WEBVTT - How Trump is Killing Science (And You) 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.880 Call Zon Media. 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:07.520 Welcome to Dick It app Here, a podcast where the 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:11.720 singular it is seemingly irrelevant now because everything is happening 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.080 all of the time. I'm your host, Miya Wong, And 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.800 one of the many, many, many chaotic things that has 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:22.480 been going on over the last two weeks since Trump's 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:26.439 power has been a bunch of funding freezes to the 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.920 US federal government grant system. And I think to a 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:32.920 lot of people that doesn't sound like an enormously big deal, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:38.239 but that is unbelievably catastrophic for like I would go 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:39.960 so far to say, is like the survival of the 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:42.440 human species for reasons they will get to in a second, 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.080 but unbelievably bad for the quality of life of everyone 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.040 on Earth. And to get to kind of a sense 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.559 of exactly what this kind of stuff does, what these 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:55.840 funding freezes do, and what the sort of threat, particularly 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.520 to the future of American science is, I have brought 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.720 in two people who are intimately familiar with this Arguvon Salis, 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:06.440 who's a surgeon and professor of medicine and friend of 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:07.200 the show. 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:08.840 Yeah, come on. 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:11.160 Yeah, definitely. I I don't know why I had such 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:13.520 a hesitant friend of the show, because it wasn't in 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.240 my notes that was that was ad living it. But yeah, 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.080 friend of the show, Kami Hoda, who is a Gas 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.319 show entrologist and the host of the podcast House of Pods, 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:22.920 and both of you two, welcome to the show. 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:24.760 Thank you so much for having us. 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:25.640 Yeah, thank you. 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.880 I'm excited to be here for your most Persian episode ever. 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:33.240 For sure. 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.280 We may have done episodes of like that were like 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:38.520 about a row. 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.440 Yeah, this is a Persians a bit too Persian doctors 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.959 talking about Trump is about as Persian as a good 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:48.560 and you're not You're not overselling it. This is a 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:52.680 large scale attack on the healthcare infrastructure of the United 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.480 States on a massive level, So you're not lying. It 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.040 is a serious, serious issue, not just for us but 0:01:59.040 --> 0:01:59.800 for the whole world. 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:00.480 Yeah. 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:01.800 And one of the I mean the places I want 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.000 to start, I think is with because it was happening 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.480 I think in n s FNIH a bit before this happened. 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.919 But the OPM, the Office of Personnel Management, sent out 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:15.040 this memo last week that was a it was nominally 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:19.799 a response to this very weird Trump executive order. That's 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.440 him being like every single program that has to do 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.520 with civil rights, which is like, so, my my description 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:27.120 was anything it has to do with civil rights at all, 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.400 like gone. His description of it is like dei and woke, 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.359 so like anything it has to do with queer people, 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.280 anything that has to do with like racial inequality. And 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.000 they were supposed to like go through and review every 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.720 single government grant program for anything. 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:47.480 But don't forget he also included the gender ideology, which 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:51.040 is a meaningless praise and the Green New Deal is 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:51.560 all part of. 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.440 It, yep, yep, yep, you know, and this is part 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.480 of the raft of executive voters, particularly the anti trans 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.840 executive voters. But OPM's response to this an awful Personnel 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.720 Management's response was to just freeze literally every single grant 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.280 program in the country. And this was everything from pell 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.360 grants and like work study for college students, to like 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.480 food aid for single mothers to my personal favorite and 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:15.480 I don't know why this never made it into the press, 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:17.160 because I'm apparently the only one who went through and 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.400 read the list, but one of the things that he 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.720 froze funding for was security patrols for nuclear weapons manufacturing sites. 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:30.040 So like we almost like, why, yeah, why is that included? 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.440 It was because literally what happened was they found a 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.440 list of every single grant that like anyone does like 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:38.640 and any like program that gives out grants, and they 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.240 froze all of them, and so like another one of 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:42.360 them that when I said this is like, this is 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:43.920 a threat to all life on Earth, I was not 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:45.760 I was not joking here. One of the other ones 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.040 was defunding one of the very important like international nuclear 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.800 non proliferation organizations, like specifically the one that's there to 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:55.040 make sure that like random people don't get like enriched 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:59.000 uranium or like obtain nuclear weapons. So like we we 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.400 dodged a like giant nuke sized bullet. When when like 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.520 most of these programs got their money back after a 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:07.880 judge was like, well, you obviously can't do this. This 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:13.520 is so unbelievably illegal that it's astounding, Like the Constitution 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.520 like very blatantly says that the power of the purse 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:17.960 is Congress, not the president. 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.840 Eight like stop, yeah, but I would just want to 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.320 clarify for the people listening here that it wasn't just 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:29.440 grant specifically, it was like all federal assistance. So one 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.400 of the things that was very confusing and chaotic was 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.400 this question of does this mean Snap is gone? Does 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.040 this mean Wick is gone? What about headst what about 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.320 meals on wheels? I mean, there are tons of federal 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.320 assistance programs out there, and they had only made an 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.280 exception for Social Security and medic care in the memo, 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:51.200 but not Medicaid. And what happened the next day, but 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:53.000 the Medicaid portal went down? 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.919 Right, Yeah, And it's chaotic too because like all of 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.240 the programs you just named were on the list of 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:00.359 like programs that they were putting a freeze on, but 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.000 then it wasn't clear what was going to happen with them, end. 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.039 Right, And it's still not right, right. 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:07.520 Yeah, we just have a judge. 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.599 We have We found one judge with a backbone in 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.200 the entire country so far, and he said, no, you cannot. 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:13.640 Yeah. 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.440 Yeah, I am surprised actually that Trump hasn't gone out 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.200 on the attack. Maybe I just missed it, like attacking 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:20.800 that judge, you know. 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:22.040 But it is. 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:24.560 I mean, what's so confusing to me is, you know, 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:26.200 I get it, at least in some part of their 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:32.719 weird internal terrible logic, transphobic logic. I get why they're 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.160 doing some of the things they're doing. But then some 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.839 of them don't even make sense within their own whack 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:43.800 internal logic, like when they scrub, for example, the CDC 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.440 for all the terms that they didn't like, gender terms, 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:51.080 transgender terms, things like that. They also scrub things like 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:56.839 following maternal morbidity or opioid use, things that don't, at 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:01.479 least on the surface, even fit with their attacks on 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.320 woke ideology. So it seems like it's a complete mess 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.440 to me what's happening. And it's what's terrifying about it 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.560 is not just that it's a mess, but it is happening. 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:12.840 I mean, they are doing it, they are pushing it, 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.320 even though they clearly don't even seem to really know 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.320 what they're doing or even have a great sense internally 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:19.039 of what they're doing. 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:21.560 I think that's the danger of this right now, is 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:25.159 that this is revenge. Right They're lashing out in sort 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.359 of in pure anger and pure hatred, and they have 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.400 been given control of an apparatus that they don't understand 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:33.520 at all, Right Like that, that's how you get defunding 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:35.960 a nuclear police. That's how you get them defunding like 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.800 the very Goldwater Memorial grant thing that gives money to 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:44.719 kids who're writing essays about Bury Goldwater. They don't understand 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:46.520 what the state is and what it does, and they're 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.120 just trying to take the whole thing apart, and they're 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.080 just trying to sort of rampage their way through it. 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:51.920 And it means that we're in this situation now where 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.320 like for a long time, the line on like trans 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.039 Rice was like, well, you should defend trans Rice because 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.040 they're going to come for you next, And that's no 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.920 longer true. This is actually happening here is in order 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:04.720 to kill us. They are willing to kill every sit 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.680 They're willing to let all of you die in nuclear fire. 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.360 It's like specifically in order to hurt us. Right, that's 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:13.840 the sort of line we're at where you know, all 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.320 of these all of these sort of complicated systems and 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.640 all of these sort of complicated funding mechanisms are just 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.160 getting lit on fire by people who don't understand what 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:23.440 they're doing and don't care. 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.840 Right, just out of spider or something, for sure, out. 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.040 Of fight and hate. But I want to just take 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.120 a step back and think about the fact that all 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.320 of this is happening because of two versus three executive orders, 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.040 depending how you think about it. But they're literally executive orders. 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.240 They are not laws in the books. In Congress did 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:43.400 not pass anything. It's like this elderly man woke up 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.400 and said, hey, let's get rid of DEI and d 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:49.680 I A for example, those are the terms they use 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:54.800 exactly without saying what DEI is or what DEI A is, 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:56.920 And just I feel that we need to pause for 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.440 a moment on the A de I A and they 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.040 spell out, you know, as we're accessible. Wiping out everything 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:07.120 related to accessibility is directly in violation of the ADA 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.680 and makes no sense and is cool and all of that, 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.720 but also just like legally, it makes no kind of 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:14.800 sense unless they are going to go after the ADA, 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.440 which I'm guessing is part of their plan to the 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.200 extent that there is a plan. But the two key 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.960 executive orders here are the sex and gender. One that's 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:28.160 defending quote unquote defending women, that basically dictates that sex 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:33.599 must be only male and female, thereby erasing intersex people completely, 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.400 and that there's really either essentially saying there's no such 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.640 thing as gender and that the only genders that they 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.960 see are willing to recognize are male and female, there 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.640 by erasing trans folks, intersect people, non binary folks, cutter 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.480 a gender, queer, gender whood, all of those people. So 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.520 for them to go into like the CDC data sets, 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.920 take them offline so that they can binarize whatever is 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.280 there eliminate I'm assuming I don't I mean, I don't 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.199 know that this is not I'm assuming that that's what 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.000 they're doing, taking any sex that thought male or female 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.920 out of there, and then removing gender as a varia 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.240 will because they've said that no grant funding should go 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:13.480 to any assessment of gender period. So that's when you're 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:15.720 talking to me about like how they're willing to throw 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:20.000 everyone under the bus just to pursue this transphobic agenda. 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.320 That's what you're talking about. They're willing to take huge 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.959 lots of information off of the Internet so people can 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.320 no longer research or position. Anyone else can no longer 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.240 access this information, just to make sure that there is 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.040 no hint or reference to anyone who is transgender. That 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.320 seems to be like the key thing that they're trying 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:40.800 to do with all of this. So they have thrown 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.720 the entire government and take chaos and the lives of 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.360 millions of people into chaos all to remove the t 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:49.079 in LGBP. 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.000 Yeah, and the stuff that they're doing, like the destruction 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.320 of this research data, the way that it's been just 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.920 like taken down and destroyed. Little parts of it have 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.440 come back up after the sort of backlash, but you 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.160 know what they're what they're doing is staging a digital 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.080 version of the nazis burning all of the books at 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.679 the Institute Sexual Research. Like that's that's exposedly what they're doing. 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.880 It's it's literally the same stuff, like it is research 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.840 on queerness and trans people that they are lighting on fire. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:15.560 Yep. 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.240 And you know you know who else lights research on 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.200 queer and trans people on fire. It's it's the sponsors 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.120 of this show. It's the products of services. 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.520 Yeah, that's the way you get those big bucks. That's 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:30.960 how you do it. That's professional broadcasting. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.120 And we are back. So I want to move from 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.839 that to kind of the next phase after we got 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:53.400 out of the sort of oh PM like suspending everything phase, 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:56.520 which has been this kind of this uncertainty around a 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.480 whole bunch of the other funding agencies for science, National 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.920 Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health. Can you talk a 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:06.559 bit about what's been going on with grants there before 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.000 we move into like how this whole process works. 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:13.400 Yeah, So the first sign that something was materially going 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:17.319 to change after these executive orders, as I recall, I'm 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.000 living this along with everyone else, and what is time. 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:22.880 But the first thing that I recall is the study 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:28.120 section being canceled. The study sections are meeting where scientists 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:32.479 come together. They each will have read various grant proposals 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.840 and scored them on a number of different dimensions, and 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.920 then they come together and discussed. They don't discuss all 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:40.679 of them, by the way, They only dissuess the ones 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.120 that have that seem to have the most merit, and 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.400 then out of those they make recommendations for which ones 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:51.319 they believe should get funded. So these are a critical 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.280 part of the process by which the government gives out 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.800 funds for research. If these meetings do not happen, people 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.640 grants are not getting evaluated us and recommended for funding. 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:03.920 That means they're not getting the funding. That means they're 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.880 not hiring people, or they're having to fire people they 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:09.200 already had in their layoff, people they already had in 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.400 their lab. They're not able to continue the important work 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.640 that they are doing they may lose their job, like 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.480 really truly people can lose their job because they were 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.440 not able to secure enough funding to support themselves and 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.680 their labs. So these are really really important meetings, and 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.520 those have been canceled for both the NSF and the 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:31.600 nih for at least the last couple of weeks. And 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:35.800 as of yesterday, I saw doctor Megan Ray said that 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:38.600 her or not maybe not her, but that study sections 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.520 were canceled yesterday that were due to happen today. So 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.120 there had been some communication around perhaps the free of 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.120 those activities ending on February first today that we're recording 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.840 as February third, and those study sections for today were canceled. 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.800 On the other hand, NSS, which is obviously a separate organization, 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:00.679 has informally I've heard this that they were going to 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.480 resume some body sections, although they haven't rexamped yet. 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.080 And if I did add, just to be totally clear 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:11.000 with your listeners, these are incredibly important organizations for discovery 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:16.400 of new medical breakthroughs and for pushing science forward. For 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.440 the NAIH, for example, the nih IS is a big 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.319 part of the reason we have mRNA vaccines now. They 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.320 were the ones helping to promote that research for decades 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:27.880 before we were able to turn them into vaccines, and 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:29.760 because a lot of what they did that we're able 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:33.839 to do that when we're looking for new breakthroughs and 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.440 we're looking for something where patient comes to us and 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.240 they're like, isn't there anything we've tried everything, isn't there 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.360 anything that we could at least try or some trial 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.360 that we could be involved in. That's where we find 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.400 these things. These are the things that we're talking about, 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:52.280 these really important healthcare infrastructure that we're discussing. 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.920 Yeah, and you know between NAH and National Science Foundation 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:59.439 and you know, Department of Energies having a similar thing 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.960 to this, because Department of Energy funds all like high 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.160 energy physics research, so all of your sort of like 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.360 particle accelerator or stuff like that. It's not just sort 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.959 of like the National Labs for example, that they get 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.320 funding from these places, although you know National Labs are like, 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:15.760 you know, you get your funding from grants like everyone else. 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:17.760 But you know, I mean, this is this is all 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.840 the way down to the level of like undergrads and 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:25.480 college chemistry labs like they're they are getting paid out 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.600 of these grants from National Science Foundation from the National 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.720 Institute's for Health, Like all of these all of these 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.520 institutions pay out everything, and it's like this is the 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:39.600 basis of how all science almost all science. Like there's 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:41.960 some private sector stuff, but the thing is like the 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.640 giant private like Bell Labs, right, like you're your old 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.960 school giant private sector. Here's our giant R and D thing. 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:51.160 Like that's all kind of gone, so you know, like 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:52.840 the only people who are getting funded by this are 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.920 like weird startup guys. And it's like, Okay, look look 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:00.520 look what they've invented in the last like fifty years. 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:04.800 It's like cryptocurrency NFTs, which is cryptocurrency again. 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:06.000 Theranos don't forget. 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.960 Yeah, they dose the metaverse juicer row like they're they're 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.240 doing great. It's really great. And people will be like, oh, 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.640 the Veta eye. It's like no National Labs were using 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.320 those AA algorithms like a decade and a half ago. 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:20.560 It's like, yeah, the generative blah blah. Okay, we're not 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.720 we're not here to get into me complaining about generative AI. 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:29.280 Go go go go listen to Edgittern's entire like yeah, yeah. 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:31.160 I mean I think the bottom line of what you're 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.920 trying to communicate here is that a lot of scientific 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:38.960 and medical breakthroughs have come from labs and from researchers 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.160 who have been funded by the NFF and the NIH 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:44.800 And I will just say as an academic, these are 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:49.560 certainly the kind of premiere funding opportunities that we have. 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.440 Like it also was really critical in the careers of 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:55.520 researchers to be able to show that their work is 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:57.600 worthy of this kind of funding. And that's part of 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.000 why I would think people's jobs, the people we pay 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.640 off of our grants, but also people like me, our 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.320 jobs can be really dependent on whether we get this 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:08.120 funding or not. 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.800 And it's a generational thing too, because the students also 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.000 need this funding. And so people people who are undergrads, 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:17.680 particularly people who are like doctoral students, like their research, right, 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.920 Like the stuff that they're doing while they're in graduate school, 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.400 like getting PhD so they can become scientists. That's all 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.360 also like funded by these grants. And if that stuff 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.440 goes away, like, it's not just that you're obliterating this 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.440 generation of science, like you're decapping the next like three 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.360 generations of scientists, right, because each one of them down 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.160 the line suddenly doesn't have the research experience that they're 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:38.960 supposed to have. 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:40.360 Exactly, yeah, right. 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:42.560 And also, who would want to go into science if 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.240 it's going to be right, if there's just going to 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:47.560 be like some random person who goes into the White 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.120 House and never mind, we're not doing that anymore. Who 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.080 are to be exposed to those kinds of wins. 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:57.400 A lot of the smartest doctors and scientists I know 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.760 that tend to be risk averse people. I mean, there's 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.840 a lot of people the CDC that could try to 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.439 maybe sue for you know, for not being able to 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:09.240 use the terms that they want to use and study 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.600 the things they want to study, and they might even 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:13.840 I don't know, maybe they could win. You talk to 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.800 Laurier about that. Seems unlikely because they're not private sector. 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.280 But to them, they're not going to because they're living 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:21.399 paycheck to paycheck too. 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.880 Some of these people that are the lower levels, people that. 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.159 Aren't making a ton of money and they have livelihoods 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.000 that they're trying to maintain, they're not going to try 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.359 and rock the boat when it comes to these things. 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.800 It's putting them in a really tenuous position already, they're 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.840 already worried about their next grant or their next what 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:40.760 however they're going to fund their labs. 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.480 Yeah, and I just want to highlight that postdocs I 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:48.159 think are particularly vulnerable because they are often like this 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.840 NFF where you actually demonstrated this girl, they aren't as 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.119 said like, they're definitely often living paycheck paycheck. And what 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:57.320 the NFF freeze did was that it made it so 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.399 close could not get their next paycheck. Yeah, because we 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.280 were this was happening at the end of the month, right, 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.439 So it was delaying people getting their next paycheck. And 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.240 in particular and talking about POSTOC, yes, it can affect 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.880 graduate students as well, but a lot of postdoc funding, 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.159 like one of the grants that I have actually we 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:18.800 worked directly with postdoctoral and some predoctoral, but many postdoctoral 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:22.800 training programs that fund POSTOC. And to the extent that 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.600 any of those grants are put on hold, that is 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.600 threatening the income of people who really don't have buffer, 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:31.680 who cannot afford to not get paid. 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:34.280 And also, you know, and this is another aspect of 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:38.639 this too, and I really doubt they understand this, but 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:41.120 you know, there's also a lot of postdocs who are 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.159 not from the US right there, who are either international students, 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:46.920 international students who are just you know, coming in from 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.040 other countries. And those people, if you suddenly don't have 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.840 a grant, you don't have a job, and that is 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.679 really really bad for your immigration status. Like that that 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:00.000 is enough to get you kicked out of the US. 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.040 And this is the thing that's constantly leveraged in sort 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.639 of labor organizing, right or like one of the threats 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:06.920 that universities will make. 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:08.480 Usually they do it implicitly. 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.040 Sometimes they'll just go out and say it very legally, 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:13.359 will be like Okay, if if you this postoc or 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.359 like you, this grad student like tries to like join 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.040 this union, like your legal status in the US is 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:23.320 going to be compromised. But that's another sort of risk 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.359 from this is like those people's ability to stay in 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:31.119 the US and not get reported basically. 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:33.000 Exactly, yeah, exactly. 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.359 And then then we talk about bringing in you know, 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:37.119 I know there's a lot of internal debate right now 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.040 between the publican party on you know, bringing in people 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.399 to work these jobs and bringing in these minds. But 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.879 this is a clear example of where the United States 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.439 has excelled in the past. We've been able to bring 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.000 in great minds from all over the world to help 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:55.359 us work on research and to help us come to 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:57.399 work in these labs. I mean you go to like 0:19:57.560 --> 0:19:59.960 USA Staff and Stanford and you see these people work 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.800 making these labs on important stuff. And that's another like, 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:05.240 that's that's that's something. 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:05.840 We're gonna lose. 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.360 And I hope we don't lose it permanently. I hope 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.240