← The Majority Report with Sam Seder
The Majority Report with Sam Seder
2452 - DOE Slashed, Building A New Gaza Policy, & Demise Of Public Health w/ Tariq Habash; Dr. MarkAlain Dery
01:42:53
It's Hump Day! Sam speaks with , former senior official at the Dept. of Education under President Biden, founder & director of the organization , to discuss the Trump administration's actions taken regarding student loans. Then, he speaks with ,...
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- [00:01]
Sam Seder
Hey folks, today's program is sponsored by a great sponsor, one we're actually even going to include this in the members feed. It is called Beautiful Day. They make honestly some of the best tasting granola I have ever had. They also make granola bars, some of the best I've ever had. In fact, I just had one about 45 minutes ago. And they make muesli, but that's not the real story about this company and I don't know if it's a company. It's a 5103C. It's called Beautiful Day. They do incredible work. We're at a time where Trump has basically launched a full on assault against refugees and immigrants. And what Beautiful Day does is they provide comprehensive paid job training to refugees. They have four different programs, job trainings for adults, internship programs for youth with community partners, entrepreneurship for Afghan women who are interested in starting food businesses and management training for refugees interested in learning customer service and sales skills by managing one of their farmers markets. Refugees come from all around the world. Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Miramar, Burundi, Somalia, Eritrea and Iraq. In fact, their head chef is originally from Iraq. The program lasts about three and a half months and then they help them with job placement and further education, etc. And the granola is honestly some of the best granola I have ever, ever tried. They have made with premium organic grains, seeds, nuts and dried fruit and spices. There's no preservatives. All bound together by delicious honey. They've got four standard flavors and some that are rotating. They've got four flavors of the bars. They've got, I think it's two flavors of the muesli. It is honestly delicious. And this stuff clumps together so it's really easy to snack. High protein, healthy ingredients. Check it out. Really, you're going to enjoy this. And it's an amazing enterprise what they're doing. They're helping immigrants and refugees at a time when frankly there is increasingly less support for these folks. The packaging you can see has their mission right on it. Proudly made for you by refugees. Beautiful Day. They're out of Rhode island, just up the road, I guess. It's offering Beautiful Day is offering free shipping for all Majority Report listeners. And when you go to beautiful dayri.org use the code majority all caps at checkout and you will get free shipping. They've just extended it specifically for our members and our audiences. Check it out. Honestly, the best granola you've ever tried and for a great, great cause. And now Time for the show. Hey, folks, you have a cat. They have digestive issues. Are they throwing up their food? Or is your cat just one of those very picky cats and in need of an actual diet upgrade? Well, we've all been there, those of us who own cats. You should check out our next sponsor, Smalls. This podcast is sponsored by smalls. To get 50% off your first order plus free shipping. Head to Smalls and use our promo code Majority. Smallest cat food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free ingredients you'd find in your fridge and it's delivered right to your door. That's why cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food. But it's not just healthy. Cats love it. Before my cat passed away, I felt good. Like the last couple of weeks he had a chance meals. Yeah. And Matt's cats gone crazy over Small.
- [04:12]
Michael Brooks
Fiendish when I put that stuff down.
- [04:15]
Sam Seder
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Michael Brooks
Oh, yeah, you refrigerate this stuff. It comes in like a I see yogurt in this type of form factor, but you squeeze it on the dry food and it's like a little broth that makes it more, way more appetizing to cats.
- [04:57]
Sam Seder
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- [05:38]
Emma Vigeland
The Majority.
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Sam Seder
Report with Sam Cedar. It is Wednesday, March 12, 2025. My name is Sam Seder. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America. On the program today, Tarek Habash, former senior official at the Department of Education under President Biden, founder and director of the organization A New Policy. He was one of the Biden administration people who resigned over Biden's Gaza policy. Then we'll be talking to Mark Elaine Derry, Dr. Mark Elaine Derry, infectious disease specialist, founder of community radio station WHIV FM in New Orleans, creator of the new Noise Filter podcast about the various diseases that we have to worry about now that apparently our health and human Sec. Health and Human Services Secretary believes that you can take care of all of it with tallow fried potatoes. Also on the program today, Europe retaliates to Trump's metal tariffs. And Trump hits a new low in polls on handling of the economy. New low all time for him. Meanwhile, House passes a fake clean continuing resolution. Now to the Senate where those senators that you have called and will call today if you have not called, must vote against cloture. Though it looks like the Democrats are about to cave. Trump and Musk slashing the Department of Education, putting student debt and student debt relief into total disarray. Trump buys a Tesla and movie Musk gives him a $100 million rebate. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is trying to transfer Mahmoud Khalil's case to Louisiana where he's been disappeared to Ukraine announces support for a 30 day ceasefire as US resumes aid. Russia yet to respond when it drops New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen to retire. And in the wake of Mayor Adams, New York City Mayor Adams quid pro quo deal. The Department of Justice is going to slash its public corruption unit, Noah to cut another 1,000 employees and the EPA to close all environmental justice offices and terminate $20 billion in greening grants. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen. It is Wednesday, hump day. I don't know. Every day feels like it's even Friday doesn't feel like hump day anymore. Emma is out today. She'll be back tomorrow. We've got a lot of things to get to, not including our guests. I want to talk to our guests both about a new policy which is that organization that he started with Josh Paul, who was the State Department official who resigned over Biden, the Biden administration's Israel and Gaza policy, but also what's going on at the Education Department. A lot of things to cover today. In the meantime, The House yesterday passed its continuing resolution. It's being somewhat reported as if it's a clean budget resolute continuing resolution. It is not. Continuing resolution would just mean that the budget as it exists today would carry through and this is a six month extension. Now the other thing is, is that currently those budgets are not being met in terms of the appropriation because the White House is interfering with the deliverance of that money. But on top of that, this bill would cut non defense spending by 13 billion for the rest of the fiscal year. This is the way it's being reported. But we are six months into the fiscal year. So that means $26 billion worth of annualized cuts to non defense spending and $6 billion increase to defense spending for the remainder of this fiscal year, which is a $12 billion annualized increase in defense budget. So it heads to the Senate. Here is, and everybody in the Senate's being quiet about it. Here is a clip of, of Manu Raju talking to at least House members about this continuing resolution. Now understand it's easier for the Democrats to vote against this because they have no real influence on the outcome by voting against it. Jared Goldin was the only one who Democrat from Maine who voted for the continuing resolution. Massie from Kentucky the only one who voted against it. Donald Trump incidentally, wants him eliminated because you cannot have anybody who shows that they can continue to exist if they defy him in the Republican Party. And I'm not being facetious about that. I think that's why he's so obsessed with Massey, because Massie shows that you can actually vote against Trump. Here is Manu Raju talking to Pramila Jayapal and aoc. In the interim between that House vote and the Senate vote, they should refuse.
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Emma Vigeland
To allow this bill to pass in the Senate. If they don't, I think there's going.
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Sam Seder
To be huge backlash from across the country. And I think all of them will, you know, will have to deal with.
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Emma Vigeland
The consequences of that. The Republicans have the White House, the Senate and the House. If they want to do this and if they want to screw over the American people, they can do this with their votes in their party.
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Sam Seder
I do not believe that Democrats should participate. And the idea that, that we're hearing from Senate Democrats now and nobody's coming out explicitly saying it because they're all too cowardly about it. But the idea that we can't have a government shutdown, we are experiencing a government shutdown right now. When the government, when they, when they do not fund the government, they don't have a budget. There are some things that still operate, essential items. So it's really ultimately a matter of degree. It's a much bigger deal to have a government shutdown. But Republicans control the House. They control the Senate. If the Senate got out in front of this and started messaging this, that we cannot sit by and watch the White House just willy nilly cut stuff. $20 billion in legislation that was passed by and signed and exists it's law. Spend that $20 billion on these grants. And the EPA had Lee Zeldin just cut it. Just got rid of all the environmental justice offices that have been around since 2013. They're cutting half of the Education Department. That's just today. On top of which they've cut a billion dollars in food purchases by local schools. Play this clip. This is Trump AG Secretary and Project 2020, Brooke Rollins. There's another thing here right up your alley. USDA cancels $1 billion in local food.
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Emma Vigeland
Purchasing for schools and food banks.
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Sam Seder
How do you justify that?
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Tarek Habash
Well, listen, I think it's really important and of course the left is, is doing what the left does. These were Covid era programs. These were additional funds. And then under Biden BO more and more and more and more money. So just yesterday we're canceling more contracts on food justice for trans people in New York and San Francisco. Obviously that's different than the food programs in the schools, but it is.
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Sam Seder
Oh, pause. The way I can. Now I'm confused. The reason why we're trying to attack trans people is to protect the kids in the schools. Isn't that, I mean, I have, I got this right now.
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Michael Brooks
We've got to take food out of their mouths.
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Sam Seder
We've got to attack the trans people to protect the kids. Except for also what we're also doing is we found that if we eliminate the kids too, then the trans people can't get to them because they, they're worried about other things.
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Michael Brooks
The trans attacks have always been in part an attack on public schools to get people to like in Texas, for instance, hate their schools or distrust their schools that they like and don't want to be made into charter schools.
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Sam Seder
I mean, I think we could go across the board. The attack on trans people is an attack on government.
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Michael Brooks
Yep.
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Sam Seder
Go back just a little bit because she's giving you the justification why they have, they have cut a billion dollars from programs where schools purchase food locally. In other words, not from some necessarily massive private contractor.
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Tarek Habash
You know, funds. And then under Biden, more and more and more and more money so just yesterday we're canceling more contracts on food justice for trans people in New York and San Francisco. Obviously that's different than the food programs in the schools, but it obviously really important. We spend billions and billions and billions of dollars on nutrition programs for lower income and socioeconomically disadvantaged kids. Kids. But the Biden administration used that to often push money out, taxpayer dollars out, that is not reaching its intended target. So that new program that came in in the last few years, again trying to spend more and more money, we're pulling that back. As we have always said, if we are making mistakes, we will own those mistakes and we will reconfigure. But right now, from what we are viewing, that program was non essential. That it was a new program program and that it was an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that were not necessary.
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Sam Seder
I don't know how long she spoke there for. Was that like about two, about 90 seconds. And as far as I could tell, not a single justification for canceling that program. She could have been talking about anything. She could have been talking about the program that funds whatever it is that Trump administration person who does the walkway videos on Instagra in her office. And it would have had the exact same relevance. And at the end she could say, and if it's a mistake, it's a mistake, we'll fix it to cut a billion dollars from school food funding. And it's not like these schools are going to be like, oh, well, that's all right. We had about four or five other backup situations to provide food. No, it just means there'll be students who will not get meals. That's it. Period. And not only obviously is this wrong, but it is completely contrary to the statutes of our country. They don't have a right to willy nilly cut these things. And the Senate's got to stand up and do something about it. Give me that number again. It is 202. You need to call your, your Senate offices and it doesn't look good right now. I'm not going to lie to you. 202-22-4312-2020-2224-3121. Call your Senate offices right now and tell them no on the continuing resolution. You're watching them. You can see what they're doing. They need to fight. Because if they don't do this and they allow Musk to continue to cut willy nilly, incidentally, he's also Nazis coming for Social Security. They have no leverage to stop. None. Zero, none. Then they're just going to sit passively by and watch the reconciliation bill pass. They have no leverage now. I know this was James Carville's plan. Don't do anything. Just hang out, watch and see. Don't be stupid. Don't worry about the kids getting their food. The epa. Do you know what's happening at that epa? I know. We got to take a break in a second. Aside from what's going on with Noah, if the weather's not that important for farmers or for people dealing with storms or fisheries, you don't need to know anything about hurricanes or tornadoes. Oh, I'm sorry, you didn't pay for the app. You didn't pay the subscription for the app on the private service. No. No tornado warnings for you. EPA closes, plans to close all environment, just environmental justice offices. I mean, this is what the right will consider DEI or whatever it is there are. These offices have been open for three decades. And what they do is they ease pollution that burdens poor and minority communities which are frequently located near highways, power plants, industrial plants and other polluting facilities. Now, the phraseology is this is a little bit backwards because these communities are not located near highways, power plants, industrial plants and other polluting facilities. Highways, power plants, industrial plants and other polluting facilities are located towards these communities and they continue to keep them poor and they keep them incredibly unhealthy. It's not vice versa. These communities existed and then because they had no political power, they. That's where essentially the garbage dump goes, the incinerator goes, the power plant goes, the highway goes. How are you going to stop it? Sorry, you don't have the political power to stop it. Studies have shown that people who live in those communities have higher rates of asthma, heart disease, other health problems compared with the national average. That is not a coincidence. Zeldin said. This is discrimination. Last month he put 170 or so these people who work in that division on leave. And now they'll probably lose their job as they as the EPA basically cuts all this stuff. The EPA and Justice Department dropped a lawsuit last week against the petrochemical plant that the Biden administration had launched. Argued that the plant increased the cancer risk in a predominantly black community in Louisiana. Well, it'd be discriminatory to pursue that lawsuit because we don't have a lawsuit like that against that petrochemical plant for white people who get cancer because that plant wasn't located near a white community. Also last night, Zeldin terminated $20 billion in climate change grants that had been issued by the Biden Administration under the Inflation Reduction Act. There's they're being sued. Climate United fund received a $7 billion grant of the program and has taken the agency to court to access that money. The EPA said the termination this, according to Politico, was based on substantial concerns about the structure of the Biden Administration's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was statutorily authorized in 2002. Under the IRA, EPA can cancel contracts under specific legally defined examples of waste, fraud and abuse by grantees. But this is going to be shocking. The only thing they found was substantial concerns. That's how specific it got, the person noted. This is someone who was discussing anonymously because they don't want to get targeted by the administration. The person noted EPA instead focused its argument on the program structure and oversight, not on the actions of the grantees. That's going to court, I think today. The point is, is the Senate going to be involved in any of this? Are Democratic lawmakers going to be involved in any of this? Are they just going to sit back and watch the court cases? Because if so, they should all just get podcasts because they're not doing anything more than we're doing here, honestly. In fact, I would argue we do that better. We cover what's going on better. But if they want to get into the podcast business because it doesn't seem like they're doing anything else, call your Senate office. 2022-2431-2120-2224, 3121. All right, got a couple of sponsors. And then we'll be talking to Tarek Habash, former senior official at the Department of Education under Biden, founder and director of the organization. A new policy. He resigned from the Biden administration over Gaza. And then later we'll be talking to Mark Elaine Derry, doctor of infectious diseases. Somebody asked me the other day, like, why, why did you, when you, when you were talking about that ad for Nutrafol, why did you have Nutrafol lying around the office? I've told the story so many times that I think people are bored of it, but maybe not everybody knows it. Several years ago, Nutrafol reached out to us to this must have been six years ago now, five years ago, to sponsor the the program. And I, I didn't feel like I was worried about my thinning hair. Michael, you know, I suggested him, hey, man, do you want to try this? He was like, no. So we had a couple bottles in the office. I started taking it a couple years ago. And then they came back to us and I was like, sure, I'll advertise for it. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand. It is trusted by over one and a half million people. One of those is me. You will see thicker, stronger, faster growing hair and less shedding in just three to six months with Nutrafol. Thinning hair is different for men and women. So one size fits all approach to hair growth doesn't cut it. Neutral has multiple formulas for men and women that are tailored to different life stages such as postpartum or menopause and lifestyle factors such as a plant based lifestyle, so you can get just what you need. Both Emma and I know separately women who have used neutrophil and had a lot of success with it. And for me, I have noticed less shedding and I'm at that age now where it's like I need every little bit of help I can get. But the best part for me it is physician formulated with 100% drug free ingredients, Nutrafol supports healthy hair growth from within by targeting key root causes of thinning, stress, which I have, hormones which I think they diminished or I don't know what's happening with my hormones, but they're not great. Aging, I have that. Nutrition, barely. Lifestyle probably not conducive to anything healthy and metabolism, which has always been a problem for me through whole body health. Start your hair growth journey with Nutrafol. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping. When you go to Nutrafol.com enter the promo code TMR. Find out why over 4,500 healthcare professionals and stylists recommend Nutrafol for healthier hair. Nutrafol.com spelled n u t r a n f o.com promo code TMR. That's neutral.com promo code TMR. We'll put that in the YouTube and podcast description and at Majority FM. Also, this has gotten a workout in my house. Saul's been sick. He's been sick now off and on now for the past like five weeks. Sore throat, whatever. It's really the only thing that would allow me to share with him my Manicura honey because usually it's just for me. Manicura honey is unlike any other honey you've ever tasted. It is delicious. It is also incredibly good for you. Manicur honey is rich, it's creamy. It is like I say, the best honey you've ever tasted has almost like the consistency of caramel. It's produced by Manicorah's master beekeepers in the remote forests of New Zealand. Manicora honey is different than other types of honey. It is from bees that collect nectar from the manuka tea tree in New Zealand. It has powerful nutrients which support immunity and gut health. The nectar is packed with bioactives and the honey is produced has three times more antioxidants and prebiotics than your average honey which have a decent amount as well. There's a special antibacterial compound called MGO that also comes from the nectar of the tea tree. Manicora tests third party test every single harvest for MGO and makes these results available through their QR system or right on their balls. It's a game changer. All you need is one heap teaspoon every morning to get the most out of the amazing bioactives in Manuka. And of course it's great for tea. It's great to put on in your yogurt, it's great to be used in any other way and it's perfectly healthy for you to take more, eat more of it. I will cop to having a spoonful probably most evenings, particularly when I have my kid with me, just because I feel like I deserve it. Thanks to Manicora for supporting the Majority Report. Now it's easier than ever to try Manicura honey. Head to manicora.com Majority get $25 off the starter kit which comes with an MGO 850 plus Manuka Honey jar 5 honey travel sticks which incidentally are great for kids lunches, a wooden spoon and a guidebook. That's Manicora. M A N U k o r a.com Majority $25 off your starter kit. We'll put the link in the podcast and YouTube description. Quick break. When we come back, we'll be talking to Tarek Habash, former senior official at the Department of Education under Biden who left in protest of Biden's Gaza policy and set up the organization with Josh Paul called a new policy. Be right back. We are back. Sam Cedar on the Majority Report. Emma Viglin out today. Want to welcome to the program Tarek Habash. He is a former senior official at the Department of Education under President Biden, now founder and director of the organization. A New Policy with Josh Paul. Tarek, welcome to the program. You were a former senior official at the Department of Education but not because Kamala Harris lost the election and Donald Trump came in. You were former while Joe Biden was Still president. Tell us why.
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Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Sam. And that's exactly right. I was at the Department of Education. I was a political appointee. And I was there from the very beginning of the administration working on federal policy related to racial equity, to higher education, to student debt. And I left in January of 2024 because of the President's policies towards Palestinians in Gaza. As a Palestinian American myself, I felt very deeply the connection with what was happening and how our policies were not only bad for Palestinians in the region, but bad for Americans and bad for American policy. And despite my efforts to communicate that to the White House, to through the Secretary himself even, it was very clear that the administration had really no willingness to change on those policies. And the reality was there was a political barrier there. There was a political unwillingness to recognize not just the humanity of Palestinians, but what we were doing as being just outside of American interests and American values. And when Josh and I started talking about what we were experiencing, him at the State Department, me at Education, it was very clear the political barriers were the fundamental problem. And this is something that spans beyond partisan issues. This is an issue, unfortunately, that Democrats and Republicans have really been poor on for a long time. And I think we recognized in that moment that we needed to build an organization to address the political realities, that we needed American policy to reflect the interests of everyday Americans. And that means not sending billions of dollars of weapons to kill Palestinian children on the other side of the world when people are starving here at home, when people are suffering from job loss and inflation and housing issues here at home. I think that message was partially communicated through the election, but I think even now, we're still seeing a disconnect between the Democratic Party and its base, between the Republican Party and its voters. I think there are millions of Americans that don't feel like they have a political home. And so we wanted to create a new policy to do just that, to build on this movement that we've been seeing for over a year across the country that is responsive to those facts and realities for everyday Americans.
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Sam Seder
Yeah, I want to. I mean, I think just add to what you said that I don't know that the entirety of Harris's loss is a function of that policy, but it's certainly undoubtedly was a major contributing factor and recent polling. I mean, this is what is fascinating. You know, Donald Trump is not going to be punished by large parts of the Republican Party for his. For his policies towards Gaza and the Palestinians. And the idea that we'll level the place and just put up hotels and Palestinians who find some other place to live presume, you know, wherever it is he thinks that they should go. The Republican Party is. It's not. It's not inconsistent with their worldview. Recent polling, I think it was Gallup came out and showed that really a large majority of Democrats now are of the mind that we need to change our policy towards Israel and the Palestinian people. In fact, they're more sympathetic with the Palestinians than they are with the Israelis. And it has made, I think there was always a slight sort of like, tension between certainly the Democratic base and where Democratic politicians were with, in terms of Israel and Gaza. Although I have to say Biden went much further than I think that any other Democrat I've seen in allowing Israel freehand. But they're really out of. They're really out of sync now. And it is. It's hard to imagine that this issue is going to have any less salience going forward than it does today for the Democratic Party. And that is very problematic for the Democratic Party.
- [38:09]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
I totally agree. I would argue that it would probably have more salience based on what we're seeing happening here at home.
- [38:15]
Sam Seder
It's hard to imagine it won't.
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Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Yeah. I mean, the reality is, like, Palestine is for better or worse. It's the cutting edge issue for American politics today. Not just because of what's happening overseas and what we're allowing to happen. The fact that Trump is now sending billions of dollars more in weapons through emergency orders to the Israeli government, despite there being, like, a supposed ceasefire, like the reality of what's happening here at home to American citizens, to legal permanent residents, for speaking out, speaking about their own political perspectives on the issue, on what they believe is just unacceptable for our country, our institutions, to be investing in and to see the type of repression reverberate from the President himself, from the federal government. To see ICE at an individual's doorsteps who is here legally and has not violated any laws, as confirmed by the White House themselves just a couple days ago. Like, this is. This is an issue that affects every single American. Whether or not you believe in Palestinian rights and the humanity of Palestinians. And if you believe in the Constitution, if you believe in American civil liberties, you have to recognize that this is an issue that affects all of us. And if you think that it's just about Palestine now, you're sorely mistaken. It's gonna come for every single one of us. This is how authoritarianism works. This is how fascism starts. And unfortunately, that's where we are Today.
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Sam Seder
I don't think it's a coincidence that they chose a, a permanent resident. This is a green card holder married to an American with a child on the way. I mean, you know, if there was almost any other profile other than this guy was promoting a free Palestine, it would be a much more cut and dry case in terms of, like, where the Democratic Party lines up on this, where the media lines up on this. I mean, this was a, in my estimation, a deliberate move by the Trump administration to find a, the sort of wedge issue within the context of where Democrats writ large are, their leadership is, and the media is, and to build this project of being able to expand their ability to deport people, arrest people. I mean, I don't know if you could say he's arrested because he hasn't been even, as far as I know, charged with a crime. He's just being detained in some way. And I don't know if we have another example of something like this. I don't ever recall a similar example of this type of, like, vague detention for someone based upon having protests that are aligned in some way. I'm not even sure what that word means. I mean, what is. What has been your perspective on the response by Democratic lawmakers? You know, I have a letter that was sent by, I think it was basically a dozen Congresspeople. And then I have another letter that was sent by AOC Democratic lawmakers in New York State. But then you have other ones where Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck schumer Spend about 45 minutes of a letter basically saying, you know, defending Israel.
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Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Yeah, it's unfortunate that there is not a united front to protect, you know, the First Amendment to protect the Constitution. I don't think it should be controversial. Democrat, Republican, anyone. If you're elected to higher office, it should be innate that you defend the Constitution and every individual's freedoms that are protected by that document. That should be a nonstarter. And so I don't want to just blame Democrats here. I think Republican silence in the face of Trump's increasing authoritarian effort here is really concerning. Republicans need to be standing out as well. But the fact that Democrats as an opposition party, can't even in a unified voice, take a step and say, it does not matter. This is unacceptable, this is unconstitutional, this is un American. That's concerning. And the fact that you have leaders of the Senate Congressional delegation, the House Majority Leader, effectively engaging in anti Palestinian rhetoric prior to just defending the First Amendment, that's really concerning. That does not bode well for where we are as Americans, and I hope things change. We do have a lot of leaders who have been very vocal and have not qualified their defense of the Constitution. I think Senator Chris Murphy was very, very direct. I think there's a lot of hope there and I think that a lot of members of Congress can take cues from some of those leaders.
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Sam Seder
We're going to play that clip a little later in the program. So what is, before we pivot to what's happening at the doe, the, the objective of a new policy, the organization that you have started with, Josh Paul, what is tactically, strategically, what are the objectives? Because it seems like, I mean, I know if it's a nonpartisan organization, but the Democratic Party seems to be the lowest of hanging fruit in terms of, like, change. But it really is. They're really boxed in, those leaders. Really, it seems to me that some of these elected leaders are really boxed in and at one point they've got to decide, we're not going to allow AIPAC and DMFI with basically Republican money to come and start to dictate where the direction of the party is.
- [44:25]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that frankly, the DNC has a responsibility to prevent that type of money from entering their primaries because that is largely where the biggest impact has been in recent elections. And we've seen Democrats get primaried from the right, from a exclusively pro Israel stance and often minority Democrats, you know, people, Democrats who are black, who are getting primaried because of their position on human rights for Palestinians. And you're right, I think what we are doing with a new policy is recognizing that there are political barriers that just exist that should not be there. We need American politicians to work for the American people. And the reality is that our current policies of unconditional support to the Israeli government as it commits war crimes, as it withholds humanitarian aid, as it cuts off electricity, that's not good for people in the region, of course, but it's bad for American global standing. It's bad for American national security in the near and long term, and it's bad for Americans here at home who are watching billions of dollars go to another country's military instead of getting invested here at home as we're suffering because of rising costs due to inflation, because of corporate greed. There's no effort by Donald Trump and his administration to actually, actually address the real problems that Americans are facing. And I think what we are trying to communicate is his willingness to allow AIPAC to write his talking points ultimately undermines American credibility and his credibility as a President who purportedly cares about the interests of everyday Americans. You don't get to say, oh, we are cutting off investments in other countries and all these like programs and aid, except for Israel. Like that's, that is really what he is doing. He is fast tracking billions of dollars of 2,000 pound bombs instead of just making sure that Americans here at home are feeling less pain because of the natural disasters that they've experienced over the last six months. That's not American. It's not good for anyone.
- [46:29]
Sam Seder
All right, I want to turn to the other non American thing, not the other one of the other that you have insight to that the President is doing that is not helpful to say the least to Americans. And that is, it was announced overnight essentially that the DOE was about to lose about half of its staff. And this is coming after Republicans shut down the save program. Will you just walk us through the different types of, or a couple of the loan forgiveness programs that were shut down and what this is going to mean, My understanding is Trump administration saying we don't, we don't want to be in the business of, of providing loans, of really doing anything regarding loans. So they're going to privatize the loan business. It's all going to be private loans and also the administration of the existing loans, which just like as I say that, I know it's going to be an incredible crap show, but will you just walk us through what that means to for people? Because there's also for the public service loan forgiveness program where they've deemed, if you're doing the kind of public service we don't like, all of a sudden all bets are off.
- [47:50]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Donald Trump is weaponizing the entire federal government against vulnerable people. And that includes students. Plain and simple. What he is doing to every aspect of the Department of Education shows that he's not actually interested in education at all. He's not interested in its core mission. The Department of Education was founded as a civil rights agency in the midst of schools and colleges, not wanting to desegregate. This is like the purpose of the Department of Education primarily is to provide equal opportunity to all Americans to access a high quality education. That's what we have always done since its inception.
- [48:27]
Sam Seder
And, and let me just add, I just got to say this, the prototype of this came in Reconstruction, when in fact the Department of Education was to make sure that in fact freed slaves had the ability to become full citizens. I mean, education in this country has always been a function of making sure that there was equal education.
- [48:47]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
That's exactly right. Education is a human right. It's in the UN Doctrine as well. But the reality is what Donald Trump is doing, he doesn't care about the core functions of the Department of Education. He wants to turn the Department of Education into a propaganda machine to be able to spew whatever political ideologies that he wants. And anything else is really antithetical to that. And so when it comes to increasing access to education at the K12 level, higher education, any of those types of programs, that's really like not part of his vision for what it looks like. And if you can hand it off to the private sector, great, let's do that. This is an idea that Republicans have always touted, but if you look back to pre the Great Recession, we actually had a lot of private lenders in the education finance market. We had what was known as a guaranteed student loan program where the government guaranteed private loans. So the idea that like this is somehow new. It's actually not. And it cost a lot more money before we were able to make historic investments in the Pell Grant program because we switched from a privately guaranteed loan program to a federally financed, federally originated loan program. So this goes back decades already. But we also are in a situation where we are seeing drastically rising costs in education. We have been seeing this for years and years. And so going back to the Bush years, we started to see, and even the Reagan years, we started to see repayment programs that allowed people to pay their loans back based on what income that they made so that you didn't have student loan payments that were so exorbitant that you couldn't afford to also pay your mortgage or to buy food for your kids or to pay for medicine if you got sick. And these income based, income driven repayment programs became more generous as the years went on because costs started rising. College became less and less affordable. We were making less actual investments in education. And schools were relying more on this debt finance model. And so long as the government allowed people to repay a portion of their income, instead of here is a set balance, you have to pay this no matter what. It was a little bit more fungible. And the SAVE program was designed to make sure that people's student loans not only were affordable, but that your balance did not grow exorbitantly. And this is something that we had seen in recent years, is that borrowers would be making payments for years and years and years, but because of loan mismanagement and frankly because of high interest rates, no one was ever seeing progress on the payments that they were making.
- [51:22]
Sam Seder
They were paying down their principal. They just kept paying interest, interest, interest over like 10, 20, 30 years.
- [51:27]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
So what we did at the Department of Education under the Biden administration was actually say, okay, if you have unpaid interest and you can't pay it all off, instead of it capitalizing into the principal, we're just going to pay it off for you because you are obviously suffering some financial hardship, and it's not fair to you if you're doing everything you're supposed to do to have to take on that extra burden. So let's just make it a little bit easier for Americans that are like, forced essentially just to be able to get a career, to take on this massive level of debt. And Republicans said, no, we don't like that. We don't want you to actually help vulnerable borrowers. We don't want to make higher education more affordable. We want this to be as difficult as possible. And when it comes to public service loan forgiveness, this is one of the most important programs that was actually created by George W. Bush, by the way, passed with bipartisan support in Congress. It's been around since 2007. And the program is essentially designed for people who work in the public sector, people who work for the government at the local level, at the state level, at the federal level, people who work for colleges and universities, people who work in nonprofit spaces where pay just does not match the private sector. This is teachers and nurses and social workers and firefighters who are eligible for this program. And the Trump administration said, you know what, we're going to change the rules. We're not going to allow everyone to be eligible if you work on specific issues that we don't like. So Palestinian rights, types of organizations, organizations that work on immigration rights issues, people who work on gender equity issues and trans rights issues, we don't want those organizations to be eligible for public service loan forgiveness. And that's really dangerous because that is a clear shot across the bow by the Trump administration to say we get to decide who benefits financially from these federal programs that were created by Congress for anyone working in public service. And the way that the rules are designed, it is agnostic to whatever policies or politics that you have. If you are serving the public good, if you're helping vulnerable people, if you're getting underpaid, because the type of organization that you work for is not profit making and profit seeking. There should be some sort of benefit to you as someone working for public's benefit. And that's what this program was supposed to do. So if you work for 10 years in that space, the rest of your loans, as long as you've been paying for 10 years, they get canceled, they get forgiven, they're wiped away, and you can work and you can survive without that debt looming over your head. And Donald Trump said, no, we want to weaponize this in a way that people will not want to fight for trans rights and will not want to fight for immigrant rights and Palestinian rights. And that's really, again, I hate to say it, it's un American. A lot of the things that Donald Trump is doing right now are not good for Americans.
- [54:13]
Sam Seder
And I would add that the, the plans that they're floating now, your interest rate and your accessibility to loans will be a function of what kind of course load you take. So they are going to steer people into a specific chosen fields that will supposedly have, actuarially speaking, a higher return on investment, which of course, then makes it tougher to get loans, to become a teacher, to become a social worker, to do all the things that are already underpaid and undervalued in our society significantly, that are meant to further and better society, as opposed to putting dollars in your pocket. And it's going to discourage people from going in there. We're going to end up having all sorts of problems down the road because you're making it that much harder for people to go in and do essentially, broadly public service in many ways. Let me ask you this question. I've got, I got a couple more. From your perspective, could the Biden administration have done something differently in terms of forgiving student debt during, during the years you were there?
- [55:26]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Yes. I do think that we could have approached it in a much different way. We could have leaned into the fact that this was always going to be politicized and we could have said this is automatic. The secretary clearly has the authority. I think we made that legal determination fairly early on. We just wanted to know how to do it, to make it most equitable and to make sure that, you know, people who didn't really need relief didn't have to get it. But, like, if you take out student loans, it's not because, like, oh, I want to take out student loans, it's because you have to. And so I feel like on a baseline, it shouldn't matter if your income was a certain level. If you're, if you have it, we should provide relief. Especially given the impact that Covid actually had on millions of Americans, their job security. There's just entire lives were, you know, like.
- [56:12]
Sam Seder
So you're saying that like, like early on, they should have just gone in, done it, get it over with, automated.
- [56:17]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
And then create an application.
- [56:18]
Sam Seder
Because apologize afterwards.
- [56:20]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Exactly. Ask for forgiveness, make it a lot harder. And then if Republicans sue and win, it's like, okay, we tried to do this. We made a promise. We kept our promise. Republicans stopped it. Like, you can say it in the way. We can still make that point right now, but the reality is that, like, we could have been more aggressive. And what Donald Trump is doing is exactly, by the way, that. But he's doing more.
- [56:43]
Sam Seder
He's doing the opposite.
- [56:44]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
The illegal stuff in a politicized way. And he's saying, I'm king. I get to do whatever I want. Doesn't mean that it's true. It doesn't mean that all of it will hold up. But Democrats and the Biden administration was not willing to do what was necessary to make sure that vulnerable borrowers were getting relief that they needed and deserved and were eligible for.
- [57:02]
Sam Seder
Yeah, I mean, broadly, this is all a perfect illustration of the Republicans doing, essentially, and then, you know, cleaning up the mess afterwards, as it were. In terms of the cuts to the doe, do you know anything about special education? Will you just tell people what the DOE does in terms of special education? Special needs children who have learning challenges or atypical, you know, neuro. Atypical. Or have other atypical qualities that make it difficult to get an education. How does the DOE help with that?
- [57:47]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Department of Education helps tremendously on so many of those fronts. There are numerous laws on the books created by Congress that essentially authorize the Department of Education not only to provide substantial amount of resources to schools at the K12 level and higher education to make sure that they are equally serving students with developmental and intellectual disabilities, particularly because public schools cannot turn away students in the way that private schools often do, but also to make sure that they're complying with those laws, to make sure that everyone is actually not only using those resources appropriately, but making sure that they are equally serving those students, that the students are getting what they need. There are a lot of different offices that collaborate on this work, that oversee these grants. A lot of them have been gutted. One of them works specifically on rehabilitative services and grants for people both in. For individuals who are in, you know, in the workforce and needing additional support for workforce training, and also for students who just need additional support in the educational process. There's also a lot of this work that overlaps with the Office for Civil Rights, which has been decimated just in the last 24 hours. There's so many important factors that the Department of Education does to ensure equal opportunities for all students. And I know Linda McMahon, before she was confirmed by the Senate, was asked about these programs very clearly and very specifically, idea being one, a lot of the rehabilitative services programs, civil rights. And she said, we are not going to do anything outside of the authority that Congress has given us. I would argue that these reductions in force make it impossible for the Department of Education to effectively do its job and frankly, undermine the integrity of the entire agency and undermine Congress's authorization of, of the agency.
- [59:42]
Sam Seder
When it seems that the, the things that the DOE did, the impact of them not doing these, are going to be felt more significantly in red states than in blue states. Right. Because the DOE had to come in and make sure that states that were hostile to public education, hostile to providing services for all their citizens, were actually providing these services. And so in states that were more inclined to do this in the first place, ostensibly, if there is a frankly more progressive, liberal left, whatever you want to call blue states, is that an accurate assessment?
- [60:23]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Absolutely. I would say not only that, but this is just part of the Trump administration's entire whole of government weaponization to ensure that states, districts, schools across the country, no matter where they are, comply with the political directives of the Trump administration. Whether it's on diversity and equity, whether it's about messaging, whether it's about cracking down on students, speech, it doesn't matter what the issue is. They are weaponizing all of government to ensure that Americans feel some level of fealty to this president. And it's really dangerous. It's really, really dangerous for what it means for students who are vulnerable. It's dangerous for what it means for rural communities that already are under resourced and need more support. It's dangerous for students in urban areas where the Department of Education has already been politically weaponized through their propaganda and their press releases. They're coming after Americans everywhere. And we all have an obligation to stand up and push back, to fight back. And what we're seeing on college campuses, in particular, the fact that we've seen Columbia essentially adhere to every single requirement of the Trump administration to say, yes, sir, jump. Okay, we'll jump. You want us to shut down this speech? We'll do that. You want cops on our campus? We'll do that. They are preemptively agreeing to everything that Republicans, that Virginia Fox, Elise Stefanik, now.
- [61:56]
Sam Seder
Donald Trump, exactly what academics say you don't do with an authoritarian leadership. All right, lastly, let me ask you one question, a question that probably won't be more relevant for, frankly, three or four years, but how does. You said you're in a political appointee to the doe, which means that you came in as part of the new administration. I don't think. My guess is that you have a personal relationship with Joe Biden, that you probably never met him. How does that happen? Like, you know, like I've tried to articulate in the past that you're not electing a president, you're electing people I don't know who are in, you know, way out in the co centric circles from the presidency. But they know people who you're going to want to be in these offices, as opposed to who Donald Trump knows. People who wants to be like, how did you get that job?
- [62:55]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Great question. You know, I worked in higher education policy, student loan policy for over a decade. I also worked in Democratic politics for a long time. And because of my experience, the relationships that I had, my expertise, you know, the campaign, actually numerous campaigns during the primaries asked me to help support on policy items related to student loans and racial equity. I happily oblige. When Biden was the presumptive nominee, they were putting together what are called, like, policy committees. And I was asked to help support the drafting and organizing of a lot of those policy ideas to help, you know, hand off something to the transition. If Joe Biden was elected, that's what happened. And then eventually, because of the work that I did, because of the work I had historically done, I got a call from the transition to interview and took the call to service. I think for me, it was about serving the American people. It was about enacting an agenda that was focused on providing equal opportunity and improving educational opportunity for millions of Americans. It was something that I cared about really deeply. And it wasn't a job that I, you know, like, oh, this is just like another job. Check the box. Like, I cared about it. I worked tirelessly to support a vision that was inclusive for all Americans. And I didn't take publicly resigning lightly because of an issue that I didn't get to work on directly. But as I said, Palestine is a cutting edge issue. And it was very clear the dissonance that students across America were already feeling in the early days and weeks of the President's unwillingness to pull back or use any sort of leverage with Netanyahu and the Israeli regime. And for me, it felt like an inevitability. If we weren't going to actually equally protect students on college campuses, if There was no way that I could make college campuses safer for students that look like me. I had no business representing the administration.
- [65:03]
Sam Seder
Tara Kabash, former senior official at the Department of Education under Biden, founder and director of the organization. New Policy we will put a link to a new policy. Thanks so much for your time today. Really appreciate it.
- [65:18]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Thanks, Sam.
- [65:20]
Sam Seder
All right, quick break. We'll come back with Dr. Mark Elaine Dairy, infectious disease specialist, to talk about measles and TB and all the fun stuff. We'll be right back. We are back. Sam Cedar on the Majority, Port Emma Vigland out today. Want to welcome back to the program dark Dr. Mark Allen, dairy, infectious disease specialist, founder of community radio station 102.3 WHIV FM in Nolance and creator of the Noise Filter podcast. Doctor, we spoke to you a lot during COVID and I have mixed feelings about talking to you again because that but going forward, we may have occasion to talk about these things, particularly based upon my one of my former co workers in radio, Robert Kennedy, who is now in charge of our public health apparatus in this country, broadly speaking. Give us an overview of your concerns regarding Kennedy in that position.
- [68:36]
Emma Vigeland
That may take the rest of the show, really, quite frankly. I mean, let's just say the first meeting in which he appeared in that cabinet meeting, the one where they were all around and Musk was there. And when the reporters asked the president about the measles outbreak, the president kind of deferred to Secretary Kennedy. And right off the bat, the first thing that he said is that there were two deaths. And let's just be clear, there's been one death for measles. How do you get that wrong? Do you know what I'm saying?
- [69:07]
Sam Seder
Like, how do you it's off by one person. Let's just buy one person or 50%.
- [69:13]
Emma Vigeland
Whichever way you want to look at it. So, you know, so that was right off the bat. There was a lot of us in the medical world. There was just a big long eye roll and a sigh. The second thing that I think that he did that's also very concerning as well, amongst the many things. But the things that if I pull it all together was that he canceled the annual meetings of the ac this is with the American Committee, I think, for immunization practices. These are the folks that meet in March every year. These are very transparent. These are public scientists, not government scientists. And even if it was, we love our government scientists, but these are public scientists that meet every year to advise the government and pharmaceuticals as to what is going to go into the annual influenza vaccine that would happen in October. That meeting was canceled. And a second meeting was also canceled. Now, that doesn't mean that we're not going to get an influenza vaccine. We're probably going to lean on the WHO's recommendations to get that. But it's funny that we would leave the WHO and then now we're still using WHO information. So it's things like that that are very concerning. You know, of course, muting the NIH and canceling a number of contracts and their ability to speak to the public and the same thing for the CDC and then pulling out of the who. Those are like the big, big things that I see, you know, being, being very problematic. And then I guess the last thing I would say is his, you know, recently he, you know, he penned an op ed, I think it was maybe for Fox News. I can't remember who he op ed for in which. Okay, finally he said, yes, vaccines are good for the measles, what have you. This is the number one prevention. Of course it is. But then he goes off on these tangents of cod liver oil or vitamin A and these things that kind of take us back to the RFK that we knew he would possibly be now, Vitamin A in countries that have chronic vitamin A deficiency in the setting of measles. Yes, that's good. We don't have vitamin A deficiency in this country. So when you're talking about vitamin A, people make, you know, kind of the same thing they did with hydroxychloroquine. They may use that as a substitute for what the best thing to do to prevent measles is actually the vaccine. And even in the setting of an epidemic like we're seeing right now, people who are unvaccinated, people who are unvaccinated can still go and get a measles vaccine and still be protected within a couple of days. So it's just a lot of confusion information and confusing information. And I think we're going to see. I think I'm going to be on the show more often. I think I'm going to be making these visits more often because we are going to. One of the things, like you said in the intro was the noise filter podcast, which we did during COVID during the pandemic. We're having to resume that podcast, that radio program, program, because the CDC and the NIH have been muted and there needs to be voices that are out there that can kind of help explain what's going on, at least from the infectious diseases perspective.
- [72:35]
Sam Seder
So You're a, you're a practicing doctor, but you also are involved in public health in the context of. Is it Access Health Louisiana, which is, I remember, the biggest Medicaid provider in Louisiana.
- [72:54]
Emma Vigeland
In Louisiana, yeah.
- [72:56]
Sam Seder
Go ahead, will you. Just so the people understand this, will you describe the difference between practicing medicine, not the actual application of it, but the, the, the sort of. The conceptual difference between being a medical practitioner and public health? Like these are not the same things per se. Right. And will you explain that conceptual difference? Because that's important, I think when we talk about Kennedy saying, you know, at Fox News, writing down, you know, and who reads anymore? The get a measles vaccine and then sort of going out and giving interviews saying, well, cod liver oil, which has a lot of vitamin A and, you know, whatever it is, that in addition to the fact that one is preventative care and one is sort of trying to mitigate the impact of getting a disease. But will you talk about just sort of like broad strokes that, that difference between practicing medicine and public health as a, as a concept? Yeah.
- [74:04]
Emma Vigeland
I mean, I could say it in one sentence. When you're practicing medicine, like, I'm at work today, I'm at the hospital. This is where, you know, the last couple of years, this is where my practice is kind of evolved into. I am seeing one patient, one person at a time. When I'm practicing public health, I am reaching tens, twenties, hundreds, thousands of people. And when I was doing radio, you know, literally tens of thousands of people all at the same time. So as public health practitioners, we are quite literally impacting the public's health versus, as a physician, as soon as I'm done here and I continue with my rounds, I'm seeing one patient at a time, and the work that I'm doing is impacting that one person at a time. So.
- [74:52]
Sam Seder
So, but the. But conceptually speaking, when you're talking about public health, you're weighing risks in a slightly different way. Right. Are you not? Okay, we just walk us through that. Because. Because there is no medication that is. Is 100% safe. I mean, there's nothing you can say that about. And as a individual practitioner, you make an assessment on an individual basis that may deviate from broad strokes. What is good for public health policy, but public health policy is it the health is not of the individuals in society, but rather society as a whole?
- [75:36]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. I mean, 100%. I mean, you know, let me give you an example of what's happening here in the state. In fact, I had an op ed that just. That ran yesterday in our local paper here, the Advocate. And the op ed was in response to the Health Commissioner, the state health commissioner, and the state Health commissioner following. And in fact, it was timed right after RFK was confirmed. Like, minutes after they were confirmed, a planned letter was sent to the Louisiana Department of Public Health in which the state Commissioner was telling the Louisiana Department of Public Health to stop all mass vaccination programs and to stop promotion of all seasonal vaccines. So the idea, again, is to stop, you know, to stop the communication. And in my letter to the editor that was published yesterday, I talked about the example, and I think I came on here and I talked about it a bit a couple years ago when we were seeing mpox, and we had a very, very, very. We had an MPOX outbreak here in New Orleans that happened in the summer of 2022. It was in August of 2022. That's important, because at the end of August, early September, we have what's referred to here locally collectively as gay Mardi Gras, which is called Decadence. Decadence Weekend and Decadence, this is where you are going to see lots of LGBT community coming together. And at the time, mpox, and it still mostly is. It's mostly transmitted, mostly, not exclusively, but mostly transmitted amongst men who have sex with men in a sexual contact. And so we were incredibly concerned that we would see a large outbreak of MPOX as a result of Decadence Weekend happening here in New Orleans. And so what happened was that the state Health Department, the New Orleans Health Department, and the CDC came together and did mass vaccination programs in which we. They vaccinated a large portion of the LGBT community here in New Orleans. I was actually exposed. I actually was part of that vaccination. I got vaccinated myself because of an exposure as a result of patients, of seeing. Being seeing a patient. And I was not ppe. I was not expecting to see the mpox. But the point that I'm making, you know, a larger point that I'm making goes back to what you're asking, Sam, which is without that ability to have done that, we would have definitively seen a larger outbreak of MPOX that would have happened here in New Orleans in that summer of 2022 because of that getting together of peoples, like I said in Decadence. So what we do in public health, like you said, there's no one fix, fixes all. You know, it's. It has to be slightly tailored depending on the communities that you're working with or what have you. And what we saw with these mass vaccination programs that we're not doing in New Orleans or in Louisiana anymore. So I don't know what would happen if there was a measles. We're on the other side of Texas, so what happens? And my big concern was that we just got through Mardi Gras. In fact, this time last week, we were just recovering from Mardi Gras. It was last Tuesday, and I was advising people who were not vaccinated for measles to not come to Mardi Gras and to not be at parades for fear that we would see outbreaks of measles. And we're still kind of waiting right now. We're at the end of the window, so hopefully we got out of it unscathed. But the larger point is that public health is incredibly important. We're seeing it being muted all over the country, including here in the state of Louisiana. And without the public health practitioners being able to do what they do, I really, really foresee that we're going to see problems moving down the line. And one more thing real quickly in Houston, there's going to be a very large rodeo in the next couple days, and it lasts for, I think it's a week. And it brings in lots of people from Texas. And the concern is what happens now when you have people from the western part of Texas that are going to come to this rodeo who may have asymptomatic measles or they may have an early and they don't realize that they are, you know, they're still isol that that could potentially also cause an outbreak to happen. And as public health practitioners, these are the things that we're constantly looking for, kind of trying to see where these things are so that we can get in there and mitigate it, prevent these things from happening.
- [80:14]
Sam Seder
All right, let's talk about what the things that keep you awake are. I remember one of our early conversations about COVID 19, and I said, what is your biggest concern? And I think you said Covid 22, 2022, which ended up being, I think we called it Omicron at the time, or a different variation, which was highly problematic because we had developed a vaccination and a vaccine for the wild type of COVID 19. And then it mutated. It mutated mutual several times. And it was very hard to get in front of that. I want to ask you about long Covid, but let's first, what are the things that are on your radar right now as somebody who works in public health?
- [81:06]
Emma Vigeland
So I think the two things obviously Measles. Measles, yes. But just far, far, far and away as bird flu. Far, far, far away as bird flu. And then the second thing is this Hunt of virus that surfaced in New Mexico. And let's start with that because that'll be quick to get through. The reason why that worries me is. Let me take a step back.
- [81:30]
Sam Seder
Hantavirus is the one where you are in a fairly enclosed space that may have a lot of rodent feces. Is that right?
- [81:39]
Emma Vigeland
Yes, I'll explain, Hunt, because I actually diagnosed two cases of hantavirus when I was on the Navajo reservation, when I was doing my public health payback for medical school. So let me just quickly remind Everybody that in 2014, 2015, I went to West Africa. I responded to the Ebola outbreak with the WHO World Health Organization hired me to go and work as basically clinical epidemiologist on the ground in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The reason why I mentioned that is that prior to that outbreak, it was not known that Ebola was in West Africa. It was only. We thought it was confined to East Africa and Central Africa. But when you look at the reservoirs, the fruit bats that carry Ebola, their entire flight path starts kind of in Southern Africa. It goes up around east and Central Africa, and it ends in West Africa. So there's no reason to, to believe that it was never in West Africa until we started seeing death. Now, the reason why we never knew it was in West Africa is because when people die in West Africa, a large number of those countries, especially in Sierra Leone, guinea and Liberia, don't have electricity. So bodies, people are buried. The traditions are people are buried very, very rapidly. And they didn't have the PCR technology to diagnose Ebola. But we now know that, yes, a major outbreak had happened. We just had never really seen it or thought about it. So now let's take that and think about it from a hunt of perspective now in New Mexico. So what is huntavirus? It's another one of these so called viral hemorrhagic fevers. This virus affects the heart and the lungs. We first were aware of it on the Navajo reservation in 1992. That was the first, first time we really had seen hantavirus. And I don't know if you remember. I remember I was in public health school. So for me it was very exciting to kind of see this whole thing unfold and how it was diagnosed. The first two cases were a couple who were together. They were very athletic, they were marathon runners, and they died very, very quickly. And that Brought the CDC out and that virus ended up being called Sinombre, which means without a name. Because they initially wanted to call it the Four Corners virus, because that's on the Navajo. Navajo people were like, there's no way you're doing that. They called it. So what is the concern here? So when I was in, on the reservation in 2005, in January of 2005 in fact, this has a climate change element to it because usually you see it in spring or the summer. And what we saw in January, early January, I diagnosed a case in a 15 year old young lady. And it still gives me and my colleague, we talk about her regularly, chills to even think about. She was very, very healthy. She came to us in distress and unfortunately she passed away. And that was on the way to the pediatric hospital in Phoenix. We were in Page, Arizona at the time, the Navajo Nation. And so there was an outbreak that happened. There were six cases. So I diagnosed the first case and I diagn the last case. And this is a very rapidly progressing virus. So what happens? So Gene Hackman's wife died, right? And of course Gene Hackman died, right? So as a result of their kind of unusual deaths, they did very intensive autopsies to determine what it was that they died from. And they likely found the virus in her lungs. And so what is of concern for me is that it could be that we're seeing more hunt of virus, I don't know. But just using that same Ebola kind of what we learned from the Ebola perspective, that what we're possibly seeing with huntavirus is that maybe there are more cases of hantavirus that never have been diagnosed. It could be that an elderly person goes to the er, they may have a bilateral pneumonia on both sides, and then it just consumes them rapidly because we don't really do autopsies anymore. And then nobody thinks about huntavirus because usually you see it in the setting of a patient pandemic. And interestingly enough, like you said, the reason why we see it on the Navajo Nation is that the traditional Navajo still live in things that are called hogans. And hogans are kind of the traditional Navajo living dwellings, if you will. No electricity, no really running water. Oftentimes the ground is the dirt ground of the desert. And these deer rodents that carry this virus, when you and I have a fight or flight response, like our pupils dilate, our GI tract shuts down and we run, right? But these rodents, their flight or flight response is immediately to evacuate their bowels and to empty their bladder and the virus is carried through the stool in the urine. So later when it dries and when people are going through and sweeping or what have you, this is. Aerosolizes the virus and this is how.
- [86:52]
Sam Seder
And then can it be person, person, person transmission? No, person to person transplant.
- [87:00]
Emma Vigeland
So that keeps me up. That really scared me. But the real big one is bird flu. And I'll tell you another story that's happened fairly recently here in Louisiana. There's only been three hospitalizations of birth. Let's take a huge step back. We've seen bird flu go through. And I think one of the last shows I may have started talking to you about bird flu because you know, again, we're doing this and I'm like, oh, bird flu may be a thing that's coming. What we saw was a lot of the chickens were culled during COVID And in fact, I think I remember talking about it here. And that was why in 2022 we saw a rapid increase in the price of eggs was because a lot of chickens that were culled as a result of the culling, chicken prices or egg prices went up like we're seeing right now. So, okay, so those chickens were killed. They're. They, you know, okay. But then of course it's still circulating in the wild. So then the birds that then, you know, then the birds then were able to transmit to large mammals. So we started seeing in large mammals ultimately to bovine. And I just checked this morning, I think there's almost 800 different herds of dairy farms around the country that are now have infected, are infected with this bird flu. And so right now it's mostly limited to bird flu. And I read a really interesting study in which there was a bunch of. The CDC went to a veterinarian conference and people just voluntarily gave blood. And they found that three out of the, I think 15 or 20 people that they, they that gave blood had antibodies for bird flu. So we are seeing some asymptomatic transmission to humans. So these veterinarians didn't know that they had bird flu, but they had been interacting with these cows.
- [88:56]
Sam Seder
So if I understand the danger here is that either through, let's say non pasteurized milk, where the bird flu has not been killed, or through people working with poultry in some fashion are conceivably in the wild, but less likely because you're not in direct, you know, you rarely are in direct contact with wild birds as you know, just an average person, but that the bird flu transmits to someone who has an existing human flu. And that this creates a mutation. And that's like sort of the real concern, like bird flu in and of itself is not human to human transferable and is not hugely lethal, I guess, both in terms of like an R value, which is how it transmits, but also in terms of the severity of it. But that if it mutates with an existing flu, then it could be off to the races.
- [90:06]
Emma Vigeland
Right, so let me, so let me kind of, let's, let's kind of unpack that. So, yes, we're not interacting with birds that have bird flu unless they're dead. So that's the concern. So it's people who are interacting with dead birds who are, that. They're hunters. So if you're hunting and you find, you know, put on PPE before you, you know. And so. But the case that I'm driving to is the case that happened in Louisiana. So we don't know, we don't know the details. The CDC has not released it. The state of Louisiana has not released any details about the person who got it. All we know is in southwestern Louisiana. So this was a person who interacted with a dead bird in his or her backyard, in their backyard, and got the flu. Bird flu, was very, very, very sick, was in the intensive care unit, and then ultimately died. Now, interestingly enough, the CDC was at the bedside and they were drawing samples and while this person was still. And what they were doing is they were culturing the virus, they were able to culture the virus and they were able to understand its genetics. And what they saw was that the virus was mutating while it was in the host and it was mutating, the genes were lining up, they were arranging themselves in a way that it was making it more likely for human to human transfer. Now, it didn't happen, but what they documented was that the genes were lining up and positioning themselves in a way that there could be human to human transfer. But the scenario you're talking about is truly the thing that keeps me up at night, and that is these workers that work with the cows, they can't wear PPE because they have these, first of all, they have these huge fans that are going on. There's feathers, there's all.
- [92:04]
Sam Seder
Before pasteurization, right?
- [92:06]
Emma Vigeland
Yes, before pasteurization, while they're working with the cow. So if one of these folks are subject to the bird flu and they happen to be co infected with a human flu, the idea is if you have two of these different flus in one cell, inside your nares, your nostrils, inside there, if Two influenza viruses are next to one another. They're going to mate, they're going to have viral sex. And the thing that we're concerned about is what happens if the bird flu part gets the human to human transfer genetic portion. That's called recombination. That sex that they have is called recombination. So those genes recombine so that you end up with one flu that's bird flu in nature, but has the element of human to human transfer. That's the concern. And that's the thing that keeps me up at night. Some good news on that and is one. Well, first let me also say that the bird flu, as it stands now, there's been about 800 cases around the world. We've been following this for several decades now. It has a 50% mortality rate. Okay, that's. And it's mostly healthcare workers who are dying because they're the ones that are interacting directly with the patients. But if that, and we've talked about this a number of times here on the show, if the bird flu does end up popping off, if it ends up evolving into an epidemic, there's no way it's gonna have a 50% mortality rate because you can't be a virus that's highly transmittable and also highly have a high mortality rate. That's just in nature. It just doesn't exist.
- [93:55]
Sam Seder
Right. You burn out your kindling too quickly.
- [93:59]
Emma Vigeland
Essentially, you're going to be one or you're going to be the other. Right? So you either have high mortality rate like Ebola or Hantavirus, but you have low transmission rates, or the flip side, you have high infectious rate like measles, but you don't kill your host.
- [94:15]
Sam Seder
Right.
- [94:15]
Emma Vigeland
You want to be able to transfer. I think bird flu is going to be a little bit, you know, kind of. I think it'll still have some mortality rate. You know, it's definitely not going to be Covid or flu, but I'm completely speculating at this point. But the good news is right now we could vaccinate 20% of the country. Like right now, we could vaccinate 20% of the Country. And we'll. And I, prior to the current administration, I was, I could say that they were prepping, they were preparing for MRNA vaccines. And this is another thing that keeps me up at night is I don't know what, what happened with the adversity to vaccines that the current administration has. I don't know. And then also what happens if we want to leave the country and we are not, you Know, like, it could be that other countries now are going to start looking at us, you know, as, you know, as, you know, frankly.
- [95:11]
Sam Seder
Carriers.
- [95:12]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, exactly. So. And then the last thing I'll say about this, too, Sam, is that the rest of the world is looking at us and they're writing articles about, hey, America, chop chop, like, we see what's happening. You know, the nice thing about public health, it's not hard. You can predict these things. MPOX is here a month ahead of decadence. We know if we vaccinate now, we're not going to see an outbreak come decadence. These are not difficult things. And what we are seeing right now, and our lack of action is very problematic because we're, you know, we are inching closer and closer to a potential bird flu pandemic. I am concerned about that.
- [95:58]
Sam Seder
Well, I hope we don't have to talk about that again, but I fear that we might. Dr. Mark Allendari, we'll put a link to your relaunch of noise filter as a way. I mean, people, you know, we don't have the same public health apparatus that we did, frankly, three months ago. And so projects like yours, hugely important. Thank you again. Really appreciate it.
- [96:26]
Emma Vigeland
Thank you.
- [96:28]
Sam Seder
All right, folks, we got to take a break. Head into the fun half. Sorry. Just a reminder, it is your. Oh, I have a couple of corrections to make. One is that it's concentric circles. For a long time, I said coincentric, then I said co centric, but the real term is concentric circles. Now, I would say there's a very good chance I will not get that right next time I've done it because I've been saying concentric circles probably for 40 years.
- [97:13]
Michael Brooks
Yeah. So I literally sort of internalized it as a normal word. And of course it's not.
- [97:19]
Sam Seder
I mean, it's not. Also, I have been informed that to say nolans, and the way that I did is to invite being mugged in New Orleans.
- [97:31]
Michael Brooks
They don't like that.
- [97:33]
Sam Seder
So those are the two things that I stand corrected. He'll issue the correction. We will. We will. We will comb the, transcribe the transcriptions and correct that. That's. That's the AI bot that I want. One that immediately changes my pronunciation errors in real time.
- [98:00]
Michael Brooks
They already have it where it can.
- [98:01]
Sam Seder
Take out the ohms in real time.
- [98:04]
Michael Brooks
Not yet. Maybe that's the.
- [98:06]
Sam Seder
That's the next one. That's the one I want to see. Thank you for reminding me that's a problem, folks. Your support makes this possible. You can become a member@jointhemajorityreport.com when you do, you not only get the free show free of commercials, you can IM us for the fun half. And also, I don't know, I was trying to work in some joke. Just, just go onto Twitter and search Sam Cedar, Jew. It's really amazing.
- [98:42]
Michael Brooks
Look at Sam's POV for the last few days.
- [98:44]
Sam Seder
It's really, really, really amazing. Also, don't forget, just coffee, co op, fair trade coffee, hot chocolate. Use your coupon code majority get 10% off ESPN on hiatus. And Matt left reckoning.
- [99:08]
Michael Brooks
Left reckoning. Last night we had Carl Bear on talking about the Mahmoud Khalil stuff and Ukraine, Russia. And then Terence Ray of the Trailbillies on talking about red and blue America and why it's not maybe the most helpful. He goes into, like, the history of like Thomas Frank and different sort of ways of looking at it. So a really interesting piece in the Nation by Terrence. So check that out. Patreon.com left reckoning.
- [99:32]
Sam Seder
See you in the fun half. You are in for it. All right, folks. 6446-257-3920. See you in the fun half.
- [99:42]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Oh, no. Oh, no.
- [99:46]
F
Are you ready?
- [99:53]
Sam Seder
Who sent us this?
- [99:56]
F
Alpha males are back, back, back, back, back Boy is back. And the alpha males are back, back.
- [100:04]
Sam Seder
Just as delicious as you could imagine.
- [100:06]
F
The alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back and the alpha males are back, back, back, back Just wanna degrade the white man. Alpha males are back, back.
- [100:18]
Sam Seder
I take all of it to my bro.
- [100:20]
F
Alpha males are back, back, back, back. Snowflake says what? The alpha males are back.
- [100:28]
Sam Seder
You are a madman.
- [100:30]
F
And the alpha males are back.
- [100:33]
Sam Seder
Wow. Sam Cedar. What a. Wow.
- [100:35]
Emma Vigeland
What a nightmare.
- [100:36]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
Nightmare.
- [100:38]
Sam Seder
Yeah. Or a couple of them. Just put them in rotation.
- [100:41]
F
DJ dinner.
- [100:41]
Michael Brooks
Well, the problem with those is they're like 45 seconds long, so I don't know if they're enough of a break.
- [100:47]
Sam Seder
That's nonsense.
- [100:49]
F
You see white people doing drugs. They look worse than normal white people. And all white people look disgusting. And the alpha males psych them. Them.
- [101:01]
Sam Seder
Snowflake says, what? What? What? What? What?
- [101:04]
Emma Vigeland
What?
- [101:04]
Sam Seder
What? What? What?
- [101:05]
Dr. Mark Elaine Derry
What? What?
- [101:05]
Sam Seder
What? What? What?
- [101:07]
Emma Vigeland
What? What?
- [101:09]
Sam Seder
What?
- [101:10]
F
Snowflake says, what a hell of a lot of bank. Hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of bank. Okay, I'm making stupid money. Hell of a hell of a bank. A hell of a lot of bank.
- [101:32]
Sam Seder
All lives matter.
- [101:35]
Michael Brooks
Have you tried doing an impression on a college campus?
- [101:39]
F
I. I think that there's no reason why reasonable people across the divide can't all agree with this Psych. And the alpha males are back, back, back, back and the Africans are black, black, black, black, black, African and the alpha males are black, black, black, black, black, black and the Africans are back, back, back, back. When you see Donald Trump out there, doesn't a little part of you think that America deserves to be taken over by jihadists? Keeping it 100. Can't knock the hustle.
- [102:12]
Sam Seder
Come on.
- [102:13]
F
Fuck them for the bigger game plan. By the way, it's my birthday. My birthday. Happy birthday to me, Jew boy. I have a thought experiment for you. And the alpha males are back, back Africa are black, black. Alpha males are black, black Africans are back, back. Come on, come on, come on. Someone needs to pay the price for Glass to be around here.
- [102:42]
Sam Seder
I am a total.