← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"A blow to democracy"
00:40:49
Nicolle Wallace on the Virginia State Supreme Court striking down the Congressional redistricting approved by Virginia voters 17 days ago.
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- [00:00]
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- [00:31]
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- [01:10]
Nicole Wallace
Hi there everyone. It's now five o' clock. In New York today, the Virginia State Supreme Court struck down the congressional redistricting approved by Virginia voters 17 days ago. It is a big blow to democracy as voters there opted for this new map. But it's also a blow to the Democratic Party ahead of the 2026 midterms as they seek to counter the GOP efforts to jer gerrymander themselves in a victory at the behest of Donald Trump. In a statement, Virginia's Attorney General Jay Jones said this quote, today, the Supreme Court of Virginia has chosen to put politics over the rule of law. This decision silences the voices of the millions of Virginians who cast their ballots in every corner of the commonwealth, and it fuels the growing fears across our nation about the state of our democracy. My team is carefully reviewing this unprecedented order and we are evaluating every legal pathway forward to defend the will of the people and protect the integrity of Virginia's elections. As California Governor Gavin Newsom put it on social media. Quote, no vote in Tennessee plus one GOP seat, no vote in Florida plus four GOP seats no vote in Missouri plus one GOP seat no vote in North Carolina plus two GOP seats, no vote in Texas plus five GOP seats Virginia's Voter approved maps thrown out. MAGA has rigged the system and at the same time as Virginia's Democratically passed maps have been blocked, Republican state legislatures are moving full steam ahead in passing maps specifically designed to eliminate majority black congressional districts without consulting their voters at all Happens after the US Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights act earlier this week. Today in South Carolina, senators debated a proposal that would allow a special redistricting session to go forward that would eliminate the state's only black district held by longtime Congressman Jim Clyburn. While in Alabama today, a protester was removed from the gallery at the legislature by state troopers there as lawmakers debated a bill to facilitate redistricting in that state. It was signed into law earlier today. In Tennessee, lawmakers have already approved new maps which abolish the state's only majority black district. While Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson called it, quote, a political lynching that violated the rights of every Tennessean. Here he is on the floor of the State House.
- [03:44]
Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson
This state has legislated and legalized the worst things in humanity, including our enslavement. And we are stealing still here, right in this country where, as one black woman said, your clan sisters enslaved us, denied us of our rights, called us three fifths of a person, and yet we are still here. You put us on cotton plantations and tobacco plantations, you denied our human rights and our right to exist as children of God, and we are still here. You destroyed Tulsa. You killed and lynched black folks on poplar trees. Shelby County, Tennessee, had the most lynchings of anywhere in this state where you're taking this district and we are still here. You've had three strike laws, mass incarceration denied us of who we are, and we are still here. And today you will take the only majority black district from us. But I want you to know, and I want my nephews, sons and the future to know, no matter what you do, no matter how much you try and break us and make us bend and make us quit, we will still be here.
- [05:03]
Nicole Wallace
We will still be here. That that message, that delivery of that message, that articulation of resilience and resistance on a day in which democracy took a very serious hit is where we start the hour with Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida. And joining me at the table, host of Politics Nation, president of the National Action Network, the Reverend Al Sharpton. Reverend, let me start with you.
- [05:26]
Reverend Al Sharpton
I think that we are seeing the end of the second Reconstruction. The rawness and insensitivity that is being done shows that these people are deliberately saying that. As we call on the world to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the very principles that we claim the country has started because everybody in the country was not same status. Blacks were slaves 250 years ago. Women couldn't Vote. But we're not even going to pretend during this anniversary that this is about democracy. We are going to, as it was put up by Governor Newsom, we're going to, with no votes, change what we want. And if the people in Virginia vote, we'll just flip it over in the Supreme Court. So we are approaching, approaching this 250th anniversary more like King George than we are like those that signed the Declaration of Independence because they're saying that might is right. We're going to rule no matter what. And we're going to use race as one of the ways that we're going to whip everybody in line. I might remind people the black majority district in Tennessee is represented by white. Blacks vote for whites, blacks vote for blacks. So it's not like just black representation. The congressman in Tennessee, the black district is white. In fact, I'm having them on the show this weekend and Justin, who's running against him. So I mean, the whole idea of us bringing the country together, they're ripping the shreds and they're doing it gleefully and they're doing it openly. The question is, will we be able to come with the same force that our forefathers did?
- [07:11]
Nicole Wallace
What does that even look like right now?
- [07:13]
Reverend Al Sharpton
I think you've got to organize and mobilize. There are groups. I've been on the phone all day with National Action Network and NAACP head and others. We need to be doing everything from the streets to doing local decentralized organizing. If you get you, you must remember Nicole, Martin Luther King, Fannie Lou Hamer, all of them that brought us to Voting Rights Act. They didn't have the techniques that we have. They didn't have social media. Martin Luther King never knew what a cell phone was, never had email.
- [07:45]
Nicole Wallace
Is that better though that people were together and they were in the streets?
- [07:48]
Reverend Al Sharpton
It was better if we not using more ways to communicate. I think our challenge is that if they didn't have the options we have to organize, then that means that we are falling down on the job, not that the job is insurmountable. They were getting lynched. Goodman, Cheney, Swerner, Viola Paluisa, all of them were killed for trying to get the right to vote. We're talking about we may miss a day or two of relaxation at home. There is no excuse blacks, whites and everybody else not to be on the front, front lines trying to save democracy, not just for blacks. They're going to do it all across the board. They only going to start with us.
- [08:29]
Nicole Wallace
Congressman, you're One of your party's best communicators. And I wonder what your thoughts are today and what your message is to the country.
- [08:40]
Congressman Maxwell Frost
My heart is heavy for the country because we see that this is going on all across the south and it's important for people to realize that this isn't happening in a vacuum. This isn't a plan that just came up because Donald Trump said to go redistrict. This is the product of a 60 plus year plan to bring this country into Jim Crow 2.0. An era where they've traded in the hoods for suits and ties. An era where they are trying to use our democracy against us to take away not just our right to vote, but our right to protest, our right to privacy, our right to health care, our right to be able to actually have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in this country. And they see the south as a threat. And that is the reason why some of the worst voter suppression tactics we see are in the South. Over 40% of these nation's black residents live here. Most of this nation's civil rights and mass movement, people centered movements started in the South. So we, we see that they put us right in the middle of the bullseye because they know that we will rise up and we will fight back.
- [09:46]
Nicole Wallace
I want to associate myself with the dog barking along with us.
- [09:51]
Congressman Maxwell Frost
I'm sorry about that.
- [09:52]
Nicole Wallace
Don't be sorry. Don't ever apologize for, for the canines in your lives. I want to ask you. This has been, we were talking before we came in the air. This has been a bleak week of news in terms of the anti democratic forces sort of logging some legal victories and now taking those and ramm through gerrymandered maps. What is your message in terms of sort of dusting ourselves off and continuing the fight for democracy?
- [10:25]
Congressman Maxwell Frost
Well, the first thing I'll say is what our opposition wants us to do is throw our hands in the air and say there's nothing more left, there's nothing we can do. We shouldn't take part in this system. If we walk away from the fight, our adversaries and our opposition, they are more than happy to step into our political power for us. So we can't run away. That is what they want. We have to continue to fight. And now we understand that we have to do it in very creative ways. And I love what the reverend had brought up. It's all about grassroots organizing and making sure that we're going out into the communities and empowering people. And we have to understand, I think this is important because what I'm about to say might be misconstrued. We have to understand that we asked people to go to the ballot box to protect democracy and the Supreme Court said we're throwing it out. We have to understand that as a result of that, a lot of people are going to feel like it doesn't matter anymore. Us as organizers, us as leaders, understanding that isn't so. That way we give up, but so we understand in the way that we message that we have to validate the root of our people's concern. Yes, this is a broken system. Yes, I understand that you might not feel great about our democracy right now because they're trying to break it. It will bend, but we will be the ones to ensure that it doesn't break. And I think that acknowledgment going forth is important. We can't gaslight people who have seen what have been going on, especially in the south over the last hundred years. But we have to say that we are not unique in this moment. Like the Reverend brought up. Our ancestors have been here before those before us with less at their disposal, and they did a lot with less. And we can do the same thing. And I do believe there's going to be a moment where we're looking back on this, on this era and that we're thankful that we kept marching and that we kept moving forward. But it's going to take all of us and it's going to take elected officials. And I have to say this, elected officials need to stop just trying to knock doors and organize three months before election day, year round. Don't be raising money and keeping it in an account for some race that might come. Spend it year round on the doors, community events, building power so we win not just the next election, but the next 10. That's what the right wing has done in the South. They don't make short term plans, they make long term plans. And I think it's important that we do the same. And if we do that, I believe we can win.
- [12:42]
Nicole Wallace
Congressman, when you look at the president's plunging popularity and you look at these sort of foregone conclusions that a lot of political pollsters draw that Democrats will regain the House, it's almost too obvious, right Their why. What is the sort of silver lining in that? If you look to Orban's defeat, it was an extraordinary amount of turnout because the corruption was so obvious and the economic conditions were so bad that it broke down some traditional partisanship. What are you seeing and feeling and hearing on the ground that gives you hope, if you have any.
- [13:21]
Congressman Maxwell Frost
People are upset. People have a righteous anger, especially black folks in the south right now. And I think what's happening is their blatant disregard in democracy, their obvious march to Jim Crow 2.0 is actually going to encourage and anger a lot of black voters that are going to go out and vote. And I think what you're going to see is places that and races that a lot of people in the national atmosphere maybe have thrown to the wayside. I think you'll see that we have an opportunity to win in a lot of these states. They want to take away black districts and civil rights in Alabama. Watch that energize voters to the point where Doug Jones is the next governor. You want to do the same thing in all across the south and Georgia. Watch us not just reelect the Democratic senator John Ossoff, but watch us elect a Democratic governor. Look at the state of Florida as well. You want to completely disregard the voting rights of black folks, but also Puerto Ricans in central Florida where they've cut up that community in about four congressional districts. Watch us elect a Democratic senator and a Democratic governor and then work to using the levers of power to make sure everybody has democracy, because that's the difference between both of our sides. And they use their power to just help their people. But we care about their children, too. And I believe that what they're doing is really going to have a huge backlash on them because when people are angry, you see a lot of people, especially in the south, they pray with their feet, they're going to go out and vote and then they're going to go out and protest. And that people centered movement is how we win and get the power back.
- [14:51]
Nicole Wallace
Congressman Maxwell Frost, thank you for starting us off today. The Rev sticks around for the hour. When he and I come back, one of the attorneys on the forefront of this battle to protect minority voting rights on where the fight goes from today. Also ahead, the Trump Justice Department is expanding its effort to try and steal or at least relitigate the 2020 election, which Donald Trump lost fair and square to Joe Biden. There's brand new reporting about what the FBI is up to in Wisconsin, the state Joe Biden won by more than 20,000 votes. And later in the hour, many Americans are following the story closely of the cruise ship stuck at sea after three passengers died from a rare strain of the hantavirus. That story is scary enough, but it's also a reminder of how badly we've all been endangered by Donald Trump's deep cuts to public health spending and how those cuts have left health officials scrambling in the middle of another infectious disease outbreak. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere Today.
- [16:02]
Stacey Abrams
Democracy is an action, one that says, I will share my power with those I disagree with because it is the only way to guarantee our common future as we backslide into authoritarianism in the United States, where one party and one race hold dominion that is unworthy of the volunteer state, whether by consequence or by intention. It is wrong. It is unworthy of a nation that revolted when power was held by the few rigged maps that decide elections before a single vote is cast and politicians who rig elections so it's impossible for them to lose. That is not democracy. That is cowardice.
- [16:48]
Nicole Wallace
That is, of course, Stacey Abrams, former gubernatorial candidate in Georgia. I want to bring into our coverage Janae Nelson. She's the president and director counsel of the Legal Defense Fund. She argued to protect the rights of minority voters before the United States Supreme Court in Louisiana versus Calais. The Rev is still here. Janae, just pick up on this idea of where the fight goes from here.
- [17:15]
Janae Nelson
Well, the fight goes to the streets. It really does. It will continue in the courtroom. It will continue in state legislative houses. It will continue even in Congress because we are not giving up on that body. We will not cease our demands that Congress be held accountable to the people and enact the legislation that will protect from these types of antics. But it really is a moment for the American people to take stock of whether we want to have a democracy. This is a republic. If we can keep it, and we don't keep it by sitting on the sidelines. We don't keep it by lamenting bad decision after bad decision. We keep it only if we exercise every constitutional right, every civil right at our disposal. And that includes the right to protest. That includes the right of peaceful dissent. That includes the right to show up at hearings to make sure our elected officials understand that we mean business when we say we want to pick them and not have them pick us. It means that we need to consider reforming various aspects of our court system at the state level and even at the Supreme Court level. It means that we've got a lot of work to do and Americans need to get to it before we don't have a democracy within which to do that work safely and peacefully at all.
- [18:40]
Nicole Wallace
Janay, I know that you of all people knew exactly how Republicans would respond to the Supreme Court decision, but there always is a almost like an overreading of their mandate. Right? Republicans and I once worked for them. They take an they're given an inch or they prevail in court and then the political power grab is almost political gluttony. Is there anything about how they've acted in the last 72. Two hours? It surprises you.
- [19:12]
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- [19:42]
Stacey Abrams
Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the Briefing with Jen Psaki and more Voices you know and trust. Ms. Now is your source for news, opinion and the world. Learn more at Ms. Now.
- [19:57]
Janae Nelson
Doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise me they've been given a green light by the Supreme Court. The wind is at their back in terms of the permission that they believe they have to override the will of the people by drawing maps that will entrench their power. And when I say this, I'm not speaking in partisan terms. I'm speaking simply on the fact that the Supreme Court has made it able for any party to act with aggression against the voters, to act with impunity, to draw lines that will manipulate different types of voters and especially voters who identify as a racial group, to exploit that unity, to exploit communities of interests, and to effectively corrupt the political process by making it a sham only. And that happens with both parties at various times. Right now we see Republicans doing it with, as I said, with impunity. And what we stand for, what the Legal Defense Fund stands for and what everyone who wants to live in a fair and competitive democracy wants to stand for is the opportunity to cast a ballot that will be counted and has equal weight with every other person's ballot in this country. The right to vote is a precious one that we all hold equally. And what's happening in front of our eyes completely disembowels the constitutional mandate to vote without discrimination and also the right to vote that preserves every other right that we have.
- [21:46]
Nicole Wallace
Rev. We've sort of adopted this shorthand right for the things that the Republicans do. Shocking, not surprising. This assault on voting rights is perhaps the most shocking to the system and the least surprising. What is the appropriate political response.
- [22:05]
Reverend Al Sharpton
The political response must be legislation, as well as what Janae is doing in the courts, and as well as those of us that can organize in the streets, not just one time, but to continue to penetrate, because it raises the level of awareness and it raises the level of where people understand this is about them. This is not just a courtroom battle or legislative battle. Dr. Martin Luther King used to say, you have two kinds of leaders. You have thermometers and you have thermostats. Thermometers give you the temperature. Thermostats change the temperature. We need to be out there changing the temperature. And we never had the majority of Americans on our side from Civil war days going forward, so sitting around, taking polls right now. We have to change the polls. We have to change the mentality that this is not all right, this is not the kind of country we have. And I think people will respond, but you have to give them something to respond to. And it must be complementary strategies, legal as well as legislative, as well as in the streets of disciplined industries, all at the same time.
- [23:15]
Nicole Wallace
You know, Janee, the Trump administration has ushered in so many ugly elements, and they've normalized and greenlit and taken out of dark corners of our politics so many ugly sentiments. I wonder how you knit together the entire pro democracy coalition around this effort, which is so central to being a functioning democracy, as a salve to that, as a counter to that.
- [23:41]
Janae Nelson
You know, it should be easy. We should be able to coalesce around the common denominator of holding onto our democracy, Right? We don't have to agree on every social issue, every economic issue, every political issue. But we do know that the only forum in which we can safely debate and disagree and come to some consensus on any of those issues is in a multiracial democracy, a high functioning multiracial democracy. That's what we've been working towards for the past 60 years, with the help and benefit of the Voting Rights act of 1965, which is the birthright, birth certificate of our democracy. And it is the one thing that we should as Americans who are proud of this country and proud of all that it has overcome, all of the trials and triumphs we should be able to come together on saving our democracy. We are in the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, where we rejected despotism and authoritarianism. And that's exactly what we are descending into. If we allow this type of corruption of our electoral lines and allow the pressure from the White House and the executive to dictate that that's where we're headed backwards.
- [25:04]
Nicole Wallace
And what's amazing, Janae, is it used to be, you know, you could defend that, but you couldn't prove it. Donald Trump himself proves it for us when he sends out a picture of himself with a king saying two kings. I mean, it used to be sort of the stuff of political arguments. They're now just sitting in that very unpopular, very un American place. Janae, thank you for your work. Thank you for joining us. I hope this conversation is to be continued. The Rev sticks around when when we come back. We have seen it in Georgia, we've seen it in Arizona. Now we are seeing it in Wisconsin where the Trump Justice Department has reportedly sent the FBI into Wisconsin as it tries to looks like it's trying to steal back the 2020 election in which Joe Biden prevailed. We have new reporting on that story next. Speaking of kings and autocrats, Donald Trump's obsession with relitigating an election he lost six years ago has sent the FBI to Wisconsin. That's according to brand new reporting from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They report this, quote, an FBI agent interviewed a high ranking state election official in recent days about the 2020 presidential election. That is according to sources with knowledge of the conversation. That agent sat down with Wisconsin Elections Commission Deputy Administrator Robert Kehoe earlier this week and discussed with Kehoe how elections are carried out in Wisconsin and various election theories. Kehoe debunked false claims and clarified how elections work, according to the sources. Ms. Now has not independently confirmed the Journal Sentinel reporting, but Wisconsin appears to be the latest state targeted by Donald Trump and his weaponized Justice Department because Donald Trump cannot accept that defeat. Earlier this year, FBI agents raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, and issued a grand jury subpoena for voter information in Maricopa County, Arizona. All of this is predicated on the big lie, a lie so audacious that Donald Trump's own former attorney General Bill Barr described those lies as bullshit. Because of that, voter information of hundreds of thousands of voters in the Milwaukee area and how those voters voted could now become public. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's reporting again, quote, if federal authorities expanded their probe to include the pursuit of voting data in Milwaukee poll books and about 176,000 absentee ballots with an attached ID number could be turned over. I want to bring into our coverage former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI and national security and intelligence analyst for us, Michael Feinberg. The Rev is still here. Michael, I feel like every story we have called you in on this week has been more audacious and outrageous and undemocratic as the next. And this one fits the bill. What is in the head of an FBI agent interviewing a Milwaukee or Wisconsin election official?
- [28:22]
Michael Feinberg
There's two possibilities. The one that I hope is the case is that there is an FBI agent somewhere going through the motions, doing things he or she was ordered to do that he or she has no intention of following up on, because the agent knows that there is no merit or predication to this whatsoever. The other possibility which would worry me and should worry everybody is that there are people in the FBI possibly who believe in these electoral conspiracies. And I, you know, I hasten to point out it's not just the epistemological error that should concern us. What should concern us is that this is an administration filled with people who in 2020 and 2021, actually tried to engineer a coup to overturn a Democratic election. A federal grand jury found such. A state grand jury in Georgia found such. These aren't hypothetical allegations. These are things that juries, of our peers, of the defendant's peers, after hearing evidence from the Department of Justice or local prosecutors, came to a reasoned decision about. And of the people who tried to engineer that coup, giving it either rhetorical or actual support, many were hauled before grand juries, as I mentioned, and I can think of at least a couple who now occupy leadership positions at the FBI that should be concerning to us all.
- [30:09]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, if you take a step back, what is your analysis of the whole of government buy in to something that we quoted Bill Barr called BS that Lindsey Graham described. This way, if you told Trump Martians came and stole votes, he'd be inclined to believe it. So the whole point was he saw a vehicle that could maybe get a better outcome, prove all the things he believed. And I thought that vehicle would be dead for the country. He sincerely believes it. This is in a depot in Georgia in Fulton County, Georgia. The questioner says he sincerely believes it. But you told him that it wasn't stolen from him, Correct? Lindsey Graham, quote, I have told him more times than we can count that he fell short. Questioner Bill Barr told him. Correct? Lindsey Graham, yeah. And Bill Barr, you know, we're just having a chat here. Apparently, I don't know where my privileges are, but I don't care anymore. Let's just talk. Bill Barr sort of saved the country. So did the FBI agents know that Lindsey Graham is making fools out of them? That Lindsey Graham, when he was delivering a deposition, a sworn deposition, told the same truth Bill Barr did, that all these lies about fraud in 2020 were bullshit.
- [31:18]
Michael Feinberg
Well, I have a couple responses to that. The first is I doubt that Lindsey Graham can make a fool of every of anyone because he is incapable of being intellectually or rhetorically consistent about any of his on anything longer than a week timeline. But you know, if he really felt that it would be nice if he showed the courage of his convictions today and continued to call out these egregious actions. You know, as numerous guests on your show and others both on Ms. Now and other networks have noted, the past week has not exactly been a banner one for representative democracy. We have what I can only call the return of Jim Crow era electoral norms ushered in with the blessing of the Supreme Court of the United States. And although some of the justices may have tried to dress it up as a matter of politically neutral originalism, just look at the actions that state legislatures took immediately after that decision to functionally disenfranchise disenfranchise mass amounts of voters based on race. Like we should be up in arms, people's hair should be on fire. FBI agents are not. Nobody should be looking at anything that is being done by this administration with respect to elections with anything less than an extremely critical eye the hours later than it seems on this matter. And people need to start waking up to that fact.
- [33:07]
Nicole Wallace
Rev, what is the best strategy for people waking up at this late hour?
- [33:13]
Reverend Al Sharpton
I think that you have to do the combination of having nonviolent drama in the streets as well as dealing with our political leaders showing some backbone and standing up. And it's not that Donald Trump and his cohorts didn't tell us it was going to get here. I mean Project 2025, they said they were going to do this. When Donald Trump was first elected president in 16, he put a picture of President Andrew Johnson in the Oval Office. Andrew Johnson put has nominated on the Supreme Court at that time Judge Roger Taney. Taney presided over a court that did the Dred Scott decision that blacks had no rights anyone was bound to respect. We are now back at a Dred Scott decision. Johnson's portrait is hanging in the Oval Office. What do we need to see? It's not that Trump is not showing us flashing signs of where we are. The question is will we rise up and respond like those in generations past and turn this around and say we're not going to have that kind of country.
- [34:18]
Nicole Wallace
Michael Feinberg, thank you for joining us again. Rev, thank you for being here for so much of the hour. We're grateful to both of you. Be sure to catch more of the Rev this weekend, Saturday at 5pm Eastern. For Politics Nation, it is always must see TV. When we come back, the hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship has left health officials scrambling. And if that's not scary enough for everyone and anyone, it's even worse after Donald Trump slashed funding for public health. We'll bring you that reporting next.
- [34:57]
Stacey Abrams
Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Psaki and more voices you know and trust. Ms. NOW is your source for news, opinion and the world. Learn more at Ms. Now.
- [35:12]
Nicole Wallace
What are the most experienced public health experts for if not to protect us and all of humanity from rare viruses spread by rodent droppings? You may have heard from the news or from family or friends about an outbreak on a cruise ship of a rare respiratory virus called hantavirus. Since the outbreak began nearly one month ago, three passengers have died and five others are confirmed have contracted that virus in the U.S. health officials in five states are monitoring passengers who have returned home. None of them have shown any signs of infection. But as the New York Times reports, what is alarming public health experts the most is Donald Trump's administration, quote, sluggish response and lack of communication that suggests the United States is ill prepared for a larger health crisis such as another pandemic, end quote. Because of deep staffing cuts the Trump administration has made to the CDC and other health agencies, the government has far fewer people to respond to outbreaks, from trainees and contractors who can be deployed to do boots on the ground epidemiology, to senior leaders who can coordinate responses across the US Government and elsewhere. And because President Trump withdrew the country from the World Health Organization, the United States does not receive regular information from member states about emerging health threats. What could go wrong? I want to bring in Dr. Craig Spencer. He's a professor of public health at Brown University and an emergency medicine physician. Thank you so much for being here with us.
- [36:44]
Dr. Craig Spencer
Thanks for having me.
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Nicole Wallace
It feels like there are two big parts of this story for the purposes of our conversation. One is the outbreak and how scary that is, and two is the window it gives us into our lack of preparedness. I'll let you tackle those in whichever order you prefer.
- [37:02]
Dr. Craig Spencer
Sure. Well, let me first start by saying that I know a lot of people are concerned and have been hearing a lot about hantavirus, but your risk is remarkably low. The risk is highest for the people that are still on that cruise ship. And we need to think about them and making sure we can get them off safely to where they need to be. The risk is higher to medical professionals, including those that may be taking care of some of those folks. And thankfully, across the US we have a dedicated network of excellent biocontainment units that can do that and can do that well and safely. And so that is important. I want people to continue to be aware, but I don't want people to be too concerned about this. There's a lot more things you should be worried about now when it comes to the overall risk of not necessarily hantavirus and whether you should be scared of that, but whether we should be concerned about what hantavirus reveals about our preparedness, our general preparedness in the US And I think that is the bigger concern. Nicole, I was on your show a year ago and I said in the aftermath of Elon Musk cutting Ebola funding that we are sure to regret this. And since then, we have dismantled the USAID and our bio surveillance systems around the world. We have cut a lot of our CDC disease detectives. We fired them, rehired them, fired them, rehired them. NIH has cut grants to centers that were doing work on exactly this hantavirus money that we had sent out for things like PEPSAR in the past had supported labs exactly like the one that helped identify the Santa virus in South Africa. And in that year since we last chatted, we have cut a lot of the capacity that should normally be in place for us to respond not only to hantavirus, but to any other virus that's circulating could potentially have an impact
- [38:43]
Nicole Wallace
here in the U.S. i mean, one of the things that we talked about, and it's on us that our attention was diverted. But gutting USAID has led to the death and the suffering of the planet's most vulnerable and it endangers us here at home. And I wonder if you think we failed to sort of finish the thought or finish the sentence at the time that USAID was gutted.
- [39:12]
Dr. Craig Spencer
Yeah. Look, I wrote a couple months ago about how I think that there is still an incredible role for empathy, particularly in global health, and how Americans know that we are great because we are good. And for a long time we were good on the global stage and did a lot of work to battle not only outbreaks to make sure that countries were able to manage hiv, not just because those things could eventually come here, but because that was the right thing to do. And we've lost that thread amongst the upheaval of the past year. But in the same time, we've forgotten how important it is to make sure those things are in place, not just for people abroad, but for us here at home as well. And the one thing that I keep coming back to is that none of us question the importance of funding our local fire departments. We all know we need them, even if there hasn't been a big fire in our community in a really long time. And we know that getting rid of the hoses and taking away the training for our firefighters and not letting them have access to the water that they need or the trucks that they need would be a really dumb thing to do. And I feel like we're doing something similar with our kind of global health and public health infrastructure. We're not seeing it as a set, sustained investment that we need, that when things like this happen, we're ready. We would never do that with firefighters because we know we want them to be prepared for the next fire, whether that's today, next year, or maybe even never.
- [40:28]
Nicole Wallace
I would love to ask you to come back. And whenever I do this on live tv, people say yes. So I don't mean to put you on the spot, but this idea that Americans like to see themselves as good is another thing I think that we skipped by too quickly. It's really sort of in people's guts. And I think the events of the last 12 months have made clear that we've landed on the other side of that with a lot of these cuts. Dr. Craig Spencer, thank you for being here for us today on this story. Great to see you. We're going to take one more break. We'll be right back. I'm incredibly fortunate to get to be here every day, but I'm equally fortunate to get to call a lot of really, really, really smart people, my colleagues and co workers here at this network, my other half, my wingman on our big election nights. Chris Hayes is my guest on the newest episode of the Best People Pod. A little preview of the conversation.
- [41:28]
Chris Hayes
I think personally, he's just bored with the job. He's obviously bored. I mean, you're talking about the kids. You did this very strange thing with a bunch of kids. Physical fitness. And he's there and like he always is. He's, you know, his eyes look down and people say he's falling asleep. He's not falling asleep. Sometimes he is, but sometimes he isn't.
- [41:43]
Michael Feinberg
He's just bored out of his gourd.
- [41:47]
Chris Hayes
Very evidently, could not be more bored
- [41:51]
Nicole Wallace
by the job more. Yeah.
- [41:53]
Chris Hayes
And so I think all those things are true. And then I think the final thing that's true is it remains the case that Trump and the kind of party that he has captured is committed to rule by any means necessary and will use every possible stratagem, legal, illegal, constitutional, extra, constitutional, normal politics and abnormal politics to try to retain power.
- [42:22]
Nicole Wallace
The conversation is wide ranging and nuanced as Chris himself will be available for premium subscribers tonight. Scan the QR code on your screen right now to get early access to this episode and special bonus episodes as well. The episode will be available to everyone starting Monday morning. One more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes for another week of shows. We are so grateful.
- [42:50]
Podcast Promo Announcer
Tuesday, May 12th from New York City, a special live taping of Ms. NOW's chart topping podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. Join her for an urgent conversation with legendary documentarian Ken Burns. As America approaches its 250th anniversary, they'll explore the state of our country today through the lens of our past. Ken Burns and Nicole Wallace in conversation, the American experiment at 250. Get your tickets today at 92NY.org.