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“Happy Birthday to Coup.” · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has had a busy summer loosening gun
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: restrictions in states, overturning Roe v. Wade, and severely threatening
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: our Miranda rights. I'm Leah Lippman, and each week on
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Strict Scrutiny, I'm joined by my co-hosts and fellow law professors,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, to break down the latest
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: headlines and the biggest legal questions facing our country. It's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: more important than ever to understand the repercussions of these
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court decisions and what we can do to fight
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: back in the upcoming midterm elections. Listen to new episodes
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of Strict Scrutiny every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: On today's show, Donald Trump plans a press conference to
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: celebrate the anniversary of the insurrection he inspired. Democrats make
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: another attempt at changing the filibuster to pass voting rights.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: UC San Francisco Department of Medicine Chair Bob Wachter joins
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: to give an update on the Omicron surge. And we
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: recap 2021's final dumbest moments. But first, start your 2022
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: off right. Wow, it's 2022, guys. Happy New Year.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: Happy New Year. It's a weird one.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: It's a weird one. It's a weird one.
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: Same stuff.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Same stuff.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: New Year. Yeah, rolling into it.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Well, start your 2022 off right by listening to Crooked's
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: daily news podcast, What A Day. Join host Gideon Resnick,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Josie Duffy Rice, Travelle Anderson, and Priyanka Arabindi each morning
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: as they break down the biggest news of the day
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: and share important stories you won't want to miss out
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: on in only 20 minutes. New episodes of What A
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Day drop every weekday at 5 a.m.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: Eastern.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: And if you're finding it hard to keep up on
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: COVID headlines, I don't know why you're finding it hard
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: to keep up on COVID headlines. They're everywhere. But to
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: get real information, About COVID headlines and great analysis.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: We've got you covered on America Dissected. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: a physician, epidemiologist, and former Detroit health commissioner, offers his
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: perspective on the latest COVID updates and talks to the doctors, scientists,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: culture makers, and policy leaders who are working at the
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: edges of science and policy to protect us. Catch new
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: episodes of America Dissected every Tuesday.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: Tragically just lost his co-host, Elizabeth Holmes, who is going
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: to be unavailable.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Guilty.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: For a little bit. Oh, this happened while you were
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: in your interview.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: I was like, when did this happen? Because the last
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: I saw was that they were... The second I saw
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: that they weren't sure about three charges, I was like, oh,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: they're setting our way.
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  Speaker 2: Not guilty on those three.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Guilty on the other four.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Couldn't happen to a nicer person.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: One drop of blood.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Can I just say that when we got the... Last night,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: our producer, Andy, sent us an email saying, hey, I just...
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Before we discuss what's going to be on the show tomorrow,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: here's just the biggest stories that happened over the holidays. And...
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: She might as well have just driven a flaming bag
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  Speaker 3: of shit to each of our houses and put it
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: on the front door.
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  Speaker 4: Metaphorically. Yeah, metaphorically.
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  Speaker 3: It was like, wow, we are fucking back.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: Here we are.
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  Speaker 2: Tommy did text me this morning and said, I don't
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: know that I can talk about Build Back Better and
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin on the first pod of the new year.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I was trying to prime the pump here. And I said,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I got you covered. Let's not do it. Look, there's
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: no update there, guys. We'll get back into it at
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: some point. We're not going to talk about it today.
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  Speaker 4: Still annoying.
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  Speaker 2: All right, let's get to the other news. One year
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  Speaker 2: ago this week, We saw President Trump's plan to overturn
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: the 2020 election end with an attack on the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: Capitol by a mob of extremists who tried to stop
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  Speaker 2: Congress from certifying the results. At least seven people died.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Dozens more were injured. And a year later, we're still
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  Speaker 2: grappling with the fallout. A bipartisan committee in the House
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: that's investigating the attack will start holding public hearings in
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: a few weeks. Democrats announced on Monday that they will
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: try to change the Senate's filibuster rules to pass the
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Freedom to Vote Act. And Trump announced he'll be holding
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: a press conference where he says he'll talk about how, quote,
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  Speaker 2: The real insurrection took place on November 3rd, and it
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  Speaker 2: was the protest of the rigged election that took place
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  Speaker 2: on January 6th. Great stuff. Here's how 1-6 Committee co-chair
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  Speaker 2: Liz Cheney responded on Face the Nation Sunday.
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  Speaker 5: Look, I think that if what he has been saying
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  Speaker 5: since he left office is any indication, former President Trump
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  Speaker 5: is likely right. again this week to make the same
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  Speaker 5: false claims about the election that he knows to be
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  Speaker 5: false and the same false claims about the election that
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  Speaker 5: he knows caused violence on January 6th.
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  Speaker 3: You've raised in the past the possibility of criminal culpability
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  Speaker 3: for the president. Is that the consensus view of the committee?
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  Speaker 5: The committee has firsthand testimony that President Trump was sitting
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  Speaker 5: in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching
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  Speaker 5: on television as the Capitol was assaulted, as the violence occurred.
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  Speaker 5: We know that that is clearly a supreme dereliction of duty.
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  Speaker 5: One of the things that the committee is looking at
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  Speaker 5: from the perspective of our legislative purpose is whether we
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  Speaker 5: need enhanced penalties for that kind of dereliction of duty.
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  Speaker 2: It was Trump in the dining room with the remote.
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  Speaker 3: You know, just eating a rock-hard fucking hockey puck of
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  Speaker 3: a burger, watching Democracy fall apart.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: A well-done steak. Yeah, it's that little dining room right
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  Speaker 4: off the Oval, right? It's attached to the hallway. Of
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  Speaker 4: course that's what he was doing. Of course that's what
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  Speaker 4: he was doing. I'm surprised he didn't have a TV
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  Speaker 4: in the Oval Office, but I guess optically that looks bad.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, so let's start with the committee here, which
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: is still deciding whether they subpoena Republican members of Congress,
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  Speaker 2: like Jim Jordan, former Vice President Mike Pence, who... Many
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Trump supporters said that they wanted to hang that day.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: And Trump himself, the Democratic co-chair, Benny Thompson, also refused
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  Speaker 2: to rule out making criminal referrals to the Justice Department
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  Speaker 2: if warranted. What do you guys think of the subpoenas
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  Speaker 2: and the criminal referrals? Good idea? Bad idea? Tommy?
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we're bringing swagger back to this subpoena process. We're
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: bringing swagger back to this podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, we've got Eric Adams here.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, they're very separate questions. Subpoena, criminal referral.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, right.
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  Speaker 4: I'll take criminal referral first. I mean, the most obvious
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: point in the world is that whether or not they
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  Speaker 4: should make a criminal referral depends on what they find.
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  Speaker 4: If they find clear illegal conduct, they can refer it
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  Speaker 4: over to DOJ. That doesn't mean that DOJ will bring charges.
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  Speaker 4: It just means there might be political pressure on them
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: to bring charges. The committee is reportedly looking into whether
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: the fundraising around the Stop the Steal effort constituted wire fraud. Again,
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  Speaker 4: back to our friend Elizabeth Holmes. That just got her
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  Speaker 4: in some trouble. And whether there was obstruction of Congress
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: and whether there's a criminal charge there. We have no
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  Speaker 4: idea what they'll find. Liz Cheney is clearly suggesting that
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  Speaker 4: Meadows is in contempt of Congress. But she keeps hanging forward.
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  Speaker 4: When it comes to Trump, she keeps saying this dereliction
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  Speaker 4: of duty line. She won't say something that is illegal.
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  Speaker 2: I wonder what she means by that, like what the
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: statute is on dereliction of duty. Because what they seem
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  Speaker 2: to be getting at is that Trump could have done
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  Speaker 2: something to stop the violence and potentially chose not to.
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  Speaker 4: And as part of a conspiracy to obstruct the proceedings
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  Speaker 4: of Congress, which is what would make it against the law.
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  Speaker 2: Got it.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, look, if they are not cooperating, you should
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  Speaker 3: subpoena them. And if you find evidence of broken laws,
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  Speaker 3: you should. tell the Department of Justice, smoke them while
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  Speaker 3: you got them. We got this power for a little
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  Speaker 3: bit while, a little while longer. Every time a subpoena
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  Speaker 3: is in front of a Republican judge, they're like, we're
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  Speaker 3: thinking maybe after the Olympics we can work on this.
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  Speaker 4: But yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, the subpoenas, I agree. The subpoenas are an
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  Speaker 2: easy one.
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  Speaker 4: Subpoena all of them.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I wonder what the calculus is there suggesting that Trump
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  Speaker 3: committed a crime by not doing something I imagine is
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: a kind of creative legal argument. And I think They
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: are looking for kind of they're putting together a kind
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: of a record of what happened and whether or not
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  Speaker 3: that rises to level of crime. Some crimes will be
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  Speaker 3: very clear. Some will be debatable. Some won't be crimes.
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  Speaker 4: He's directly coordinating. He said, you get your ass in
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  Speaker 4: that building and you stop this count and you burn
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  Speaker 4: the like. Yes, sure. That that is obstruction of Congress.
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  Speaker 4: But it does feel like we all should step back,
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  Speaker 4: like during the Mueller investigation and realize that we're probably
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: not going to find that kind of smoking gun and
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: that this is going to be a political indictment in
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: a political case. We did learn that Ivanka went into
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  Speaker 4: the dining room a couple of times and tried to
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: get dad to stop. Well, which made me wonder, like,
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: do you think it was like, Hey dad, a couple
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: of things, you know, like Jared wants to get dinner Friday.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: Eric is trapped in the bathroom again.
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  Speaker 2: You might want to do something about that.
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  Speaker 3: Let's also keep in mind. that Don Jr. is texting
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  Speaker 3: Mark Meadows to pass on the message, and Ivanka just
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  Speaker 3: goes right into the feedlot.
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  Speaker 2: I made a joke about that on the last pod
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  Speaker 2: with Dan, that I bet Ivanka had a direct line
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  Speaker 2: to him, and sure enough, she did. No, I mean, look,
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  Speaker 2: I think on the subpoena question, right, they have to
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: decide to subpoena Donald Trump or not. I don't see
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: the downside, right? Because either he says yes, which seems unlikely,
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  Speaker 2: and then you hear Trump dissemble in front of Congress
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  Speaker 2: for a while.
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  Speaker 4: Under oath. Under oath.
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  Speaker 2: Or he refuses, which is most likely. And then what happens?
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  Speaker 2: Trump refuses. You go to court. Maybe he gets tied
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: up in court for a while. But if Trump, like,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: quote unquote, wins that and just delays and delays and
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  Speaker 2: delays by refusing the subpoena and, you know, like, who cares?
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: You might as well try.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's not a question.
• 9:19
  Speaker 6: Oh, no.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: The conservative press are going to say it's overreach.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: The shit hits the fan with if there is a
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: criminal referral to the Justice Department and then then Joe
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Biden's Justice Department has to make a decision whether to
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: bring charges against a former president. That's when you'll see the.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: That'll be interesting.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: That'll be a thing.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: And the same logic. Look, there'll be a lot of,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: if we were to end up in that situation, there
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: will be so much, the air will be thick with
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: the stench of bullshit and it'll be very hard to figure.
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  Speaker 4: Out what's going on.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: A lot of red hand alerts there.
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: A lot of nonsense.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: But the same argument will, I think, be right, which
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: is if he broke the law, he should be indicted
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: because he's just a fucking person. and everything else will
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: just be the same kind of bullshit.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: He's not he's not president anymore that was the whole
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: thing that he's you know used to protect himself during
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: the muller investigation and you know he was president all
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: this guy's privilege he's not president anymore.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: But the most important thing is uh would that we
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: lived in that world where that's what we're going to
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: be debating. Do not wait for the justice system to
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: save us from these people.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: It will not happen.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Don't expect it to happen.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Don't order a bunch of Liz Cheney bobblehead dolls to
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: replace your Bob Mueller bobblehead dolls.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: You can't take that sweater that says Cuomo sexual and
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: have the Cuomo part replaced with Cheney.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: That's a good idea.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Like when people change a tattoo from a girlfriend they
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: broke up with.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: It's some good resistance merch. I do think, like Tommy
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: was saying, it's useful to step back and ask what
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: is the most useful, realistic goal for this committee, right?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Because I think that we, at least the three of us,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: have sort of lowered expectations about what it can achieve
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: based on the Mueller investigation and the two impeachment hearings.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: But we have the committee. It's happening. So what's a
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: useful goal? And I think it is persuading the public
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: or some members of the public that the people who
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: tried to overturn the election and incite an insurrection shouldn't
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: hold office again, particularly Donald Trump. And As you do that,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I think one thing we've learned from the previous investigations
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: is even if you tell the story in a compelling
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: and dramatic way, that works for the people who are
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: watching these hearings unfold on TV, which I have to
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: tell you is just all of us political junkies. But
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: the thing that breaks through and that the media will
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: cover is sort of new revelations, bombshells, or even like
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: new details, right? They don't even have to be bombshells,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: like this Ivanka Trump thing. So I do think as
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: you're the committee, you have to figure out like, We
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: need to get new information out there to keep getting
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: this covered and not just like great speeches in Congress.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: Right. And also, by the way, we're all just watching
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: replays because we watched this insurrection happen in real time.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: There's nothing could possibly be more dramatic. No hearing, no revelation,
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: no anything than what we all witnessed and watched on television.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: And the fact that he waited hours and hours before
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: going out and saying something and trying to calm his
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: white nationalist mob tells us everything we need to know,
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: or at least should. But hopefully we can, you know,
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: hang some details on that story. Yeah.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: And we're going to talk about how this relates to
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: the fight for voter protections that are potentially about to
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: be once again attempted in this Congress. But I do
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: think even before you get to that, like there was
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: a poll that came out that said 68% of Democrats
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: say January 6th had a major impact on their worldview.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Only 35% of independents and 24% of Republicans agree. And
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: I do think we just all have to be honest
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: that we have not succeeded in persuading people that democracy
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: is under attack that January 6th represented some kind of
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: existential threat to society. There is, I think, an internal
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: engaged progressive conversation that takes a lot of this as
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: fact and understood and shared. It just isn't. It just isn't.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I think it is understood. I think the question is,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: how much is it top of mind for people? I
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: think there's a difference. Are people persuaded that it was
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: bad and that Trump was responsible? Or do they just
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: forget because the world moves on and we forget what
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: happened a week ago? We'll get into some of the
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: polling numbers, but I don't know that it's clear which
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: is true.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: And it doesn't really matter. Is it important to you
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: right now?
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: We're not going to hold these hearings like the day
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: before the election.
• 13:22
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: And so as we think about what it means to
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: fight for voting rights, as it thinks what it means
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: to debate, to figure out what a message will be
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: against Trump, I think we should just recognize that our
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: collective understanding that democracy is under siege, which I think
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: is absolutely true, is not something on the top of
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: mind for a lot of people. These hearings are a
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: way that you can bring it back to people's minds
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: in a way that may be as sustainable.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: As it is. The big question is for how long?
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: For how long?
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, people have a two-week memory. That is
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: the world that we are in.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Generous.
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: Generous.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: So it's tough. How much attention do you guys think
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: the Trump press conference should get on Thursday? Big press conference.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think it should be covered. It Will
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: matter in terms of what gets covered. I expect it
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: will be the same old lies and bullshit. I mean,
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: basically previewed what we all expect him to say in
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: the statement announcing that he's going to do this press conference.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: So I think the story should be the fact that
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: he's doing this, not necessarily the lies he regurgitates. And
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: I think hopefully that means that, you know, the AP
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: won't throw out a bulletin that's like Trump says election stolen.
• 14:27
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, we don't need any of that shit. We
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: need to learn from the mistake of the live stream
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: podium and the mindlessly regurgitating the words of a well-known
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: liar and the endless tortured use of false statement versus
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: like we should. Hopefully this is covered extensively because I
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: think people should see this. And it's juxtaposed with the
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: very solemn, very sad moments in the Capitol and the
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: testimony from the cops who got the shit kicked out
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: of them and the lawmakers who were scared for their lives.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, that to me is the story.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Trump being on television has rarely reminded people that they
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: like him.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I was just going to say.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: That's my, I think people actually need a reminder of
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: how awful he is.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: Because Kamala got him off Twitter.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: You look at some of these polls, so they're doing
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: early head-to-head polls with Biden and Trump, and Trump is
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: creeping back up because I think a lot, he's not
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: on Twitter. I think a lot of people forget just
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: how much of a fucking buffoon he is.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: I think the biggest.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Not his supporters, but most people.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: I feel like one of the most important deltas in
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: politics right now is the space between The majority that
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: says Trump should not run and the polls that show
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Trump neck and neck with Joe Biden. That space is
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: whether or not we're going to have a democracy right there.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: The CBS poll that we're going to talk, we'll just
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: get into it now. There's a bunch of polls out
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: over the weekend about January 6th attacks from the Washington Post, CBS,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: ABC and Politico. I want to talk about what results
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: stood out to you guys.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: I jumped the gun.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: I jumped the gun.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: Hey, I'm sorry.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: We're there.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: I jumped the gun.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: We're there. What happened? We landed on the next question.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: We're good. 62% in the CBS poll, 62% of Americans
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: said the question was, what should Trump do now? And
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: 62% said he should not run for president again. And yet,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: some of these had-to-have polls have him very close to
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, if not tied, if not leading by a
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: point or two. So you're right.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: That is a very important concept. he should not run
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: and he has my vote. Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: Which, you know, tells you about Biden news for the
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: White House.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I will say that in that CBS poll and
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: that same question, when they asked, what should Trump do now? Uh,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: 4% said he should fight to retake the presidency right
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: now by force if necessary, which was of course the
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: headline that was everywhere. And then people were saying, well,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: that 4% translates into millions of Americans who would fight
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: by force. I'm like, let's not take a fucking subset
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: of that small sample size, 4% of our thousand respondent
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: poll and say that translates to millions of Americans who
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: are going to, like, look, we're in a lot of
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: trouble right now, but let's be careful what we say here.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: And let's also be clear. These are not disaffected World
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: War I veterans, all right? These are some fucking unhealthy
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: white baby boomers. That's who this army is. Speaking of which, though,
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: there was an AP headline. And speaking of both that
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: fact and the fact that we're worried about how the
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Trump press conference will be covered, this was a headline.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: Ashley Babbitt, a martyr? Her past tells a more complex story.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: Complex. That was a weird story.
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: Wild.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: She's very complex.
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't love that either.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Anyway. What other numbers stood out to you guys in
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: all these polls?
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, on the democracy question that you were raising, Levitt,
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: this jumped out at me. So 54% in the Washington
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: Post poll said they have pride in democracy itself. That's
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: down from 90% two decades ago. But among 18 to 29-year-olds...
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: 54% of them have a negative perception of US democracy
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: as it exists today. So I think that just sort
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: of speaks to the complexity of this conversation about protecting
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: democracy when you have a whole subset of young people
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: who just feel like, well, the system doesn't work anyway,
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: so who cares?
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I will also say, I enjoyed your white baby boomer joke,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: but in some of these polls, the most extreme Trump
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: supporters and the ones who are talking about justifying the
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: use of violence for some of the younger Republicans, which
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: is actually, I think, pretty frightening.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: Well, and that's borne out anecdotally, like TPUSA conferences when
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: people ask Charlie Kirk when we can start shooting.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: It's not great.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you that much.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: On Trump, I thought, in addition to 62% saying he
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: should not seek the presidency again, I thought that both
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: the Washington Post and ABC polls showed that about 60%
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: of Americans think Trump bears a great deal or good
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: amount of blame for January 6th. which is essentially unchanged
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: from these polls a year ago when the insurrection had
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: just happened, which I thought was very interesting.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: Yep. Also, you know, a lot of these numbers broke
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: along partisan lines that you might expect. I looked at
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: some of the historical numbers from Gallup about voters accepting
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: the results of the election. And in 2016, Gallup found
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: that 84% accepted Trump as legitimate, 15% did not. In 2000,
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: 83% accepted Bush as legitimate, a legitimately legitimate questionable election outcome,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: by the way. So, um, historically it does seem like,
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: or at least recently there has been, you know, 15%
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: plus percent of the population. It's just like, no way
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: that guy's not my president. And Trump seems to have
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: maybe doubled that number through the constant messaging and the
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: constant lies. It's, it's notable.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, and, and the numbers, I think that are
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: a little scary on the issue of violence. Um, CBS,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I guess, pulled the approval for the violent mob.
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: The violent one, the serpent care, what's their approval? Um,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: They had 13% approval in 2021 and 17% approval now. So, again,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: not much of a change there.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it seemed noisy.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: And then the Washington Post poll was kind of scary.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: It said, found that 40% of Republicans and independents say
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: violence against the government is sometimes justified. 23% of Dems
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: said that. All of this was the highest percent. in decades.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: I just thought that was like typical American revolutionary war
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: rhetorical DNA. I don't know. I mean, I sort of
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: compare these same people to the ones who said like,
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: a set of the vaccine mandates, no, I will quit
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: my job and, you know, light myself on fire. And
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: then you see the numbers of like, you know, Delta
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: employees who quit and it's like 200 people.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: You know, and like 65 plus Americans who took the
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: vaccine and it's like 90%.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: A lot of big talk, not a lot of Paul
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: Revere's out there. Yeah.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: I do think also in all this, there's some, it's
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: so hard to break down. First of all, people are
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: all pundits when they get a call. They're not only
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: pundits now. I'd be like the old problem created by
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: cable news in part was that everyone had become a pundit. Now,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: In the internet age, everyone is also a troll. And
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: so they get a call and they're asked these questions
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: and they answer in a way that is helpful to
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: their side and kind of puts a thumb in the
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: eye to their opponents. When people say they don't think
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: democracy works, do they mean it's just not delivering? Do
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: they mean that they don't believe Republicans have the right
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: to retain power? Do they mean that they don't think
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: the system allows for a free and fair election. We
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: don't know what they mean, and I think those differences matter.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of angles at some of the frustrations
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: and numbers. I mean, in the CBS poll, over two-thirds
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: thought January 6th was a sign of increasing political violence
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: and that democracy is threatened. So there is a broad
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: baseline of concern. Quite a sign. I mean, it was.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what gave you the.
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: Right, right.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Back to our conversation about the 1-6 Committee, 60% approved
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: the 1-6 Committee, including 40% of Republicans. I found that
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: fairly surprising.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's interesting.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: And, you know, when we talk about subpoenas and criminal referrals,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: like that's, you know, they should use the power and
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: the public approval that they have. I also think that's
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: why it's, it's kind of good that Liz Cheney is
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: the face of this committee having a Republican. Like I,
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: you know, again, it's great. People see a, people see
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: a Republican at Cheney, no less out there leading this
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: committee with, you know, Republicans and Democrats. You don't have
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: to love Liz Cheney. I wouldn't fucking vote for her.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: I don't like her, but she's a good messenger.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: Let's see what happens, though, when the Sauron eye turns
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: at this committee, which has not been targeted at all.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, we'll see.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: So Democrats are going to try to prevent future attacks
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: on the democratic process by making another push for the
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Freedom to Vote Act in the next few weeks. On
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Monday morning, Chuck Schumer announced that, quote, the Senate will
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: debate and consider changes to Senate filibuster rules on or
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: before January 17th, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to protect
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: the foundation of our democracy, free and fair elections. A
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: few days before Christmas, President Biden also reiterated his support
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: for making an exception to the filibuster for voting rights.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Can I say something? I'm glad you called it reiterated.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of people who do not remember
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: that he did this before.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: It was really weird. And these are all people who
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: pay attention to the news for a living. It was
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: months earlier, right? Yeah, it was November. It was a
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: town hall in November. Now, it was not like an announcement.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: He sort of just kind of like trembled it out
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: in the middle of an answer, which is, I'm sure,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: not what the White House wanted.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: It fell in some soup.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: But he said it. He said it in November. I
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: don't know why anyone thought that was new. Good for him.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: I'm glad. So what do you guys think? Is this
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: just a get-caught-trying strategy by Chuck, or do you think
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: he's got a real plan to change the filibuster? I, for.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: One, think he has a real plan to change the filibuster.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: Okay. I hope there's a, I mean, there were a
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: lot of really great stories written about Harry Reid after
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: his death. And one of the themes was like, he
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: always had a plan. He knew when to fight. He
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: knew when fighting for the sake of fighting, even when
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: you were going to lose was a good idea. You
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: knew when to cut a deal. I don't have that
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: same confidence in the current leadership. And I think like,
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: I don't want to veer into a green lantern theory
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: territory where you think every problem can be solved if
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: you just fight harder or try more. But I do
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: think that like, Schumer let expectations get all out of
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: whack on the size and scope of Build Back Better.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: And it is cut to our detriment because people are, well,
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: nothing's happened, but also people are incredibly frustrated with the
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: bill getting trimmed down to something that would have been enormous.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: And I guess I want to get caught trying. I
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: want to see Democrats fight on this issue. But first,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: you got to do the work behind the scenes. Because
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: if we set in this new initiative over the next
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: two weeks, and then Joe Manchin does another Fox News hit,
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: and torpedoes it, all the activists you're supposed to be
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: fighting for are going to be demoralized.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: I'm really torn on this one because for months and
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: months and months, for an entire year, we've been saying, okay,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema don't want to change the
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: filibuster rule, but Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and every
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: other Democrat should fight as hard as they can anyway
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: and put this up for a vote and make this
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: a big public issue and get caught trying. And now
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: they are. And you're right, Tommy, that there's a question
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: of are we raising expectations for something that's not going
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: to happen because Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have not
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: changed their mind? And so is all this public pressure
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: going to matter to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema? Maybe
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: it doesn't, but probably good that you're trying to fight anyway.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Or do you just tell people, hey, they're not going
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: to change their mind, so I'm not going to try.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, Manchin said he won't do it if it's
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: not bipartisan, right?
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: So I don't know.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: I'd argue it both ways, too. So this is.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: It's a very tough situation because it's very clear what
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: the right thing to do is. And there are two
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: people who will not allow us to do the right thing.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: And they're supposedly on our side. But get caught trying.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: If it means anything, it means showing that you're trying
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: is good politics. And hey, it just might work. The
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: problem I have with hey, it just might work is
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: we just did a round of this. Put the bill
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: forward that they're not committed to passing. Pressure mounts, question mark,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: question mark, question mark, success. Well, we didn't get the success.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Are you talking about Build Back Better?
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: Demoralized.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: We got demoralized and it didn't happen. And the pressure
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: of the votes here, it's time, it's time, it's time,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: didn't really come to anything.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: We have a year.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: The election is less than a year away. We need
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: to earn people's votes. We need to protect the right
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: to vote. And we need to do everything we can
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: to defense against efforts to overturn the election. I do
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: not know what getting caught trying on this, doing another
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: month of this, and having them stand in the way
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: of us actually protecting the right to vote or passing
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: any kinds of reforms to the Electoral Count Act and
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: having nothing to show for it at the end, I
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: don't know how it does anything to advance those three goals,
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: especially when, as we've just talked about, there's a lot
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: of polling that shows for independence, this is not as
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: salient an issue as it should be. So I don't
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: know what the right thing is. I do hope that
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: maybe there's some backroom conversations about the kinds of reforms
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: to the filibuster that Manchin has expressed some kind of
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: openness to in the past. Maybe this leads to a compromise.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Maybe this leads to, I don't know.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: There's another path here, which is that what the plan is,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: is that Manchin and Sinema are on board with the
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: return of the talking filibuster, or you need to have
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: 41 senators on the floor constantly in order to maintain
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: the filibuster, which I think would be even better than
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: the talking filibuster. So yeah, maybe there's one of those.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Maybe we get one of those reforms and then there's
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: like a big fight And then you sort of bring
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: it back to it's not Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema's fault,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: but it's these 40 Republicans who are standing on the
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: floor filibustering all day and night to stop voting rights.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: And in the public's mind, now they know that it's
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Republicans who are blocking this. And so it's more of
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: a persuasion play than anything else. Better than nothing? Maybe.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: But where we were at the beginning of the Biden
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: administration 10 years ago was we said, hey, look, there
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: are all these point there's all these moments that are
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: going to come they're going to show how bad the
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: filibuster is here they come and we have just barreled
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: right through every single one of them and they're and
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: cinema and mansion have not really moved because.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: We never but there was never a question of who
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: the audience is for that right to show how bad
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: the filibuster is to the public to because really all
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: that matters is showing joe mansion and kirsten cinema like
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: we are we do this we don't have this conversation
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: again we build back better like we always get back
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: to It is about convincing two people, not necessarily the public.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, these guys got to be doing the work behind
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: the scenes. It's all that matters. Because Joe Manchin's political
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: incentives are to tell the party to fuck off and
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: do it publicly, as publicly as possible. Do it on
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: Fox News, probably. And that works for him. It's good
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: for him.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Maybe he's excited to be able to kill it.
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: He's probably into it. He would love to tell a
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: bunch of annoying liberal Democrats that he doesn't agree with them.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: That's his kink.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Well, and the real triangulation for Manchin here is he
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: can be like, I support the Freedom to Vote Act.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I'm the one who wrote it.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Like I love this piece of legislation. It doesn't sound
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: like Sinema is going to be even more difficult than
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Manchin on this one because she's like, you know, I
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: just her whole thing is if we change voting laws
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: on a partisan basis, then if Republicans take over and
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: get rid of the filibuster, they'll change voting rights laws
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: right back to the other way. They'll do they'll do
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: something worse. So but I'm interested to see what Chuck's
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: got up his sleeve. When we come back, Lovett interviews
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: the UCSF Department of Medicine chair, Bob Wachter, about the
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Omicron surge.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: The U.S. hit a daily average of more than 400,000
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: COVID cases, which is a record, thankfully. We have not
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: seen nearly the same increase in hospitalizations or deaths, confirming, hopefully,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: the theory that while it is causing breakthrough infections, Omicron
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: is leading to more mild illness, especially among the vaccinated
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: and boosted. Here to help us understand where we're at,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: he's the chair of the Department of Medicine at the
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Robert Wachter. Thanks for
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: being here.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: Thank you, John.
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: It's a great pleasure.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: Listen, there's no easy way for me to say this.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: I have to say what I'm about to say, and
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: you won't like it and I won't like it.
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: Dr.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Wachter, give me the news. I've got a bad case
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: of hating COVID.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: I'm so sorry.
• 29:40
  Speaker 6: The news is terrible, but I think it's the storm
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: before the calm. I think there's a pretty good chance
• 29:50
  Speaker 6: that this variant, which stinks in many ways, is going
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: to turn out to be a lucky break. And the
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: lucky break may be because it is so transmissible, but
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: less severe than what we've seen before it. It turns
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: out to give an extra dose of immunity to those
• 30:05
  Speaker 6: who have been vaccinated, many of them, and give some
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: immunity to those who haven't been vaccinated. And then we
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: end up having a pretty bad month or so, but
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: we end up in a pretty good place in February.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: So one thing you tweeted earlier today is that you
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: saw some evidence that San Francisco might be hitting what
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: you called an immunity wall. Can you talk about what
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: that means and why that's giving you some reason for
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: cautious optimism?
• 30:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I work at a big academic medical center, the
• 30:34
  Speaker 6: University of California, San Francisco. So we have seen a
• 30:38
  Speaker 6: massive uptick in the number of cases in the Bay Area,
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: including a lot of breakthrough cases and people have been vaccinated.
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: And we've seen a moderate increase in hospitalized cases, but
• 30:50
  Speaker 6: very few new cases in the intensive care unit. And
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: that seems to be plateauing over the last three or
• 30:55
  Speaker 6: four days. Too early to call a trend, but it
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: feels like it's real. And the percentage of people testing
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: positive for COVID has also peaked and has actually started
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: coming down a little bit. So that's after two or
• 31:06
  Speaker 6: three weeks. So that's all reassuring. And the question is,
• 31:09
  Speaker 6: how and why would that be happening? And I look
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: at San Francisco as the poster child for how to
• 31:16
  Speaker 6: do the pandemic right. The number of deaths that we've
• 31:19
  Speaker 6: had since this thing started over two years is about 650.
• 31:23
  Speaker 6: If the nation had had our per capita death rate,
• 31:26
  Speaker 6: there would be about 500,000 people alive today that have died.
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: And so what San Francisco has done right in large
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: part now is vaccination. So 81% of the people in
• 31:38
  Speaker 6: San Francisco, including the little kids who can't be vaccinated,
• 31:41
  Speaker 6: 81% have gotten at least two shots. And so we're
• 31:45
  Speaker 6: what it looks like to have a highly vaccinated population.
• 31:48
  Speaker 6: And I think what we're probably seeing is that the
• 31:51
  Speaker 6: relatively few unvaccinated people are mostly young and healthy, and
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: they're all going to get COVID if they're not being careful,
• 31:59
  Speaker 6: but they're probably, they're mostly going to have mild cases.
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: The people at risk for a bad outcome, older people,
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: people with medical illnesses, almost all are vaccinated and they're
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: getting a fair number of cases of COVID, but very
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: few of them are getting sick and going to the hospital.
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: So I think we may be what it looks like
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: when you have a population that is highly immune coming
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: into this Omicron variant. You get a lot of cases,
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: a lot of breakthrough cases, but not that many very
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: sick people and not that many deaths.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: One of several confusing pieces of communication that happened over
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: the holidays was there was one announcement that said Omicron
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: is all the cases. And then they corrected it and said, actually,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: we don't know that. It may have been only 20%
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: of the cases. Now it's 60% of the cases. What
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: are you seeing in terms of how much of this
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: spike is just Delta hitting the unvaccinated and some vaccinated?
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: How much of it is Omicron? Do you see Omicron
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: kind of keeping Delta at bay and causing less hospitalizations?
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: What are you seeing in the data now?
• 32:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, we don't test for variants in
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: that many people. So we have to kind of guess
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: from where we do test and then also guess from
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: the patterns that we're seeing. And I think that what
• 33:10
  Speaker 6: we're seeing in San Francisco, and I think what we're
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: seeing around the country is telling us that Omicron is
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: becoming the dominant player. And I don't know anybody who
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: does not predict that it will become the major player
• 33:22
  Speaker 6: by January. It's just growing so quickly. Yeah, the CDC
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: got the estimate wrong, but they got it off by
• 33:28
  Speaker 6: a week or so. And by the time you finished
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: reading it, it was probably right. It's going up so
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: incredibly quickly. And the signal that this is almost all
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: Omicron is this massive dissociation between cases and hospitalizations. If
• 33:44
  Speaker 6: we had had the number of cases that we're seeing
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: in San Francisco, if this was Delta, we would have
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: two or three or four times the number of people
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: in hospitals. Recognize that the number of cases that we're
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: registering now on the public databases are a marked underestimate
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: of the number of true cases, because very few people
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: who are getting home testing, if that's how they're diagnosing themselves,
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: are calling in and recording their cases. Cases are probably
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: two or three times what we're seeing even on the
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: measured numbers. And we're just not seeing the number of
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: hospitalizations that we would have expected. So I think we're
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: on our way to Omicron being the virus, being the
• 34:21
  Speaker 6: COVID virus that we were battling in 2022.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: So it's interesting to hear you say that because that's
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: actually something that was on my mind. I just feel
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: actually in a new way that there are unregistered cases,
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: unregistered positives, right? Like that was certainly true throughout the pandemic.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: But now I know of so many people who have
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: gotten one of the rapid tests, he came back positive,
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: they're sick. They're not going to get another confirming test.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: They're just staying home for a couple of days, as
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: are the other people in their family who may never
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: get a test, but weren't feeling well.
• 34:48
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: I think that's, I think that's right. Yeah. There've always been,
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: there's been a disconnect between the number of people that
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: tested positive and the number of people that actually had COVID,
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: but it was sort of a predictable number. And, and,
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: and it feels very different now. There were not the
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: rapid tests and people didn't understand how to use them.
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: There certainly is a shortage now, but there's a fair
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: number of them around. And yeah, I think if I
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: got really sick and had symptoms consistent with COVID and
• 35:15
  Speaker 6: I tested myself with a rapid two days in a row,
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: I'd probably call it a day and say, I have
• 35:19
  Speaker 6: COVID and I'd be right. And so those numbers aren't
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: getting registered in any state or regional or national database.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: So the rise of Omicron, the possibility now more and
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: more confirmed that it is more mild and not just
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: because it's hitting a vaccinated population. is I think scrambling
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: a bit some of the risk calculus that people have done.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: And so I want to attack this in two different ways.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: I want to start by looking at the people that
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: have basically used this as an excuse to say there
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: should be no restrictions and that restrictions don't work. You
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: talked about this when you compared California to Texas and Florida,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: that basically they look at the numbers, see California got
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: hit pretty bad, Florida, Texas, they got hit pretty bad.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: What is the evidence that these restrictions make any difference?
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Can you talk a little bit about how, once you
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: actually go into the data, that's a pretty specious argument.
• 36:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there have been times earlier in the pandemic where
• 36:11
  Speaker 6: I have been frankly surprised that Florida and Texas weren't
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: doing all that much worse than California. They were doing
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: worse all the way along, but not as much as
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: you would expect given the laxity of the rules and
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: the political malpractice that I think was being committed in
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: those two states. And California, I think, has generally been
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: quite good. What's happened in the last six or eight
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: months as vaccinations has become more of the main tool
• 36:37
  Speaker 6: that we use to prevent this virus, is the numbers
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: have diverged even more. So I hear periodically people still
• 36:44
  Speaker 6: have this mantra of Texas and Florida did just about
• 36:47
  Speaker 6: as well as California. This is not true anymore. The
• 36:51
  Speaker 6: death rates in those, the per capita death rates in
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: Florida and Texas are between 30 and 50% higher than
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: the per capita death rate in California. And if you
• 37:03
  Speaker 6: took California's per capita death rate and applied it to
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: Florida and applied it to Texas, you would have about 20,000
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: fewer deaths in each state. You'd have 40,000 total fewer deaths.
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: So that to me is a big deal. I mean,
• 37:16
  Speaker 6: that to me is if the difference was a couple
• 37:19
  Speaker 6: of percent, you might say, well, was it worth the restrictions?
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: But the differences are massive. And I think really speak
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: to California having handled this well, with the appropriate sort
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: of treating people as adults. This is what we got
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: to do. It's hard. None of us want to do it,
• 37:37
  Speaker 6: but it's the right thing to do, pushing vaccination. And
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: I think the proof is many thousands of lives that
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: have been saved.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: So you've been pretty even-handed around some of the criticism
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: that the CDC faced when they announced that they wanted
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: to bring the quarantine time from 10 to five days,
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: even without a test. Can you talk a little bit
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: about why that didn't that you had concerns about it,
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: but you weren't as, I think, activated as some others
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: for that change.
• 38:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I have sympathy for the CDC because I think
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: they've got a really tough job and the people running
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: the place are competent now. And here's the problem. If
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: you stick with a 10-day isolation period for COVID, for everybody,
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: there are going to be a lot of people who
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: no longer are infectious by day six or seven, and
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: you are forcing them to stay indoors for for three
• 38:27
  Speaker 6: or four extra days. Now, that may not matter for
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: some people, but we saw over the holidays what it
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: means for the airlines. We would see in hospitals and
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: clinics all over the country what would happen if you
• 38:41
  Speaker 6: have thousands and thousands of nurses and doctors who are
• 38:44
  Speaker 6: being forced to isolate for 10 days as an arbitrary number.
• 38:49
  Speaker 6: It turns out that the majority, probably 80 or so
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: percent of people, by day six, even if you've had COVID,
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: if you feel fine, and particularly if you're vaccinated, are
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: no longer infectious. And the ones that are still infectious
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: probably are shedding a pretty low level of virus. So
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: if they were wearing a good mask, and by that
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: I mean an N95 or the equivalent, they really wouldn't
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: be at a major risk to the community. This is
• 39:14
  Speaker 6: also happening at a time where probably one out of
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: 15 or one out of 20 people walking around the streets,
• 39:20
  Speaker 6: even in a place like San Francisco, have COVID and
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: feel fine. So they're infectious. So the major public health
• 39:27
  Speaker 6: threat is probably not the person on day six who
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: had COVID. It's probably just the person you run into
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: at the Starbucks, particularly if nobody's wearing a mask. And
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: we have this massive shortage of tests. And I am
• 39:37
  Speaker 6: critical of the government. We should have figured that out
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: and gotten our testing together. So I think at the CDC,
• 39:43
  Speaker 6: they probably added all that up and said, If we
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: tell people they're good to go on day six, if
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: they feel perfectly fine, and if they wear a good mask,
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: they should have emphasized that more. The number of people
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: that are going to get infected by those folks, those
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: COVID people going out into real life is relatively small.
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: And we will be able to have a larger workforce
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: able to staff our hospitals and airlines and so on.
• 40:08
  Speaker 6: I think they're probably going to go back on that.
• 40:10
  Speaker 6: I think they heard the criticism. California came out and said,
• 40:13
  Speaker 6: we're not doing that. We are going to require testing
• 40:15
  Speaker 6: on day five or six in order to free yourself
• 40:18
  Speaker 6: from isolation. So I think that is the better policy,
• 40:21
  Speaker 6: but I am worried if they say you need to
• 40:23
  Speaker 6: test to be free and nobody can get a test.
• 40:25
  Speaker 6: First of all, you're gonna have a lot of pissed
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: off people. And second of all, I worry that we're
• 40:29
  Speaker 6: gonna have too many people who are stuck in isolation,
• 40:32
  Speaker 6: who are not infectious, but who just can't get access
• 40:35
  Speaker 6: to a test. So it's a pretty sticky wicket to
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: try to navigate. I do think the right policy is
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: to have enough tests and for people to test themselves
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: out of isolation starting on day five.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: Right, I mean, I think, The part that made sense
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: to me was the shortages that hospitals are having because
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: a lot of their staff are having to stay home.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Is that something that you're experiencing.
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: In the San Francisco system? Are you seeing.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: Staffing shortages causing a reduction in the quality of care
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: being provided?
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: No, not yet.
• 41:10
  Speaker 6: But again, we're lucky here because so many people are
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: vaccinated and the number of people who are out because
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: of COVID is real. It's much higher than it's ever been,
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: including among vaccinated people, but it's not at the point
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: that we are unable to staff our ER or our
• 41:25
  Speaker 6: ICU or have to close down the operating rooms. I
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: do worry, the Cleveland Clinic reported yesterday that they've got 4,000
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: doctors and nurses who are out out of about 70,000
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: people that work there. You start getting to numbers like that,
• 41:39
  Speaker 6: you are going to have to shut some things down. Now,
• 41:42
  Speaker 6: It's probably the first thing you shut down is truly
• 41:45
  Speaker 6: elective procedures and surgery. So it's not life-threatening in the
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: short term, but we could easily find ourselves in a
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: pickle where the hospitals aren't so much overwhelmed with patients
• 41:57
  Speaker 6: who are sick with COVID, but you have enough patients
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: who are sick with COVID on top of the winter,
• 42:02
  Speaker 6: which is always busy in hospitals, on top of 5%
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: or 10% of your staff who are not there. You
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: find yourself in a real problem. And I think we
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: do want to figure that out before it happens. And
• 42:15
  Speaker 6: I think one part of figuring that out is getting
• 42:18
  Speaker 6: people out of isolation the day that they are no
• 42:21
  Speaker 6: longer infectious. You don't want to do it before they're
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: no longer infectious, but you don't want them all to
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: be sitting home for 10 days when 80% of them
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: are probably good to go by day six or seven.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: Well, this was the part that was sort of frustrating
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: to me because it's like, just say what's going on here,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: that it can be five days for a lot of people.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: If you had the test, you could test people out.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: We don't have the tests, but we don't think people
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: are going to listen to us anymore anyway. So we're
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: trying to kind of do a little social engineering, a
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: little kind of making the best of a bad situation.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: But of course, they can't say that. So they announced
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: this as a kind of decision that's not really evidence-based.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: It seems more practical than it does seem like science.
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I was bugged by it too. And I think
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: the thing that really bugged me was I think they
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: should have just told the truth. And we have a
• 43:07
  Speaker 6: limited number of tests. And if you can't get a
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: test and you feel perfectly fine, we think the risk
• 43:12
  Speaker 6: of you going out into civilization is quite low. You
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: should wear a really good mask for the next five
• 43:18
  Speaker 6: days and be super careful around vulnerable people. That would
• 43:20
  Speaker 6: have been okay. The message they put out was the
• 43:23
  Speaker 6: tests don't work very well on day five.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: That's just wrong.
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: That's just not right. They work perfectly fine. They're great
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: for that. They don't work super well with Omicron on
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: day one. There is a little bit of a risk
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: that people will test negative on their first day, positive
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: the next day, but they were already infectious that night,
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: and I've seen that play out. But there's no evidence
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: that they don't work for that purpose, which is to
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: tell you whether you're infectious as you get to the
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: tail end of your infectious period, A567. And that message,
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: I thought, was not only wrong, but potentially harmful, because
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: people need to use and trust the tests if they
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: use them in the right way.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: How do you see the fact that the disease is
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: more mild and hitting more vaccinated and kind of immune populations,
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: changing what safety protocols, restrictions should look like generally?
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: Well, for now, I think that we should all be
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: really careful. And I know that that seems odd because
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: people might say, well, it's really milder. First of all,
• 44:23
  Speaker 6: I think we only have a month or so of
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: a pretty bad time, and then the sun's going to
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: come out, and I think we're going to be in
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: pretty good shape. So the And I don't buy this
• 44:32
  Speaker 6: idea that everybody's going to get Omicron, so what the hell?
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: I think that's a mistake. I haven't gotten it so far.
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: I plan on trying my darn is not to get
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: it for the next month. I still don't want it
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: because even if it's a mild case, there still are
• 44:43
  Speaker 6: going to be some people that get long COVID. There's
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: still going to be people who infect other people. So
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: I think it's a good idea. This is a good
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: time actually to try to be really careful and hunker down.
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: Use an N95 because this thing is much more infectious
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: than the prior virus. So we need to up our
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: own game in terms of staying protected. It's important to
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: look at the milder thing and parse it a little bit.
• 45:06
  Speaker 6: It seems like it's substantially milder in people who are vaccinated.
• 45:11
  Speaker 6: And that's great news because the majority of Americans are vaccinated.
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: And in certain cities like mine, four out of five
• 45:17
  Speaker 6: people are vaccinated. So that's terrific news. If you take
• 45:21
  Speaker 6: people who are unvaccinated, the best data says that it
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: is milder but maybe by 20 or 30%, not 70%.
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: And if twice as many people get it or three
• 45:32
  Speaker 6: times as many people get it and it's only 20% milder,
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: that math still is not very good. You're gonna see
• 45:37
  Speaker 6: a lot of unvaccinated people who are gonna get really sick,
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: particularly if they hear this it's milder thing and let
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: their guard down, assuming they've held their guard up at all.
• 45:47
  Speaker 6: So I think the next month could be pretty nasty
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: and pretty awful, particularly for unvaccinated people. Where we end
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: up in potentially a good place is, let's say it's February,
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: and I think that's the likeliest call. You end up
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: with people who are fully vaccinated who probably did fine.
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: Some of them will have gotten a breakthrough case, which
• 46:06
  Speaker 6: will act like a booster that will up their immunity.
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: The unvaccinated people who made a very bad decision, if
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: they didn't die of Omicron, they probably have gotten it,
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: and they got their immunity in an aerosolized fashion through
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: the virus. And you end up in a place where
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: the entire population has some measure of immunity. The virus
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: they're being exposed to, assuming Omicron becomes the dominant virus,
• 46:30
  Speaker 6: is on average milder, particularly in people who have immunity
• 46:33
  Speaker 6: and even the unvaccinated by then probably are gonna have immunity.
• 46:36
  Speaker 6: And by then we're gonna have a decent, although not
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: perfect supply of this Pfizer medicine, Paxlovid, that lowers your
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: chance of getting really sick if you're at high risk
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: by 90%. When you add all that, up together, it's
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: hard for me to come up with a scenario where
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: things don't look pretty good in February unless, of course,
• 46:57
  Speaker 6: there's some new variant curveball. And there's absolutely no way
• 47:00
  Speaker 6: of predicting the probability of that.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: So what is your advice to people who have immunocompromised
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: loved ones now? And do you think it's time for
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: those people to be able to get a fourth shot?
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: The Pfizer drug, which is now fully approved, A doctor
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: can prescribe it to a patient if they believe that
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: the benefits outweigh the risks. And so there are plenty
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: of people who are being prescribed fourth shots and including
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: many people in my system. If I was immunocompromised and
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: I had not had a response to the first three shots,
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: I would figure out a way of getting a fourth shot.
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: I have no guarantee it's going to work, but it's
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: a perfectly reasonable thing to do and perfectly scientifically grounded
• 47:40
  Speaker 6: to try it. And there are some people for whom
• 47:43
  Speaker 6: the second booster is what finally does the trick.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: And do you think that the US is going to
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: follow Israel and allow broader second rounds of boosters for
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: medical professionals, people over 60, maybe the general population? Do
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: you think that's what's coming next?
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think so. I think the evidence from Israel
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: and elsewhere is that with Omicron, the length of the
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: effect of shot number three or the two shots plus
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: your booster is it does begin to wane after four
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: to six months. Had it been Delta, that probably wasn't
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: going to be the case. You know, we've been saying
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: for months now that just because you needed a booster
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: after six months doesn't mean you're going to get another
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: booster after six months. Because the reason the booster works
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: is that your immune system needed some time to mature.
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: So I think there was a reasonable chance it was
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: just Delta, that your booster would have been You know,
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: good to go for another year. Maybe you didn't need
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: a yearly shot with your flu shot. It looks like
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: Omicron's ability to evade or partially evade immunity has led
• 48:51
  Speaker 6: to some significant waning in immunity with people who've gotten boosters.
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: And so it's sort of an open question. How much
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: waning is it? How much risk is there? And it's
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: going to be influenced by how mild Omicron is in
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: people who have gotten fully boosted. It'll kind of be
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: a tricky societal sort of ethical question and moral question
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: in a way. You know, if your efficacy of your
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: booster has waned, so you're at risk of an infection.
• 49:21
  Speaker 6: but it's still working well enough, so you're at very,
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: very low risk of a severe case of an infection,
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: should you get this extra shot? The issue there is
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: how often people get long COVID if they get a
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: breakthrough infection after their third shot. Do we have enough
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: vaccine to go around? I think it's a little bit
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: of a toss-up right now. Israel tends to be first
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: out of the gates with this sort of thing. And
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: I think we'll watch their experience and see what happens.
• 49:46
  Speaker 6: When Israel first started doing boosters, there was some narrative
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: that they don't need to do that because people are
• 49:54
  Speaker 6: just going to get mild cases, not severe cases. The
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: vaccines were never designed to prevent all cases. But the
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: data is now clear that the boosters have actually saved
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: a lot of lives. It wasn't just mild cases you
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: were preventing. It was severe cases. And if it turns
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: out the same thing is true after four to six
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: months after your third shot, then I think the evidence
• 50:12
  Speaker 6: then would say you should probably get a fourth one.
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: And the shots, one of the things we've learned over
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: the year is that the side effects, which everybody worried about,
• 50:21
  Speaker 6: are really extraordinarily mild with this thing. And as far
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: as we can tell, there's essentially no risk of getting
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: an extra shot. So I think it's a little bit
• 50:31
  Speaker 6: up in the air. I wouldn't get it today. But
• 50:34
  Speaker 6: for high-risk people, as we look forward and we look
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: at the Israeli data, it's not at all impossible that
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: we'll all be getting a fourth shot eventually.
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: Last question.
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: Supposed to be doing a live show in San Francisco
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: the first week of March at the Castro Theater. You
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: think that's happening? You think we're going to do that
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: indoor show at the Castro Theater?
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: I hope so, because it's about a half a mile
• 50:52
  Speaker 6: from my house, and I look forward to seeing you.
• 50:56
  Speaker 6: I would bet that March will happen. I mean, we
• 50:59
  Speaker 6: are already seeing in the Bay Area what looks like,
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: if you squint and look at the chart carefully enough,
• 51:05
  Speaker 6: and maybe with a little bit of optimism, we're seeing
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: something that looks like a plateauing of cases. I don't
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: think it's going to keep going up and up. The
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: evidence from South Africa is it went up fast and
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: came down fast. The evidence from London went up fast,
• 51:16
  Speaker 6: started coming down fast. And particularly in a place that's
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: as vaccinated as San Francisco, if I had to put
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: my nickel down, I hope not. I hope I'll get
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: a free ticket. But if I had to put my
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: nickel down, I would think you're going to be there
• 51:28
  Speaker 6: in March.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: If we're there in March, I hope to see you.
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: You're going to have to update people on what's been happening.
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: So we're going to have to have a go. And
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: if it doesn't happen, I'm not going to want to
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: see you.
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: Because you've got my hopes.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: Up.
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: I'm pretty optimistic about March. I think it's going to
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: be okay.
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: Dr.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Robert Wachter, thank you so much for being here. Really
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: appreciate it.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: It's a joy.
• 51:50
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: All right, before we go and head into the first
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: week of 2022, we wanted to recap some of the good, bad,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: and dumb shit you may have missed over the holiday
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: break in a segment we're calling the 2021 Hangover. We ready?
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: Oh, we're ready.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Okay. Number one, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has finally been
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: kicked off Twitter after tweeting about, quote, extremely high vaccine deaths,
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: which was apparently her fifth strike on the platform. You
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: know what they say, five strikes, you're out on Twitter.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: Senate candidate J.D. Vance responded by tweeting that, quote, these
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: companies need to be crushed. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary GOP
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: tweeted last week, quote, if the booster shots work, why
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: don't they work? Guys, what hangover symptoms do these news
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: stories give you? Nausea? Anxiety?
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: Do you want to read the list?
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: I don't want to read the whole list. Diarrhea?
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't want you to read that either.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: How do I know if it's from that?
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: That's a thing.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: I think I still have side effects from the booster.
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: Too much?
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: First of all, Marjorie Taylor Greene, five strikes you're out.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know about that rule, but great. Goodbye. Thank you.
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: See you later.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: J.D. Vance, these companies need to be crushed. He's such
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: a free market Republican right there.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: All these kind of stories about people being finally at
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: long last banned from Twitter, they give me the feeling of,
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: you ever go to a wedding and There's no actual meal,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: but you eat little bits of food like every 20
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: minutes for like four to five hours and you get
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: home after and you're not full and you're not hungry.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: You just feel kind of gross, a little bit empty,
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: you know? That's how I feel about this.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: I saw Tim Miller made the point today on, I think,
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: an MSNBC show that he's like, he said he's uncomfortable
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: with Marjorie Taylor Greene and all these Republicans now on
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: like Getter or whatever these like separate social media platforms
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: are and having this like crazy, dangerous conversation that's basically
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: being unmonitored by most of the public and continuing to
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: radicalize people out of the public eye.
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: I saw that too, but like, what are the hall
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: monitors doing? What have they, nothing. They haven't been doing
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: anything effectively over the last five, 10 years when this
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: was happening on Facebook and Twitter. I mean, I just
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: think she's thirsty. Like Dan Crenshaw, a Republican congressman from
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: Texas made the point that this is what MTG wants.
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: She wants to be the victim. She wants media attention.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: She wants to fundraise and get booked at events. And like,
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: this is her grift and it's part of her plan
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: and identity. Like this was the, the end goal. And
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: I think that to me is right. I think let
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: her go on getter, let her go on gab. There's
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: a great story in the Washington post about all the
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: far right MAGA stop the steel grifters fighting and attacking
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: each other because they know there's a finite pool of
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: suckers that they can basically extract money from. And I
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: think she's going for that same pool of people.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, I don't, I wonder, do we
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: want the worst human beings in our society to spread
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: lies and misinformation where they can be monitored, where they
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: can reach people that might be susceptible to it, or
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: do they want them cordoned off into an increasingly fetid
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: and evil and radicalized space? I don't know what the
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: right thing is. Both options seem pretty terrible. But I
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: look at the people who are getting radicalized over time
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: on Facebook, on YouTube, on Twitter, and it is about
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: starting at a place where it's normal, there's conversations, there's
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: other kinds of people, there's comedians, there's people who push you,
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: you know, You see a Rogan tweet that leads to
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: a Ben Shapiro tweet that leads to a Dan Bongino tweet.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: You don't get on these platforms and say, all right, everyone,
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: time to do some evil.
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: You don't go on Getter to be like, ah, time
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: to join the marketplace of ideas. Like, you're on a
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: journey already. You're pretty far along.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: The issue in Facebook and YouTube is normies getting radicalized, right? Like,
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: you join Gab, you join Getter. Well, maybe you heard
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: about it from Joe Rogan, who was, like, tweeting about
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: how it's time to join Getter. But also, you can
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: monitor people on Getter and Gab. Like, I'm sure it's
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: happening in real time.
• 55:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: I don't know that that's my concern as much as
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: I don't want normies going through that process that you
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: just talked about. But that's really more of a YouTube,
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: Facebook issue.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: I will say, before we move on, the House Judiciary
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Republican tweet fucking drove me nuts.
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: Anti-vax assholes.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: They like to say, you know, the Glenn Youngkins of
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: the world and the Republicans after the Virginia election was like, oh,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Republicans have found a position where they're anti-vaccine mandates, but
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: they're pro-vaccine. What they did was not pro-vaccine. That tweet
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: saying that boosters don't work is just misinformation.
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: It's pro-stupid.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: Here's my question.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: Why did they delete it? Yeah, they deleted it because
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: I think they got a lot of fucking blowback and
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: that was less responsible than Donald Trump on boosters, right?
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Jim Jordan retweeted the House Judiciary tweet too that they're
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: just going around there telling people boosters don't work when
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: of course they work against Omicron. There's almost no people
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: in hospitals that have been boosted for Omicron. Very, very, very,
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: very few.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: You know, I would say what I... I have anxiety
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: from that if I'm going to choose my hangover feeling.
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: And it is because right now, based on all public polling,
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: more people want those people in charge of the House
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: Judiciary Committee than they want Democrats. We should all be
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: honest about that right now. If people are like, you
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: know what? I've seen what both sides have to offer
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: and I'm going with the anti-vax crowd.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: Well, and I think that's what but I think that's
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: one of the reasons they deleted it, because, you know,
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: the smart Republicans... are trying to just say, like, let's
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: not do anything stupid and we're going to take the
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: House and Senate.
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: That was a messaging click or two too far, I'm sure.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they realize that. All right, number two. This
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: is a clip from a TV spot featuring Matt Damon
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: that ran during Sunday's NFL games. Let's listen.
• 57:28
  Speaker 7: And in these moments of truth, these men and women,
• 57:34
  Speaker 7: these mere mortals, just like you and me, as they
• 57:40
  Speaker 7: peer over the edge, they calm their minds.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: Steal their nerves.
• 57:49
  Speaker 7: With four simple words that have been whispered by the
• 57:51
  Speaker 7: intrepid since the time of the Romans.
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: Fortune favors the brave.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: It was an ad for cryptocurrency.
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: No, it was crypto.com.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: Crypto.
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: Platform.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: First of all, who wrote that? Fucking Peggy Noonan? What
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: was that?
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: It's absurd. Utterly absurd.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: These are the boys on Punctahuck. These are the kids
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: that took the beaches.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: What are you doing, Matt Damon?
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: What's going on? It had a Matthew McConaughey Ford ad
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: vibe without the comedy.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: Here's what I've learned. Some people really like money.
• 58:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: In a way that I don't understand.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: Whatever. You can like money, but like brave? You might
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: want to end with that. People that do crypto are brave?
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: I'm not a crypto hater. I think that there's applications
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: that are interesting when it comes to ownership and art
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: and whatever. I'm not in love with the US dollar
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: or fiat. Who am I? Who gives a shit?
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: Fucking gold standard guy.
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, gold bug. Look at this guy.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: William Jenning Bryan over here.
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: But according to crypto.com, the website he's doing an ad for, 0.01%
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: of Bitcoin holders control 20% of the Bitcoin in circulation.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: That is a concentration of wealth that is far worse
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: than the U.S., where the 1% own 33% of the wealth.
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: It's because they're brave. Right. Some people might think they're brave.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: From a different perspective, you could see some pyramid scheme vibes,
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: and you could see why a small group of people
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: would be willing to pay Matt Damon, I'm sure, a
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: shit ton of money to try to bring more people
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: into Bitcoin, increase the demand, jack up the price, because
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: they will profit enormously. So I don't know if Matt
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: Damon's like a crypto holder or gives a shit, but
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: he's smart enough to know when there's a gold rush,
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: you sell picks and shovels, right? And maybe this time
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: it's a fucking NFT pickaxe, but that's what he's doing here.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: Sounds like he's also brave.
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, also brave. I.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know about this NFT thing. I don't know
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: if I'm going to.
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: Right click.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: Going to pay for a piece of digital memorabilia. Not
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: really in the market for any of those right now.
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: Some of them are very expensive. I also.
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that what our society
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: needs more of is very scarce, very expensive things that
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: up until this moment have been easily replicable and free.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: Is that a no on the PSA logo NFT or what?
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about it. Hey, hey, fortune favors the bold,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: my friends. Let's not be too hasty.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: All right, number three. Here's our final one. During CNN's
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: annual New Year's Eve special with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen...
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: Andy went on a bit of a rant about America's
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: favorite outgoing mayor and gym enthusiast. Let's take a listen.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Watching Mayor de Blasio.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 8: Do his victory lap dance after four years of the
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 8: crappiest term as the mayor of New York. The only
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 8: thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on is what
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 8: a horrible mayor he has been.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: So sayonara, sucka. I like that. I like that. He
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: wasn't comedy drunk. He was drunk. I really appreciate that.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: I also loved when he. said, I'm not done. I
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: got some words for Zuckerberg. Quit messing with us.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: Did he say that?
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: Hey, Zuckerberg, quit messing with us.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: What a great job, by the way. What a fun
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: thing to get to. And then do you also see
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: that CNN kept putting up tweets that people had tagged
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: them that were from like Ben Dover.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: Mike Foxlong.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like the most obvious joke accounts you could muster.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: That entire program, Incredible. I want it to happen every year.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: I want them to get drunker and drunker and drunker.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: I love it. More news should be like that.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: I like Anderson Cooper celebrating the coming of a new
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: year by trying to create ironic distance from the thing
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: he's currently hosting. I think that rules. That is so awesome.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: It's so funny and interesting when people decide that it's
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: okay in media or just in life to just openly
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: hate on a politician.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: It's not always, but one thing- Bill de Blasio has
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: perfected that.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: Yes, he has.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: That is his legacy.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: It happened to Bloomberg in the Democratic primary too. The
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: guy was a pretty popular mayor for a lot of
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: his term. I think most people, there was a poll
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: in 2014 that said most of them looked back on
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: him as a success, but there were no Bloomberg stans
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: coming out to defend him. Love it, if you touch
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: the K-hive- You get stung. You're going to get stung, right?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: Same with Pete Stans, but no one fights back for
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: de Blasio despite having a record of doing some interesting things.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: If you're a de Blasio stan out there, let us know.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Let us know.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, tag us. What a fun job.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: Final question. Was there anything you guys read or saw
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: or did over the past few weeks that helped cure
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: your 2021 hangover?
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: I saw my mom. That was great.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: I have watched every episode of And Just Like That
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: It takes me about two hours to get through any
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: single episode because I have to pause due to cringing
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: so many times.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: It is a fetid- I got through 15 minutes of
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: the first episode.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: What is it?
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, the fucking- The Sex and the City.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is an unholy text. I can't stop watching.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: I was bummed last night that I didn't have another.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: This is not a Tommy ironically watching Emily in Paris,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: but he really loves the situation. This is truly me
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: experiencing genuine discomfort that I cannot shake. because of the
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: choices that they have made in this show. And it
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: brings me so much joy to watch it and then
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: text a group thread about And Just Like That. This
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: was the same text thread where we played the New
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: York Times spelling bee for the entirety of the pandemic.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: Now it is primarily an And Just Like That thread.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: Are they releasing them in real time? It's once a week.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: I think they only released five or six as of now.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: But I do want to read to you a description
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: of an episode. This is written purely straight. I'm just
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to read you this. This is the description.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: Spoiler.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: These are lots of spoilers for In Just Like That
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: about to hit. Miranda, in the throes of alcoholism, gets
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: a handjob from a non-binary comedian while Carrie pees in
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: bed from hip surgery after the death of her husband.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: What?
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: That's real? That's it.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: That's an episode.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: I like that that's their take on modernity.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: I fucking could not believe what I was watching. I
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: loved every minute of it. You know what, Miranda? You
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: want to go on a sexual awakening? I'm all for it.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: Why do all these women act like they've never heard
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: of lesbians before? It is wild. It is fucking wild.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: And I need more people to watch it. And if
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: you're my friend and you hear this, text me about
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: it because I want to talk about it all the time.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: It is an incredible, incredible document.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: Fantastic.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: How many more are there?
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: I hope it never ends.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: So this was something you did that cured your 2021 hangover.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: It's a thrilling feeling. I like it. It's like bungee jumping.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: After it's over, I'm like, I don't want to do
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: it again, but I'm glad it's done and I feel invigorated.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: I finally set a one hour per day time limit
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: on my phone for Twitter. Now, did I stay to
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: that limit every day? No. Because then it tells you,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: you have five minutes left and it tells you to
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: hit your limit. But just the mental thing of like
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: blowing through that time limit has, I've only gone over
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: by like, you know, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: every day. And my life was better for two weeks.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: It was better.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: I downloaded TikTok.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: I fucking love TikTok.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: I was killing time and I'm like, I gotta do
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: something better than Twitter.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: Deleted Twitter from my phone, deleted Instagram from my phone.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: All benefit, all good. TikTok is so enjoyable.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: It is just as addicting. It is just as poisonous,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: but I love it. And right now I'm in such
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: a romantic phase with it.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: I find it not poisonous in any way. It's like
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: mostly funny.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: I guess what I mean is that it's clearly, it's not,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: you're right. It is much less toxic, at least the
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: version of it I'm seeing. I think the fact that
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: it's hard, we're all seeing a different thing. But I
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: find that I'm learning interesting things. They quickly figured out,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: as I've said, that I like to watch hot guys cooking,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: and videos about math facts. I mean, it's everything I need.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: There was a time before 2016 where Twitter... There was
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: a lot.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: Of jokes on Twitter.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, there was a lot of terrible things on
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: Twitter like there is now, but there were moments where
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: there were jokes and everyone enjoyed the jokes together and
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: there was... That's that's like mostly gone.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: Now it's just a group of people chasing Matt Iglesias around.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: Where is he today?
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: Have you seen Matt Iglesias?
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: I would say one of the worst.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: One of the worst parts about it is like people
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: actively like police you and try to keep you in
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: your lane. Like, no, no, you're a politics person. How
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: dare you like talk about other shit? Fuck off.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: I was like, I want to tweet about the NFL.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: I want to be sarcastic.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: Share your tasteful nudes, Tommy.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: Get them out there. There are.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: to Dr. Wachter for joining us today.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: Dr.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Wachter.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: Dr.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: Wachter.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: That's a fun name. I love it.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: We'll talk to you soon. Hot Save America is a
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: Muse and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.