Latest / Paging America / How Can Americans Survive the "Explosive Diarrhea" Parasite, Climate Change and MAGA?

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How Can Americans Survive the "Explosive Diarrhea" Parasite, Climate Change and MAGA? · Paging America

0:01
SPEAKER_01: Hey, folks.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: The AI algorithm has informed us that we're live.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm with our returning guest, Dr.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: Rob Davidson.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: You know him.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: You love him.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: Co-host of Paging America.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: He's also the co-founder of Community to Protect Healthcare.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: He's also a real-life doctor.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: And he plays one on TV.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: You see the lab coat right there.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: He is an ear doctor in Michigan.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I was just kind of some dark gallows humor.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: I was asking him, how many plagues do we have now of the 10 plagues?
0:30
SPEAKER_01: At least three.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: At least three.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: Preventable measles outbreak.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Also, I haven't even talked about whooping cough or influenza.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Now a parasite that is causing explosive diarrhea in three states.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Also, the devastating impact of climate change, which has now created an eastern heat dome.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you all in Virginia, it's Jummah prayers.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: Jummah means Friday.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: So Muslims go to Jummah prayer.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: It's like the equivalent of Sunday mass, but on Friday.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: So I went to Jummah prayers.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: It reminded me, Robin, this is not a compliment.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking
1:07
SPEAKER_01: about men, women, middle-aged folks, young folks were wearing masks.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: As soon as I stepped outside, I'm like, this looks not right.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Soot and smoke in the clouds.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: Unbearable heat.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: People have trouble breathing.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: This is not normal, but this is the new level.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: Where do you want to start?
1:29
SPEAKER_01: Explosive diarrhea,
1:31
SPEAKER_01: destruction of our public health care infrastructure,
1:36
SPEAKER_01: or climate change, which the Trump administration says is a hoax created by China?
1:40
SPEAKER_01: You tell me.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think explosive diarrhea is a real crowd favorite.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: So I think for your audience, we might just want to start there.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: It's always a crowd pleaser.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: Let's start off with the banks.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: Man, man.
1:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's rough.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think you said three states.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: I think they now have likely cases in 34 different states.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: They've now said in four of the states,
1:58
SPEAKER_02: including Michigan, traced it to lettuce, shredded lettuce at Taco Bell.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: And they think they found the supplier.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: They're working to figure out where else this lettuce might have gone.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's been crazy.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, here in Michigan, this is a disease, cyclosporiasis caused by the parasite cyclospora.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: Usually, last year we saw 60 cases.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: That's about typical, 60 cases or so.
2:21
SPEAKER_02: This year we're up to 4,000, maybe more.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to say.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: I didn't refresh my screen, you know, up to the second.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: But it's going up and up.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, like they said, they're working overtime.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: They're pulling people off of their projects.
2:34
SPEAKER_02: And as we have learned now in the last 18 plus months,
2:39
SPEAKER_02: the federal government,
2:40
SPEAKER_02: public health infrastructure probably goes right into another topic you wanted
2:44
SPEAKER_02: to talk about,
2:45
SPEAKER_02: has been in absentia,
2:46
SPEAKER_02: or at least they've been somewhat kneecapped as far as their ability to help all
2:51
SPEAKER_02: of these states and to be sort of the expert advisor,
2:55
SPEAKER_02: the place you go to get all your information.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: They've You know, I actually just saw this reporting.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: It hasn't talked about a lot.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: We know they ended FoodNet, right?
3:04
SPEAKER_02: That's the surveillance system.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: And that may or may not have had a specific implication in this outbreak getting
3:09
SPEAKER_02: so bad, but they also last year took cut funding.
3:13
SPEAKER_02: They cut the division of malaria and parasitic diseases.
3:17
SPEAKER_02: So they cut the division that actually deals with parasites,
3:21
SPEAKER_02: which is what we are dealing with with this explosive diarrhea.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: So that means those experts,
3:26
SPEAKER_02: the people that the folks in Michigan in the health department and
3:29
SPEAKER_02: in other states really rely on.
3:31
SPEAKER_02: The folks where they send their questions, they send, you know, try to get more information.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: That doesn't exist, right?
3:37
SPEAKER_02: Because they just thought it wasn't worth the money.
3:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, now we're finding out what happens when you don't invest in actual infrastructure.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and we're going to talk about how this was preventable.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: And there's several reasons why we didn't prevent it.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: A lot of it has to do with deregulation and actually firing experts
3:54
SPEAKER_01: who are committed to oversight and accountability.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: First and foremost, talk to us about this parasite.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: What are we looking at?
4:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, cyclospora, called cyclosporiasis.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: Essentially, it gets into the agriculture system through water that's contaminated.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: And lettuce is real common because it's got a lot of those little nooks and crannies
4:15
SPEAKER_02: where it can sit and hide.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: But it shows up as just a spore.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: It's dormant.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: That's why people can't spread it from one to another because when you shed it
4:23
SPEAKER_02: in your stool, it is just a dormant spore.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: It takes a week or two in the right conditions to create Then the infective version
4:29
SPEAKER_02: of the parasite that you get.
4:31
SPEAKER_02: But then it sits on lettuce or we've heard cases of raspberries,
4:34
SPEAKER_02: other produce that has these little crevices.
4:38
SPEAKER_02: Eventually the spore opens and it becomes infective.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: And then you ingest it.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: And when it gets into,
4:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
4:46
SPEAKER_02: a wide distribution,
4:47
SPEAKER_02: you know,
4:47
SPEAKER_02: like shredded lettuce going off to restaurants or going to your grocery store
4:51
SPEAKER_02: and people start ingesting it, that's where you get the outbreaks.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, whether or not it's preventable, okay, debatable.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: Can Could it have been contained much more quickly?
5:00
SPEAKER_02: Yes, right?
5:01
SPEAKER_02: Like I said,
5:01
SPEAKER_02: last year we had 60 cases in Michigan,
5:03
SPEAKER_02: and then the outbreak investigation that occurred did it with the amount of rigor
5:07
SPEAKER_02: that was required to limit it to 60 cases and limit it to Michigan
5:10
SPEAKER_02: and not have it be 4,000 cases and spreading to Four other states,
5:15
SPEAKER_02: 30 other states,
5:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
5:16
SPEAKER_02: the way we've seen it happen now,
5:19
SPEAKER_02: that to me is a product of a lack of leadership, right?
5:22
SPEAKER_02: It's a guy at HHS who have been famously reporting.
5:26
SPEAKER_02: He just is sort of bored with the job.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't really like the administrative part of it.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: It's one of those cabinet posts where,
5:32
SPEAKER_02: you know,
5:32
SPEAKER_02: if Pete Hedges got bored with being defense secretary,
5:35
SPEAKER_02: that'd probably be great, right?
5:36
SPEAKER_02: He's not doing a lot of defending.
5:37
SPEAKER_02: They're just going out and bombing things.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: So maybe he would just bomb fewer things, right?
5:41
SPEAKER_01: That might
5:41
SPEAKER_02: be good.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: Maybe he would be injecting testosterone into fewer military members.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: But at HHS, when you ignore it, the diseases still come, right?
5:50
SPEAKER_02: And that just makes it worse.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned RFK,
5:54
SPEAKER_01: the completely,
5:55
SPEAKER_01: utterly unqualified and not just unqualified,
5:58
SPEAKER_01: but dangerous director of health and human services.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: And I've said before on the left hook,
6:03
SPEAKER_01: I'll say it again,
6:05
SPEAKER_01: going back a year and a half,
6:07
SPEAKER_01: the four horsemen of the apocalypse,
6:09
SPEAKER_01: the one that I was most scared of, And this is where...
6:26
SPEAKER_01: You've talked about it before on the show and everything's connected.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: Talk to us about how their pro-death policy has gutted the CDC,
6:34
SPEAKER_01: which has led to the rise of explosive diarrhea in America.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: It has.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: That, like you said, measles, whooping cough, all these.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: And the thing about public health,
6:43
SPEAKER_02: and I've said it here before probably,
6:45
SPEAKER_02: but I think you said your wife's a physician, she knows this.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: We all know this.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: Those of us who don't practice public health know this.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: It exists in the background.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: You rely on it, but you don't know what's happening.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: And so it's just like the beneficial effects of vaccination, right?
6:59
SPEAKER_02: They sort of have been their own worst enemy because they eliminated the diseases
7:04
SPEAKER_02: so people just didn't see them.
7:05
SPEAKER_02: So they didn't realize how bad measles can be or polio or whooping cough or these diseases.
7:10
SPEAKER_02: Or influenza, fever, just the fever.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:13
SPEAKER_02: It's being sick.
7:14
SPEAKER_02: So public health, when it's working, you don't know what's working.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: And that should be how we want it, right?
7:20
SPEAKER_02: When there is a small outbreak of something like cyclosporiasis
7:24
SPEAKER_02: and they identify it quickly and they contain it and they get out
7:27
SPEAKER_02: the proper You can stop these things in their tracks.
7:29
SPEAKER_02: They don't become multi-state outbreaks that are,
7:30
SPEAKER_02: you know, infecting thousands of people, hospitalizing.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: I think nearly a thousand now,
7:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
7:46
SPEAKER_02: largely not life-threatening,
7:48
SPEAKER_02: but still,
7:48
SPEAKER_02: if you're old,
7:49
SPEAKER_02: if you have diabetes,
7:50
SPEAKER_02: if you're on medications that lower your potassium and you're just having diarrhea
7:54
SPEAKER_02: for two weeks, that puts you into crisis mode in a lot of cases.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: We end up seeing quite a few elderly folks getting admitted because of this kind of thing.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: And it puts you out of work, keeps you out of your basic life, right?
8:07
SPEAKER_02: That is the outcome that is to be expected.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, it keeps rearing its head with this Substack, Substack, Pagingamerica.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: But it's also the assault on oversight when it comes to big ag.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure you followed that one of the major vectors or sources of this outbreak
8:40
SPEAKER_01: of explosive diarrhea, a parasite that has now exploded in 34 states.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Tyson Farms.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: And Tyson Farms is not new to this controversy.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: They've had cases of literally this parasite in the past.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: I think it was two years ago where E.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: coli was traced to them as well when it came to them providing food
9:03
SPEAKER_01: to another fast food service.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: And they provide lettuce folks not just to Taco Bell but also to Whole Foods
9:08
SPEAKER_01: and Target and Walmart.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: Where do a lot of people buy stuff because they can't afford it?
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Walmart.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: Target, if you're rich and you think,
9:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't care about the poors, I know you go to Whole Foods.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: How does Tyson Farms get away with it again and again and again?
9:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's again.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Taylor Farms, excuse me.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: Taylor Farms, yeah,
9:26
SPEAKER_02: sorry, Taylor.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: Tyson's chicken.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Tyson's chicken, my bad.
9:29
SPEAKER_02: They, listen,
9:31
SPEAKER_02: big agriculture spends a lot of money,
9:33
SPEAKER_02: you know,
9:34
SPEAKER_02: paying off politicians,
9:35
SPEAKER_02: right, contributing to their war chest, contributing to PACs that fund them.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: And despite the fact that Maha, RFK Jr.
9:43
SPEAKER_02: came to the rescue of MAGA to help get Donald Trump reelected,
9:46
SPEAKER_02: helped him have a majority in the House and the Senate,
9:49
SPEAKER_02: They have completely betrayed them.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: We've talked about this.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: If you want to check out Paging America,
9:53
SPEAKER_02: the Maha Betrayal on a few episodes now because it's showing up in places like this,
9:58
SPEAKER_02: big agriculture, right,
9:59
SPEAKER_02: where they wanted to get rid of the glyphosate,
10:02
SPEAKER_02: right, because of its risk of causing cancer.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: And they came out and said, well, no, we can't do that.
10:08
SPEAKER_02: And RFK Jr. actually wrote a defense of not cracking down on glyphosate.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: They now come out approving three new chemicals that make PFAS.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: Here in Michigan, PFAS is a huge deal.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: Contaminating our water, leading to thyroid problems, leading to cancers.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: And then things like this,
10:26
SPEAKER_02: stopping the outbreak of infectious diseases in the tracks at the source,
10:31
SPEAKER_02: regulation, oversight, testing, that's how you do this.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: And when these guys get their way and they get to cut corners and they don't have
10:38
SPEAKER_02: to go through all of that, These are the predictable outcomes.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: Foodborne illness on massive scale because there's such,
10:44
SPEAKER_02: these aren't little family farms that you go buy a head of lettuce at the fruit,
10:47
SPEAKER_02: you know, at the farm stand on the side of the road.
10:49
SPEAKER_02: So maybe one family gets sick.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: These are going to Target's Walmarts and Whole Foods,
10:53
SPEAKER_02: like you said, and Taco Bells and who knows what else.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: And you get thousands of people getting sick.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: No regulation, no oversight, no accountability, no safety standards.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: In addition to gutting the FDA and CDC,
11:07
SPEAKER_01: also we've gutted the EPA by we,
11:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean the Trump administration, also weakened the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Supreme Court.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: So air, water, food, fruits, vegetables.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: What am I missing?
11:24
SPEAKER_02: Now, I think you covered plenty.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure there's more that we're not thinking of
11:28
SPEAKER_02: because they'll find any ways they can to profit off of being there.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it seems like this administration,
11:35
SPEAKER_02: they're built for, you know, they built their power for the sake of profit, right?
11:39
SPEAKER_02: So they can just make a buck.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: And so anybody who's willing to come and pay to play,
11:44
SPEAKER_02: they're going to let them kind of do what they want.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: And the consequences to regular people be damned.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: Like, it just doesn't seem to be anywhere in the algorithm of how they make these decisions.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: Should be top, right?
11:55
SPEAKER_02: Should be number one.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: Should be the top piece of the decision-making process.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: How does this affect real people?
11:59
SPEAKER_01: Nowhere on the list.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: I love our community because they're very smart.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: They remind me, watch, you're forgetting about pesticides.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, the Supreme Court of Monsanto.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: Go ahead and poison.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Why?
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Poison them, kids.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: And also taking away our public lands.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: Drill, drill, drill, baby.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: Why not?
12:17
SPEAKER_01: Just keep drilling.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: So this, I've said this before, and I'll say it again.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: I've been saying it for 10 years, that MAGA reminds me of a prodigy.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: And I've always tried to bring up facts, right?
12:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm not just saying that cheeky.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: And if people say, well, why just give me one example?
12:34
SPEAKER_01: Because that's a hyperbolic statement.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: The one example I would give is the president of the United States right now,
12:39
SPEAKER_01: the king and daddy of MAGA,
12:40
SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump,
12:41
SPEAKER_01: has said that climate change is a hoax that has been conceived by China.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: That alone to me,
12:48
SPEAKER_01: that position that climate change isn't real,
12:51
SPEAKER_01: and then you lie and say it's a hoax,
12:53
SPEAKER_01: and then you do everything to actually destroy the evidence or the experts,
12:57
SPEAKER_01: and then you promote more deregulation to help benefit the same companies
13:01
SPEAKER_01: that pollute the earth.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: That to me,
13:04
SPEAKER_01: if you said, watch,
13:05
SPEAKER_01: just give me one example, one example of your claim, that would be my example, Dr.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: Rob.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean,
13:11
SPEAKER_02: probably, right,
13:12
SPEAKER_02: arguably the existential threat of our lifetimes,
13:17
SPEAKER_02: our generation of history,
13:19
SPEAKER_02: right, maybe of global history, the existential threat, certainly climate change.
13:23
SPEAKER_02: We are on this used to be slow.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Maybe not as slow march towards the planet warming and all of the deleterious effects.
13:31
SPEAKER_02: You said the heat dome in the east right now.
13:33
SPEAKER_02: The wildfires in Canada and northern Minnesota that had blanketed it.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: I'm looking out my window here at a smoky backyard and, you know, we can barely go outside.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: We keep our dog out just briefly enough to do their business and get them back inside.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: And yet...
13:50
SPEAKER_02: You know,
13:50
SPEAKER_02: these are the realities we're forced to live with because the person in charge
13:54
SPEAKER_02: and everyone taking their orders from him who wants to please him to stay
13:57
SPEAKER_02: in his good graces has taken this administration's view of climate change.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: And it's just one of those situations, folks,
14:04
SPEAKER_01: where I know it's stating the obvious,
14:07
SPEAKER_01: but I think it's important, you know, excuse me, in America.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: We have like this individual rugged culture, right?
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Who cares about the community and the collective?
14:18
SPEAKER_01: If you die, die on your lawn.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: Don't die on my lawn.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, and we're American.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: We're awesome.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: And if you're poor,
14:26
SPEAKER_01: it's because God wants you to be poor and you have to pull yourself up from
14:29
SPEAKER_01: the bootstraps.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to go ahead and live in a gated community so I can't see the pores.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't matter what happens to everyone else.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: I'll get my tax cuts.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a great example.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: What's happening literally right now with the air.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: There are wildfires, like you mentioned, in Canada.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Devastating fires, right?
14:47
SPEAKER_01: In Michigan, you're in Michigan right now.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm in Virginia, and Daniel, my co-host, is in New York.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: All of us were WhatsAppping each other saying, this is terrible.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: People are wearing masks.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: You can't breathe the air.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: It looks gloomy as F.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: It's already hot as F.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: And like I said before,
15:03
SPEAKER_01: for those who are joining us,
15:04
SPEAKER_01: this reminds me of the summers where I was in Karachi, Pakistan.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: That is not a compliment.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: And people in Pakistan...
15:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
15:12
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people don't survive in Pakistan because they don't have public health, right?
15:16
SPEAKER_01: They try their best to survive.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: They don't have clean water.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: They have all these problems.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: We're in America with the alleged most wealthy country in the world,
15:24
SPEAKER_01: and we have an administration that says,
15:26
SPEAKER_01: oh yeah, that polluted air you're breathing?
15:30
SPEAKER_01: No, you're not.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: You're lying.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: And climate change that you could feel?
15:34
SPEAKER_01: No, you're lying.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: Everything is fine, yada, yada, yada.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: From a public health perspective,
15:39
SPEAKER_01: can you talk to us about How to stay safe in this moment where we have fires from
15:45
SPEAKER_01: the north literally burning the air and we have a heat dome that moved from the west
15:50
SPEAKER_01: to the east.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean,
15:52
SPEAKER_02: here the hope is that people have air conditioning where they can stay inside,
15:56
SPEAKER_02: stay cool.
15:57
SPEAKER_02: People need to stay well hydrated.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: People need to avoid contact outside with the air at this time, right?
16:03
SPEAKER_02: Because particularly if you have any chronic lung diseases or you're at risk of
16:07
SPEAKER_02: that, the very young, the very old, people are immunocompromised, right?
16:11
SPEAKER_02: All of these folks have higher risks in these environments with the air quality right now.
16:17
SPEAKER_02: And ERs that I work in,
16:20
SPEAKER_02: my wife's a family doc,
16:21
SPEAKER_02: like your wife's a doc,
16:22
SPEAKER_02: and her clinic,
16:24
SPEAKER_02: like so many people coming in right now with explosive diarrhea,
16:27
SPEAKER_02: but also with their respiratory illnesses being impacted by
16:30
SPEAKER_02: the air quality very acutely.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: I think the important job of you and me and other advocates out there is to connect
16:37
SPEAKER_02: the dots for people, right?
16:38
SPEAKER_02: Like this isn't accidental, right?
16:40
SPEAKER_02: This isn't just one of those things that happened and you couldn't avoid, right?
16:47
SPEAKER_02: In some cases,
16:47
SPEAKER_02: you could argue it's intentional,
16:49
SPEAKER_02: but it's certainly an expected outcome of the denial of science,
16:53
SPEAKER_02: of the denial of climate change being real, right?
16:56
SPEAKER_02: Worsening wildfires in Canada and all over the place.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they deal with this out West every single year,
17:01
SPEAKER_02: getting worse and worse and worse with the air quality with fires.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: That is real, right?
17:07
SPEAKER_02: These just extremely hot days that we're experiencing in places
17:10
SPEAKER_02: where this just wasn't the norm when I was a kid.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: When I was a kid growing up in Southeast Michigan,
17:15
SPEAKER_02: Summers were hot, but they weren't like they are now on a regular basis, right?
17:19
SPEAKER_02: We didn't see this.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: I never once had a day where I couldn't go outside because it was so damn hot and
17:25
SPEAKER_02: the air was filled with smoke.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: In Pakistan, in UAE,
17:29
SPEAKER_02: in Qatar, yeah, but not in America.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: No.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: And again, the richest country in the world sounds great on paper.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: The problem is that wealth is so concentrated with our one trillionaire and
17:40
SPEAKER_02: the 0.001% of these billionaires.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: That's where that wealth is, right?
17:45
SPEAKER_02: If you divide it out amongst everyone, sure, that number looks pretty good.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: If you take out those 20, 30 handful of people...
17:53
SPEAKER_02: You know, it doesn't look so rosy.
17:55
SPEAKER_02: And the way that wealth is spent,
17:57
SPEAKER_02: right, it is not spent on the infrastructure to actually keep regular people safe.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: Just, yeah, criminal, really, in my mind.
18:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is criminal.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go step first.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: It's a pro-death cult.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: They're murdering people with their recklessness,
18:13
SPEAKER_01: ignorance, racism, and negligence because all this was avoidable.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: And people, kids have already died because of measles.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: They've already died thanks to the vaccine hesitancy.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Don't take Tylenol.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: And then,
18:45
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:45
SPEAKER_01: I've had people who are smart people saying,
18:47
SPEAKER_01: well, why would Donald Trump say that if there was something wrong with it?
18:52
SPEAKER_02: Because he's stupid and insane.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's got that double threat combination of being insane.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: We had a doctor on our,
18:58
SPEAKER_02: a psychiatrist,
19:00
SPEAKER_02: a clinical psychologist on our podcast who's been sounding alarm about Trump
19:04
SPEAKER_02: since 2017,
19:05
SPEAKER_02: about his malignant narcissism,
19:07
SPEAKER_02: his diagnosable mental illness, but now sounding alarm of his Yeah.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: The military has been leading on this,
19:28
SPEAKER_02: mitigating factors that how climate change impacts their ability to do their jobs,
19:31
SPEAKER_02: you know, not responsible.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: Substack, Substack, Post, Restack, Pagingamerica.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: Even the potentially new CDC director,
20:00
SPEAKER_02: she had her hearings this week,
20:02
SPEAKER_02: not
20:06
SPEAKER_02: acknowledging that she will 100% fight back against anything coming down from
20:11
SPEAKER_02: on high that she doesn't agree with it, that doesn't comport with science.
20:15
SPEAKER_02: It's just very troubling how seemingly people in the know or historically people
20:20
SPEAKER_02: who you could consider good on some of these policies— Completely get distorted
20:24
SPEAKER_02: by being in that circle of MAGA.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: And it's showing itself.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: The vaccine part is so terrifying because it's just showing itself on the surface now.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: That's something we're going to see over decades.
20:37
SPEAKER_02: We're going to see cases of cervical cancer go up, cases of measles.
20:40
SPEAKER_02: We're going to see polio.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: We're going to see all of these things.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: We're going to see polio, folks.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: My grandparents used to tell me stories about polio.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: And can you please tell everyone why polio disappeared
20:51
SPEAKER_01: and why my generation has no stories of polio?
20:53
SPEAKER_01: Can you just tell people, Dr.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: Rob?
20:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the vaccines, right?
20:56
SPEAKER_02: The little sugar cubes.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: I've had 80, 90-year-olds who tell me about what a godson that was, like how amazing, how...
21:05
SPEAKER_02: To a person uniformly in this country, people lined up.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: They had their kids line up to avoid this devastating disease, right?
21:13
SPEAKER_02: And again, it's a victim of its own success.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: It worked, right?
21:17
SPEAKER_02: And continued vaccination is how we keep it away because it's not gone in the world.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: It has not disappeared from the planet like smallpox.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: And so you have to keep it up because if a case gets in and then it takes hold in
21:29
SPEAKER_02: an unimmunized community, that's a ballgame, folks.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: That's a ballgame.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: And measles is fine, right?
21:35
SPEAKER_01: You could just take Advil for measles?
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just take,
21:38
SPEAKER_01: well, vitamin A apparently in
21:40
SPEAKER_02: super doses to the point of toxicity in some cases.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: Right, measles is terrible, right?
21:45
SPEAKER_02: Again, for most cases, people recover, right?
21:47
SPEAKER_02: People recover.
21:48
SPEAKER_02: But very young,
21:49
SPEAKER_02: very old,
21:50
SPEAKER_02: immunocompromised,
21:51
SPEAKER_02: or just a very unlucky individual who fits none of those categories ends up
21:56
SPEAKER_02: with measles pneumonia or measles encephalitis.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: Right.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: Devastating disease, seizures, right?
22:01
SPEAKER_02: Brain damage, death.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: Like these are the outcomes of this disease if we just let it take hold.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: And it's so contagious.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: Once that gets into a community, even if people are vaccinated, the vaccines are not 100%.
22:15
SPEAKER_02: So we rely on everybody or 95% of people being vaccinated to keep it out of circulation.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: Once it takes hold, that thing spreads like wildfire.
22:23
SPEAKER_02: And again, like that's a ballgame.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: And we've seen it.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: We've seen it already, unfortunately.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's spreading.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: Folks, I just want you to sit with it that measles has become great again.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: Something that was preventable,
22:34
SPEAKER_01: something that had disappeared thanks to vaccine has become preventable because
22:38
SPEAKER_01: of RFK, the right wing and the deliberate grifting attack on public health.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: That's why America is unique, Dr.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: Rob, because it goes back to that movie, Don't Look Up.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: I guarantee you,
23:17
SPEAKER_01: if there,
23:18
SPEAKER_01: God forbid, was a comet coming, the right wing would say, we could grift off this.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: We can make this into a culture mark.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: And 30% of Americans would ignore the evidence of their eyes with a comet and say,
23:29
SPEAKER_01: I think this comet will help create jobs.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: It'll help the coal industry.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean,
23:35
SPEAKER_02: you said about them getting the shots or wearing the mask and then trying
23:37
SPEAKER_02: to make other people not do this.
23:39
SPEAKER_02: It's what's good for me and not for thee.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: They did this with, I mean, just a different topic, paid family leave.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: Remember,
23:45
SPEAKER_02: Congressman Keene was gone for four months,
23:47
SPEAKER_02: still had a job,
23:48
SPEAKER_02: still had his health care, but voted against paid family leave, right?
23:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh, depression.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, depression.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: And that's really important, right?
23:56
SPEAKER_02: People should get treatment for their mental illness or any kind of illness,
24:00
SPEAKER_02: but specifically to vote against paid family leave,
24:02
SPEAKER_02: to vote to cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid,
24:05
SPEAKER_02: and then you yourself has healthcare paid for by the voters,
24:08
SPEAKER_02: paid for by your constituents,
24:10
SPEAKER_02: and you get to take four months off of your job,
24:12
SPEAKER_02: still get paid, still come back to your job.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: Mitch McConnell, we don't know his current status.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to opine on that.
24:19
SPEAKER_02: Certainly concerning from the 911 calls that I think most of us have heard reporting on.
24:23
SPEAKER_02: Can I tell you what New Republic just posted?
24:26
SPEAKER_01: No, yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: About a couple of,
24:28
SPEAKER_01: maybe an hour ago,
24:30
SPEAKER_01: Governor Andy Beshear says he got calls from Governor Andrew Beshear of Kentucky,
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Democratic Governor of Kentucky,
24:35
SPEAKER_01: says he got calls from two different non-state agencies saying
24:39
SPEAKER_01: that Mitch McConnell had died.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: This was before the proof of life photo that was shared by McConnell's team.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: I'll share the link in a second.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's say he's alive, right,
24:48
SPEAKER_02: and can be gone for four weeks with medical illness,
24:51
SPEAKER_02: still has a job, still has health care.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: Like these should be policies in this country.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: People should be able to get sick,
24:57
SPEAKER_02: be able to have mental illness,
24:59
SPEAKER_02: get that treated, and still keep their job and should have health care.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: And yet they've cut health care from millions of Americans with ECA subsidies,
25:07
SPEAKER_02: with Medicaid, all of it.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: You know,
25:09
SPEAKER_01: at least $100 billion have been spent on this failed,
25:12
SPEAKER_01: illegal, unwinnable war in Iran.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: And America,
25:16
SPEAKER_01: can you tell people about paid family leave in America compared to paid family leave
25:20
SPEAKER_01: in nearly, no, not nearly, every single other industrialized country on earth?
25:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't know the exact numbers,
25:26
SPEAKER_02: but all other countries on earth have paid family leave, right?
25:28
SPEAKER_02: They have maternity leave,
25:30
SPEAKER_02: paternity leave,
25:30
SPEAKER_02: guaranteed with your job just by virtue of where you live because your government
25:34
SPEAKER_02: and the people have decided this is critically important.
25:37
SPEAKER_02: Here in the U.S., we do not have any federal rules around that.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: There are no federal laws mandating paid family leave, maternity leave, paternity leave.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: Individual jobs have that.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: Some states have that.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: I know at the Committee of Effect Healthcare,
25:50
SPEAKER_02: we have worked on this legislation in places like Minnesota,
25:55
SPEAKER_02: like places like Maryland, you know, to have paid family leave.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: And these are critical for people's health,
26:00
SPEAKER_02: for their wellness, for their well-being, for them building families.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: Again, just like universal healthcare,
26:09
SPEAKER_02: the only country of those OECD countries,
26:11
SPEAKER_02: I think 38 of them,
26:13
SPEAKER_02: listed as industrialized countries that doesn't have these policies,
26:17
SPEAKER_02: that doesn't have universal healthcare,
26:19
SPEAKER_02: that doesn't have universal paid family leave, sick leave.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: It's a thumb-in-the-nose to all working people, to just all people.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: And the fact that those Americans...
26:29
SPEAKER_01: The fact that Americans just take it, it's just so remarkable to me.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: They take it because I think the arsoma is the myth of exceptionalism.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: And that somehow it's our fault that we can't afford health care.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: And it's our fault that we can't have a living wage.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: And it's our fault if we're asking the government that we pay taxes to give us more money.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: I've had you on before talking about this,
26:52
SPEAKER_01: but I think it's important because we're getting to...
26:56
SPEAKER_01: The date.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: And the date is the 2026 election.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not talking about the midterms.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: What I'm talking about,
27:02
SPEAKER_01: and I think you know where I'm going,
27:04
SPEAKER_01: is after the midterm elections,
27:06
SPEAKER_01: the permanent billionaire tax cuts will go into effect.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: And these are permanent tax cuts for the world, America's richest people.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: How do they pay for those tax cuts?
27:18
SPEAKER_01: They're going to pay for those tax cuts with $1 trillion cuts in Medicaid.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Can you just tell people What will happen once that kicks in?
27:28
SPEAKER_02: Listen, once that kicks in,
27:29
SPEAKER_02: millions,
27:30
SPEAKER_02: upwards of 7 to 10 million people will individually lose their health insurance,
27:35
SPEAKER_02: right?
27:35
SPEAKER_02: They will lose their Medicaid.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: And they have these so-called work requirements.
27:38
SPEAKER_02: Really what they are is reporting requirements.
27:40
SPEAKER_02: They put up a whole bunch of red tape that regular people have shown time
27:44
SPEAKER_02: and again are unable to keep up with.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: Never has it been tried in the States.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: Never has it resulted in increased employment.
27:53
SPEAKER_02: It's only resulted in people who should be getting healthcare, not getting healthcare.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: So it hurts those people.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: That's bad enough.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: In my book,
27:59
SPEAKER_02: that's enough of a reason to oppose it and to vote these guys out and
28:02
SPEAKER_02: to reverse these changes.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: The problem is when you lose the Medicaid,
28:06
SPEAKER_02: Hospitals start to suffer because hospitals depend on Medicaid,
28:10
SPEAKER_02: particularly rural hospitals where so much of the Donald Trump megabase lives
28:15
SPEAKER_02: and exists and votes.
28:17
SPEAKER_02: Those hospitals depend on that Medicaid.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: So when the hospitals close or when they shut down the labor and delivery unit or
28:22
SPEAKER_02: the surgical suite or the outpatient lab, they take away those services.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: It isn't just the people on Medicaid who lose health care and lose their services.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: It's people on Medicare,
28:30
SPEAKER_02: people with private insurance,
28:31
SPEAKER_02: people who have a job and have insurance through their job.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: It hurts everybody.
28:35
SPEAKER_02: So we're going to be seeing loss of health care on a scale we have never seen in this country.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: We're going to go back to the days before the ACA,
28:44
SPEAKER_02: back to the days before Medicaid and Medicare were enacted.
28:47
SPEAKER_02: Those kinds of numbers of people without health care.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: And it's, I hate it.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: I don't ever want a FAFO type situation, but that's what's going to happen.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: People are going to feel it.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: We are trying so hard to make sure people know that it's coming.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: They understand it because they set this up to happen after the midterms, of course, right?
29:08
SPEAKER_02: Just like they're going to ban the abortion pill or attempt to do that after the midterms.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: It is our job as advocates,
29:13
SPEAKER_02: our job as communicators to make sure people know what the hell they've done.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: And what that means for these folks.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: And again, how we can hold them accountable.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, folks, I'm not a cynic.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm a realist.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: I can't afford to be a cynic because I have children.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: So I choose not to be a wide-eyed, naive optimist, but I am a hopeful realist.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: And I know my country and I know we're stubborn and I know we're masochistic.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: And I know we just...
29:40
SPEAKER_01: Unnecessarily suffer.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: And we never, ever learn unless there is immense pain and suffering.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: And even then, we don't learn.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: But enough of us learn just enough to make incremental change.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: Sadly, with what's already happened, Dr.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: Rob, I was talking about the economy.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about ICE.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about the wars.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: But you're the expert.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: What I was telling folks is just looking at the evidence before me.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: The amount of damage that's already been done and the amount of damage
30:09
SPEAKER_01: that is coming in the pipeline,
30:11
SPEAKER_01: we have to just brace ourselves for immense pain and suffering for
30:16
SPEAKER_01: the next six months to a year.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: That's like, you know, it was all preventable, but it's going to happen.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: And then the only thing I can hope for is some miracle that prevents it,
30:26
SPEAKER_01: but we're being realistic right now.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: And that once this preventable wave of death,
30:31
SPEAKER_01: illness,
30:34
SPEAKER_01: medical debt just rains upon us in the next six months to a year,
30:39
SPEAKER_01: do you feel like enough Americans will be radicalized to finally wake up
30:43
SPEAKER_01: and say enough?
30:44
SPEAKER_01: Because I will tell you,
30:47
SPEAKER_01: One thing that's interesting is I see,
30:49
SPEAKER_01: and I'm using radicalization in a positive sense here,
30:51
SPEAKER_01: that they're waking up like,
30:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:53
SPEAKER_01: people otherwise were MAGA voters,
30:55
SPEAKER_01: Trump voters,
30:55
SPEAKER_01: diehard,
30:56
SPEAKER_01: vote blue, no matter who, apathetic, you know, everything's fine, yada, yada, yada.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: I've seen that this, the, the, if you will, the pathway.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: The speed at which people are waking up and getting radicalized.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: One example that I've been giving people is these AI data centers.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: You've seen within four months,
31:13
SPEAKER_01: people who never talked about this or cared are like,
31:16
SPEAKER_01: I will pick it and protest and burn this shit down.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Your take about what's going to happen in a year?
31:24
SPEAKER_01: Will Americans finally wake up?
31:26
SPEAKER_02: I think there's going to be a lot of pain.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think that's part of the questions.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: Will Americans wake up?
31:30
SPEAKER_02: I think the other part is, will the Democratic Party wake up, right?
31:33
SPEAKER_02: So as the opposition party to all of this death and destruction
31:36
SPEAKER_02: that we have seen rain down upon us and will continue to see from
31:40
SPEAKER_02: the Republican Congress and from Donald Trump,
31:42
SPEAKER_02: like they squarely sits in their camp.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: They are in charge of everything right now, including the Supreme Court.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: They are responsible.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: But the Democratic Party has to have real solutions that actually impact people
31:54
SPEAKER_02: in their lives in a real way.
31:55
SPEAKER_02: And they do need climate change legislation.
31:58
SPEAKER_02: The Inflation Reduction Act, massive investment in climate change mitigation, right?
32:02
SPEAKER_02: They undid a lot of it.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: Trump did.
32:04
SPEAKER_02: But people don't see that in their day-to-day.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: So Democrats need to come in and make health care affordable, right?
32:09
SPEAKER_02: They need to find a path to universal health care.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that's Medicare for all.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that's a big, robust public option that gets us there eventually.
32:16
SPEAKER_02: It certainly is turning back these Medicaid cuts,
32:18
SPEAKER_02: turning back these ACA stuff, but that's not enough.
32:21
SPEAKER_02: We cannot go back to the way things were before Trump came in
32:24
SPEAKER_02: and reigned all this destruction because people are not going to put up with it.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: And so I think they need to come to the table with real policies that put food in
32:32
SPEAKER_02: the mouths of kids,
32:33
SPEAKER_02: that make our education system better,
32:34
SPEAKER_02: that make housing more affordable,
32:36
SPEAKER_02: and yes, that make universal healthcare a reality in this country.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: Because I think If they fail,
32:42
SPEAKER_02: like, I don't know, this may be the last time they get a chance at it.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: If they fail,
32:46
SPEAKER_02: once they get power,
32:47
SPEAKER_02: if they are given power by the radicalized masses of people
32:51
SPEAKER_02: who should be voting these Republicans out,
32:54
SPEAKER_02: if they fail in that,
32:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't know that they get They get to then wrestle back control and find ways
32:58
SPEAKER_02: to keep it, right?
32:58
SPEAKER_02: Apathy is the biggest weapon they have against us,
33:00
SPEAKER_02: that people just stop caring and stop paying attention.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: I believe,
33:21
SPEAKER_01: based on what we've seen with the treatment of Mamdani,
33:24
SPEAKER_01: what happened with Dari Liza Chevalier,
33:27
SPEAKER_01: and what currently is happening against Abdul El-Sayed,
33:30
SPEAKER_01: where more than $40 million has been spent by AIPAC,
33:33
SPEAKER_01: coordinated effort to just crush him because he's running for a Senate seat.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: And you cannot have a Democrat running on Medicare for All
33:43
SPEAKER_01: and bold progressive reform win a Senate seat in Michigan.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: Because then it disproves the myth that you have created
33:50
SPEAKER_01: that average real Americans, because you're a real American, I'm not.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: You're a white man, white passing man.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm fake.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm originally from California.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: I live in Virginia, but I'm brown, so I'll never be real.
34:03
SPEAKER_01: This stuff is only good for the Marxist,
34:05
SPEAKER_01: gay, transgender, non-binary Muslim vegans in New York and California.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: But if Abdul wins on this platform in Michigan, they're screwed.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: Now, this proves the myth that people want fighters,
34:21
SPEAKER_01: don't want fighters, they want centrism, they want milquetoast nothing, right?
34:25
SPEAKER_01: Your take on this unprecedented attack on Abdullah Saeed,
34:31
SPEAKER_01: who literally wrote a book on Medicare for All.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you said A book because he says B book and it's like,
34:37
SPEAKER_02: it was around since 2003, but that's okay.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I think it is unprecedented.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: The amount of money that's coming in from these outside sources that have nothing
34:45
SPEAKER_02: to do with the issues they're talking about,
34:47
SPEAKER_02: nothing to do with healthcare, nothing to do with jobs.
34:50
SPEAKER_02: They're coming from APAC, coming from corporate PACs.
34:52
SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, I think If folks like Abdullah are successful in November, it does.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: It disproves that theory that it's not possible.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: And I tell you,
35:01
SPEAKER_02: come November,
35:02
SPEAKER_02: I'll be out there, right,
35:03
SPEAKER_02: like knocking doors and trying to get them across because I'm here in Michigan,
35:06
SPEAKER_02: right?
35:07
SPEAKER_02: This wouldn't be my senator.
35:09
SPEAKER_02: And then as an advocate, Pushing him and others, right, to fight for universal healthcare.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: I am not a Medicare for All ride or die kind of person.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: I want universal healthcare.
35:18
SPEAKER_02: People want universal healthcare.
35:20
SPEAKER_02: If you look at all the polling,
35:21
SPEAKER_02: there was this polling by Zateo in conjunction with others by Tavern Research
35:25
SPEAKER_02: that showed Medicare for All being very popular.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: But we looked at polling from Navigator showing Medicare for All and public option
35:31
SPEAKER_02: and lowering the age of Medicare and, you know, doing better benefits.
35:35
SPEAKER_02: It's all popular.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: People want universal health care.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: People don't understand the different policies.
35:39
SPEAKER_02: It's our senator's job, our legislator's job to go in there, duke it up.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: And as we get there, the fact that this guy, I've been saying this for years,
36:10
SPEAKER_01: The fact that Americans are perfectly fine
36:13
SPEAKER_01: without having federally mandated paid family leave as every other industrial,
36:19
SPEAKER_01: even Afghanistan has it, folks, Afghanistan.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: And Americans are like, F you, like literally.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: We have the highest maternal mortality rates.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: If mom survives,
36:46
SPEAKER_01: And if your employer didn't give you paid parental leave, you're effed.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: So get back to work, even though you're recovering after you've gone through so much trauma.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: I've seen my wife give birth three Women, respect.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason why in Islam it says, who should you respect the most?
37:01
SPEAKER_01: Mother.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: Then asked again, mother.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: Then asked again, mother.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: Then father.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: It says, mother, mother, mother.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: After I saw my wife give birth, I'm like, I understand.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: I understand that statement.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: So mom, get off your ass.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: Get back to work.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: And as you're getting back to work, you better find childcare, which is expensive as hell.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: That's how, what did I miss?
37:22
SPEAKER_02: And then you have to save their entire lives for college that you won't be able
37:26
SPEAKER_02: to afford anyways.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: And then when they graduate, just had a kid just graduate and the job market is so bleak.
37:31
SPEAKER_02: And then when they graduate,
37:32
SPEAKER_02: there may not be jobs anyways because we're automating all the jobs because
37:35
SPEAKER_02: that gives more profit to the people at the top.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to be an optimist.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: I agree with you.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: I want to be.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: I have kids as well.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: Mine are older than yours, I think.
37:45
SPEAKER_02: But it's hard to be.
37:47
SPEAKER_02: We have to be, right?
37:48
SPEAKER_02: But I think you have to be an optimist with a little punch behind it, right?
37:54
SPEAKER_02: We can't just wait for these things to happen.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: We have to be a part of the reason why they happen.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: And that is going out and voting for those people and then holding them accountable, right?
38:03
SPEAKER_02: When the people get elected,
38:04
SPEAKER_02: Abdul El-Sayed gets elected and he doesn't spend every waking hour fighting
38:07
SPEAKER_02: through universal health care.
38:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to be mad as hell.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: We get rid of him.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: I know Abdul.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: I have his phone number.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Abdul,
38:15
SPEAKER_01: if you win the primary and you beat Rogers and you don't fight,
38:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be on his ass.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: I will call him and be on his ass.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: Because we do not worship politicians in this country.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: They're not our kings or queens.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: Some people do, right?
38:28
SPEAKER_02: Some people do.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: That's been part of the problem.
38:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
38:30
SPEAKER_02: But we don't.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: No, we know there are public servants.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: And if it's a good public servant, you refine them.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: And if it's a dull one that's not helping us, you replace them.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: But there's a great line from a Rage Against the Machine song, Anger is a Gift.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: And I want people to be angry about this, but use your anger in a productive manner.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: Now that you know, use it in a productive manner.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to live like this.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: We deserve nice things.
38:55
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be this way, does it, Dr.
38:57
SPEAKER_01: Rob?
38:58
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have to be this way.
38:59
SPEAKER_02: Because you know how we know that?
39:01
SPEAKER_02: So many countries in the world have done it differently, right?
39:04
SPEAKER_02: And they're not perfect.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: These are not.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: It's not Shangri-La.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: We're not going to go there.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, sometimes the grass is greener.
39:11
SPEAKER_02: But when it comes to paid family leave,
39:12
SPEAKER_02: when it comes to the cost of education,
39:14
SPEAKER_02: when it comes to universal health care,
39:15
SPEAKER_02: the grass really is greener in a lot of places out there.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: And we can make it greener here.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: We really can.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: Folks, thank you so much for tuning in.
39:24
SPEAKER_02: Well, real quick, if you could stay for a couple of minutes.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: I have one or two minutes before I have to go to the gym to stay overweight.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: I have a, what do they call them, a trainer?
39:34
SPEAKER_01: I got a trainer in my middle age to,
39:36
SPEAKER_01: you know, my wife said I can't die yet because we have young kids.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: Does anyone have, let's do two or three questions.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: Does anyone have any questions for Dr.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: Rob?
39:46
SPEAKER_01: And then let me ask you a question real quick.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: AI data centers,
39:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've been following,
39:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, listen, the energy use, right, is huge, right?
39:59
SPEAKER_02: And what they do to the clean water supply.
40:01
SPEAKER_02: I think those are the big things.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: I think the other thing about AI is the regulation side,
40:06
SPEAKER_02: not just the consumption that the centers do,
40:09
SPEAKER_02: but it's what the AI is doing out there.
40:11
SPEAKER_02: And I think, right, it should be a tool, right?
40:14
SPEAKER_02: It's not a panacea.
40:15
SPEAKER_02: It's not the solution to the problems.
40:17
SPEAKER_02: It should be a tool that we use to help solve the great problems.
40:21
SPEAKER_02: And I think we absolutely need policies.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: I know Abdullah Syed here,
40:26
SPEAKER_02: Mally McMorrow,
40:26
SPEAKER_02: before she dropped out,
40:27
SPEAKER_02: had proposed major policies about regulation of AI to protect,
40:33
SPEAKER_02: again, to protect our workforce, to protect the communities in general.
40:37
SPEAKER_02: I think that needs to be part of it as well because there is the danger there as well.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: Someone asked, have you seen an uptick in depression?
40:46
SPEAKER_02: Boy, depression is tough because it just lies below the surface all the time.
40:50
SPEAKER_02: Certainly an uptick in people coming in in crisis, right?
40:54
SPEAKER_02: And again,
40:55
SPEAKER_02: this is one of those things that we're going to see more and more of
40:57
SPEAKER_02: as Medicaid gets cut because Medicaid is a massive funder of behavioral health.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: And so as that goes up, we're going to see more and more of it.
41:06
SPEAKER_02: But people in crisis,
41:07
SPEAKER_02: people presenting in crisis because they can't get in to see somebody,
41:11
SPEAKER_02: they can't afford their meds somehow,
41:13
SPEAKER_02: or just like the world is happening around us as we all see and as we've talked
41:17
SPEAKER_02: about for the last half hour or so,
41:19
SPEAKER_02: I think you are seeing more people having those crises.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: Someone says, Dr. Ra, by pulmonary MAC, has it been attributed to COVID?
41:28
SPEAKER_02: I don't know the answer to that.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to make any answer questions in a way I don't know the answer to.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: So I'll have to look it up and come back to you.
41:34
SPEAKER_01: No, I appreciate that.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: Someone asked, you know, this is all overwhelming.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: What can we as individuals do right now?
41:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think as individuals,
41:43
SPEAKER_02: we can share feeds like this with our friends who aren't already in this silo
41:47
SPEAKER_02: that we sometimes exist in, right?
41:49
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we're preaching to the choir.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: And so we all know somebody, probably somebody in our family.
41:54
SPEAKER_02: I certainly do.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: And I try my best to share the information I have with those people.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: But people...
41:59
SPEAKER_02: And at work or, you know, do it kind of casually, gently.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: Tell them about this great conversation you heard from Waj and maybe check it out.
42:09
SPEAKER_02: Or just as you see the smoke outside,
42:10
SPEAKER_02: you know, bring it up with somebody who maybe just doesn't think about it that way.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: It's really sad that there are so many more fires now that
42:17
SPEAKER_02: the temperature is going up and there's less rain, there's more droughts.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: Boy, I wish we could do something about that.
42:23
SPEAKER_02: When it comes to health care,
42:24
SPEAKER_02: I think have the hard conversations with people because we all know somebody,
42:27
SPEAKER_02: even if we have health insurance,
42:28
SPEAKER_02: we know somebody who might have health insurance
42:30
SPEAKER_02: but can't afford their $4,000 deductible and let something go too long.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: Let that injury go too long or let that chest pain go too long or any other symptom
42:39
SPEAKER_02: and have those real conversations about that.
42:41
SPEAKER_02: I think that's probably the way we as individuals.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: And then the other is get out and vote.
42:46
SPEAKER_02: Get other people to vote.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: Vote your morals.
42:50
SPEAKER_02: Vote your values.
42:51
SPEAKER_02: And again, hold the people accountable that are largely responsible for this.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: Chris has a good point.
42:56
SPEAKER_01: Develop community,
42:57
SPEAKER_01: expand community,
42:58
SPEAKER_01: build your own safety plan, build safety networks, give mutual aid.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: You know,
43:02
SPEAKER_01: I think I had Dr.
43:03
SPEAKER_01: Kavita on and she said it was the first time in history that she was really scared
43:08
SPEAKER_01: and she was telling people not to come to America.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: And she said a family med doctor and a pediatrician,
43:14
SPEAKER_01: we're married to family med doctors, are your first line of defense.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: And she gave this analogy that stuck with me.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: She says,
43:19
SPEAKER_01: I hate saying this,
43:20
SPEAKER_01: but you know how when you're on an airplane,
43:21
SPEAKER_01: They say,
43:22
SPEAKER_01: first put the mask on yourself,
43:24
SPEAKER_01: then put it on your kids, then look at your, you know, fellow passengers.
43:29
SPEAKER_01: That's what she was saying.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: Put the mask on yourself,
43:32
SPEAKER_01: your children,
43:33
SPEAKER_01: your family, then move on neighbor to neighbor in your local community.
43:38
SPEAKER_01: And look to your family med doctor and pediatrician as your first line of defense
43:41
SPEAKER_01: because that is the doctor that you have the greatest level of trust with.
43:45
SPEAKER_02: There's research on this.
43:46
SPEAKER_02: People without a primary care doctor are much more prone to disinformation,
43:51
SPEAKER_02: to adhering to them, believing the disinformation.
43:53
SPEAKER_02: And that's another way that the Republican policies have kept people in that silo
43:57
SPEAKER_02: of disinformation.
43:58
SPEAKER_02: If you don't have health care, you can't.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: Go see a doctor.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: Then you don't have that safeguard, right?
44:03
SPEAKER_02: That stopgap against all of the BS you're going to see on all the channels coming
44:08
SPEAKER_02: at you from someone you went to high school with 20 years ago.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: And that's what you're unfortunately going to believe rather than
44:12
SPEAKER_02: that trusted person that you could or should be seeing every year.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm very lucky.
44:18
SPEAKER_01: My wife's a family med doctor, and I've always told her to come on.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: She's like, I don't know.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: She's pretty and smart and kind, so people actually like listening to her.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: But I do see that family med doctors in particular...
44:32
SPEAKER_01: People seem to trust them because they're all about community health.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: And my wife is all you're married to one.
44:37
SPEAKER_01: They're all about community health,
44:39
SPEAKER_01: family health from the ground up, you know, person by person, make the connections.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: But what happens when you don't have a primary care provider and when you you're
44:49
SPEAKER_01: so overwhelmed by a confusing system and you're working two jobs just to stay broke?
44:53
SPEAKER_01: And then you see a video of Donald Trump saying don't eat Tylenol.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: And then your friends are saying don't take vaccines.
44:59
SPEAKER_01: Like don't take vaccines.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: Oh, no.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: You get overwhelmed, exhausted, tired, sick, and you die.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: We try our best here.
45:09
SPEAKER_01: Everything begins with information and awareness.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: Once you're informed and aware,
45:14
SPEAKER_01: you can make smarter decisions and then you can act appropriately.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: I think these are litmus test issues.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: I think we deserve better.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: I think now's the time.
45:22
SPEAKER_01: I think you're seeing in real time things are shifting.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: Things have never shifted before in Israel and Palestine like they have now on AI,
45:29
SPEAKER_01: on billionaires, on healthcare.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: I think there's something in the air.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's smog in the air,
45:35
SPEAKER_01: but there's also something where people are looking for fighters, for champions.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: And you've also seen And Mamdani, as an example, he just flexes.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: They get power, they flex power, right?
45:46
SPEAKER_01: He's a fighter with a smile, though.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: Don't you love it?
45:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he doesn't throw anyone under the bus.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: That's another key thing.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: He didn't throw immigrants under the bus.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: He didn't throw undocumented under the bus.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: He didn't throw LGBT under the bus.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: He didn't throw Muslims under the bus.
45:59
SPEAKER_01: He said affordability for all, even if people don't like me.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm going to try my best.
46:04
SPEAKER_01: He came in six months.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: He's flexing.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: And people are like, oh, wow, look at that.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: Potholes.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: Balance the budget.
46:11
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: Childcare.
46:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
46:15
SPEAKER_01: Rent freeze.
46:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
46:17
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's why he's such a big threat because he's showing all these people
46:20
SPEAKER_01: who are in power, crap.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: He's actually getting things done.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: So I feel like it's building, folks.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: And the sad part is, I'll end on this, the hopeful and the realist.
46:31
SPEAKER_01: America learns the hard way.
46:33
SPEAKER_01: And we have, the pain is coming, folks.
46:37
SPEAKER_01: The pain is sadly coming.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: It was all preventable.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: We did it to ourselves.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: So protect yourself.
46:44
SPEAKER_01: It's a long walk.
46:46
SPEAKER_01: It's going to get worse, but inshallah it's going to get better.
46:49
SPEAKER_01: And we have to keep fighting.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: We have to fight.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: Doctors have to fight.
46:53
SPEAKER_01: Lawyers have to fight.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Politicians have to fight.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: Community organizers have to fight.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: Writers have to fight.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: We all have a role to play.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: Dr.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: Rob, shamelessly promote yourself, sir.
47:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, people check out Paging America on YouTube,
47:06
SPEAKER_02: on Spotify, and Apple Podcasts here on Substack.
47:09
SPEAKER_02: If you like what you see, subscribe, share it with your friends.
47:12
SPEAKER_02: You know,
47:13
SPEAKER_02: we're just trying to spread as much information as we can,
47:15
SPEAKER_02: particularly about that intersection of health care and politics and how
47:18
SPEAKER_02: the decisions that we make in the voting booth and that
47:22
SPEAKER_02: then our elected officials make when they're making policies,
47:25
SPEAKER_02: how they directly impact people in their ability to have health care.
47:28
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Dr.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: Rob.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: I kept you longer, but I think this was very helpful for those who missed it.
47:32
SPEAKER_01: We're going to have it published.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: We talked about the explosive diarrhea,
47:35
SPEAKER_01: parasite,
47:36
SPEAKER_01: heat dome,
47:37
SPEAKER_01: the deregulation,
47:39
SPEAKER_01: measles, vaccines, what to do to keep yourself and your community healthy.
47:43
SPEAKER_01: I hope this is very beneficial.
47:45
SPEAKER_01: Spread this once it gets published.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: This is the left hook.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: Everything is free.
47:48
SPEAKER_01: If you can, at the very least, Become a subscriber.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: It goes a long way.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: If you're watching on YouTube, become a subscriber.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: If you can, become a paid subscriber.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: It is $3.75 a month.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: Less than one cup of Starbucks coffee.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: Thelefthug.substack.com slash special.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: That's the last live I'll do today.
48:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go to the gym to stay overweight.
48:09
SPEAKER_01: And then I got tickets two weeks ago to see the Odyssey and IMAX.
48:13
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm going tonight too.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
48:15
SPEAKER_01: I got it like a week and a half ago.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: I told like other broken middle-aged men and women, I'm like, let's go see it.
48:21
SPEAKER_01: They're like, eh.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, there's three seats left in IMAX.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm gobbling them all up.
48:27
SPEAKER_01: And now all my friends are like, maybe we should go to IMAX.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: It's sold out.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm going to go tonight.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:33
SPEAKER_01: Go next week.
48:34
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you all my review.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Dr.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Rob.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: Take care, everyone.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: Bye.