Sadie Dingfelder: "Raccoons Have Never Been a Rabies Vector in America"

Summary

Podcast Summary – The Gist with Mike Pesca

Episode: Sadie Dingfelder: "Raccoons Have Never Been a Rabies Vector in America"
Date: June 10, 2026
Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Sadie Dingfelder, author of Do I Know You? A Face Blind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Gist centers on debunking a widespread belief: the idea that raccoons are a major rabies risk to humans in the United States. Host Mike Pesca and guest Sadie Dingfelder engage in an inquisitive, humorous, and data-driven conversation about the real history of raccoons and rabies transmission. They explore rabies vectors, historical panics, and unusual medical cases—all to answer the titular question, “Are raccoons really rabid, or is that bullshit?”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Protest and Justice: Brief Introduction

[00:04–05:50]

• Pesca opens with a discussion of recent protests on the Golden Gate Bridge and the legal consequences for disruptive activism.
  • Notable exchange of humor and gravity about public inconvenience and the right to protest.
  • Sets a tone of questioning convention and examining the facts beneath headlines.

The Myth of “Rabid Raccoons”

[05:52–10:55]

• Pesca introduces Sadie Dingfelder, setting up the main segment: Are raccoons the rabid threat they’re believed to be?
  • Sadie notes that as a child in Florida, there were “posters in our classrooms that were like, these guys are cute, [but] don’t get anywhere near them because you will die.” (Sadie, 06:43)
    • Pesca quips, “Posters in your classrooms. Wow.” (Pesca, 07:01)
  • They compare childhood perceptions and poll people about the “face of rabies”:
    • Squirrels? Nope. Bats? Yes, in America.
    • Globally, rabid dogs are the main concern.

Advances in Rabies Tracking

• Since the late 1980s, scientists have been able to distinguish rabies by animal variants (raccoon, bat, dog, etc.).
  • In America, rabies in dogs has been largely eradicated due to strict vaccination programs.

Raccoons and Rabies: The Data

[10:24–16:19]

• Sadie reveals:

  • “I was shocked to find that there hadn’t been a single case of raccoon variant rabies or raccoon bite rabies in American history until 2003.” (Sadie, 10:24)
  • Pesca reacts: “So it’s totally the opposite from being eradicated. It just didn’t exist.” (Pesca, 10:36)
  • Dingfelder: “Raccoons have never been a rabies vector in America in a single case until 2003 or anywhere in the world that I could find.” (Sadie, 10:41)

• Explanation:

  • In the 1970s, raccoons were transported from Florida to Virginia by hunters, bringing some rabid raccoons north.
  • Headline news arose as rabid raccoons spread along the East Coast, leading to efforts like the “Delaware raccoon firewall”—ineffective, but memorable.
  • Despite increased raccoon rabies among wildlife, cases in humans are nearly nonexistent.

Are Raccoons a Bigger Threat Now?

• Raccoons are now the largest “reservoir” of wildlife rabies in the U.S., but the strain doesn’t easily jump to humans or other animals.
  • Bat rabies is more promiscuous—infecting multiple species.

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

Notable Quotes

• Sadie Dingfelder:

  • “Raccoons have never been a rabies vector in America in a single case until 2003 or anywhere in the world that I could find.” (10:41)
  • “So now today, raccoons are the biggest source. They call it a reservoir. If something happened to cause that raccoon rabies to mutate, then it could be a total nightmare.” (14:28)
  • “If I got scratched by a raccoon in the United States, I would definitely go get a prophylactic vaccine ... If you’re wrong, that's a terrible death.” (15:21)
  • “There’s only three cases of raccoon variant rabies, and none of those cases were confirmed raccoon bites. So they could have been bat bites carrying raccoon rabies.” (22:34)

• Mike Pesca:

  • “So it’s totally the opposite from being eradicated. It just didn’t exist.” (10:36)
  • “Wouldn’t you be ruing the absence of a Delaware rabies raccoon firewall?” (15:34)
  • “This is the funniest case of a 20-year-old dying and spreading a disease to an unlikely organ recipient I’ve ever heard.” (20:29)

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Timeline of Important Segments

• [05:52] – Sadie Dingfelder joins; introduces the raccoon rabies myth.
• [07:53] – Cultural perceptions of squirrels and raccoons in the US vs Europe.
• [08:10] – Rabies vectors: bats (in US), dogs (globally).
• [10:24] – Dingfelder debunks the myth: raccoons not a human rabies vector until 2003.
• [11:41] – The 1970s translocation and tracking of rabid raccoons; raccoon rabies spreads along East Coast.
• [14:28] – Raccoons as the largest wildlife reservoir, but strain doesn’t jump to humans.
• [16:29] – The three human cases of raccoon variant rabies in U.S. history.
• [17:18] – Detailed discussion: 2011 Florida Air Force trainee and subsequent organ recipient rabies case.
• [19:31] – Issues with organ donor screening and the importance of detailed history.
• [22:34] – Summary and verdict: “Raccoons are huge vectors of rabies, Sadie. Is that bullshit?” – “Yes, it is bullshit.” (22:34)

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The “Is That Bullshit?” Verdict

[22:34]

Pesca: “Raccoons are huge vectors of rabies, Sadie. Is that bullshit?”
Dingfelder: “Yes, it is bullshit. There’s only three cases of raccoon variant rabies, and none of those cases were confirmed raccoon bites.”

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Extra: Humor and Pop Culture

• The interview is peppered with playful banter:
  • References to Miami Vice-style raccoons and raccoon coats at 1920s football games.
  • Joking about interviewing raccoons as potential disease vectors.
  • Imagining organ recipients with “good night vision” after corneal transplants from a rabies-infected donor.

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Final Takeaway

Despite deep-seated fears and decades of public health messaging, raccoons are not a significant rabies threat to humans in the U.S. Only three possible cases of raccoon variant rabies in humans have ever been documented, none directly traced to a raccoon bite. Most actual risk comes from bats and—globally—dogs. The conversation is entertaining and informative, showcasing skepticism and research as tools for debunking health myths.

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For Further Reference

• Guest Book: Do I Know You? A Face Blind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination – Sadie Dingfelder
• Contact: For show notes and more episodes, visit Mike Pesca’s Substack.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign

[B]

June 10, 2026 from Peach Fish Productions, it's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca was reading about a protest that happened in April on the Golden Gate Bridge. And what happened was that 26 people were involved in saying, no, no Israel, don't continue your war in Gaza. Israel was not listening to these people in California. But you know who was. Everyone stuck in traffic behind them. Because what several of them did was they clustered together on the bridge, formed a car barricade and then use these metal tubes they called the dragon to link arms and prevent the police from separating them. Some of the protesters just had a Stop the World for Gaza flag or sign. But seven of them on trial now, they were the ones with the dragon. They made legion with the dragon that they are being tried in criminal court in San Francisco. And there is some segment of the San Francisco populace who cannot believe that they might actually do some actual jail time for not just inconveniencing but basically shutting down an entire city's commute for four hours. The defense attorney, which you'd want the defense attorney to say forcefully is that the 15 years they face would be quote, absurd. But you know, if you added the time wasted of all the people behind them for their little stunt or their big, beautiful, very important message, it adds up to more than 15 cumulative years. By way of comparison, when political operatives in New Jersey without he says to this day the knowledge of Chris Christie, shut down traffic on the George Washington Bridge that they were sentenced to, though there were some appeals involved. But they were originally sentenced to between a year and a half to two years each in prison. And like I said, there were further reductions in that. And then the Supreme Court threw the whole thing out. Also because they were government officials, there was a fraud charge and they didn't calculate it on how much time did I waste, how many ambulances didn't get through. But it was a similar incident based on politics where many, many million people were inconvenienced or worse. Now no one died because they couldn' get to their appointment or their doctor on the Golden Gate Bridge that day though many people couldn't get to their doctor. And as prosecutors said in trial, and this alone should lead to some serious jail time, children were forced to defecate in bags. People had little to no water. She led with the right thing. People were forced to defecate in bags. The defense attorneys offered an interesting defense of the seven Gazan main protesters actions. I'm going to read from a Time story. The seven protesters have stressed they tried other lawful ways of protesting first. They called their representatives in Congress. They wrote postcards, they attended rallies. Nothing worked to stop the war. That's right. After a series of perhaps vociferous and righteous postcard writing campaigns and some phone calls to Congress, they could not get a sovereign foreign state to halt a war it sees as in the existential defense of its very existence, as the word existential implies, no matter how you pronounce it. I do wonder if the jury might be inclined to give them some jail time. Maybe the jurors knew some people who had to defecate in bags. But then they said, wait a minute, did they write postcards first? Because if they wrote postcards first and maybe even attended rallies, well, then how could you bl them for inconveniencing an entire city and using the Steel Dragon to prevent the police from stopping them? The trial is expected to conclude soon. And like I said, they each face 15 years in prison. I suspect they will get a lot less than that, although maybe just a few months. Being forced to defecate in bags is the real justice in this case. On the show today, I give you a spiel. Also, like the Gazan protesters with the tumult and and suffering in the world as its focus turns out, the United States is behind quite a lot of it these days. A disproportionate amount of it, I would say. But first, she's back. She's Sadie Dingfelder and she investigates claims of science. And when these claims prove to be incorrect, she cries. Well, or at least affixes the label bullshit on said claims today, the one that needed to be done, the one that was lurking out there awaiting its testing. Raccoons. Tiny little hands, the bandits of the trash. Are they wild, rabid, dangerous carriers? Or just to some cute thieves, you be the judge, as will Sadie. As to the question, is that bullshit defecating bags? This dog's name is Lady. She's a normal puppy. Trixie may appear to be as normal as lady, but Trixie has rabies. They are adorable. They are nature's band. Some people want to keep them as pets. They are members of Los Angeles based shoplifting rings. No, they're not. They are raccoons. I'm talking about raccoons. But you know, they also have a reputation as rabid. And though they also have fans who are rabid, I was wondering, are they really literally rabid or is that bullshit? Well, luckily, luckily I have an expert standing by who's always ready to answer this question. Also, Adorable. And to be adopted as a pet is Sadie Dingfelder, author of Do I know you? A Face Blind Reporter's Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination. Sadie, how are you?

[A]

Great. How are you doing?

[B]

To what do you attribute the appeal of raccoons? Which kind of confuses me because I see them outside and they. Their claws look pretty sharp. So I never got it. Is it this? Is it this one gesture, the hands gesture that they.

[A]

No, they're cute. I think you're wrong. They're definitely cute. But growing up in Florida, we were, like, terrified of them. Growing up in Florida in the 80s and 90s, like, every child was like, there were posters in our classrooms that were like, these guys are cute. Like, don't get anywhere near them because

[B]

you will die posters in your classrooms. Wow.

[A]

Yeah. But then I started asking my friends who didn't grow up in Florida in the 80s and 90s, and to them, when I was like, what is the most common vector for? Well, what do you think the most common vector is for rabies?

[B]

Oh, I think they're eradicated in dogs. Maybe squirrels. Let's say squirrels.

[A]

No. Squirrels don't get rabies.

[B]

No. All right. What do I know? I'm just denigrating all the pets that some people think are cute. Yeah.

[A]

You don't like squirrels either?

[B]

I think they're okay. I think people think they're overly cute. They're okay. They have bushy tails. That does a lot for them. And they're quirky little motions. And the hands. Also the hands.

[A]

In D.C. on any given day, you can go to the mall and see a crowd of Europeans, like, looking at squirrels and taking pictures and feeding them things.

[B]

That's why they come to D.C. come for the squirrels. You might think the Lincoln Memorial is something to see, but no. Only when a squirrel. I guess they don't have squirrels in Europe. All right, fine, have them.

[A]

But I guess not. Theirs are cuter. I don't know.

[B]

So squirrels don't get rabies. What are the most rabid animals? I don't know. You tell me.

[A]

Definitely bats.

[B]

Oh, yes, I knew that.

[A]

But only in America. So worldwide, though, the most common cause of rabies, by a long shot, is rabid dogs. And in America, hundreds of people died every year from rabid dog bites all the way until there started to be requirements for vaccinating dogs from rabies.

[B]

So we've basically eradicated rabies in the dog population.

[A]

Right. And also, I should say there's a couple. So we. Ever. Since the late 80s, we could. We can tell what animal the rabies came from pretty well based on the variant. So there's raccoon variant rabies, there's bat variant rabies, there's dog variant rabies. So when we're talking, I will probably. I'll try to distinguish between the two, because sometimes a surprise animal can be a vector for. So we'll say, like, whether or not we know if the person got bitten and what variant the rabies is.

[B]

Pomeranian. Can humans spread rabies to each other?

[A]

There is known case of that, but it is weird and we will get to it.

[B]

All right, great. Because if you said no known case, I had a new thing to put on my bucket list. Okay, take us through raccoons. They were denigrated in the state of Florida when in fact, you, you know, could have been on the lookout for the various actions of drug cartels when they had, in the 80s, the raccoons in your classroom on posters. Were they wearing pastel suits Miami Vice style? I think the entire esthetic of Florida back then must have been Miami Vice style.

[A]

I. That is so adorable. Please let someone make that television show.

[B]

Yeah, Crockett and Tubbs, the raccoon version. Okay, so you went to investigate and you asked friends. And what did friends say when you asked them? Were you as on the lookout for raccoons in your. As we were in Florida?

[A]

So most people did not think raccoons were the face of rabies. And did. Did you think raccoons were like the face of rabies?

[B]

No. No. To me it's rabid dog and the foaming mouth. But I knew that was an outmoded way of thinking of things. Like when you put a stake on your eye so as to not get a black eye. It was like a cartoon type message that somehow got embedded in my brain.

[A]

Well, I was shocked to find that there hadn't been a single case of raccoon variant rabies or raccoon bite rabies in American history until 2003.

[B]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So it's totally the opposite from being eradicated. It just didn't exist.

[A]

Right, right. The raccoon raccoons have never been a rabies vector in America in a single case until 2003 or anywhere in the world that I could find.

[B]

So how'd Florida target them? Or why?

[A]

Yes. I don't know. I can only assume that the bat PR people somehow are very good because.

[B]

Yeah, they fly by night. Yeah, exactly. They could shape shift.

[A]

But what seems to have happened is that in the 70s some Virginia hunters got permits to transport Florida raccoons to Virginia in order to hunt them to replenish the, the decimated raccoon population up here. And some of them turned out to be rabid. And I'm sure that like Florida and Georgia and who knows where else, like had plenty of rabid raccoons, but no one was testing them.

[B]

Yeah, that was my point. Like, that was my question. There wasn't a documented case, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a case, that just meant it wasn't documented. And they had, they had the technology to identify the variants even back then.

[A]

Well, so we only have had the technology since the late 80s and we have been tracking every case of human born rabies because they're really rare. That's like three a year these days compared to like hundreds. And before dog vaccinations, before the 50s, I think rabies was one of the first things that the CDC started tracking. And we can say with some confidence. Well, I think with, I think you can say with solid confidence, the CDC has not had a single recorded case of raccoon variant or raccoon bite rabies since 1946.

[B]

Wow. Wow.

[A]

least it could, but it could go back all the way to the beginning of American history because there was spotty record keeping and there's no recorded cases in that. Those records, as far as I could find and as far as researchers have found.

[B]

Tell me about these Virginians who needed more raccoons in their backyard. You would think that, yeah, sure, hunting them's fun, but only because you want to get rid of them.

[A]

They really, people made raccoon coats and raccoon hats, as you are aware, and they taxidermied them.

[B]

You wouldn't just have them in what would euphemistically be called a farm where you farm them for coats like they

[A]

do with a link.

[B]

Well, it's not fun. It's just raccoon coats. You know, back when you're attending a game of the Georgia Tech rambling wreck in 1923 and saying Boola, boola. I guess now they're playing Yale, you have to wear a raccoon coat. Then you stuff yourself in a, in a phone booth and you climb up on a flagpole. Again, a lot of my knowledge comes from cartoons in the 1920s is what I'm saying.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I guess people used to love shooting raccoons a lot.

[B]

Oh, wow. So the Virginians brought up the raccoons and this, this kicked off some Rabies. Then there was some rabies in the raccoon population after that.

[A]

Yeah. So this caused this sort of like east coast. And people tracked it like just like they tracked lanternflies. Like every time they found a rabid raccoon in a new city or state, it would be like headline news in the local paper.

[B]

Headline news?

[A]

Seriously? Yeah, like headline news. And so, and so, like everyone was very aware of these raccoon rabies. I saw a headline that was about, we're gonna create a firewall somehow in Delaware to like stop the rabid raccoons progression.

[B]

Oh yeah, the famous Delaware raccoon firewall. Everyone knows about that.

[A]

It didn't work.

[B]

Part of American lore.

[A]

Yeah, they got past it and they continued their northeast corridor march. And so now today, raccoons are the biggest source. They call it a reservoir. They're the biggest wildlife reservoir of rabies. And if something happened to cause that raccoon rabies to mutate, then it could be a total nightmare.

[B]

Well, what do you mean? How would that happen?

[A]

I guess what I mean is like, we don't. As far it seems like whatever their rabies is like now just doesn't jump. Not only it doesn't jump to humans and it doesn't seem to jump to other animals either. Whereas bat rabies has been reported jumping to all sorts of other animals.

[B]

Yeah, that. That was my question. So the raccoon rabies stay within the raccoons. The bat rabies can go to other animals, so you got to watch out for them. So if it gets scratched by a raccoon, you're, you know, definitely disinfect that, but you're not going to get rabid.

[A]

I mean, I would personally, if I got scratched by a raccoon in the United States, I would definitely go get a prophylactic vaccine because yeah, you, that's a terrible death if you don't. If, if you're wrong.

[B]

Yeah, but a good story. But still a terrible death is the headline there. And then. And then wouldn't you be ruing the absence of a Delaware rabies raccoon firewall?

[A]

I mean, it didn't.

[B]

Wouldn't you say? If only the forefathers of Delaware had the foresight to build that firewall.

[A]

They tried.

[B]

Yeah. How did the bat rabies get so bad? Do we know?

[A]

The bat rabies? I don't know. I mean, but interestingly, there's different variants for different species too. So for all I know, the brown nosed bats are framing everyone else.

[B]

Yeah, and humans. I was gonna say Americans, which is A subspecies of human. Humans definitely could get the bats, but definitely can't get the raccoon rabies.

[A]

No, I definitely wouldn't want to say that. There's just. Was no recorded cases of humans getting raccoon rabies until 2003.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

My 2003 case was a guy in Herndon, Virginia. He was a Lockheed Martin engineer, and he got a mysterious fever on Valentine's Day, 2003, and he was dead months later.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Less than a month later, he was dead.

[B]

Wow. And they somehow figured out it was a rabid raccoon?

[A]

Well, it was the raccoon variant rabies. But this guy, you would remember being bit by a raccoon, right? I would think so. Either he had some sort of very weird incidental contact with a raccoon that he didn't remember, or he was framed by a bat.

[B]

Yeah. Or he was trying to hide it from his wife. You know, he was out playing with raccoons and you don't want.

[A]

Yeah, he could have been lying. Definitely.

[B]

Yeah. All right, so this is the first one, and that's 2003.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Herndon, Virginia. And what's the second one?

[A]

Okay, the second and third are the same case. And there are the only two other cases of raccoon variant rabies in American history. And the way that they're the same case is that in 2011, William Small, who was 20, died of a mysterious illness while training with the Air Force in Florida.

[B]

Oh, okay. Tell me more.

[A]

And so the Air Force, like, very presciently held onto his tissue, his brain tissue. And so that was helpful because in 2013, a person who had received a kidney donation from Small died of raccoon variant rabies. And they traced it back to Small, and then they tested his brain tissue, and he also had the same rabies.

[B]

Wait a minute. How long after did he get the. Which organ? Was it donated?

[A]

Yeah, I think it was soon after he died. But he didn't get the rabies until 2013.

[B]

That's my question. He got the organ. In what year did the. Did small die?

[A]

2011.

[B]

So two years later, he dies of raccoon rabies.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which was coursing through Small's body. But no one knew it. No one thought to look for it because it had only happened once in Herndon, Virginia, barely on the radar. Oh, my God.

[A]

Yeah. They didn't test him for rabies. The guy and William Small. So apparently they test people for rabies fairly routinely when they become organ donors, if you have risk factors. And Small did not Report any risk factors because they asked him if he had had any contact with a raccoon in the last 12 months or year, but he hadn't had any since for 18 months.

[B]

Okay, okay. That's not even. That's worse in a way because the form really needs to go back 18 months. Like I was thinking, if you've been 11 years clear of raccoons, you're clear of raccoons. But 18 months, obviously the raccoon variant, rabies could get in there. We've all signed up to be organ donors, I think. I hope you have. I don't remember the have you had contact with raccoon's question that's on there. Maybe. Maybe the military is more.

[A]

Ask your family at the hospital because it's not on there, I don't think.

[B]

And then when the question is have you had contact with recruit raccoons in the last 10 years? The family's like, well, obviously who is this huge raccoon owner? But wait a minute, let's do the math. No, that was 11 years ago. We got to write. No, you don't write a little note in the margins. Wow.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is crazy.

[A]

Yeah. They later, they interviewed so many people around his case, I think it was like 250 or something. And they created this amazing portrait of this person and they actually tracked down all of his pet raccoons and they were all healthy. So it's still mysterious how he got.

[B]

They tracked down the raccoons 11 years later.

[A]

Well, they tracked down the ones that were alive and still being kept as pets.

[B]

They could track them?

[A]

I have no idea.

[B]

Were they chipped? Did they. Hello, Sir?

[A]

You know, honestly, they probably just had to go on hearsay. Like they did their best to find this.

[B]

Right? Right.

[A]

Did you died of rage?

[B]

Did you ever own a small batch raccoon? And then the answer is they all seemed healthy. No. I just love the idea of calling him on the phone, getting the raccoons there. I know you don't want to talk, sir, but this is very important. I know you don't have time. It's like one of those law and Order episodes where the doc where the police officers go into the Duane Reade and there's a murder case and the guy's like just busy putting his stickers on the cans of Del Monte beans. He can't interrupt his work. I think that way with the raccoons and his little. This is the funniest. This is the funniest case of a 20 year old dying and spreading a disease. To an unlikely organ recipient I've ever heard. All right, so remind me, or I'm going to remind myself. This is. This is just a crazy journey. But the original question was.

[A]

Wait, wait. I have to tell you. Aren't you curious about the other people who got organs from small. Oh, yeah.

[B]

I didn't know there were other people. Yeah, tell me.

[A]

There were three other people. Two people who got corneas and one who got a kidney. They all did.

[B]

The ones who got corneas have good night vision. Then

[A]

they all had to get their various parts taken out and they all got rabies vaccines and they were all fine.

[B]

Is the rabies vaccine? I always heard it was a 14 shot procedure.

[A]

Yeah, it's really. It sounds awful.

[B]

Yeah, and you could see why they're not making it into one simple pill. There's just not the money for it. Very few people die of it. Unless they. They've been handling raccoons within the last 18 months. Okay, so we have. I just have to say, with all this research, can you figure out why Florida was so intent in the 80s to tell you to stay away from cute raccoons?

[A]

It was because of those raccoons that got smuggled up. Well, not smuggled. They were legally transported to Virginia and West Virginia to get shot.

[B]

Right, right. And the Delaware firewall. Okay, so we can remind ourselves how this conversation started. It was something like. Raccoons are huge vectors of rabies, Sadie. Is that bullshit?

[A]

Yes, it is bullshit. There's only three cases of raccoon variant rabies, and none of those cases were confirmed raccoon bites. So they could have been bat bites carrying raccoon rabies.

[B]

All right, we have one last voice to hear from. All right. That is our friendly neighborhood raccoon. And he is thanking you for bringing rigor and science to this. And he says maybe someday the anti raccoon calumny will fade. And in the meantime, please leave your garbage unattended after 6pm Sadie Dingfelder is the author of Do I know you? A Face Blind Reporter's Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, Rabies, raccoons and Imagination. And she plays as that bullshit with us. That was a great one. Thanks.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

And now the spiel. The government is barely able to manage the basic requirements of statehood. It can provide electricity for only a few hours a day, and people avoid its flattened currency in favor of dollars. You know what government we're talking about, right?

[C]

Cuba says it has officially run out of oil and the country's power grid is now Buckling under pressure. New satellite images from NASA here show large parts of the island of 10 million going dark at night as the energy crisis deepens on the ground in Havana, empty gas stations, traffic lights out and some neighborhoods are losing power for as long as 22 hours a day.

[B]

No, it's not Cuba, although it is Cuba. That was a quote in a story about Lebanon. To further quote that Wall Street Journal story, its military is only the second most powerful force in the country after Hezbollah or third counting Israel, which has been expanding its months long occupation. I understand Israel's goal when it comes to Lebanon to free itself of the terror of Hezbollah which regularly shells its northern border. I also understand the plight of the victimized Lebanese. This is a situation that's to say the least. But we know why it's happening. They, the citizens are unfortunate collateral damage in this war between two forces. And the two forces are supported by even larger forces themselves at war, the US versus Iran. The Lebanese people pay the price. But why are the Cuban people suffering? What is the point of that? What to do? Their regime change would benefit the Cuban people. Probably, but not if it's achieved with bloodshed. It would help U.S. interests. It would further humanitarian interests. But is that the plan? Not the hope, not the eventual goal. Or we'll see what happens when we roll the rid them of oil dice. But is that the plan connecting the suffering to the removal of Castro and Miguel Diaz canal. But I see the suffering. I'm not seeing the plan. Here was Marco Rubio months ago, sitting next to the president, vice president, as they met reporters.

[D]

The bottom Their economy doesn't work. It's a nonfunctional economy. It's an economy that has survived. It's for 40. That revolution. It's not even a revolution. That thing they have has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don't get subsidies anymore. So they're in a lot of trouble. And the people in charge are. They don't know how to fix it. So they have to get new people in charge.

[B]

They have to fix it. And how? Is it via uprising? Is it via armed protests? Is it via just having no power? And then some step that we won't articulate? There is a new government. Will the US help like the US helped in Iran? Look, I understand this is called the maximum pressure idea, but an idea is not a plan. I guess what the administration would say is we'll up the pressure and see what happens. That's essentially what they did in Venezuela. They think it paid Dividends. I mean, the US oil companies are now said to be in talks to get back in there and to work the oil wells. But see what happens. When? We'll see what happens. Does not work. What happens is Iran. And in Venezuela, the administration was happy to remove a leader and call it a win. But with the more complicated country of Iran, the same thing happened. They removed via missiles a leader, but that wasn't enough. Let's go to Cuba. In Cuba, it would be great to end communism, but I don't think you could do it by ending the particular communist who is in charge or the nonagenarian communist whose brother was in charge of whose last name was Castro. Talk about the regime change. That didn't happen with Hezbollah, which isn't a regime, but certainly had a strong leader in Hassan Nasrallah. He was killed by the Israelis. That did not fundamentally change the situation. I think it was right to kill or remove Hassan Nasrallah. It weakens this horrible terrorist state that threatens the state of Israel. It weakens Hezbollah. It really does. It is an advantage to be built upon. But the people of Lebanon continue to suffer and it doesn't seem that war is really much closer to ending. The people of Cuba are suffering. Can we say that that situation of communism and dictatorship is close to ending? The people of Ukraine are suffering and the US administration turned its back on them for a time. Congress is thankfully getting back in the game with some funding. The only right thing to do. The people of Africa, who once got some form of assistance with PEPFAR and now don't have suffered unnecessarily because of that. The Ebola patients in Congo are certainly suffering. And it's not necessarily a precise connection, but it is true that the US has, broadly speaking, defunded its health apparatus on that continent. I am not a self loather. As an American, I do not buy all the easy insulting stuff about empire or imperialism. We're the world's richest country ever. We have the world's third most people. We have enormous natural and intellectual resources. Add that up, of course, the United States is going to be a major player in world affairs for our own interest, for even, and I do believe this generally speaking, the interest, the best interest of the people of the world. And until recently, much of, if not most of the world welcomed American involvement more or less. It evaluated U.S. involvement to be more of an upside than a downside, given the other choices. But think of all that's been going on in the world for the last dozen or 15, 20 years. And ask how the US has been making things better or worse for the rest of the world. You've got to take the future into account. So Maybe in the 1980s, someone could look at Reagan and say, oh, you're bellicose. You're an imperialist. You presided over the largest peacetime military buildup in U.S. history. The Defense budget did double under Reagan. Reagan, the Reagan Doctrine was of funding anti communist forces. So maybe I want to be fair, you can say about Reagan what I'm essentially saying about the United States now more of a force for bellicosity, some form of second order suffering. But really what he did oversee was not suffering, but the demise of the Soviet Union. So what I'm saying is if the short term pain works, it's called for. I don't think it's going to. And I don't think Trump has been playing a long game like Reagan has. I'm not comparing Trump to Clinton or to Barack Obama. It would be very tough for any Democratic listener to listen to that and not say, yeah, Trump's been doing awfully in comparison. I'm comparing him to Ronald Reagan to try to make the point that sometimes a policy of pain and suffering elsewhere in the world, or even in the United States, is worth it for people elsewhere in the world. Is that what's going on now? Is that what the people of the world will soon see as the former residents of the former Soviet Union, if not the current Russia, see American involvement under Reagan as a liberating force? Ask the Latvians, ask the Estonians. Will our country get credit or blame for what's going on now? The time was the US Would get blamed for not doing more, for sitting on the sidelines in Rwanda, in Yemen, the call was to intervene to alleviate the suffering. But we are the cause of the suffering now. And I don't think that it's good enough to say we're doing this to see what happens, because that seems to be the, if not stated, the actual goal of so much of our intervention. Well, let's see what happens. I don't think the war in Iraq was a good idea, but it was done for a purpose other than to see what happens. And I do think today Iraqis, I don't think I know that they're better off than they were 25 years ago in terms of their financial situation, in terms of their lifespan and their health was worth 200,000 Iraqi civilians dead, 5,000 US dead. Hard to say, yes. But there has been an improvement there. I don't know if we'll ever get an improvement with Cuba. I don't know that that is what the US tinkering is set out to do. I know that there have been enormous costs. There haven't been costs domestically to Marco Rubio standing in the Cuban community. So that's one factor why they don't care so much about the current suffering. I know that the poor, poor people of Lebanon, who are literally poor people, but I'm saying immiserated and miserable too. I'm saying we would like to help them, but it's not going so well now. Hezbollah is the cause of most of the suffering there. But how Israel pursues the valid goals of confronting Hezbollah will be determinative. And I haven't even mentioned the suffering in Iran, most of setting aside Gaza, because for Israel that wasn't really a war of choice, though you could argue the extent of it and manner of it or the manner in which was conducted was a choice. My point is this. Look at the world. Look at much of the world. Look at what US policy has done or wrought in so much of the world. It was a choice, it was avoidable. And most of it does not seem likely to lead for a better outcome to the people currently suffering. They may be the people who are living under regimes we don't like, but they are suffering. And they are suffering because of us. And they are suffering because of us without a clearly plausible future in which there'll be a whole lot less suffering. And compare us to China, which does not currently have this kind of suffering emanating from their policies and engagements. Yes, of course China's terrible. They oppress Uyghurs, they oppress their own people. They threaten sovereign states out of their own sense of territorial expansion. They fund Myanmar, which is a horrible country. I grant you the whole bill of particulars against China. But right now, 2026, the US is an exporter of misery to so many other countries and China is not. I did not talk about Russia as far as that goes because they are much worse than the United States. But I do say the United States should always be making the case. That has been a true case. The anti imperialist forces within America without will disagree with this. But it has always been a true case that the United States is by and large a beneficent force on the whole in the world. But this is now a bad time for that argument and it's made worse by comparison to the world's only other power. And that's it for today's show that just is produced by Cory Warra and Jeff Craig does How to Kathleen Sykes does our substack stuff. I'm going to be talking to Chris Eliza tomorrow on a substack live at 430 or go to Mike Pesco that substack to subscribe Benister Books for us. And Michelle Pesca oversees it all. She is the true beneficent force in the world. Umpuji Peru duparu. And thanks for listening.