another way. When you had the government of Afghanistan,
2:22
Speaker 3: the leader of that government, getting in a plane and
2:24
Speaker 3: taking off and going to another country, when you saw
2:27
Speaker 3: the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained,
2:34
Speaker 3: up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and
2:37
Speaker 3: taking off, That was, you know, that's what happened. That's
2:42
Speaker 3: simply what happened.
2:43
Speaker 4: But we've all seen the pictures. We've seen those hundreds
2:46
Speaker 4: of people packed into a C-17. We've seen Afghans falling.
2:50
Speaker 3: That was four days ago, five days ago.
2:52
Speaker 4: What did you think when you first saw those pictures?
2:54
Speaker 3: What I thought was we have to gain control of this.
2:58
Speaker 3: We have to move this more quickly. We have to
3:00
Speaker 3: move in a way in which we can take control
3:03
Speaker 3: of that airport.
3:04
Speaker 5: And we did.
3:05
Speaker 4: So you don't think this could have been handled, this
3:07
Speaker 4: actually could have been handled... better in any way?
3:10
Speaker 2: No mistakes?
3:11
Speaker 3: No, I don't think it could have been handled in
3:14
Speaker 3: a way that we're going to go back in hindsight
3:17
Speaker 3: and look, but the idea that somehow there's a way
3:21
Speaker 3: to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know
3:24
Speaker 3: how that happens. I don't know how that happened.
3:27
Speaker 4: So for you, that was always priced into the decision?
3:30
Speaker 1: Yes. So the president also said that U.S. troops will
3:33
Speaker 1: now stay in Afghanistan until every American who wants to
3:36
Speaker 1: leave can leave. even if that means extending the mission
3:38
Speaker 1: beyond his August 31st withdrawal deadline. And then he also
3:42
Speaker 1: wants to help evacuate between what he said is 50
3:45
Speaker 1: and 65,000 Afghans. As you heard in that clip, what
3:48
Speaker 1: Biden didn't do is admit any mistakes. It seems like
3:51
Speaker 1: the message from Biden's Monday speech and this interview is,
3:56
Speaker 1: you know, the Taliban's quick success may have surprised us,
3:59
Speaker 1: but I stand by my decision to withdraw when we did.
4:01
Speaker 1: Leaving more troops there after 20 years of fighting only
4:04
Speaker 1: would have led to more Americans dying in another country's
4:06
Speaker 1: unwinnable civil war. And now we're focused on getting our
4:10
Speaker 1: citizens and our allies out safely. What do you think
4:13
Speaker 1: about that message in the context of the hand that
4:17
Speaker 1: Biden's been dealt here?
4:18
Speaker 2: Well, I think, as is often the case, I consumed
4:22
Speaker 2: this clip from this interview on Twitter first, right, with
4:26
Speaker 2: people telling you what it says. And I actually think
4:29
Speaker 2: in listening to it, Biden's answer was more complicated and
4:33
Speaker 2: complex and nuanced and perhaps not as clear as it
4:36
Speaker 2: should be as some of the Twitter shorthands.
4:38
Speaker 6: Of it were.
4:40
Speaker 2: He did not admit mistakes, but he also didn't say
4:43
Speaker 2: we didn't make any mistakes. He sort of kind of
4:45
Speaker 2: half said, well, in hindsight, but now we're moving forward.
4:49
Speaker 2: And he did– when– George pushed him on just the
4:54
Speaker 2: horrifying pictures that everyone saw. He said, well, that was
4:57
Speaker 2: four days ago, clearly implying we have improved the situation
5:01
Speaker 2: and addressed it. We're taking a step back from– I
5:06
Speaker 2: think that's just important because this answer in the ultimate–
5:10
Speaker 2: example of intellectual laziness has been treated as Trumpian. Never
5:13
Speaker 2: admit mistakes. That's not exactly what happened here. It's more complex.
5:16
Speaker 2: I think, in fairness, not super clear. There was a
5:20
Speaker 2: little bit of a conflicting message there. In general, or
5:26
Speaker 2: to take a step back, I think what Biden is
5:30
Speaker 2: saying is going to be quite compelling to the majority
5:33
Speaker 2: of Americans, which is we have a choice here. And
5:36
Speaker 2: it is a choice that is 20 years in the making.
5:40
Speaker 2: There are no good options here. But if the choice
5:42
Speaker 2: is between continuing to put more Americans in harm's way
5:49
Speaker 2: for the purpose of forestalling what Biden believes, and I
5:52
Speaker 2: think the last few days suggest, is a nearly inevitable outcome,
5:56
Speaker 2: it's not something he is willing to do. And therefore,
5:59
Speaker 2: all of this, put aside the very real execution errors
6:02
Speaker 2: in terms of getting people out that others more schooled
6:05
Speaker 2: in these things can speak about. And Tommy and Ben
6:07
Speaker 2: spoke about that excellent episode. But the broader point here
6:10
Speaker 2: is what is happening is evidence of why we have
6:12
Speaker 2: to get out, right? Could we have gotten out smoother?
6:14
Speaker 2: Could we have gotten out in a more humanitarian friendly way? Absolutely.
6:18
Speaker 2: But the die was cast here. And that's the argument
6:21
Speaker 2: he's making.
6:22
Speaker 1: That is correct. I think that the press is now
6:25
Speaker 1: in a situation where their belief is if he doesn't
6:29
Speaker 1: take responsibility or admit mistakes with regard to the execution
6:33
Speaker 1: errors- they're not going to let them off the hook, right?
6:38
Speaker 1: Like it's one of those things that, you know, we've
6:39
Speaker 1: seen this happen before. Like if you're a president and
6:41
Speaker 1: everyone has come to the agreement that you did something wrong,
6:44
Speaker 1: unless you own up to it, you're still going to
6:47
Speaker 1: be in the barrel. And I do, I mean, now
6:50
Speaker 1: my view on this is it's just too soon to tell, right?
6:53
Speaker 1: Like if you don't believe, if you're someone who doesn't
6:57
Speaker 1: believe the Taliban could have been defeated, right? If you
6:59
Speaker 1: do believe they could have been defeated with, you know,
7:02
Speaker 1: after 20 years, a couple trillion dollars, thousands of U.S. troops.
7:07
Speaker 1: Please explain why. I haven't heard any compelling explanation. If
7:10
Speaker 1: you don't think they could have been defeated, then I
7:13
Speaker 1: think Biden and the Biden administration deserve to be judged
7:16
Speaker 1: on whether we can evacuate every American and Afghan ally safely.
7:22
Speaker 1: We don't know that yet. Clearly, they didn't get that
7:24
Speaker 1: done before the collapse of Kabul. That's clear. But they're
7:27
Speaker 1: trying now. And whether they succeed remains to be seen.
7:32
Speaker 1: you know, we've heard as of this recording, there have been,
7:35
Speaker 1: we heard this morning from the administration, from the military,
7:38
Speaker 1: that there have been 12,000 evacuated since July, 7,000 since Saturday.
7:44
Speaker 1: The military hasn't experienced any security incidents at the airport yet.
7:48
Speaker 1: Of course, there are also reports that outside of the airport,
7:51
Speaker 1: the Taliban is making it very hard for Afghans to
7:54
Speaker 1: get to the airport in the first place. So I
7:56
Speaker 1: think this all remains to be seen, but the press
7:58
Speaker 1: is definitely in the current mindset of, you don't apologize
8:01
Speaker 1: and take responsibility for what we all believe is a
8:04
Speaker 1: horrible mistake, then you're screwed.
8:06
Speaker 2: I think there's a paradox to Biden's messaging in the
8:08
Speaker 2: sense that I think the average American will find this compelling,
8:14
Speaker 2: but it will further inflame the media who are telling
8:17
Speaker 2: the story to the average American. There is a tradition
8:20
Speaker 2: in Washington where when you are, as you said, in
8:24
Speaker 2: the barrel, which is an Obama term for when you
8:26
Speaker 2: are at the center of a media firestorm where the
8:30
Speaker 2: media Republicans and some Democrats are all coming at you
8:33
Speaker 2: for the same thing for something. And in those situations,
8:37
Speaker 2: the tradition is you have to do one of two
8:41
Speaker 2: and sometimes both of these things to get out. You
8:42
Speaker 2: have to fire someone. Heads must roll, right? There's a
8:45
Speaker 2: blood loss in Washington. And you have to eat ceremonial
8:48
Speaker 2: shit on national television. You have to go hold a
8:51
Speaker 2: press conference and just let them beat the shit out
8:53
Speaker 2: of you. Or you have to give an interview with
8:55
Speaker 2: a well-known, respected, tough interviewer A long time ago, that
8:59
Speaker 2: would be someone like a Tim Russert who was just
9:01
Speaker 2: going to kick the crap out of you and you're
9:03
Speaker 2: going to admit your flaws. Washington can pat itself on
9:05
Speaker 2: the back and move on. Now, Trump did not do
9:08
Speaker 2: that ever. Like that was not his thing.
9:12
Speaker 1: Right.
9:12
Speaker 2: And Bowman said, well, will that work for him? Well,
9:14
Speaker 2: he's also currently living in Mar-a-Lago and not the White House.
9:17
Speaker 2: So maybe it didn't work for him. We don't know.
9:19
Speaker 2: But this is the test. And sometimes we– President Obama
9:22
Speaker 2: sometimes gets his back up because he doesn't think he's
9:25
Speaker 2: wrong and therefore– doesn't eat shit in the beginning, and
9:29
Speaker 2: then eventually has to. We'll see how this plays out.
9:31
Speaker 2: I think what happens on the ground will make a
9:33
Speaker 2: big difference. Is there more stability? Are Americans getting out?
9:37
Speaker 2: Are allies getting out? Is there a change of circumstances?
9:39
Speaker 2: And then this will end up being yet another in
9:42
Speaker 2: a long history of, from a political perspective, not the
9:45
Speaker 2: very real national security humanitarian issues here, but from a
9:48
Speaker 2: political perspective, one of these August firestorms that doesn't make
9:52
Speaker 2: it to Labor Day.
9:54
Speaker 1: I wonder what you think about the criticism that Biden
9:57
Speaker 1: has not expressed more empathy for the Afghan people. We've
10:02
Speaker 1: seen this from some reporters and pundits. Tommy and Ben
10:06
Speaker 1: also talked about this on Pod Save the World. And look,
10:10
Speaker 1: I hate to be the kind of pundit that is like,
10:14
Speaker 1: the president must emote on demand and then things will
10:17
Speaker 1: be better because it seems like it's an optics thing.
10:20
Speaker 1: But I'm actually genuinely curious why President Biden is not
10:26
Speaker 1: speaking more about sort of the situation, the dire situation
10:31
Speaker 1: that a lot of our Afghan allies are in as
10:34
Speaker 1: we're trying to get them out of the country. Because
10:37
Speaker 1: I don't know what you lose by talking about that.
10:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am. I am equally mystified by that. I
10:43
Speaker 2: like it is like he is one of the most
10:46
Speaker 2: empathetic people ever. that either of us have ever met.
10:49
Speaker 2: And so I am curious about that. Maybe there's going
10:52
Speaker 2: to be a lot of messaging about this in the
10:53
Speaker 2: coming days. Maybe we'll see more of that. It's not
10:54
Speaker 2: just our allies, right? It's the people of Afghanistan broadly.
10:58
Speaker 2: It's every woman and girl in Afghanistan who is now
11:01
Speaker 2: living under the rule of the Taliban. You can be
11:05
Speaker 2: frustrated with the corruption of the Afghan government. You can
11:08
Speaker 2: be frustrated with the corruption of the Afghan military leaders
11:12
Speaker 2: who cut these side deals with the Taliban and believe
11:17
Speaker 2: that it is not in America's interest to send our
11:22
Speaker 2: troops to fight and die in the middle of a
11:26
Speaker 2: civil war and still be heartbroken about what's going to
11:30
Speaker 2: happen to the people there. You can do all of
11:33
Speaker 2: those things. I hope we see more of that. I
11:37
Speaker 2: do not believe it's some sort of political calculation. That's
11:39
Speaker 2: just not who Joe Biden is. It may be He's
11:42
Speaker 2: responding to all the criticism about execution or his original decision,
11:47
Speaker 2: and maybe he's defensive about it or pushing back. But
11:50
Speaker 2: I do hope we see more empathy just because that
11:52
Speaker 2: is authentic to him.
11:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think what he's trying to say here
11:58
Speaker 1: is human rights are critical, but that military intervention isn't
12:04
Speaker 1: the way to uphold human rights around the world. And
12:06
Speaker 1: he basically says that at a later point in the
12:09
Speaker 1: Stephanopoulos interview. And that, I think, is a valid point
12:12
Speaker 1: and important lesson to take away from Afghanistan. But I
12:16
Speaker 1: think you probably could spend a little more time on
12:18
Speaker 1: why human rights are so important and how much you
12:21
Speaker 1: care about them.
12:21
Speaker 4: Right.
12:22
Speaker 1: Before saying, yes, there's a way to uphold human rights
12:24
Speaker 1: through diplomatic, economic pressure, et cetera, et cetera. But military
12:29
Speaker 1: intervention is not one of them because it has now
12:31
Speaker 1: failed every time we've tried it.
12:33
Speaker 2: I mean, you can go around the world and find
12:36
Speaker 2: dozens of places on any day where the US could
12:40
Speaker 2: go in and help people.
12:42
Speaker 1: And Biden mentions this in the interview. He talks about,
12:45
Speaker 1: he's like, look at what's happening with the Uyghurs. He
12:48
Speaker 1: mentions a few places in the world where human rights
12:51
Speaker 1: are being violated and we're not intervening militarily.
12:53
Speaker 2: And every president has to make a decision about whether
12:55
Speaker 2: that is in America's interest to do so.
12:57
Speaker 5: Right?
12:59
Speaker 2: And so that is the choice. And I think it
13:02
Speaker 2: is– we'll get to what I imagine will be a
13:05
Speaker 2: quite passionate conversation about some of the press coverage of
13:07
Speaker 2: this later in this podcast. But when all these reporters
13:12
Speaker 2: keep saying Biden's cold calculation that Americans will care more
13:16
Speaker 2: about American citizens and American soldiers than Afghan citizens, that
13:20
Speaker 2: treats this as if Biden invented the idea that you
13:24
Speaker 2: make decisions based on American interest and about what you
13:27
Speaker 2: are willing to put American lives at risk for. Every
13:31
Speaker 2: foreign policy military decision in the history of this country,
13:35
Speaker 2: in the history of the world, frankly, relies on that calculus.
13:39
Speaker 1: Well, it also ignores the fact that the Biden administration
13:41
Speaker 1: is trying very hard right now to evacuate Afghans from
13:44
Speaker 1: the country. You can blame them for not having done
13:46
Speaker 1: it earlier. They should have. There was obviously poor planning.
13:52
Speaker 1: Or at the very least, the Taliban's success surprised them,
13:55
Speaker 1: caught them unaware, which they have admitted, and they could
13:58
Speaker 1: have evacuated more people before. But they're certainly trying now,
14:01
Speaker 1: so it's obviously not a cold political calculation right now.
14:04
Speaker 1: They're trying to evacuate Afghans and bring them to the
14:06
Speaker 1: United States and to other countries.
14:08
Speaker 2: If you were to go back and try to find...
14:11
Speaker 2: some things that could have been done, not from an
14:14
Speaker 2: execution military strategy standpoint, but from a messaging standpoint that
14:19
Speaker 2: I think helped compound the political problem here, was that
14:25
Speaker 2: even though Biden, who has been crystal clear for a
14:28
Speaker 2: decade in his view that we cannot solve the problems
14:32
Speaker 2: of Afghanistan, I think everyone– Democrats in Congress, the Biden administration,
14:38
Speaker 2: the president, everyone, ourselves, was overly triumphal with the decision
14:42
Speaker 2: to withdraw. He didn't declare a mission accomplished or anything,
14:46
Speaker 2: but it was seen as this big and poor thing
14:47
Speaker 2: without properly setting expectations. Because what is happening with Taliban
14:52
Speaker 2: control was going to happen now, three months from now,
14:56
Speaker 2: six months from now, a year from now. And that's
14:58
Speaker 2: what all the intelligence said. That was what all of
15:01
Speaker 2: the trends in the country suggested in sort of setting
15:04
Speaker 2: the stage for in preparing people for what was going
15:07
Speaker 2: to happen, I think would have possibly removed at least
15:11
Speaker 2: some of the shock in.
15:13
Speaker 1: How fast- Yeah, I mean, look, Biden said in July,
15:16
Speaker 1: it's not going to be a chaotic exit, and it was.
15:19
Speaker 1: It's very simple. Everyone can understand that, right? He was
15:22
Speaker 1: incorrect and, you know, about that point for sure. All right,
15:26
Speaker 1: let's talk about how Americans feel about all this. The
15:28
Speaker 1: short answer is confused. With the huge caveat that polls
15:32
Speaker 1: taken in the middle of a rapidly changing news event
15:35
Speaker 1: are even more unreliable than usual. Here's a summary of
15:38
Speaker 1: what the data is telling us so far. More Americans
15:41
Speaker 1: still support Biden's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan
15:44
Speaker 1: than oppose it. But that support has dropped since last month,
15:48
Speaker 1: especially among independents and Republicans. People don't think Biden has
15:52
Speaker 1: handled Afghanistan in the last several weeks particularly well. No
15:55
Speaker 1: surprise there. His average approval rating is forty nine point
15:59
Speaker 1: eight percent, which is the lowest of his presidency, though
16:02
Speaker 1: there is plenty of evidence that his number started dropping
16:05
Speaker 1: well before the Taliban's victory. But just to give you
16:08
Speaker 1: a sense of how confused people are, to put it charitably,
16:11
Speaker 1: a Reuters Ipsos poll found that Americans support sending combat
16:15
Speaker 1: troops back into Afghanistan right now by 50 to 36 percent.
16:20
Speaker 5: Huh.
16:21
Speaker 1: The same poll also found that Americans support completing the
16:24
Speaker 1: withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan by By 61 to 25%.
16:29
Speaker 1: 68% of Americans agree that the war in Afghanistan was
16:32
Speaker 1: going to end badly no matter what when the U.S. left.
16:35
Speaker 1: And 63% agree that the rapid collapse of the Afghan
16:38
Speaker 1: government shows why it was right for the U.S. to leave.
16:41
Speaker 1: But by 51 to 32%, Americans think it would have
16:44
Speaker 1: been worth it to leave troops there for another year.
16:46
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. What do you make of all this carefully
16:50
Speaker 1: thought through public sentiment?
16:53
Speaker 2: Ever since you sent me this poll last– yes, afternoon,
16:57
Speaker 2: I've been trying to find a way to put this
17:01
Speaker 2: into a coherent narrative. And I actually think that when
17:05
Speaker 2: you– it seems super conflicting to me. on its face.
17:10
Speaker 2: I do think there is some coherence, which is we
17:12
Speaker 2: need to get out. We need to get out better.
17:14
Speaker 2: It may take sending some troops temporarily to get the
17:17
Speaker 2: people we need to get out safely, and so that
17:20
Speaker 2: is okay. Actually, what this tells me is that people
17:24
Speaker 2: pretty much agree with what Biden is doing and also
17:28
Speaker 2: are surprised, frustrated, shocked, and disappointed by how quickly the
17:34
Speaker 2: Afghan government that we have been supporting and the Afghan
17:37
Speaker 2: military have been supporting for two decades fell. This is
17:43
Speaker 2: an incredibly complex issue with 20 years of history and
17:50
Speaker 2: mistakes and 40 years, 50 years of Afghanistan and US intervention,
17:57
Speaker 2: all of that coming together. It does make a little
18:01
Speaker 2: bit of sense that people are going to have somewhat
18:03
Speaker 2: conflicting emotions. The other part of it is, and this
18:06
Speaker 2: is an indictment of the whole effort is we have tried,
18:08
Speaker 2: we America dating back to the day we invaded, we
18:12
Speaker 2: took our eye off the ball and invaded Iraq is
18:14
Speaker 2: have tried to do this war on the cheap, right?
18:18
Speaker 2: We want to do this, but we don't want to
18:19
Speaker 2: have a lot of people there. We want to spend
18:21
Speaker 2: some money, but not a ton of money. We want
18:23
Speaker 2: people to not, the American people not really have to
18:24
Speaker 2: pay attention to it unless you were someone who has
18:26
Speaker 2: a family member who was over there. And so people
18:29
Speaker 2: have tuned out of this war for a long time.
18:31
Speaker 2: In many cases, since the day bin Laden was killed, um,
18:35
Speaker 2: And so all of a sudden it's on the news again.
18:37
Speaker 2: And they're like, how did we get here? So the
18:38
Speaker 2: fact that people are, there's a little bit sort of
18:40
Speaker 2: destabilizing sense that we're back talking about this. And the
18:44
Speaker 2: news is 20 years later, it's September 10th, 2001 again
18:49
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan. That is, you know, I think disorienting to people.
18:53
Speaker 5: Yeah.
18:53
Speaker 1: I think the crude summary of how people view this,
18:57
Speaker 1: according to all this data is we're sick of war.
19:00
Speaker 1: We want troops home, but we don't like images of
19:03
Speaker 1: chaos and destruction and violence. So fix it. You're the president.
19:06
Speaker 1: Fix it.
19:07
Speaker 2: But do it cheaply and don't bother us with it.
19:10
Speaker 6: Right.
19:10
Speaker 1: That is sort of public opinion on this. And so, no,
19:14
Speaker 1: no one likes seeing the U.S. lose a war. No
19:17
Speaker 1: one likes seeing violence. No one likes seeing the images
19:19
Speaker 1: that we've seen over the last few days. But they
19:21
Speaker 1: also feel like they don't want to commit troops to
19:24
Speaker 1: this war because they'd rather not be involved in a war.
19:26
Speaker 1: So that's what public opinion is right now. Is the
19:29
Speaker 1: long-term political impact of what's happening this week and what's
19:34
Speaker 1: happening in Afghanistan dictated entirely by factors like how well
19:39
Speaker 1: this evacuation goes? Or is there anything else that Biden
19:42
Speaker 1: and the White House can do or say to sort
19:44
Speaker 1: of mitigate the political damage here?
19:47
Speaker 2: Absent some extraordinary circumstances, where there was a terrorist attack
19:52
Speaker 2: in America that was related to this, or if we
19:55
Speaker 2: end up in a situation where Americans are losing their
19:58
Speaker 2: lives in Afghanistan, American citizens who did not get out
20:01
Speaker 2: I do not believe Afghanistan is going to be front
20:03
Speaker 2: of mind for the American public for particularly a long time.
20:06
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a particularly positive thing to say
20:09
Speaker 2: about the American public, but we tune in and we
20:12
Speaker 2: tune out, particularly on foreign policy issues that we feel
20:16
Speaker 2: are pretty disconnected from our immediate lives, right? Unless you
20:19
Speaker 2: are one of the people who serve there, who knows
20:22
Speaker 2: people there, you are disconnected from it.
20:25
Speaker 1: And I will just say this, forget about foreign policy issues.
20:28
Speaker 1: the attention span of the average American voter on any issue, uh,
20:33
Speaker 1: is as small as it's ever been, right? Like there
20:36
Speaker 1: was a violent insurrection, uh, against Congress to try to, uh,
20:43
Speaker 1: you know, prevent, uh, the president from taking office. There
20:47
Speaker 1: was an attempted coup and everyone's just like, can Donald
20:51
Speaker 1: Trump still be the Republican nominee and president? Maybe like, like,
20:56
Speaker 1: In 2020, people saw their neighbors and families dying of
20:59
Speaker 1: a deadly disease. We now have a vaccine for it.
21:03
Speaker 1: People are dying again. And there's a whole bunch of
21:05
Speaker 1: people not taking the vaccine. Like memories are so short now.
21:08
Speaker 4: Right.
21:08
Speaker 1: So it's like I think back in back in the
21:11
Speaker 1: day when we were in the Obama White House, you
21:12
Speaker 1: could say, oh, yeah, well, there's a difference between like
21:14
Speaker 1: people's memories, attention span on domestic political issues versus foreign policy. Now,
21:19
Speaker 1: I don't even know if there's much of a difference.
21:21
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like I said, I don't know if
21:23
Speaker 1: this is I don't want to say this is a
21:25
Speaker 1: good thing. That everyone's going to forget about this because
21:28
Speaker 1: it is very possible that we leave behind a lot
21:31
Speaker 1: of Afghan allies who wanted to leave Afghanistan like that
21:34
Speaker 1: is that is a very possible outcome here. But I
21:37
Speaker 1: don't know that America that American voters can sort of
21:40
Speaker 1: like keep these crises and these issues in their head
21:44
Speaker 1: for a very long time.
21:46
Speaker 2: And there's a tendency in political punditry and analysis to
21:49
Speaker 2: silo these things. Like how do you fix your Afghan
21:51
Speaker 2: political problem? And it's like, well, we got to do
21:53
Speaker 2: a press conference and you should go visit some troops
21:56
Speaker 2: and maybe there'll be some Afghan refugees to go invite
21:59
Speaker 2: to the White House or something like that. And like
22:01
Speaker 2: all of that does matter. But the way to think
22:04
Speaker 2: about these things in terms of political risk is do
22:07
Speaker 2: they contribute to a damaging political narrative? Is this one
22:10
Speaker 2: data point? Does this undermine the– notion that the American
22:15
Speaker 2: people have that Biden is a strong and competent leader.
22:17
Speaker 2: Because that is why he won the election, was competence.
22:20
Speaker 2: And he has demonstrated that throughout this presidency. That is
22:24
Speaker 2: what has kept his approval ratings up the entire time.
22:27
Speaker 2: It is impossible to know whether this is going to
22:30
Speaker 2: impact that in the long run. What I think will
22:33
Speaker 2: actually be determined that is probably what happens in the
22:36
Speaker 2: next month in Congress. Because to the extent we've seen
22:39
Speaker 2: some diminution in Biden's approval rating, it's among Democrats. And
22:44
Speaker 2: if Biden follows up a difficult situation in Afghanistan and
22:49
Speaker 2: sort of is treated as quote unquote bungled in all
22:52
Speaker 2: of the headlines, and we can fight over how bungled
22:54
Speaker 2: or not bungled that is, with failing to get his
22:58
Speaker 2: two bills out of Congress, with a debt ceiling battle,
23:01
Speaker 2: there's a whole bunch of things that can come together
23:04
Speaker 2: to create this narrative that undermines his strength. And we
23:06
Speaker 2: should be clear, Democrats have zero fucking margin of error.
23:10
Speaker 5: Right?
23:11
Speaker 2: Biden has been up until this last period here, averaging
23:14
Speaker 2: about between 51 and 52 in approval rating. That is
23:17
Speaker 2: as low as he can possibly go and us hold
23:20
Speaker 2: the house. And it may even on its own not
23:22
Speaker 2: be high enough. So the idea that anything is going
23:25
Speaker 2: to bring him down is deeply concerning and sort of
23:28
Speaker 2: an existential threat to the entire enterprise for 2022.
23:32
Speaker 1: I'm of the view that passing his legislative agenda in
23:34
Speaker 1: Congress is necessary, but not sufficient. Like I think that
23:38
Speaker 1: his strongest political position will be if the pandemic is
23:42
Speaker 1: under control, the economy is in good shape, and the
23:45
Speaker 1: world is quiet, generally. The world is quiet relatively. I
23:49
Speaker 1: think if those three things are set up, it still
23:52
Speaker 1: doesn't guarantee a win at all, but that puts him
23:56
Speaker 1: in probably the strongest political position.
23:58
Speaker 2: My view of that, and I think this is a
24:00
Speaker 2: longer full pod conversation, maybe on the calendar year turns,
24:04
Speaker 2: is all of those things are necessary and but not sufficient,
24:09
Speaker 2: but it's not stability and calmness. It is the 20
24:14
Speaker 2: million or so Democratic voters who got engaged in the
24:17
Speaker 2: process in 2016, recognizing that this is an election with
24:21
Speaker 2: the highest possible stakes and that they are deeply worried
24:25
Speaker 2: that we could very quickly fall right back to where
24:28
Speaker 2: we were just a year ago.
24:30
Speaker 1: No, you're right. I mean, we need those. We absolutely
24:32
Speaker 1: need all of those voters. But as we know from
24:35
Speaker 1: 2020 and other elections, there's also a ton of voters
24:37
Speaker 1: who aren't paying too much attention to the news. Don't
24:40
Speaker 1: pay too much attention to politics or just like, like
24:42
Speaker 1: tune in a couple of weeks before election and then
24:44
Speaker 1: go vote. And for those people, it's going to be
24:46
Speaker 1: the conditions in their lives more than all the machinations
24:49
Speaker 1: of what's going on in Washington, I think. Um, but
24:53
Speaker 1: you're right that we need all the people who got
24:54
Speaker 1: involved in 2020 as well, that we don't have that we're,
24:56
Speaker 1: we're losing for sure. Um, So this brings me to
24:59
Speaker 1: sort of what Biden's dealing with in terms of, uh,
25:01
Speaker 1: other Democrats. You know, some Democrats in Congress are not
25:04
Speaker 1: only criticizing Biden on Afghanistan, at least three Democratic led
25:08
Speaker 1: Senate committees say they'll hold hearings about the withdrawal. Um,
25:12
Speaker 1: what do you think about that?
25:14
Speaker 2: I'm sort of torn on this, right? Like we do
25:17
Speaker 2: not want Democrats in Congress to be like Republicans in Congress, right.
25:22
Speaker 2: To just put aside all of their constitutional obligations to, um,
25:26
Speaker 2: Just be a bunch like the Republicans were, just a
25:27
Speaker 2: bunch of criminal conspiracists or apologists or anything like that.
25:33
Speaker 2: They should do oversight where oversight should be done. But
25:38
Speaker 2: these hearings are performative. When Bob Menendez puts out that statement,
25:43
Speaker 2: I'm sure he feels very seriously about the Senate and
25:46
Speaker 2: separate and equal, but it's also a way to get attention.
25:49
Speaker 2: It's a way to be able to spend more of
25:50
Speaker 2: his Sundays with Chuck Todd. And those hearings are good
25:55
Speaker 2: if there is some evidence that it's the only way
25:58
Speaker 2: Bob Menendez can get an answer about what's happening is
26:01
Speaker 2: by hauling Biden administration officials before Congress and creating a
26:05
Speaker 2: forum for Republicans to play politics on national TV and
26:09
Speaker 2: then buttressing that Republican message by doing performative lashing of them.
26:14
Speaker 2: If Joe Biden is not returning Bob Menendez's calls, if
26:17
Speaker 2: Bob Menendez cannot get Lloyd Austin or Tony Blinken or
26:20
Speaker 2: Jake Sullivan to talk to him about what's happening, then yes,
26:22
Speaker 2: he should absolutely help you before. But this is theater, right?
26:26
Speaker 2: If it is just theater, then it is counterproductive and
26:29
Speaker 2: it serves no one other than Bob Menendez or the
26:33
Speaker 2: other Democrat. I just picked Bob Menendez because he was
26:35
Speaker 2: the one whose statement I found most annoying.
26:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. You can believe that oversight is the right thing
26:41
Speaker 1: to do, but you should understand that we sort of
26:44
Speaker 1: operate in reality here. And the reality is that politics
26:48
Speaker 1: is often a zero-sum game. And if there are a
26:52
Speaker 1: bunch of Democrats holding hearings and Republicans obviously get to
26:55
Speaker 1: participate in those hearings and grill the Biden administration about
26:58
Speaker 1: Afghanistan for weeks on end, it will keep it in
27:01
Speaker 1: the news and it will drag down Biden's approval ratings
27:04
Speaker 1: and likely the approval ratings of Democrats in general and
27:07
Speaker 1: hurt the Democrats' chances of keeping the House, keeping the Senate,
27:12
Speaker 1: and ultimately protecting perhaps keeping the presidency. So that's just
27:16
Speaker 1: something to keep in mind. I'm not saying that's good
27:18
Speaker 1: or bad. It's that's that's what will likely happen if
27:21
Speaker 1: there are long drawn out sort of hearings that are
27:24
Speaker 1: that are investigations. When we come back, we'll talk about
27:27
Speaker 1: what Republicans had to say about Joe Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan. Hint,
27:31
Speaker 1: it's not good. Republicans aren't letting Democrats have all the fun.
27:45
Speaker 1: The same folks who fully embraced Donald Trump's deal with
27:48
Speaker 1: the Taliban to withdraw all U.S. troops now see an
27:50
Speaker 1: opportunity to inflict political damage on Joe Biden in a
27:52
Speaker 1: way they haven't been able to yet. So some of
27:55
Speaker 1: them are criticizing the execution of the withdrawal, like some
27:58
Speaker 1: Democrats and journalists have. The neocons and the hawks are
28:02
Speaker 1: doing their, you know, we should have stayed for everything.
28:06
Speaker 1: But the MAGA wing of the party, which is basically
28:08
Speaker 1: the whole party, has decided to zero in on the
28:11
Speaker 1: refugee issue, hoping to open a new front in the
28:13
Speaker 1: culture wars by scaring people into believing that brown foreigners
28:17
Speaker 1: are coming to terrorize their communities. And of course, Donald
28:20
Speaker 1: Trump himself hasn't been able to shut up about this
28:22
Speaker 1: over the last few days. Let's take a listen.
28:25
Speaker 7: All of the years our country has ever been so humiliated,
28:28
Speaker 7: I don't know, would you call it a military defeat
28:31
Speaker 7: or a psychological defeat? There's never been anything like what's
28:35
Speaker 7: happened here.
28:37
Speaker 8: We will see many refugees from Afghanistan resettle in our
28:40
Speaker 8: country in coming months, probably in your neighborhood. And over
28:42
Speaker 8: the next decade, that number may swell to the millions.
28:46
Speaker 8: So first we invade and then we're invaded.
28:49
Speaker 9: It is extraordinarily expensive to resettle a refugee in the
28:53
Speaker 9: United States. They get free health care. They get free education.
28:56
Speaker 9: They get free housing. They get free food. They get
28:59
Speaker 9: cash welfare.
29:01
Speaker 6: Thanks to Biden, they control more of Afghanistan than they
29:03
Speaker 6: did before 9-11. Our border is wider open now than
29:07
Speaker 6: it was before 9-11. This president refuses to do anything
29:12
Speaker 6: about it.
29:13
Speaker 8: Is it really our responsibility to welcome thousands of potentially
29:17
Speaker 8: unvetted refugees from Afghanistan?
29:20
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Let's start with Trump. How
29:23
Speaker 1: do you feel about Donald Trump being out there on
29:25
Speaker 1: the attack? Donald Trump, who invited the Taliban to Camp David,
29:29
Speaker 1: cut a deal without the Afghan government to withdraw U.S. troops,
29:33
Speaker 1: also a deal that freed a bunch of Taliban prisoners,
29:35
Speaker 1: one of whom is now president of Afghanistan, and then
29:38
Speaker 1: put out statements. after he left office and when Joe
29:42
Speaker 1: Biden was president, criticizing Biden for not withdrawing troops even
29:45
Speaker 1: earlier than he did. That's the Trump who's out there
29:48
Speaker 1: criticizing Joe Biden now.
29:51
Speaker 2: He also, in that interview, just decided to pat the
29:55
Speaker 2: Taliban on the back for being good fighters.
29:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, of course.
29:58
Speaker 2: I mean, could you just imagine what Fox News would
30:00
Speaker 2: do if Joe Biden had done that? I mean, look,
30:03
Speaker 2: it's weird. Donald Trump, model of consistency. It's strange that
30:06
Speaker 2: he is not being as consistent here. But I think
30:11
Speaker 2: that there is a– this was a really interesting part
30:14
Speaker 2: of the Tommy and Ben conversation on Pod Save the
30:16
Speaker 2: World that I think Democrats in the Biden administration should
30:19
Speaker 2: talk about more, which is how Donald Trump's mishandling of
30:23
Speaker 2: this tied their hands in a lot of ways. It
30:26
Speaker 2: was a terrible deal. He cut out the Afghan government,
30:32
Speaker 2: sent the contractors home, released a bunch of Taliban prisoners,
30:36
Speaker 2: and Biden was forced with– this was always going to
30:38
Speaker 2: be a shitty choice, always going to be a tough choice.
30:41
Speaker 2: But Biden's ability to– his hands were tied by this
30:44
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. And I think there are–
30:47
Speaker 2: that is a story that has not been told enough
30:49
Speaker 2: in our overly simplistic media narrative of this. And I
30:52
Speaker 2: think it also helps politically to remind Democrats of the
30:57
Speaker 2: role Trump played in creating this situation.
31:01
Speaker 1: Well, I think that, and Jim Newell has a great
31:03
Speaker 1: piece in Slate about this, which is a lot of
31:07
Speaker 1: these Trumpier Republicans, including Trump himself, because they were all
31:12
Speaker 1: pro-withdrawal and in fact, criticizing Joe Biden for not withdrawing
31:16
Speaker 1: fast enough, They want to jump in on this Joe
31:20
Speaker 1: Biden pile on that's happening in the press and even
31:22
Speaker 1: among some Democrats. But they know that they were that
31:26
Speaker 1: Joe Biden basically did something that they wanted him to do,
31:29
Speaker 1: which was to withdraw completely from Afghanistan. So their only
31:33
Speaker 1: option is here to start a culture war over refugees,
31:38
Speaker 1: which is what they do best. You should definitely read
31:41
Speaker 1: this Jim Newell piece in Slate, but he talked about
31:43
Speaker 1: how Stephen Miller kicked this off. with a few tweets
31:46
Speaker 1: and he said, Miller, whose morning routine is sipping coffee
31:49
Speaker 1: and scanning the United States overnight birth certificates to check
31:52
Speaker 1: how well the Caucasians kept up. It's a great way
31:56
Speaker 1: to describe Stephen Miller. That's neither here nor there. But
31:59
Speaker 1: I do think it's something to watch. And it's also because, look,
32:03
Speaker 1: there is some reporting that the reason that the Biden
32:07
Speaker 1: administration was so slow to process a lot of these
32:09
Speaker 1: special immigrant visa applications is that they were concerned about
32:13
Speaker 1: the domestic political backlash over the bringing Afghan refugees to
32:17
Speaker 1: the United States, which I really hope isn't true because that,
32:21
Speaker 1: I think, deserves a lot of criticism to be worried
32:24
Speaker 1: about that kind of the political situation there. And, you know,
32:27
Speaker 1: one administration official told Politico, it's like they want the
32:31
Speaker 1: credit from liberals for ending the Trump cruelty to immigrants
32:33
Speaker 1: and refugees, but they also don't want the political backlash
32:35
Speaker 1: that comes from actual refugees arriving in America in any
32:38
Speaker 1: sort of large numbers. Now, again, the Biden administration is
32:42
Speaker 1: currently trying to bring Afghan refugees to the United States.
32:45
Speaker 1: So they are doing the right thing now. But I
32:47
Speaker 1: do wonder, how do you think about the politics of
32:52
Speaker 1: the refugee issue and how this plays out in general?
32:55
Speaker 2: As we sit here today, the public broadly and in
32:59
Speaker 2: a bipartisan fashion supports increasing the number of special immigrant
33:03
Speaker 2: visas for our Afghan allies. But that is one moment
33:06
Speaker 2: in time. And we should recognize that there is nothing
33:09
Speaker 2: Republicans want more than an opportunity to merge Fears about
33:13
Speaker 2: immigration with fears about terrorism. Because if you look back
33:16
Speaker 2: to 2016, it's always like, who's going to pay for
33:19
Speaker 2: the wall? Mexico. But really, what was the real sort
33:24
Speaker 2: of consolidating, powerful issue for Trump was the Muslim ban.
33:28
Speaker 2: That was about keeping, in just the most blatantly racist
33:33
Speaker 2: way possible, merging those issues. Keeping people, if we let
33:37
Speaker 2: people come here, that they will pose a threat to us,
33:39
Speaker 2: that they will kill us. And They've shown great political
33:43
Speaker 2: power with their base, at least, demagoguing people coming across
33:46
Speaker 2: the southern border. But where it has been the most powerful,
33:48
Speaker 2: dating back to 9-11, is demagoguing Muslims. And one of
33:54
Speaker 2: the things we know about refugee issues is people, politicians,
34:00
Speaker 2: are often for them in the abstract, and then they
34:03
Speaker 2: fall into nimbyism as soon as you actually have to
34:06
Speaker 2: put those refugees someplace.
34:07
Speaker 1: Right.
34:08
Speaker 2: We saw this in 2014 dealing with unaccompanied minors coming
34:15
Speaker 2: across the southern border is when it came time to
34:16
Speaker 2: put them places, even some Democratic governors did not want
34:19
Speaker 2: them in their states. And so what's going to happen–
34:22
Speaker 2: we saw this– there's all this talk about how Obama
34:26
Speaker 2: was unable to close Gitmo. But the reason he couldn't
34:29
Speaker 2: close Gitmo was because the Democratic Congress with a gigantic
34:32
Speaker 2: majority passed bills every single year saying you could not
34:36
Speaker 2: close Gitmo. And why did they do that? Because they
34:38
Speaker 2: did not want any of the people from Gitmo to
34:40
Speaker 2: come be in their states, either in a supermax prison
34:43
Speaker 2: or in the community. So that is going to play
34:45
Speaker 2: itself out here, and I don't think we should be
34:48
Speaker 2: overly– I think this is an issue that we can
34:50
Speaker 2: take on and win, but it is coming, and it
34:52
Speaker 2: is going to come in the grossest, most aggressive Fox
34:56
Speaker 2: News-driven fashion you can possibly imagine.
34:59
Speaker 1: That's precisely why it's not an issue that you can avoid,
35:04
Speaker 1: that Democrats or the Biden administration can avoid. You can't
35:06
Speaker 1: just think, okay, because it is a divisive issue and
35:09
Speaker 1: the Republicans are going to start a culture war over
35:11
Speaker 1: it and it's uncomfortable and it might be politically challenging.
35:14
Speaker 1: I'm just going to try to ignore it and talk
35:17
Speaker 1: about some other message because the Republicans and Fox News
35:20
Speaker 1: and the right wing media ecosystem is not going to
35:23
Speaker 1: let you ignore it. I do think that once you
35:26
Speaker 1: make the decision to welcome Afghan refugees, you've got to
35:29
Speaker 1: defend that decision because otherwise the Republicans are going to
35:31
Speaker 1: attack you for it anyway. And you have to make
35:33
Speaker 1: the best case that you can. And I don't think
35:35
Speaker 1: avoiding it helps.
35:36
Speaker 5: No.
35:36
Speaker 2: And I think who the messenger is matters a lot here.
35:39
Speaker 2: And one of the things that's been really powerful over
35:42
Speaker 2: the last few days is is hearing from veterans who
35:45
Speaker 2: have worked with Afghan interpreters, who work with the Afghan
35:47
Speaker 2: National Security Forces, who understand the country, being absolutely heartbroken
35:51
Speaker 2: by what is happening to people they know. And using
35:55
Speaker 2: those people, like Jason Kander, our old friend, has been
35:57
Speaker 2: very sort of eloquent about this. And using those sorts
36:01
Speaker 2: of people to help make the case for who our
36:05
Speaker 2: allies are and what we owe them, I think really
36:08
Speaker 2: will be much more effective than just a bunch of
36:09
Speaker 2: politicians making the case.
36:12
Speaker 1: Yeah. But going back to our earlier discussion in terms
36:15
Speaker 1: of long term political effects, this is going to be
36:19
Speaker 1: part of the the case against Joe Biden from Trump
36:22
Speaker 1: and the MAGA wing of the party.
36:24
Speaker 4: Right.
36:24
Speaker 1: It's the southern border. It's refugees. And it's just going
36:28
Speaker 1: to be Joe Biden fucked up Afghanistan. And now we
36:31
Speaker 1: have a bunch of Afghan refugees. Joe Biden fucked up
36:33
Speaker 1: the border. And now there's a lot of immigrants in
36:35
Speaker 1: the country. Look at the chaos all around us. Everything
36:39
Speaker 1: is broken. Everything is on fire. basically the 2016 message
36:44
Speaker 1: from Donald Trump just reprised for 2022 and 2024. I mean,
36:49
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to figure out what the message is
36:51
Speaker 1: going to be. That's going to be it.
36:53
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess that when you think about the
36:55
Speaker 2: politics of this, the Republicans have been pushing this chaos
36:58
Speaker 2: incompetence message against Biden from the very beginning with no success.
37:02
Speaker 2: They failed in 2016. They failed up until now. I
37:05
Speaker 2: don't know that they have succeeded, but they have a
37:07
Speaker 2: thin reed to hang on to. And to give you
37:10
Speaker 2: a sense of how powerful their megaphone is, I saw
37:14
Speaker 2: a poll out this morning which asked people who they
37:17
Speaker 2: blame for the spread of COVID. And north of 60%
37:21
Speaker 2: of Republicans blame people coming across the southern border. So
37:23
Speaker 2: you can already see.
37:24
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
37:24
Speaker 1: It's a big thing. It's all over Fox all the time.
37:26
Speaker 2: And people believe it, even though it makes like it's
37:29
Speaker 2: one of those things that requires.
37:30
Speaker 1: Three seconds of Googling. Came over the border and then
37:32
Speaker 1: they walked over to Florida.
37:35
Speaker 2: That's right. Which is, which is impressive. Uh, well, Americans
37:37
Speaker 2: have never been great at geography anyway. I mean, you remember,
37:40
Speaker 2: I think we might even talk about this last week,
37:42
Speaker 2: but in 2014, when Tom Cotton, when running for Senate
37:45
Speaker 2: in Arkansas, went out there and pushed the conspiracy theory
37:49
Speaker 2: that ISIS was infecting undocumented people coming across on the
37:54
Speaker 2: border with Ebola.
37:55
Speaker 5: Right.
37:55
Speaker 2: So, you know, what's coming here, right?
37:58
Speaker 1: That's the, that's, that's the bingo right there. You hit
38:00
Speaker 1: them all. That's, um, All right, so last thing I
38:03
Speaker 1: want to mention before we leave this topic, the politics
38:07
Speaker 1: around Afghanistan are also being shaped by the media coverage.
38:10
Speaker 1: And I'll divide that into two categories. You've got a
38:12
Speaker 1: lot of journalists in Afghanistan, like CNN's Clarissa Ward, who
38:15
Speaker 1: are risking their lives to tell important stories and show
38:18
Speaker 1: heart-wrenching images of Afghans trying to leave. And then you've
38:22
Speaker 1: got a lot of ostensibly neutral political reporters and pundits
38:26
Speaker 1: who've been openly criticizing and blaming Biden's decision to withdraw
38:30
Speaker 1: troops for what the New York Times called a, quote,
38:33
Speaker 1: humiliating final act in Afghanistan. Politico called it a cataclysmic
38:37
Speaker 1: event that marked, quote, the most devastating period of Biden's presidency.
38:42
Speaker 1: And Axios just called it, quote, Biden's stain. Media reporter
38:46
Speaker 1: Margaret Sullivan of The Washington Post took issue with the
38:49
Speaker 1: coverage in a piece titled The Afghan Debacle Lasted Two Decades.
38:53
Speaker 1: The media spent two hours deciding whom to blame. She
38:56
Speaker 1: went on to write, If ever a big breaking story
38:58
Speaker 1: demanded that the news media provide historical context and carefully
39:02
Speaker 1: avoid partisan blame, it's the story of the fall of
39:04
Speaker 1: Afghanistan to the Taliban. Instead, we got winners and losers
39:08
Speaker 1: coverage that tends to elevate and amplify punditry over news
39:12
Speaker 1: and to assign long lasting political ramifications to a still
39:15
Speaker 1: developing situation. So I usually expect this kind of behavior
39:19
Speaker 1: from the political press, but even I was surprised by
39:22
Speaker 1: how little objectivity that many of them have shown. Why
39:25
Speaker 1: do you think So many reporters and pundits have covered
39:29
Speaker 1: the withdrawal. this way?
39:31
Speaker 2: I think it is a combination of a series of biases.
39:36
Speaker 2: And I think the biggest mistake we all make is
39:39
Speaker 2: using the term the neutral press. Journalism is an endeavor
39:46
Speaker 2: conducted by humans. all journalism has a bias. Some of
39:49
Speaker 2: it is a political bias. Some of it is a
39:51
Speaker 2: financial bias. Some of it's a cultural bias. But there
39:54
Speaker 2: is a bias. And the issue, you can't, up until
39:56
Speaker 2: the moment where Mark Zuckerberg finishes his project of ending
39:59
Speaker 2: journalism and just puts AI in charge of news, it's
40:04
Speaker 2: going to be done by humans. Those humans will be biased.
40:06
Speaker 2: You can't eliminate bias. You just have to be more
40:08
Speaker 2: transparent about it. And so I think there's a couple
40:11
Speaker 2: of interplays here that are happening. One is, And I
40:15
Speaker 2: find this one understandable and perhaps even admirable is there
40:18
Speaker 2: are some journalists who have spent their careers in Afghanistan.
40:22
Speaker 2: They know the Afghan people. They know– they have interpreters
40:27
Speaker 2: and translators worked for them over the years and are
40:30
Speaker 2: now– they're messaging with them and they are stuck outside
40:33
Speaker 2: the airport and they.
40:33
Speaker 1: Are– Some help save their lives.
40:35
Speaker 5: Yes.
40:35
Speaker 2: And they are passionate about those people.
40:37
Speaker 1: And you know what?
40:38
Speaker 2: They should be.
40:39
Speaker 1: They should be.
40:40
Speaker 2: We need more of that, right? Like Richard Engel– had
40:43
Speaker 2: sort of a moment that went viral when he reacted
40:45
Speaker 2: very negatively to Biden's speech. It was pretty clear, even
40:48
Speaker 2: though he is a legendary war reporter, but in that moment,
40:52
Speaker 2: it was clear what his bias was. And so that
40:55
Speaker 2: is driving it. And you see that with a lot
40:56
Speaker 2: of the people who work there. So that's one bias.
41:00
Speaker 2: A second bias is that since the days of Watergate,
41:05
Speaker 2: the media– treats accountability as the raison d'etre of being
41:11
Speaker 2: in journalism. Your entire job is to keep, hold politicians accountable.
41:16
Speaker 2: And this is not to say that the media shouldn't
41:17
Speaker 2: hold politicians accountable. We need more of that. We need
41:19
Speaker 2: better investigative reports. We need more, you know, sort of
41:23
Speaker 2: accountability journalism all up and down, local news everywhere. But
41:26
Speaker 2: if that's, if the only purpose is to hold people accountable,
41:29
Speaker 2: what you do, especially in situations like this that are
41:31
Speaker 2: complex and nuanced, is you blame instead of explain.
41:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, because like, No, I totally agree with that. And
41:39
Speaker 1: if you ask a lot of journalists what their job is,
41:42
Speaker 1: they will happily say and proudly say it's to hold
41:45
Speaker 1: people in power accountable. When I would argue that their
41:48
Speaker 1: job is to report stories, if that reporting leads to
41:52
Speaker 1: people in power being held accountable, great. But that should
41:57
Speaker 1: be a byproduct of just reporting the story as it
42:00
Speaker 1: is and explaining, like you said, and explaining to people
42:03
Speaker 1: what's actually going on and providing context. historical context, other context,
42:08
Speaker 1: providing a sense of proportion, how important one story is
42:11
Speaker 1: versus another. That's the job of journalism. If that happens
42:14
Speaker 1: to hold people in power accountable, great. But if you
42:16
Speaker 1: go into it with that, is that your first goal?
42:19
Speaker 1: You're going to have this kind of stuff.
42:20
Speaker 2: It says so much that when Ezra Klein and others
42:23
Speaker 2: started Vox, they called themselves explanatory journalism. That should be
42:27
Speaker 2: an oxymoron, right? The whole point is to explain to
42:30
Speaker 2: people what is happening. And as you say, there should
42:33
Speaker 2: be Actual– like we should be investigating. If you have
42:37
Speaker 2: reason to believe that there's corruption or a president's lying,
42:41
Speaker 2: dedicate your resources to get at that. And one of
42:43
Speaker 2: the flip sides of the accountability journalism problem is this
42:47
Speaker 2: is what leads so many people, progressives, to tweet at
42:50
Speaker 2: Maggie Haberman. It's like, why aren't you holding Trump more accountable?
42:54
Speaker 2: It's created a false impression among– the public, that the
42:58
Speaker 2: job of journalists is to bring down presidents because they
43:01
Speaker 2: saw the movie once with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman
43:04
Speaker 2: that said that was the job. And it's not. It
43:07
Speaker 2: happens sometimes, but it's not the job. And so I
43:10
Speaker 2: think that we're seeing that here. And then you add
43:12
Speaker 2: one more piece of context to this, which is, this
43:15
Speaker 2: is the, as Margaret Sutherland pointed out her piece, an
43:19
Speaker 2: incredibly complex story. It is a story of 20 years
43:21
Speaker 2: of of mistakes and decisions that were made by four
43:27
Speaker 2: presidents in that period of time. But we're operating in
43:31
Speaker 2: a world of cable news and Twitter and the internet,
43:33
Speaker 2: which are just not mediums designed to tell complex, nuanced stories.
43:38
Speaker 2: You need something that fits into 280 characters. So it's
43:41
Speaker 2: Biden bungled this, not but the long history of American
43:44
Speaker 2: military hubris or the miscalculations in the post-911 mindset are
43:48
Speaker 2: all these things that are all part of this. It
43:50
Speaker 2: has to be who's to blame and how do we
43:53
Speaker 2: hold that person accountable as opposed to telling the actual story.
43:55
Speaker 2: And it's very hard to tell that story in 30-second
43:57
Speaker 2: soundbites and 280-character tweets.
43:59
Speaker 1: I think there are also two other reasons. One is
44:02
Speaker 1: there has been a long tradition among some in the
44:05
Speaker 1: political press corps to sort of take the view that
44:08
Speaker 1: we talked about earlier that military intervention can somehow help
44:13
Speaker 1: uphold human rights around the world wherever they're threatened. And
44:17
Speaker 1: we saw this in the run-up to the Iraq war, right?
44:21
Speaker 1: We have seen it multiple times. We've seen it with
44:23
Speaker 1: Syria in the Obama administration, right? Like there are elements
44:29
Speaker 1: of the political press corps, especially those who cover the
44:31
Speaker 1: Pentagon and who talk to generals and military leaders who
44:36
Speaker 1: sort of have a bias towards military intervention. as a
44:40
Speaker 1: potentially good thing that can help uphold human rights and
44:43
Speaker 1: nation build and all the other stuff. Like that is
44:45
Speaker 1: a bias that many report, not all, but many reporters
44:48
Speaker 1: who report on this stuff tend to have. Eric Levitz
44:51
Speaker 1: wrote a fantastic piece in New York magazine that you
44:54
Speaker 1: should all read about this. He wrote in recent days,
44:57
Speaker 1: much of the mainstream media has comported itself as the
44:59
Speaker 1: Pentagon's Pravda. He said, if, If news coverage focuses exhaustively
45:05
Speaker 1: on the shortcomings of Biden's withdrawal, while largely ignoring what
45:08
Speaker 1: our client state's abrupt collapse tells us about our two-decade-long occupation,
45:12
Speaker 1: then the lesson of Kabul's fall could be quite favorable
45:15
Speaker 1: for Beltway hawks. Presidents shouldn't end wars in defiance of
45:18
Speaker 1: the military brass unless they wish to become unpopular. And
45:22
Speaker 1: it's a good point because the phrase, you know, overruling
45:25
Speaker 1: their generals or overruling the military is overrated. always seen
45:29
Speaker 1: as bad, even though the job of a civilian commander
45:32
Speaker 1: is to make the final decision on their own. That's
45:35
Speaker 1: why we have civilian command of the military, right? It's
45:38
Speaker 1: the president's job to listen to their military advisors, to
45:40
Speaker 1: listen to their generals, and then make a decision based
45:43
Speaker 1: on what they believe is in the best interest of
45:44
Speaker 1: the United States.
45:46
Speaker 2: And I think in some cases, we progress, anti-Trump progressives
45:51
Speaker 2: fell into a trap in during the Trump years was
45:55
Speaker 2: because Trump was overruling generals, overruling the intelligence community. It's
45:58
Speaker 2: then siding with them, perhaps less critically than we should
46:04
Speaker 2: or more uncritically than we should. And like, you know,
46:07
Speaker 2: there was Jim Sciutto of CNN, who's a good guy,
46:10
Speaker 2: maybe not great at Twitter, sent this tweet about how
46:14
Speaker 2: they got ratioed, I guess the term is. They talked about, you.
46:18
Speaker 1: Know, how- Well, that made you sound pretty old.
46:21
Speaker 2: All right.
46:25
Speaker 1: I don't even know why.
46:26
Speaker 5: Ratio?
46:27
Speaker 1: I guess the kids are calling it a ratio these days.
46:29
Speaker 2: Look, they don't have that sort of shit on TikTok.
46:31
Speaker 2: So I'm unfamiliar with this old person media that you're
46:34
Speaker 2: so into. But his point, he talked about how too
46:40
Speaker 2: often the military is forced to execute on poor decisions
46:45
Speaker 2: made by civilians. But that's the whole point of the
46:48
Speaker 2: system is all decisions are made by civilians because they're
46:50
Speaker 2: the ones held accountable by the public.
46:52
Speaker 5: And I.
46:54
Speaker 2: Do think that the point you make about there is
46:58
Speaker 2: a pro-military action, pro-war sentiment among the Washington DC press corps.
47:07
Speaker 2: Why aren't you bombing? Why aren't you sending troops? Why
47:09
Speaker 2: aren't you doing this? It's a pro-military action. And it's
47:14
Speaker 2: not as if At some point in the very recent
47:17
Speaker 2: fucking history, that sort of mentality didn't get us into
47:20
Speaker 2: a disastrous war that contributed to exactly what just happened
47:25
Speaker 2: in Kabul over the weekend.
47:27
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, why did I turn on CNN and
47:31
Speaker 1: see one of the architects of that war, John Bolton,
47:35
Speaker 1: being interviewed about whether Biden should have left Afghanistan? We're
47:38
Speaker 1: going to ask John Bolton? Karl Rove is on TV.
47:41
Speaker 1: We got the whole Bush gang coming back. They got
47:43
Speaker 1: us into Iraq and we're going to like hear what
47:47
Speaker 1: they have to say about this. I just, I don't,
47:50
Speaker 1: it's crazy. It's crazy. And look, there have been, you
47:53
Speaker 1: haven't seen a lot of anti-war or heard a lot
47:56
Speaker 1: of anti-war voices, people who are against like an indefinite
48:01
Speaker 1: occupation of Afghanistan being interviewed about why, about what they
48:05
Speaker 1: think about the withdrawal. A lot of times you get
48:08
Speaker 1: more sort of pro-war, instinctively pro-war, pro-military voices.
48:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. That has been a long Washington tradition that sadly
48:19
Speaker 2: continues despite everything that has happened. If there's one thing
48:21
Speaker 2: that the last 20 years have taught us since 9-11
48:24
Speaker 2: is the folly of that approach. And yet we still
48:29
Speaker 2: are doomed to repeat it over and over again.
48:32
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I do think, you know, just to to
48:34
Speaker 1: end this whole conversation, like, again, it is, it is
48:38
Speaker 1: completely fine. And I think, uh, important to like hold
48:43
Speaker 1: the Biden administration accountable for errors that it makes. But
48:46
Speaker 1: if we're going to treat sort of the, the tactical
48:49
Speaker 1: errors in withdrawing from Afghanistan as the most important or
48:54
Speaker 1: only story after a two decade long war, then that
48:59
Speaker 1: is insufficient because there are many broader lessons that we
49:03
Speaker 1: should be learning from From what happened in Afghanistan over
49:06
Speaker 1: the last two decades. And those lessons go beyond what
49:10
Speaker 1: happened a week ago. Right. Like we just said, multiple presidents,
49:15
Speaker 1: trillions of dollars, thousands of Americans in Congress. Like, let's
49:21
Speaker 1: try to step back and take some broader lessons from
49:23
Speaker 1: this before we just focus on who's to blame right now,
49:30
Speaker 1: because we both can't think ahead too far or behind
49:34
Speaker 1: too far. It's just this presentism. We always have to
49:38
Speaker 1: be in the moment and talking about who's to blame
49:40
Speaker 1: right now when there are probably larger lessons to learn
49:43
Speaker 1: about the value of military intervention.
49:46
Speaker 2: I mean, those lessons are complicated. It involves knowing history.
49:49
Speaker 2: It requires having a knowledge going back, very specific knowledge
49:53
Speaker 2: about decisions made that go back 19 years. All across
49:55
Speaker 2: the board, we are obsessing with what I think are
50:01
Speaker 2: very real tactical errors made by the Biden administration with
50:05
Speaker 2: the fact that on the larger strategic question, he appears
50:09
Speaker 2: to be right. And I think what has happened, you
50:12
Speaker 2: put it like, I don't want to diminish in any way, shape,
50:15
Speaker 2: or form the logistical and tactical errors that happened in
50:18
Speaker 2: the evacuation.
50:19
Speaker 1: Right, correct.
50:20
Speaker 2: But everything that has happened proves Joe Biden correct.
50:23
Speaker 5: Correct.
50:25
Speaker 2: The fall of the military and the government, everything that
50:28
Speaker 2: happened shows that, as he said in his speech, not
50:32
Speaker 2: another year, not another thousand troops, not another five years
50:34
Speaker 2: is going to change the outcome. And at some point,
50:37
Speaker 2: some president has to make the decision to bring people home.
50:40
Speaker 2: And he did that.
50:41
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, 63% of the American people agree with, right,
50:45
Speaker 1: from that poll that the rapid collapse of the Afghan
50:47
Speaker 1: government shows why it was right for the U.S. to leave.
50:50
Speaker 1: And that was the poll taken, you know, a day
50:52
Speaker 1: or two ago.
50:53
Speaker 5: Okay.
50:53
Speaker 1: Okay. When we come back, I'll talk to Surgeon General
50:56
Speaker 1: Vivek Murthy about the administration's plan to offer COVID-19 booster
51:00
Speaker 1: shots in September. Welcome back. On Wednesday afternoon, Biden administration
51:13
Speaker 1: health officials announced that beginning the week of September 20th,
51:16
Speaker 1: They're hoping to start offering COVID-19 booster shots to any
51:19
Speaker 1: American over 18 who's eight months past their second shot
51:23
Speaker 1: of Pfizer or Moderna. Here to talk about why the
51:25
Speaker 1: administration decided to do this and what it means for you, U.S.
51:29
Speaker 1: Surgeon General and friend of the pod, Dr. Vivek Murthy.
51:31
Speaker 1: Welcome back.
51:33
Speaker 5: Hey, thanks, Sean. It's good to be back.
51:35
Speaker 1: So I have a bad habit of COVID doom scrolling
51:39
Speaker 1: where I follow a lot of epidemiologists and public health experts,
51:42
Speaker 1: and they were sort of all over the place on
51:44
Speaker 1: this booster announcement.
51:45
Speaker 6: Dr.
51:46
Speaker 1: Celine Gounder, who's advised the Biden administration on the pandemic,
51:50
Speaker 1: said that she thinks the CDC's data supports giving boosters
51:53
Speaker 1: to highly immunocompromised persons and nursing home residents, but not
51:57
Speaker 1: to the general public. Can you talk about how you
52:01
Speaker 1: all decided that it makes sense for a young, healthy
52:03
Speaker 1: 20-year-old who's eight months past their vaccination to get a
52:08
Speaker 1: booster shot? Absolutely, John.
52:10
Speaker 5: It's a really good question. So let's just talk through
52:12
Speaker 5: this a little bit. What we know about vaccines in general, John,
52:17
Speaker 5: is that protection does tend to wane over time. And
52:20
Speaker 5: that's one of the reasons we were looking at the
52:22
Speaker 5: data really closely to see if there were more breakthrough
52:25
Speaker 5: infections as time passed. And what we saw in the
52:28
Speaker 5: recent data, including data that we collected just in recent days,
52:31
Speaker 5: was that there does appear to be a trend to
52:34
Speaker 5: reduce protection over time. Now, let's talk specifically about what
52:37
Speaker 5: kind of protection, because the breakthroughs that we were seeing
52:40
Speaker 5: were more in mild and moderate cases. That was, you know,
52:44
Speaker 5: that's always concerned us. The good news is that you
52:47
Speaker 5: still had a high degree of protection against hospitalization, severe
52:51
Speaker 5: disease and death, which is the most important job of
52:53
Speaker 5: the vaccine, to save your life, keep you out of
52:54
Speaker 5: the hospital. So that seemed to be still at a
52:57
Speaker 5: very high level. But as we looked at the overall trend,
53:01
Speaker 5: And as we thought about our own clinical experience and
53:03
Speaker 5: experience working on illnesses and epidemics, our feeling was that
53:07
Speaker 5: that declining trend would continue and would likely lead to
53:11
Speaker 5: an erosion and that protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death.
53:16
Speaker 5: And we wanted to be ahead of the curve. And,
53:18
Speaker 5: you know, if you wait until that data shows up,
53:21
Speaker 5: you're actually too late because by the time you get
53:24
Speaker 5: the data, it's usually a few weeks after things have happened.
53:27
Speaker 5: There's always a bit of a lag in the data.
53:29
Speaker 5: And then it takes time to actually react to that
53:31
Speaker 5: and get people to come in and take their booster shots.
53:34
Speaker 5: And by that time, you've lost a lot of valuable time,
53:36
Speaker 5: which translates to lives. So because we knew that this
53:40
Speaker 5: was an important decision and would have big implications, we
53:43
Speaker 5: pulled together the top medical and public health experts throughout
53:47
Speaker 5: the Department of Health and Human Services. Everyone from the
53:50
Speaker 5: FDA commissioner, Dr. Janet Woodcock, to Dr. Tony Fauci, to Dr.
53:54
Speaker 5: Francis Collins, to Dr. David Kessler, Dr. Rachel Levine, the
53:59
Speaker 5: CDC director, Dr. Rachel Walensky, myself and others. And we
54:03
Speaker 5: looked at the data, discussed this in great detail and
54:06
Speaker 5: came to the conclusion that we needed to be ahead
54:08
Speaker 5: of the curve and this was a way to do it,
54:10
Speaker 5: is offering booster shots to the general population. And finally,
54:13
Speaker 5: why the 20 year old versus just the 70 year
54:16
Speaker 5: old or the person who's in the nursing home. And
54:19
Speaker 5: here's why, because when we looked at the trend, we
54:21
Speaker 5: saw the reduction in protection was across the population. And
54:25
Speaker 5: we wanted to make sure that everybody was, in fact, protected.
54:29
Speaker 5: And what you're enjoying right now, which is a high
54:32
Speaker 5: degree of protection that was extended, if you will. But
54:35
Speaker 5: we are actually prioritizing the vulnerable, John. And this is
54:38
Speaker 5: something most people don't know because of the time schedule
54:41
Speaker 5: in which we're doing this, getting people vaccinated on their
54:44
Speaker 5: eighth month anniversary. It turns out the people we vaccinated
54:46
Speaker 5: first were the vulnerable, long-term care facility residents, health care workers,
54:50
Speaker 5: and seniors. They will be the first ones we vaccinate
54:52
Speaker 5: once again.
54:53
Speaker 1: I know it's still very early, but have you seen
54:55
Speaker 1: any real-world data, perhaps out of Israel, that shows boosters
55:00
Speaker 1: do work?
55:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a good question. We have seen actually some
55:04
Speaker 5: early data. It's been public that has come out of
55:07
Speaker 5: Israel showing, in fact, that the boosters do seem to
55:10
Speaker 5: be having an effect on improving protection. But look, the
55:15
Speaker 5: truth is that we've got to dig into that data.
55:17
Speaker 5: We've got to look at it much more closely. We
55:20
Speaker 5: didn't make this decision, though, based off of solely one
55:24
Speaker 5: single data set or off of Israeli data or UK data.
55:27
Speaker 5: We made this data, this decision based on our composite
55:30
Speaker 5: look at all of the data. And it was what
55:32
Speaker 5: we saw, in fact, in the US data that we
55:34
Speaker 5: found particularly compelling in terms of the decline in protection.
55:38
Speaker 1: So on the other side of the spectrum, some experts
55:40
Speaker 1: are pointing to data out of Israel that immunity wanes
55:44
Speaker 1: after five or six months and asking, why are we
55:47
Speaker 1: waiting until eight months? Like just personally, my parents are
55:51
Speaker 1: over 65. They got vaccinated in late February. Should they
55:55
Speaker 1: be worried about how protected they are against Delta between
55:58
Speaker 1: now and when they can get their booster shot in October?
56:01
Speaker 5: Well, it's a good question, John. And my mother is
56:04
Speaker 5: and my grandmother in the same boat as your parents.
56:06
Speaker 5: They got vaccinated sometime in that time frame. And here's
56:10
Speaker 5: what I would say. We know that, you know, even
56:12
Speaker 5: when you hit the six month mark, that your protection
56:15
Speaker 5: against severe disease, hospitalization, death are high.
56:19
Speaker 4: Right?
56:19
Speaker 5: So if you got vaccinated six months ago, you should
56:22
Speaker 5: still feel good about the protection you have. That's why
56:24
Speaker 5: we're actually not recommending people go out today and get
56:27
Speaker 5: booster shots. But there is an increase in mild and
56:31
Speaker 5: moderate breakthrough infections. And so this is where it comes
56:34
Speaker 5: down a bit to people's risk tolerance and their preference.
56:37
Speaker 5: You know, when I, you know, talk to my parents, I,
56:40
Speaker 5: you know, I make sure that even though they're fully
56:41
Speaker 5: vaccinated because they live with my kids who are unvaccinated
56:45
Speaker 5: and because they tend to be very you know, sensitive
56:47
Speaker 5: and risk averse about, you know, bad health outcomes, you know,
56:50
Speaker 5: they go out and they wear a mask when they're
56:53
Speaker 5: in public indoor spaces. You know, they take that extra
56:55
Speaker 5: layer of precaution and that's the right thing to do.
56:57
Speaker 5: So it's a little bit, you know, going to differ
56:59
Speaker 5: from person to person, but the good thing is six
57:01
Speaker 5: months out, you still got high protection against the worst
57:04
Speaker 5: of COVID.
57:05
Speaker 1: So I'm one of the 13 million Americans who received
57:08
Speaker 1: the J & J vaccine. And I've been given a
57:11
Speaker 1: lot of conflicting advice on whether I should try to
57:13
Speaker 1: get myself a booster now. On one hand- I'm a
57:16
Speaker 1: bit of a rule follower, so I don't want to
57:18
Speaker 1: lie or cut in line to get the shot. I
57:20
Speaker 1: know it's not approved yet, but I want even less
57:23
Speaker 1: to get infected and potentially transmit the virus to my
57:26
Speaker 1: unvaccinated one-year-old. Should I be worried about how protected I
57:30
Speaker 1: am right now by the J & J vaccine?
57:33
Speaker 5: Well, John, it's a good question, and you're certainly not alone.
57:36
Speaker 5: We have 14 million people in the United States who
57:38
Speaker 5: receive the J & J vaccine, and their health, their well-being,
57:41
Speaker 5: their extended protection is just as important. as anybody who
57:44
Speaker 5: received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Look, what we do
57:47
Speaker 5: know is when you look at the data that the
57:50
Speaker 5: protection people got from the worst of COVID was also
57:54
Speaker 5: high with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. And data out
57:56
Speaker 5: of South Africa recently with the Delta variant continues to support, again,
58:00
Speaker 5: high degree of protection against the worst outcomes of COVID.
58:04
Speaker 5: But we do know that there are breakthrough infections happening,
58:06
Speaker 5: mild to moderate cases with the J & J vaccine.
58:09
Speaker 5: And we do believe that J & J recipients will
58:13
Speaker 5: likely need a booster as well. The reason that we
58:15
Speaker 5: didn't include a specific plan for J & J in
58:18
Speaker 5: yesterday's announcement is because we are actually waiting on some
58:22
Speaker 5: more data to be submitted from the companies to us
58:25
Speaker 5: and also additional, about a second dose of J & J,
58:28
Speaker 5: as well as additional data from what are called mixing studies,
58:32
Speaker 5: where we actually look at using one vaccine first and
58:35
Speaker 5: then another vaccine. An example might be getting J &
58:37
Speaker 5: J first and then getting a second dose of Pfizer
58:41
Speaker 5: or Moderna. And until we look at those studies and
58:43
Speaker 5: have the FDA actually evaluate them for safety and efficacy,
58:47
Speaker 5: we can't formally recommend them. But I do know that
58:50
Speaker 5: when it comes to immunocompromised people who have received J
58:53
Speaker 5: & J, that some of their physicians have been boosting
58:57
Speaker 5: them with Pfizer or Moderna because there wasn't, again, a
59:01
Speaker 5: formal recommendation there. They knew they needed something. And I
59:03
Speaker 5: don't think that that's an unreasonable approach for those physicians
59:07
Speaker 5: to take, given that there wasn't enough data for the
59:10
Speaker 5: CDC and FDA to make a formal rec.
59:12
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you saw that Zuckerberg Hospital in San
59:14
Speaker 1: Francisco is offering boosters to J & J recipients just
59:19
Speaker 1: based on if their physician has told them it's okay,
59:22
Speaker 1: even beyond just immunocompromised people. Do you think that's reasonable?
59:27
Speaker 5: Well, I might, and I say this, you know, just
59:29
Speaker 5: as somebody who's practiced medicine for years and seen just,
59:32
Speaker 5: you know, that medicine is both an art and a
59:35
Speaker 5: science and that a lot of it has to be
59:37
Speaker 5: tailored for what people's individual needs are. So, you know,
59:40
Speaker 5: I believe that, you know, we should, you know, generally
59:43
Speaker 5: allow doctors and patients to make decisions based on their
59:47
Speaker 5: individual risk tolerance or individual preference or individual needs. And
59:51
Speaker 5: so when I hear about doctors, you know, recognizing that
59:54
Speaker 5: some patients need some additional assistance or support, And they
59:57
Speaker 5: have to, you know, find, you know, look at different
59:59
Speaker 5: options that perhaps the federal government may not be able
1:00:02
Speaker 5: to recommend. I recognize that. You know, I think every
1:00:04
Speaker 5: physician's got to make those decisions in their clinic about
1:00:07
Speaker 5: how best to serve their patients. And I think that's
1:00:09
Speaker 5: a reality of the world that we live in.
1:00:11
Speaker 1: So speaking of kids, you know, we're talking about a
1:00:13
Speaker 1: third shot for all Americans over the age of 12
1:00:15
Speaker 1: when kids under 12 haven't been able to get their
1:00:17
Speaker 1: first shot yet. Schools are opening now and, you know,
1:00:20
Speaker 1: masks or no masks. We know Delta is an incredibly
1:00:23
Speaker 1: transmissible variant. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb was on TV
1:00:28
Speaker 1: yesterday saying he could see the agency potentially speeding up
1:00:31
Speaker 1: their approval process on vaccines for five to 11 year
1:00:35
Speaker 1: olds if enough kids started getting infected, getting infected and
1:00:38
Speaker 1: getting in trouble. Do you think that's possible? And what's
1:00:41
Speaker 1: your sense of the timeline right now?
1:00:44
Speaker 5: Well, it's an important question. And like, you know, Johnny
1:00:46
Speaker 5: and I both have young kids who are not eligible
1:00:49
Speaker 5: to be vaccinated. And I I think there are a
1:00:52
Speaker 5: lot of parents out there like us who really want
1:00:54
Speaker 5: a vaccine for their kids, especially during this fall school
1:00:57
Speaker 5: season with Delta.
1:00:59
Speaker 1: In the air.
1:00:59
Speaker 5: And I think that what's really important to recognize here
1:01:02
Speaker 5: is a couple of things. Number one, that the FDA's
1:01:05
Speaker 5: top priority is COVID vaccines. And they know just how
1:01:08
Speaker 5: extraordinarily important it is for our kids who are vulnerable
1:01:11
Speaker 5: right now without a vaccine. So they are going to
1:01:14
Speaker 5: move heaven and earth to do everything they can to
1:01:16
Speaker 5: make sure the evaluation is is as quick as it
1:01:19
Speaker 5: can be while still being thorough because they want people
1:01:22
Speaker 5: to have faith and confidence in the evaluation that's done.
1:01:25
Speaker 5: But they also first need to get the data, right,
1:01:27
Speaker 5: from the companies. And so the trials are still ongoing.
1:01:31
Speaker 5: The companies need to gather the data from the trials.
1:01:33
Speaker 5: They need to analyze and they need to submit their
1:01:36
Speaker 5: application to the FDA so that it can do its evaluation.
1:01:40
Speaker 5: But as soon as it gets it, I can tell
1:01:42
Speaker 5: you from my conversations with FDA, this is their highest
1:01:45
Speaker 5: priority COVID-19 vaccines.
1:01:48
Speaker 1: So you said during the White House briefing yesterday that
1:01:50
Speaker 1: you don't accept the idea that we have to choose
1:01:52
Speaker 1: between vaccinating Americans and vaccinating the world. Practically speaking, though,
1:01:57
Speaker 1: you know, right now we've got 10 countries using 90
1:01:59
Speaker 1: percent of the vaccines. If all those wealthy countries follow
1:02:02
Speaker 1: the lead of countries like the U.S. and Israel and
1:02:04
Speaker 1: decide to give boosters, how do we get the rest
1:02:07
Speaker 1: of the world vaccinated in a time frame that both
1:02:10
Speaker 1: saves lives and prevents the emergence of new variants?
1:02:16
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I'm glad that you said that piece at
1:02:17
Speaker 5: the end, the emergence of new variants, because that is
1:02:20
Speaker 5: one of the reasons it is so essential that as
1:02:23
Speaker 5: a country, we do everything we can to help vaccinate
1:02:25
Speaker 5: the rest of the world. We want to prevent new
1:02:28
Speaker 5: variants from developing elsewhere and then coming here and affecting
1:02:31
Speaker 5: the rest.
1:02:32
Speaker 6: Of the world.
1:02:32
Speaker 5: So here's what we have to do. If you assume
1:02:34
Speaker 5: the pie is fixed, John, that we have only a
1:02:37
Speaker 5: limited number of vaccines, then yes, giving more vaccines to
1:02:40
Speaker 5: Americans in the form of boosters will take shots away
1:02:43
Speaker 5: from people in the rest of the world. but we
1:02:45
Speaker 5: can't allow that pie to stay the same size. We
1:02:48
Speaker 5: have to grow the pie. And that's why we are
1:02:50
Speaker 5: accelerating our work on the global front. In addition to
1:02:53
Speaker 5: donating already and delivering over 120 million doses of vaccine
1:02:57
Speaker 5: to other countries, we are now moving on the half
1:03:00
Speaker 5: billion doses that we have purchased from Pfizer for the
1:03:03
Speaker 5: rest of the world and starting to move those out
1:03:06
Speaker 5: to the rest of the world. And that's just the beginning, John,
1:03:09
Speaker 5: because we know that the real big ticket items that
1:03:11
Speaker 5: can help here are pushing the companies from a tech
1:03:14
Speaker 5: transfer perspective to get knowledge about production to other countries
1:03:19
Speaker 5: and to companies that can actually locally produce vaccine. And
1:03:22
Speaker 5: so helping stand up that local manufacturing capacity is another
1:03:26
Speaker 5: area of focus for us that will really help expand
1:03:28
Speaker 5: the pie. Bottom line is we have to do both.
1:03:30
Speaker 5: We don't have a choice. We have to protect Americans.
1:03:33
Speaker 5: We have to vaccinate the rest of the world. It's
1:03:36
Speaker 5: what we need to do to stay safe. And it
1:03:38
Speaker 5: is our, I believe it's our role as a global
1:03:40
Speaker 5: leader to make sure we're doing.
1:03:42
Speaker 6: That as well.
1:03:43
Speaker 1: Last question. Pfizer met with the CDC July 12th about
1:03:47
Speaker 1: the need for boosters, laid out their case, laid out
1:03:49
Speaker 1: the Israeli data. CDC disagreed at the time, said they
1:03:53
Speaker 1: had conflicting data. Israel ends up being right. CDC essentially
1:03:57
Speaker 1: agrees with Pfizer's case this week. Can you talk about
1:04:00
Speaker 1: why the initial data wasn't compelling back in July? And
1:04:05
Speaker 1: I sort of asked this question because in general, sometimes
1:04:08
Speaker 1: it feels like if I want to know what's going
1:04:10
Speaker 1: to happen in the U.S. with regard to COVID decisions,
1:04:14
Speaker 1: I need to like follow the Israeli news. Like, do
1:04:18
Speaker 1: you sometimes, do you wish we had more information faster here?
1:04:22
Speaker 1: Is it about just looking for more data in the U.S.? Like,
1:04:25
Speaker 1: do you feel like the CDC is getting information and
1:04:28
Speaker 1: data fast enough?
1:04:31
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I'll tell you, John, as somebody who
1:04:33
Speaker 5: loves numbers and data, I always want data yesterday. It's
1:04:36
Speaker 5: always too late for me. But look, what you're pointing
1:04:40
Speaker 5: to is a legitimate challenge that we have in the
1:04:43
Speaker 5: United States. It's been a problem for many, many years,
1:04:46
Speaker 5: which is that we have fragmented data systems in our country.
1:04:49
Speaker 5: We have a public health infrastructure that has been underfunded
1:04:52
Speaker 5: and has eroded over the years. We have so many
1:04:55
Speaker 5: different data systems that don't always talk to each other.
1:04:58
Speaker 5: And so with other countries which have more centralized and
1:05:01
Speaker 5: data and public health systems which have invested more in
1:05:04
Speaker 5: public health more broadly, they're able to extract and pull
1:05:07
Speaker 5: in from what's happening around their country much more efficiently
1:05:10
Speaker 5: than we are. That's something we have to fix, that
1:05:12
Speaker 5: we have to get better at as a country. And
1:05:14
Speaker 5: it's why my hope is that coming out of this pandemic,
1:05:17
Speaker 5: that we will recognize that those longer term investments in infrastructure,
1:05:21
Speaker 5: public health infrastructure, are absolutely essential so we can understand
1:05:24
Speaker 5: more quickly what's going on. With that being said, keep
1:05:28
Speaker 5: in mind, Israelis actually, they started their vaccinations and ended
1:05:32
Speaker 5: up vaccinating a much larger portion of their population, much
1:05:36
Speaker 5: earlier than we did, right? So from a timetable perspective,
1:05:39
Speaker 5: they're ahead of the United States and much of the world.
1:05:42
Speaker 5: And we saw the Israeli data, we saw data from
1:05:46
Speaker 5: other countries, but the CDC needed to do though was
1:05:48
Speaker 5: to gather the data from here as well and look
1:05:51
Speaker 5: at everything in totality. One of the things that you're
1:05:54
Speaker 5: always taught in science is don't trust a single source
1:05:56
Speaker 5: of data, like it may be well done, et cetera,
1:05:58
Speaker 5: but you need to collaborate because they're just inevitably various
1:06:01
Speaker 5: factors you can't control foreign data sets. And so when
1:06:04
Speaker 5: they started to see a pattern emerging, John, and this
1:06:07
Speaker 5: pattern in particular became clear in over recent days when
1:06:12
Speaker 5: multiple data sets from the U.S. came through, data from
1:06:15
Speaker 5: healthcare workers, data from long-term care facility residents, data from
1:06:19
Speaker 5: New York State, as well as what was called the
1:06:21
Speaker 5: IV cohort, which is a group of more than 20
1:06:25
Speaker 5: sort of health systems from states. All of that data
1:06:29
Speaker 5: started to point to the same pattern, this reduction in
1:06:32
Speaker 5: protection against mild to moderate disease with a still high
1:06:37
Speaker 5: protection against severe disease. That's when it became clear. There's
1:06:40
Speaker 5: a pattern here. There's a trend here. We see where
1:06:42
Speaker 5: it's going and that's why.
1:06:43
Speaker 1: We have to act. Dr. Vivek Murthy, thank you so
1:06:46
Speaker 1: much for joining Pod Save America again. Come back anytime.
1:06:50
Speaker 1: We love having you.
1:06:51
Speaker 5: Well, thanks so much, John.
1:06:52
Speaker 1: Good to be with you again. Take care. Thanks to
1:06:59
Speaker 1: Surgeon General Vivek Murthy for joining us today and everyone
1:07:02
Speaker 1: have a great weekend.
1:07:03
Speaker 2: Bye everyone.
1:07:05
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1:07:08
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