Loading summary
Commercial Narrator
Olivia loves a challenge. It's why she lifts heavy weights and likes complicated recipes. But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way with Expedia. She bundled her flight with a hotel to save more. Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower. You were made to take the easy route. We were made to easily package your trip. It Expedia made to travel flight inclusive packages are atoll protected.
Chris Cuomo
What do you think of Dr. Drew Pinsky? You think he's a MAGA guy? Do you think that he's a rational guy, a balanced guy? Do you think he's changed? How about instead of thinking about him, you hear from him? I wanted to have a conversation here on the Chris Cuomo project. So thank you for being with me for subscribing and following. And instead of talking about and comments and hot takes, why don't we speak to somebody, talk to Dr. Drew Pinsky about what he thinks about vaccines and why and the pandemic and Maha and what we need and what we don't need. But then shift gears and get his perspective on where he thinks we are in terms of diagnosing our society, what is making us sick here in our heads and in our hearts, not just with body disease. And does he think it's going to get better? And if so, how? Really interesting answers from someone I love to talk to. Dr. Drew, Doc, always good to see you. Thank you for being with me. Let's talk about me and about you and about perception versus reality. Do you believe that you have changed? You know why I'm asking you, right? You know that people say often, oh, he's different now. Now he's a Trump guy. He's switched, he's different. How do you feel about yourself?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
No, I have not switched. I'm still moderate. I spent most of my career. What's so fascinating to me is I spent most of my career fighting the right, right? I was a strong advocate for morning after contraception and the HPV vaccine. And they came after me for years and years and years and also discussing difficult material on the airwaves. They came after me suddenly. Suddenly they stopped. And then the left came after me for not. The best I can tell is for not carrying water for canonic ideas, whatever they might be. And I dared to say, hey, everybody calm down around Covid. Let's figure this out. You know, it's funny, the thing I got wrong with COVID you know, I had H1N1 too, right, back during that pandemic and I'm not sure I would have survived at the time in which you and I had Covid at those ages. It was a little bit worse than Covid. As bad as our Alpha and Delta episodes were, it was a little bit more brutal. And there was a. To me, there was a pandemic that killed 300,000 people worldwide. At least 20, 30,000 people in this country. I had it. I knew it was brutal. And the vast, vast majority of people did not know it happened. The Obama administration elected not to make an issue of it. They managed it just perfectly, I thought. And they were locked. Input from the cdc, direction of local public health, just the way you're supposed to deal with a pandemic. And so I just was like, what are we doing with this one? Why? Why. Why do we go from, you don't know what happened to we have to close the world down. I'm just. And I kept saying. I kept saying, this is the interesting thing. When you see videos of me saying, hey, calm down at the end of every one. I said, just listen to Dr. Fauci. Listen to the CDC. I've known these guys for a long time. They'll get us through this. And of course, that's the part I got a little wrong, and they cut that off of all the videos. But I've always been a moderate. I always try to find the truth. I'm not really taking a team. I've been a Democrat. I've been a Republican. I've been an Independent. I'm an independent now.
Chris Cuomo
What do you think about the attacks on Fauci? What do you think is a fair criticism?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I've talked to Rand Paul a few times. He's a little extreme in his position. I think Dr. Fauci was in a very difficult position. He seemed. During some of his testimony, he seemed like he was obfuscating, like he knew some things he was not coming clean about, like whether or not there's such a thing as natural immunity or why we can't go to a church ceremony, but we can go demonstrate somewhere. I mean, just be clear about it. Why are you taking that? If it's ideological, fine, just tell us. But he was like, I don't understand the question. It's like, oh, he understands the question. So there's something going on there.
Chris Cuomo
I don't know, Doc. I'll tell you, I've known Tony Fauci most of my life, right? And, you know, the irony for me is nobody's more pissed off about what happened during the pandemic. Than I am. You know, I was so reduced by the illness, and then I got caught up in all this bullshit propaganda. And then when a lot of it started to wind down, I wasn't on tv, so I wasn't there to weigh in or defend myself or anything, but. And I'm no clinician with that. I don't even know what the fuck I'm talk about. I'm just, you know, we're taking information from where it comes, vetting where we can. But I spent a lot of time talking to Tony Fauci, and I was very concerned early on when they were making a white coat a political messenger. I don't think Tony obfuscates. I think Tony is old. And I think Tony is a scientist and he is new to politics, even though he's been in public health for a long time. And he does not answer questions the way the guy from Florida does. For instance, you know, this guy Ladapo, which is with this savvy of, oh, I get what you're trying to ask. Let me finesse it. That's not the way Tony is. And, you know, they say he made all this money. There is no proof of that stuff.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And what bothers me is I don't have an opinion.
Chris Cuomo
We haven't learned anything from it, doc. We've never gone back and looked at what worked and what didn't during the pandemic. And now you got MAGA turned against itself with operation Warp Speed. They love Trump. They think he should get a Nobel for warp spe, but they think the vaccine is fucking poison.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
So it's so weird to me, you're pointing at something that is just so odd to me that people don't seem to be able to hold two ideas in mind at the same time. So Operation Warp Speed and the vaccine during alpha and delta, which is what you and I had, it saved some of my patients lives. There's no doubt in my mind. It was extremely effective, very helpful. Then we moved on to Omicron, which was much milder illness and continues to be so. And mandates kicked in, and I was like, whoa, whoa, now we're mandating. And the thing that's oddest about the mandates for me is that we know that the pathogenic component of the virus is the spike protein. And so if we're gonna mandate a vaccine, why mandate the one that only produces spike protein that we know hurts people. Let's develop a nucleocapsid protein with mRNA. Fine, let's do it. Let's do it now. Let's get another warp speed going. And that should be great. But no, this one, you have to take this one. That to me was bizarre. Bizarre.
Chris Cuomo
I mean, look, I think it was wrong now, intentionally wrong, lying or wrong to me, I've never had any proof that they really knew what they did do. And what I do have proof of and I know happened is they responded like any institution, whether it's a church or a corporation or a government institution or an educational institution, which is they protected themselves. So we went from mask to no mask, and they didn't really explain it, even though the scientific explanation was pretty apparent. And it didn't work the same way with the different variants and they didn't discuss it the same way. Same thing with the schools. And it's because it became political. And the freedom that you guys have in science is not allowed in politics. If you change your position on the vaccine, you're an idiot. And if you say, no, no, no, no, I'm not an idiot. The data changed, there's new information about it. So I'm changing my opinion in politics, you're a dead man. You can't do that. Nobody changes positions. And in science, that's all you do.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
But, but let's, let's go back up to take. Take back up again and look at the fact that the CDC was never supposed to be a political organization or organization, organization that mandated anything. That's not their job. Their job is advisory and to do some research on bioweapons and things like that. But it's advisory and to the extent that they are about communicable diseases. I mean, it was designed to, to control malaria in the United States. That's where it came from. And it's still supposed to do the same thing. It's supposed to just advise public health officials, supervise them. We get information as physicians. The way H1N1 went, H1N1 was perfect. And then we make decisions on behalf of our patients and now we do our thing and then maybe the community gets together and makes little decisions on their own. But this idea that the federal government is mandating what doctors do and what public health does, it was never meant to be anything like that. Never, ever.
Chris Cuomo
But what happened was, as you know, first under the Trump administration and then under the Biden one, they made the mandates based off the CDC recommendation. They just put the onus, the burden on the cdc. Yes, because they didn't want to own it. I mean, that's why Tony was the one talking to us and Burks was The one talking to us in the first place. If Trump had wanted to own it, you would have never met any of those guys. But he didn't want to own it. And Biden, you know, his people extended the same thing, which is there's only downside on this. So let's let them handle it. And the sad thing about it to me is we never learned anything and now it's all weaponized for advantage.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You keep saying that, and I could not agree with you more. I want a listen. Whenever we have a case, we do a postmortem, we study what do we do, what we get right, what we get wrong. Let's have a collective morbidity mortality report on what we did. And there's just. All people have to do is say, I got it wrong. I got some stuff wrong. I got lots of stuff wrong. And it's just, wow, I've never seen anything like this in my lifetime. As it pertains to the practice of medicine, it is very disappointing.
Chris Cuomo
It's all about us and them and finding blame and how I see this. Here's the proof of that proposition. There is. And we see this again with the Florida Surgeon General, who I thought was polite, and he makes an interesting case. I think it is so clinically weak. So no mandates of any vaccines, but not because he has information that any of the vaccines don't work. It's just that he doesn't like the choice structure, which is bizarre to me, because how can a parent. How can I know what you know? I don't know what you know. So if you guys have decided, well, if we don't have these vaccines, the classroom is going to be a different kind of petri dish than it has been for the last 50 years? Who am I to say, yeah, I don't buy it. Yeah, I don't buy it. I don't know anything, but I don't buy it. I'm not gonna have my kid take any of them. I mean, it seems bizarre to me, but there is more energy behind that kind of position or saying that the vaccine kills more than it helps, than people give a shit about. Long Covid. And Long Covid is absolutely real, and vaccine injuries can be real, but we don't know nearly as much about them as we do Long Covid.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And no, I mean, nobody hasn't had the vaccine, so everyone that has Long Covid also had the vaccine. So how do you sort that out? But I wanna back up a little bit on the vaccine mandate thing. Are you aware that 88 countries have no mandate for school attendance. A lot of Scandinavia, most of the eu, China, Japan, even China does not require vaccine to attend school. And some of these schools have very good vaccine uptake. Right. And some of these countries, and the way they do it is through education and the physician recommendations. So each physician sits down with their patient and says, hey, I'm recommending this. Here's what's going to happen if you don't do it. And there's good uptake. That is how medicine is supposed to be practiced, not a mandate. And to have them think about the bioethics of a mandate, what do you need to have a bioethical standard that allows you to make a mandate? Right. Do you, have you thought about that?
Chris Cuomo
Yep.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Okay, so first, the doctor's job, do no harm. So if you're gonna harm the patient with the vaccine, even if it helps the community, you already don't have the bioethical standing to do it. Number two, you have to have informed consent. So you have to know exactly why you're recommending it and that the circumstances will be if you don't do it. And then the child or the adult. And again, I give adult vaccines all the time. And it's a very different proposition. Bodily autonomy. People are entitled to their bodily autonomy and all three of those things are necessary for a mandate to be in place. And it's got none of that. And so that's what makes me worry. We just don't know the bioethical standing maybe for a 65 year old, 75 year old, or maybe for measles in a, you know, certain vaccines, yes, we maybe have it for measles, Montrubella and certain age groups. But to have it for all vaccines makes it. We just don't have that. We just don't have it.
Chris Cuomo
Why do the public health officials overwhelmingly believe that the vaccine schedule that our kids have has contributed to America being a healthier society?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Because they have no data to decide one way or the other. And unfortunately, people have developed religious belief around anti or pro vax, both sides equally culpable. We need to get the data, we need to figure it out. We need to look at where it's good and where it's bad. Like, here's where rubber hits the road for me, for instance. I was in and around the hepatitis B vaccine research right back in the early 80s, and we were doing this to deal with vertical transmission of hepatitis B, mother to child transmission in China, where they had a big problem with this. We never imagined we'd be Giving it to children here. We wanted it for healthcare workers. We wanted it for China. It makes zero sense here. And why do it on day one? It's the oddest thing. And apparently was mandated by the World Health Organization. I don't know why. I don't know what the thinking was. I can't find it and I can't. As someone who worked with that vaccine, there's zero indication they can always take it at age 10, day 12. Whatever. It wears off, too. They have to take boosters later. I mean, what are we doing? If a mother has hepatitis B in this country, we know it. And if we do not know it, that's malpractice. And those kids get the B vaccine for sure. But that's a couple hundred cases a year.
Chris Cuomo
The one good. I understand all that and that's helpful. Thank you for laying it out for the audience. The concern that I hear as a counter is that if you do not mandate these vaccines, you can almost guarantee there will be less uptake than we have currently in society. Because there's an empowerment principle. It's been politicized. And are you concerned about that or do you believe that we've never needed them?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Oh, no, I'm 100% concerned. I'm in between. I'm concerned about both directions, Right? And look, we just had an outbreak in Texas. Now you want to look at that, you have to look at it kind of carefully because there were three deaths, right? And one was in an adult. It wasn't even a child. And the two that were apparently healthy children. That should be an educational instrument for people who are trying to make this decision. Go look. Here's measles. It's a bad illness. Here's what can happen. And so, yeah, I'm very concerned about it. Do we need HPV at a certain age? Do we need hepatitis B to a certain age? To me, those are debatable questions and they should be be with based on risk reward. Always risk reward. Risk reward for that person at that age at that time.
Commercial Narrator
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliate price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
Chris Cuomo
Cozy Earth products bring ultimate comfort that shows up day in and day out. That's because Cozy Earth nailed comfort with their bamboo joggers and their everywhere pant. Next level Cozy Earth is good with me and I'll tell you why. They do well and they do do good. They have products, they're bedding especially, that uses a textile, bamboo viscose bamboo that does not kill the planet the way everything else does. And that is good for me. And in terms of doing well, the sheets hold up. The more you wash them, the softer they get. The clothing that they make for bedtime and leisure wear, they are soft and breathable and they work really well. And that's why I love Cozy Earth. So go to cozyearth.com and use my code, Chris, and get up to 40% off the best pants, the joggers, the shirts, everything. And if you get a post purchase survey, please tell them we sent you that. You heard about Cozy Earth right here. Built for real life and made to keep up with yours. That's Cozy Earth, the dynamic. This is now my space. But when I watch the President of the United States at odds with his own base over what they see as their signature issue, and he sees as his signature issue because when you look at maga, there's very little other than immigration that galvanized that base the way being an anti vaxxer did, Right? And then you have all the offshoot issues that if we'd all just taken Ivermectin, you would have never had to worry about COVID and all this other exaggerated stuff. But that's their issue. It's also Trump's. He wants an award for Operation Warp Speed. He believes it saved us from the fate of other countries. And he's not allowed to talk about it because his own people hate every time he mentions that he was vaccinated. Isn't that interesting? What does that tell you?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
This is that thing about being unable to hold two ideas in mind at the same time. He just a couple days ago said warp speed was a great, you know, it's such an advancement, such a wonderful thing we did. And then this morning he put out a little video. Vaccines are all poison. So I don't know, let's leave it to the medical science. The problem, you know, we're getting in this weird space now where people are getting confused about public health, which is one thing, and healthcare, which is a completely other thing. So those two things are getting conflated and confused by people and wellness versus medical science. These are entirely. I started thinking, I woke up a couple days ago and I thought, people don't understand that everybody gets sick eventually. Everybody, you're all going to get a medical illness. You're all going to need a surgery or something. You're going to need medical science involved in your life at some point. Everybody. It's just now that you're healthy, we want to keep you that way as long as possible. And we don't like all these metabolic diseases. Now I get all that, but medical science has been sort of pushed aside. I'm very, very concerned about that.
Chris Cuomo
Well, look, here's what. If I were you as a non clinician, but somebody who forms and tests arguments for a living. When everybody was eating organic and the water was clean and the air was clean, the life expectancy in Americ was like half of what it is now. And the only thing that changed is medicine is science.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
That's right.
Chris Cuomo
Is the only thing that changed. We ate organic, right? We didn't have any of this stuff that we're worried about now. You know, there were less people. It was all, we checked every box and we died. And there's only one reason we died at that rate and at that age. And it was because we didn't have science. So it is interesting that it was a choice to weaponize it, but I think it was circumstantial. Science is not a great opportunity for bullshit because it's got a built in empiricism to it. But it does work well in spaces of the unknown.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
People have gotten confused about it, right? What is science? I mean, I realize even my peers are confused about that. But let me just ask one thing. Do you ever see the TV show the Nick?
Chris Cuomo
Yes.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Oh, in that first episode, he's doing a eulogy. It's one of the greatest shows. I was so. You know, when they could try things and do all kinds of stuff and use their mind to try to push science forward, People died anyway, so it was really what was happening. And he's giving a eulogy for a friend of his and he goes, today, at the turn of the 20th century, a baby born today can expect to live to the age of 47. And I thought, oh my God, wow, it's so true. You know, so, but, but to be fair, nutrition, sanitation, you know, trauma therapies, all kinds of stuff, we, we moved that forward. But science is the pursuit of an approximation of the physical universe of the truth. Right? And it is done. I talked to Brett Weinstein about this and he was like, this is the problem right now. It's an instrument that is very delicate. It has to be applied a certain way. Francis Bacon gave it to us 400 years ago. And it is called the scientific Method, it involves the following. Come up with a hypothesis, develop an experiment to test that hypothesis, do a statistical analysis, hopefully a null hypothesis. And the null hypothesis is either informatory, excuse me, informing, or non informing. That's it. That's the whole. And if you do, and if the null hypothesis informs repeatedly, then your hypothesis can go towards theory, but that's it. You can ask very narrow questions very clearly. And we've gotten into a world of observational science and big data and stuff, and it's adulterated the basic principles of the scientific method. And that concerns me a lot, actually.
Chris Cuomo
Well, we are in an age at the same time, people want to sell certainty out of things that are uncertain and.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Oh, my God.
Chris Cuomo
And it works great for podcasts, it works. It works great for politics because people are desperate for reason to believe, and we're only too willing to give it to them. It's just very often bullshit.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Joseph Freyman framed it this way for me. He said, we have irrational certitude on the loose.
Chris Cuomo
Yeah, that's exactly. That's a great way to say it.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah. And our job as a scientist is to have rational uncertainty at all times. At all times. And in terms of my own mistakes, I got a little hubristic early in Covid, and I will never do that again. I will always try to keep my mind open and never assume I have certainty about anything.
Chris Cuomo
I also think that people have weaponized the motivations, you know, because you had Trump and then you had Biden, and the choice structure was almost exactly the same. Now you could say, well, it's because the deep state was in place the whole time. But I'm just telling you, and I'm sure you had plenty of contacts at most don't. Also speaking to those people in real time, even the people who came up with the antibodies. Okay, the regeneron, you know, first wave and all that. I didn't get this sense anybody was playing me the whole time, the way I do on a regular basis right now. Like when I talk to guys about tariffs, I know they're playing me. When I talk to guys about immigration, they're playing me in a different way. When we're talking about crime in the military, now there's a game afoot. But I never got that feeling for them. I thought they were afraid of being wrong. And that's dangerous in science. Cause they are not used to. They weren't used to getting punished for their opinions.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Right.
Chris Cuomo
And I think that changed it, but I think that was a political mistake, not a medical one. But you know, even when I watch Bobby's ascendants, Robert Kennedy Jr. People send me his clips all the time, doc, correcting his assertions. And it makes me wonder. I don't believe Bobby's just dead wrong about everything, but it does make me wonder whether or not he is influenced by political persuasion within his policy arguments.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Well, I'm imagining they all have to be right. I mean I have talked to him many times and he really is trying to stay with the truth. He's really trying to get at it. The extent to which he's able to or has to pay attention to really what I would call administrative policy issues to get where he needs to go. God only knows how many different influences get in there. I just keep saying I've talked to him, I believe he wants the truth. I he keeps an open mind or reads science, he has a point of view, but he reads sciences relatively dispassionately. And we got to give them time to do that. Look, Jay Bhattacharya, have you talked to Jay or just had him on? Jay's amazing, right? He's the head of the nih. He's a great guy. That is somebody I think you can lean on and rely on. My mat I've known forever, I feel the same about him. So there's at least two people in there that I feel confident when they're telling me something, I can rely on it.
Chris Cuomo
But what they get beat up about is the politics of it. You know, like you were on the other night on News Nation on my show with Ph.D. nurick. Right, Dr. Nurick. And she has made a cottage industry out of just fact checking, as you guys do all the time in the clinical arena. What comes out of maga's mouth. And a lot of the time it's Bobby. And I spent the time of going back to check her sources to make sure she wasn't just cherry picking. And it's always pret obvious that people get, like you said, irrational certitude is like the order of the day. Now we've diagnosed the easy part, now the hard part. What do we do about it?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
By the way, there's one other thing that bugs me. When you get things wrong, the other sort of weird thing that's happening is people accuse you of lying. You lied about this. It's like, yes, I got it wrong. It's possible to get something wrong and not lie about something. You know, here's where I have landed and I don't know what else to do except to keep my Eye keep everyone okay, I guess I have three or four things A be very aware of cognitive dissonance and cognitive distortions. Understand how those things work. You should interview Mark Cenkisi. He's a physicist, cognitive psychologist, and he really lays out, you know, the kinds of ways our brain work. We're all prone to it. We all have cognitive biases and things that can get in the way. Pay attention to cognitive bias. Two, remain rationally uncertain at all times. At all times. And then three, I've arrived at this spot which is. We have to allow free speech all the time. We have to mix it up. We have to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk and, you know, and go at things where they're wrong, talk about things when they're right. Have. Have conversations about it. And this is how science is always done. We get to an approximation of the truth by sharing with our.
Chris Cuomo
Right now we're accelerating in the misinformation direction.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
On the fringes, though, remember the. Wait a minute.
Chris Cuomo
They dominate, Doc. They dominate. We don't have anymore where there's a cottage show that has. Even though you guys were like a cult show early on, I was there in the beginning. You know what I mean? I've been following Dr. Drew literally from jump, where, oh, this is a little show that has such wisdom and is having a kind of conversation about American society that we all need to. Now, I believe the fringe has reversed that and it's like crazy town on the fringes and the rest kind of step away from it.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
All I know is that the way these things tend to work, and by these things, I meant the crazy town part is about 10 to 20% become evangelical. They are in. And I don't know what to do with that, that. That group. Because people need to look at them and understand who they are on both sides, understand it. Now they may have something to offer, by the way, too. Sometimes, you know, the broken watch gets the time right twice a day. So pay attention and be. Be uncertain. But. But about 10% typically goes, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's what you're saying. Wait, this is bullshit. Hang on a second. And Everybody else, the 70%, just wanted to kind of get on with life and kind of, you know, and that's the group we got to worry about. That's the group we got to, like, make sure that they're kind of paying attention and they don't get swept into bullshit and they don't panic and they don't become hysterical and they kind of like, you know, let's do focus on our family and our community and the things that are important.
Chris Cuomo
All right, let's talk about it. You know, we all want fuller, healthier hair. If you've been battling thinning, breakage or just want to give your hair a serious upgrade, I got something for you. The Irestore Revive plus Max Growth Kit. It's like a full on hair care dream team. The best part is that for a limited time only, if you subscribe and save, you're going to get 25% off or more on the Irestore Revive Plus Max growth kit. Plus you're going to get free shipping. Combine it all with the Irestore Elite laser device, which is powered by the most advanced hair regrowth technology. Now you're setting yourself up for some serious hair goals. Now I'm using all of it. Okay. The shampoo smells great, works well, as does the conditioner. The hair serum I think helped and kind of thickened up the hair that I do have. And then you've got your little super helmet there with the red light technology. All I know is that I've been wearing it and I have not experienced any more loss and that's enough for me. Give yourself the gift of hair confidence for a limited time only. Subscribe and save and you're going to get 25% off or more plus free shipping on the IrisStore Revive Plus Max Growth Kit. And my listeners get a huge discount on the Irestore Elite. Just use the code chris@irestore.com irestore.com use the code chris and you will get my show's exclusive discount. Please support our show. Tell them we sent you so they keep advertising. Hair loss is frustrating. You don't have to fight it alone. Thanks to Irestore. If you could throw on the Dr. Drew Lovelines hat. When you look at where we are as a society, what's winning, what's losing? What do you see?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Well, here's my basic take. When I put on that hat, I.
Chris Cuomo
Didn'T intend any of this.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
This is not at all what I expected. This was not what I was doing. Please, no, please. There was an excess. It went too far. I was trying to help people with their medical issues in adolescence and young adulthood when they did not have anywhere else to go for information. Now that, now they have too much. Too much. And now we've gone somewhere else. So first and foremost, I didn't intend where we are. The question is precisely again, what do I see?
Chris Cuomo
Yeah, what do you see? And what does it tell you? Is Winning and losing.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I see it all as a work in progress. I feel like it's moving. We're moving, we're moving. We're not getting stuck. And I have found myself studying crowds and 1789 France because. Because that's where crowds really went wacko. I know the French don't see it that way, but that is what happened. There was. There was. And that's why the books on mob came out of that. Le Bon wrote the book about, you know, mobs and crowds, and there have been several since. And I know they've been criticized and I'm familiar with the literature, but crowds are. Masses are a special thing and they get swept into frenzies and we should all be on our guard about that. Every thing socially has been because of a mob doing good. Social ill is always done in the name of good and often because of a hysteria that swepts in. I read a book about from the perspective of the American ambassador in Germany in 1939, and I was surprised to see the Germans talking about an hysteria. I didn't understand that they too saw this whole thing as hysteria that had captured and then got hold. And that was that. It just. It just. And we have to be careful too, because there's been a narcissistic turn. Okay? We are. We are all have traits of narcissism now. That's a kind of a new thing. And as such, we can be prone to envy and we can have empathic failure in certain situations. And mobs love that shit because mobs will take that narcissistic liability and scale scapegoat. So scapegoating becomes the means for the mob to gratify itself. We need to understand that and pay attention because that's what you're talking about on social media.
Chris Cuomo
There are a lot of people who believe that we are heading for profound conflict, that the fringes have taken over. And you have MAGA on one side and the reaction formation to it on the left. Now that seems to be forming quickly and furiously. And to your point of we're in process. Is that process evolution or devolution?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Oh boy, we will see. Right? You're sort of arguing more devolution in terms of cognitive biases. I have an optimistic bias and it's bad. I can't shake it.
Chris Cuomo
I do. As a survival mechanism, I have developed it. So I'm raised by a long line.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Of.
Chris Cuomo
Pessimists of very cautious. Success is failure averted. Don't celebrate, just worry about fucking up the next one.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Oh, me too.
Chris Cuomo
And I think reaction formation to that for me was. And especially just being in this business as long as I've been in it and how I have decided to be, be in it, I have to believe, I have to see the work as an act of faith in the future. Because otherwise there's just not enough tequila in the world. There's not enough THC in the world. There's not enough clonazepam in the world.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
No, I'm with you. I'm with you.
Chris Cuomo
It's too heavy, too much, too sad.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
But not everyone comes from that bias that we come from. My family escaped essentially Ukraine just before the pogroms, and there was horrible things they were dealing with and they got here just in time for the depression. And so their thing is, you don't know what can happen tomorrow. It can all fall apart. You better just take care. And there's a lot of take care of yourself and be prepared. And I don't know, we could all use a little bit of that to be fair. I mean. And both you and I have ended up, in spite of that, with an optimistic bias. It's not so bad.
Chris Cuomo
I do although I must say, as a proud member of the Mishpuka, I did not think, think that I would be defending people like you from anybody. I believe that my generation of Jews, especially light skinned ones, had graduated the whiteness the same way I have from my father's generation. My father wasn't a white guy. He was considered an ethnic. And he was Italian. And the gap tooth grin and the swarthy and the this and the that, it was all code right for him being Italian. He had to share his valedictory. He couldn't get jobs on Wall street, you know, all that shit. And now I'm a white guy, I'm as much of a white guy as there is. I thought the same of the Jews. I now don't believe that anymore. I think you may look like me, you may sound like me, you may have the same pedigree as I do, but if you're a Jew, you're not a white guy, you're a Jew.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Well, I have a couple of reactions. One is, yeah, my dad too had, couldn't be a member of the hospital where I served for years. He couldn't be a member of the social club across the street from where he lived. This is in the 1670s. This is not ancient history. He was just not welcome. And he didn't make a lot of it. He just went down to form new hospital with Some friends, other community. He was like, we're just not welcome. It's just the way it goes. And I don't like clubs of any sort. I just don't like excluding people. I don't like special languages. I love the culture and stuff, but I don't like exclusionary anything. That's just my bias again. So to the extent that we're not white or we're. I don't even like that kind of language. It's just like.
Chris Cuomo
Yeah, but you don't hear that, you don't hear that among Jews in your personal life that they are worried that they're telling their kids not to wear the Star of David. And then you have other ones that are celebrating Shabbos and having their Shabbat dinners and leaning into it more. I mean, is it not palpable in your. Their own life?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I see both, yes. For sure, for sure.
Chris Cuomo
And have you ever seen it before?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah, yeah. Not like this. Not in this country. I've seen. You know, that's what I'm talking about.
Chris Cuomo
It's not supposed to happen here. This is why Jews.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
No, it's not supposed to happen here. And it's so odd to me that Jews become the object always in a tumultuous time. It's like this is back to my thing about scapegoating, right. They just have this long history of being scapegoated. And it's just scapegoating generally is of uncanny to me. I just, I can't do it. I don't get it. But maybe I ought to study it some more. I'll understand it better.
Chris Cuomo
I've been trying to figure out how it is that the left has become the home of antisemitism. I never saw that coming. And it actually gives a little bit of credibility, just a little bit. I'm holding my fingers as close together as I can of Democrats start. Started the bigoted political movements. I think that's unfair. We're talking about southern white Democrats who then became Blue Dog Democrats and then Republicans who started the KKK and all those organizations. Those are not Democrats like my dad. Which is when the party became a repository for the rejects. Right? You know, the ethnics and the underclass and all that. That's my father's kind of Democratic Party. Now the though these cats on campus or what I pick up when they're really bad on Israel, the chance that they're MAGA is small. You want to talk Ukraine, you'll get a lot more MAGA guys in there about what you know, what they've been fed about, who's the bad guy or whatever. But on, you know, on globalize, the intifada, that's all left. How.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah, I'm with you. How about my body, my choice? That's the left. And yet no, you have to take these vaccines. I didn't know anything in medicine where you have to do it and you don't regard the risks at all, ever, under any circumstances.
Chris Cuomo
Well, right, but flip it also doc. Cause now with Ladipo, I didn't go there because I really try not to do. Gotcha. I have incredible facility with arguments, but that's not always illuminating. You know, me saying, oh Doc, you said this about the 70s, but you forgot this in the this. Oh yeah, yeah, I did. Right. That factors in. It doesn't improve the overall point. So I leave it alone. But it was no small irony to hear a conservative arguing, you can't tell me as the state of all people what I can and can't do with my body and just ignoring what just happened with reproductive rights.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
No, exactly. So gratuity. And what's interesting to me is the right lost people during the 80s and beyond by being self righteous and hyper religious and hyper moral and telling people how to live their lives. Now that's coming from the left. It is the oddest thing in the world to me. And I guess people don't know about that transformation. They don't see it or something. It is like I told you at the beginning, I was fighting the left of the right rather for many years. Anita Bryant and all this stuff. You remember all that stuff? I was a pariah of talking to K. Oh, how dare you. And now all of a sudden the other side comes after me. I guess this is how politics goes, right? Just like you said. I mean the reconstruction of the south was perpetrated by the Democrats. And by the way, everybody read your history about that period. It was so, so awful. It was literally. Frederick Douglass himself said that it was worse. He said we gave up the lash for the shotgun and the noose. And this is. It was the craziest period, I would argue so bad. I think we've tried to put it out of our collective consciousness. He was really. To me, that is one of the darkest periods. And you know, it got left over with Jim Crow and all that stuff. But oh my God, oh my God. And people aren't aware of it.
Chris Cuomo
Jim Crow is a term people know even if they don't understand the etymology or derivation of it. That's okay. But what they have to remember is that Jim Crow was allowed to stay in place for so long when everyone knew it was violent, of our constitution and our collective conscience, because it was easier than just dealing with the war that was gonna come over it.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
But back to your point, we've had weird periods of war. That's weird, that's insane. And we're in another kind of weird, insane period now. I guess.
Chris Cuomo
I guess I think that. So here is the answer, okay, to one of the things. The reason that you have seen these swings of familiar antipathy, but coming from different origination is because that is the natural course for a binary system. It has to be this way, doc, that when something starts to move the pendulum and it starts to swing, okay, what do we know for sure? It's gonna overcorrect and it's gonna have to zero out with inertia, and then it's gonna come flying fucking back the other way, way, building momentum again. And what we see in our politics is you watch, you win, then you lose, and then you become what beat you. And that's what we're seeing right now, which is the left tried to resist maga. Now, the good part of resisting MAGA was you didn't want to surrender to that kind of negativity and animus and grievance that was driving your policy. As familiar as that is in politics, grievance is almost always at the top of the list of political motivations. So that was. That was virtuous, in my opinion. The wrong part of it was you were telling people they were wrong to feel how they were. And you were. And you were owning a status quo that was really flawed. And so you lose. And now what do we see coming the other way? Now they have the grievance movement. Now it's about affordability and being down with brain crown, basically of, you know, adopting or appropriating people's suffering as you see it in Gaza. Although you don't give a shit about Syria or Africa or what's happening with the Uyghurs in China. But you do care about Gaza, I believe, because it's the Jews and they're seen as a white oppressor. But that's just my opinion.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Well, of course.
Chris Cuomo
Well, we're now seeing it come and like, you know, like my brother lost in that primary, we saw it weeks in advance that there was a movement afoot that in my opinion, was motivated by a gap in leadership in New York City and a Federal Register of affordability as a crisis. And people were they don't like hearing how great everything is when it sucks for them. And Trump breeds animus and it's easy to dislike him for certain people. And that has become fuel. And now here they come. And I think the reason that the President is actually just talking about our collective psyche. I he cares about New York City not because it has anything to do with my brother. He's no fan of my brother. But he sees what's happening. More so in Minnesota where a sitting Democrat mayor lost in a primary to a very extreme left Muslim and he thinks that's going to beat him in the midterms. Interesting that that's the part of the process. Reaction formation. And now it'll be MAGA of the left. They just need. Need to name it.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
So, so what is the. I love the assessment. I think it fits with reality. So where does it go? This is back to my thing about the working through process.
Chris Cuomo
Yes. So here's where it comes. Which is why I'm going to need your help as a clinician because you're gonna have to treat me because I'm going to get sicker and sicker. Here is the only way to deal with it. You have to stop fighting over the few and fight for the many. Stop fighting over the prepositional difference over the few, the fringe and who can motivate more madness and fight for the many. Here's the problem. The many don't really give a about the conversation you and I are having right now.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah.
Chris Cuomo
Because they got other things.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You're. You're framing it in the context of what. What I said a little while ago about the 10% saying 20% being evangelical and that 7, 70% wants to live their life.
Chris Cuomo
That's right.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And they'd like it if it was better if the government could help. But they don't want the government. They want to be left alone.
Chris Cuomo
That's right.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
More than anything.
Chris Cuomo
That's right. They care about their communities. They're the people who in the majority. Who are we? You pull over when you see somebody on the side of the road. Now if somebody scares you and they tell you that people are getting killed for stopping on the side of the road and the person you see doesn't look like you, maybe that will affect you. If you are lucky enough to have been raised the way I was in a place that was so diverse that you didn't know how to stick to type because there were too many different kinds of people around. Yeah.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Nobody looks like you.
Chris Cuomo
That's right.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
So I mean I mean, everybody looks different, everybody's different.
Chris Cuomo
You know what I mean?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah.
Chris Cuomo
I had my Italians and we had language and we had tradition, but you were all kind of second class. I mean, that was a very palpable feeling in my neighborhood growing up, was that wasps were the real Americans. And we were just.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Oh, that's interesting.
Chris Cuomo
We were just trying to get a foothold.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You know, that's a middle Atlantic, you know, New Englandy kind of thing. That was not so much out here. It was not like that. But, but I, I get it because I went to college out there and.
Chris Cuomo
I, I saw and a lot of ethnic pockets. But what I do is, and I'll tell you, it is not marketable. It is not as commercial, it's not as easy to monetize. But the reason I hooked up with the News Nation guys is they offered to give me an opportunity to do what doesn't work best on cable, which is not play to a side. And look, in my defense, this. What do you call it, faint praise when they say, I didn't like you on cnn, but I like you now. I'm the same fucking guy. I'm just in different circumstances. Nobody ever told me what to say. Nobody has ever controlled me, ever. I'm always difficult to manage. It comes up everywhere I've ever been. But I just have different circumstances now. It's easy for me to police Trump. I could blow him up every night if I wanted to. It doesn't move the needle of making us better. Right. And I don't want to be a lion of the left. I don't even know what the, what they're about. My father wouldn't even recognize that party today. So I fight for the many. I fight for the many. Where is the many on this? Who's getting affected by tariffs? What does it mean? What do the immigration people really need? Which, you know, this system, which illegal immigrants. Immigrants are positives and why and how do we have to recognize that and what do we have to do about it? These are all very complicated, unsatisfying dynamics. Cuz it's way easier to say tariffs good, tariffs suck. Immigration, scary brown menace, you know, or let them all in. You know, those extremes sell. And that's what you see right now on the left. Who's making money? People who sell say, look, think what you want. Trump is Hitler and it is happening again. It's just like the 30s and all of the police and the military and the not liking the elections. And he can do it better. Maybe he won't leave. He doesn't mind playing into any of it, which I'm not sure about why, other than his just sense of fucking with the competition. But that's what sells on the left, period. Don't work with them, don't work with the right. They're devils, they're terrible. These people have to go. He is a con man and a shyster. And on the other side, it's, these people have lost the plot. They don't know what gender is. They don't know you come out of the chute one of two ways. They don't know what normal is anymore. And now they want to be socialists. And that's what sells. And if you're not saying one of those two things, things, you're not making money in cable.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
But isn't it. I mean, here you are, isn't it? I don't know. I, I think people will be very interested in what you're doing right here, right now.
Chris Cuomo
I've been doing it for two years, Doc. If I had you on today and I was comfortable surrendering our relationship for personal satisfaction and I just ripped you in half with a bunch of. About whatever we were talking about, it would go crazy on the left. Cuomo's back takes crazy Maga Pinsky down and you know, whatever other noise came with it. And my podcast will get a million and a half views. I just don't. I just can't live with that. I can't live with it.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I think you get a million and a half views on the social media part of it, the clips. But I don't think, I think people come to pods to hear thoughtful, long form pod. Ideally.
Chris Cuomo
Ideally. But look at all the POD brothers on the right. You know, look at Rogan's comic buddies who now sell themselves as political scientists, you know, except when they have to defend their inaccuracy. And then they're just comics, but, you know, that's who is making waves on the right.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I. But that they're entertaining though, right? And they're, they're. People go there for the entertainment and, and they're just, in my experience, they're just asking questions, trying to make sense of things and make, make fun of stuff. I don't know that they would call. I mean, I mean, none of the guys, I mean, whether it's Theo or Tim or whatever, those guys are just around. You know what I mean?
Chris Cuomo
Yeah, they're fucking around, but they don't tell their audience they're around. So when they say, oh, Trump has done this, and Done that and this is it. And here. And they misstate things. Yeah, they always have the fallback position that I don't of. I'm just a comic. I'm just a comic. I'm just, I'm just around. Yeah, that's convenient. But I think that there's a responsibility, I mean, especially for the top of the food chain. I mean, you know, Rogan now, now he's getting beat up by his own people. Right. Because they're saying that he's, he's gone bad on MAGA because he's questioning some of the things that are going on. And that's not fair anymore.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
That's what I like. That's what's good. These people just, they're just questioning. They're just curious. I mean, curiosity and thoughtfulness is really what I, I think this new sort of long form trend is all about.
Chris Cuomo
I do. I think conversation is the cure. I agree with you about that. I just think it's also the poison. You know, it depends on how somebody is using it. And while I believe in curiosity and depend on it and inhabit it, skepticism is the lowest form of intelligence. So Dr. Drew says, here's what I've learned in my 50 years of practice. And I say, yeah, yeah, I don't know that I agree.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Oh, yeah.
Chris Cuomo
And it's like, yeah, you don't agree based on what? Do you not agree? Well, you know, I, I saw a clip from a podcast the other day where this doctor told me that you're really better off just eating carbs all day or whatever, whatever article of convenience I found. And that's where we are. Which is where Dr. Drew can be on with Cantaloupe Cuomo, who doesn't know anything about what he's talking about, but he disputed disagrees.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Well, this is, to me, this is symptomatic of something called Dunning Kruger. Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger phenomena? You must have. Yeah. Is that because people have so much access to information, they think they have a certain amount of wisdom and knowledge, when in fact they're way down the curve of the Dunning Kruger, which is where confidence the people. And for people that don't know, it's essentially you don't know what you don't know. And people that really know a lot tend to veer towards imposter. Like, I don't. When you really know a subject, you're like, okay, this is too, this is so complicated. I can only make conclusions about a certain thing. But as you're going up in Your knowledge base about any given topic. You feel like, oh, because you're. Because it's sort of enlightening. There's sort of a dopamine reaction associated with that. Oh, this is interesting. Oh, I can see that. And. But you're. You don't really know anything yet, which is so, so fascinating about the human.
Chris Cuomo
We used to say when we grew up, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. And the problem with dunning crude Kruger is you can't use it as a positive instruction on anybody that you're applying it to because it assumes that they are lacking in fundamental competence, they are low ability, and you can't say that to somebody and have them want to sign on.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah, yeah, I'm a dope.
Chris Cuomo
You're right, you know, I can't.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You can use yourself as an example. Always. Go, look, I thought I knew something too. And then I got some real expertise. I realize this is pretty complicated and so be careful with irrational certitude. Once again, you know, thinking like you know a lot when you're just getting started. So you believe humility is a really important virtue these days. Ah, but it doesn't really.
Chris Cuomo
But it doesn't go with narcissism. It doesn't go with narcissism.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
No, it doesn't. That's why it's so virtuous. I mean, people need to cultivate it. They need to pay attention because, look, not everyone is narcissistic per se. We have this narcissistic liability underway now. It's a sort of a trend and we all got some of it. And as I said, it's the liability of it that we have to watch out for.
Chris Cuomo
Last thing to diagnose for me, Doc, and thank you so much for the time and helping me out. Wherever I've ever been, I appreciate you for it. When you look at where we are and what works in society as. As the optimist, what gives you most hope? What gives you most concern?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You know, obviously I have lots of feelings about what we're doing with homeless people. Just nothing short of we have a whole separate conversation about that of negligent manslaughter. But that's that. I have been very concerned.
Chris Cuomo
Let people die who can't take care of themselves.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
They're actively contributing to their demise. It's beyond. It's disgusting. And again, not a difficult problem to solve. I know exactly how to do it. We could solve it, but they refused to listen to anybody. The mayor from Amsterdam came over here. He had the same Problem solved. It came over to Sacramento, said, let me show you how we did it. Get the fuck outta here. Who are you to say? And believe me, there's a way to do this. It's not that hard. And by the way, Maha keeps saying they're gonna get at it. So I'm standing by to kind of try to help with that infrastructure that I think would be necessary. But I worry about young people being pessimistic. That makes me nuts. And I have noticed because, I mean, what are we doing here except to pass on and give the next generation at least, maybe not necessarily better, but good and enthusiastic and engage in life in a meaningful way. It's what Aristotle called. He had a word for flourishing. I want people to flourish. Everybody. I want everybody to flourish. I'll think of the word in a few minutes. And to see young people feeling beaten down and pessimistic and unable to form relationships, that is probably the thing that scares me the most.
Chris Cuomo
You're talking about Eudaimonia, by the way.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Eudaimonia. That's what I'm talking about. Thank you. But the lack of ability to find meaning and to find satisfying relationships and to build families, this is profoundly concerning to me. Now, I will tell you, as I travel around the country, the places I like the best is where I see young people out engaging. Like I see there are places in the country you can see the difference. As opposed to here in Southern California, by the way, Orange county, it's kind of happening there. And the evidence of it now has started to blossom a little bit where I am seeing. And this is what gives me the positive part. You're going to find birthright rates going up. I'm seeing babies all over the place. I'm seeing marriages happening. They're, like, getting on it. It's happening regionally, but it's starting to really happen. So that's what gives me hope that there will be this ability to find meaning and to make it engage the way we want them to.
Chris Cuomo
I know that now. I'm 55. So I'm just on the cusp of get off my lawn and starting to hate the new generation. But I gotta tell you, I look at my nieces, man, they had it hard, man, this 911 generation. You know, these people grew up with us getting blown up, going to war that nobody understood in the wrong country, hating people in the place that's supposed to be the melting pot. All kinds of financial, fiscal and political cataclysm. Nothing has been good for any sustained period. Then they have the Internet on their watch and social media, which has just blown up all our best and worst tendencies. And what always wins in any kind of even footing between best and worst is worst. It's hard for virtue to win. The reason all of our superheroes and all our narratives about virtue are so powerful is because it's hard. Right? It's so hard to beat it. And now you have these kids. Our oldest just graduated Ivy league graduates, graduate kids, ridonkulously talented. And she's home. The jobs aren't there, the economy is not there for starting the way it used to be. Everything's too expensive. She is fortunate that she has parents who want to support her. And by the way, I got a sneaky thing you want to talk about a throwback idea, Doc? I don't know where you are with your kids, but I want them home. I think we fucking up motivating people to be like me, which is I gotta get out of the house, I gotta find my own way, I gotta buy my own place. I think we had it right with multi generational families. I think it's easier for families to build wealth. I think you keep consistency and you have a better foothold on the number one problem from a 55 year old's perspective, which is how we deal with the aged. And my parents. Parents. My father's gone of course, but I see it in my in laws, I see it all around me. We suck at elder care because we're not together. Oh my God, we're all together.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You know, I don't know if you saw RFK's testimony, but the, the, the senator from Rhode island got on this issue and particularly end of life care and I was like that guy knows what he's talking about. That's where we, we are pathetic with all that. I agree with you. Well, there's a lot packed into what you said, you know, and, and the good news is you And I At 17, after 17, the idea of going back home to live with my family of origin makes my skin crawl. And that is that what we used to call the generation gap. Right. These people had nothing to offer us. It was different. Let's be thankful that our kids seem to want to come home and stay with us right now there is a line we have to draw which is we don't want to make them dependent on us.
Chris Cuomo
Right?
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Right. And so this is a hard navigation and we are not used to it. Right. We're like whoa, whoa, why are you here? I'm confused. Why do you better Be around me. You can navigate it. I went through the exact same thing, Ivy League kids. And by the way, the indoctrination of those schools did not help me. They came out very pessimistic and engaging in the world helped a lot. So getting out, doing stuff, start finding a way, finding your passion, all these things, it's taking a lot longer, longer now than it did in our time. I thank God I found what I wanted to do early. Still a little bit late, but relatively early compared to what's happening now. But look, they're going to live to 85. They got time. There are fertility options now that people should be really participating in all the time. We can do this. And I'm watching again, this is what gives me optimism. I'm watching it happening, I'm watching it going. And it really, if you talked to me two years ago, even three years ago, I'd been like, I'm really worried. I got concerns. And again, the genius of our state system. I saw some economists saying the thing you want to buy your kids more, invest in for your kids. If I have anything else luggage, there's opportunities but you have to move around to find it. And that's the genius of our state system. So I don't know. I am very worried, as are you. I get it. But I'm feeling better at least.
Chris Cuomo
I work on worry. I have been dominated by it my whole life. And anxiety and that's the mush Booker part. That's true. I've dealt with, you know, I do therapy, I, I do medication, I do everything I can. But what I see around me also though is reaction formation in different ways. So, and a lot of it is binary. Like my wife is big time professional magazine person, but she has become obsessed with, obsessed with self care and wellness and meditation and integrative nutrition and not, you know, eat nothing but soybeans and you'll be fine. Nothing extreme, but embracing it as a lifestyle. I see that also. I see more people surfing and more people getting into camping again. You know, like, I see that we're responding to all of this negativity. These middle terms are going to be angry, doc. It's going to be an angry time and we'll figure out how to get through it and I'll need your help to do it. Dr. Drew Pinsky. So thank you for being with me as always.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Really a privilege. I had so much fun. This is a good conversation and let's keep it going. Let's do, let's be an example.
Chris Cuomo
I'm happy to have you on whenever you want. And I'm always a call away. Thank you very much, Doc.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You got it, my friend.
Chris Cuomo
Be honest. Different conversation than you expected, right? Because the explanations and the nuance and the context always change your understanding of conversation. And you have to forgive yourself because everything's chopped up and twisted and, you know, made for advantage now, right? We used to fear sound bites. Now we dream of sound bites because there's so much more context than a movie meme or one little thing that's twisted and then put to music or that is just weaponized for advantage of these ever never ending battles of the fringe. Conversation is the cure. So thank you for being a part of it with me. I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for joining me at the Chris Cuomo Project, subscribing and following me, checking me out on News Nation, 8P and 11P Eastern every weekday night. My brothers and sisters, I know it's hard. I know it's frustrating. I know there's so much noise there.
Dr. Drew Pinsky
But.
Chris Cuomo
But you know what? There is reason to believe in something better. So let's get after it.
Date: September 18, 2025
Host: Chris Cuomo
Guest: Dr. Drew Pinsky
In this thought-provoking episode, Chris Cuomo sits down with Dr. Drew Pinsky to dissect how the intersection of politics and science, especially during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, has affected public trust, policy, and the collective mental health of American society. The conversation navigates personal perceptions, vaccine controversies, policy-making, media distortions, the role of public health institutions, and broader societal trends—including polarization, scapegoating, optimism vs. pessimism, and generational challenges.
| Timestamp | Topic / Segment | |-----------|------------------------------------------------| | 00:30 | Opening framing: Dr. Drew’s public perception | | 01:56 | Dr. Drew on perception and political realignment | | 04:06 | Critique and defense of Fauci | | 06:21 | Operation Warp Speed and vaccine mandates | | 08:25 | CDC, federal mandates, and institutional drift | | 10:08 | Lack of post-pandemic self-assessment | | 11:55 | International comparison: vaccine mandates | | 20:19 | Medicine’s role in life expectancy gains | | 23:32 | The problem of “irrational certitude” | | 29:11 | The 10-20% fringe vs. the 70% silent majority | | 34:39 | Mob mentality and scapegoating in society | | 47:12 | The “many vs. the few”—majority’s challenges | | 55:53 | Humility, narcissism, and Dunning-Kruger | | 58:20 | Crisis/opportunity for this generation |
This episode of The Chris Cuomo Project is a nuanced, high-level exploration of how politics has upended science, particularly in the post-pandemic era. Dr. Drew and Chris Cuomo model rational uncertainty, humility, and a relentless curiosity—qualities they argue are more necessary than ever. They highlight the need for reflection, context, and genuine conversation as a path back toward collective flourishing, even as American society grapples with polarization, pessimism, moral certitude, and the ongoing risk of social “mob” dynamics.
For listeners seeking reassurance that thoughtful discussion and principled disagreement are still possible in American media, this episode is an example and a call to arms for nuance, humility, and engagement with the many—rather than obsession with the few.