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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,

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Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade

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Speaker 1: the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent

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Speaker 1: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,

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Speaker 1: it just means the absolute world to have your support.

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Speaker 1: But enough with that, Let's get to the show. All right,

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Speaker 1: Good morning, Welcome to Counterpoints. S'm Ryan Grim here with

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Speaker 1: Emily Jashinsky. We've got a lot to get into today.

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Speaker 1: Former President Trump might go ahead and get himself arrested

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Speaker 1: either later today or later this week. We've got real

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Speaker 1: safety legislation that we're going to get into. Google's coming

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Speaker 1: out with this chat GPT, huge news on the China

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Speaker 1: and Russia front as the leaders met this week. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot to breakdown when it comes to that. For

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Speaker 1: President Biden's first woke veto the Federal Reserve meets later today.

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Speaker 1: For a long time, the Fed had been expected to

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Speaker 1: hike rates by another half point, but the kind of

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Speaker 1: tech bros taking down Silicon Valley Bank has trimmed the

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Speaker 1: sales on the aspirations the FED a little bit. People

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Speaker 1: are expecting now it'll be a quarter point increase, which

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Speaker 1: actually amounts to, you know, billions of dollars in extra

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Speaker 1: kind of easing flowing into Silicon Valley. So job well done.

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Speaker 1: They taking that bank down. A job brownie. And you know,

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Speaker 1: there was some speculation that perhaps they wouldn't raise rates

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Speaker 1: at all, but then there was reverse speculation saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: but then that will panic people because I only thinking,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, if the FED isn't raising rates at all,

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Speaker 1: how scared is the FED about the what do they know?

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Speaker 1: And then it sparks, it sparks a run. So it

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Speaker 1: is difficult. You have to you know, it is very

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Speaker 1: difficult dealing with humans. You're what you're saying is that

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Speaker 1: you're glad you're not Powell. Well it's probably a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun though, right, just to have the fate of

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Speaker 1: the world at your fingertips. Right, No, it sounds exhilarating, No,

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Speaker 1: sure it is, so go to wait for that. Speaking

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Speaker 1: of things being exhilarating, big news in the Republican twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four presidential campaign front as Ron DeSantis run to

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Speaker 1: Sanctimonius run. You could go down the list is talking

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Speaker 1: about President Trump. I wouldn't say he's going on offense.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't say he's even hitting back that hard. He's

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Speaker 1: been pressed by Piers Morgan in a new interview that's

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Speaker 1: set to air on Thursday on Fox Nation. We have

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Speaker 1: the first clip to show you right here. Take a look.

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Speaker 1: He is your favorite nickname that Trump's given you so far?

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Speaker 1: Is it run to sanctimonious or meat bull rong? Well?

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Speaker 1: I can't even he went off meat bull wrong, but

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Speaker 1: I can't. I don't know how to spell the sanctimonious.

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Speaker 1: I don't really know what it means. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I kind of like it's long, it's got a lot

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Speaker 1: of valve. I mean, so we go with that. That's fine.

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Speaker 1: You know, you call me, you call me whatever you want.

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Speaker 1: I mean, just as long as you, you know, also

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Speaker 1: call me a winner, Okay. Right. The reason is that

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Speaker 1: he's not pushing back too hard or going on offense

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Speaker 1: is because Piers Morgan really is trying to pull this

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Speaker 1: stuff out of him. It doesn't look like Ron DeSantis

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Speaker 1: is super eager to be talking about Donald Trump, but

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Speaker 1: he is. He is. This is the preview that we

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Speaker 1: have of the De Santas versus Trump campaign. This interview

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Speaker 1: came a couple of hours after Dy Sanctimonious had made

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Speaker 1: his public comments making fun of Trump for having an

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Speaker 1: affair with a porn star. So he was kind of

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Speaker 1: worked up when he sat down peers. But this is

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Speaker 1: my favorite kind of populism, when a Harvard and Yale

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Speaker 1: graduate pretends that he doesn't know what words mean and

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Speaker 1: that there are lots of vowels. He said he did

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Speaker 1: not as spelled to Sanctimonious, which, to be fair, that's

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Speaker 1: species because Donald Trump spells things in many different ways.

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Speaker 1: My favorite was when somebody spelled little Marco with t's

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Speaker 1: and trump correct and no, no no, no, there's d's. It's

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Speaker 1: a little little Marco simply correct. So Desanta's has said,

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Speaker 1: you know, he was asked what the differences are between

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Speaker 1: him and Donald Trump. He says, well, I think there

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Speaker 1: are a few things. The approach to COVID was different.

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Speaker 1: I would have fired somebody like Fauci. I think he

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Speaker 1: got way too big for his breeches, and I think

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Speaker 1: he did a lot of damage. And then he went

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Speaker 1: on to say, you know, we don't have if you

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Speaker 1: bring your own agenda into my administration, you're gone. The

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Speaker 1: way we run the government, I think is no daily drama,

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Speaker 1: focuses on the big picture and puts points on the board.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's very important. Let's put the country

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Speaker 1: first rather than worry about any personalities or any type

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Speaker 1: of individual. Again, I don't think Rodes Saints is super

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Speaker 1: excited to have to make this contrast. I don't think

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Speaker 1: either of them believes it's ideal that the other is

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Speaker 1: in the race. But and Rodasants has been really careful

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Speaker 1: about needling Trump, looking like he's needling Trump. This to me,

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Speaker 1: the big takeaway from this is that he's very close

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Speaker 1: to an announcement. That would be my perspective. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: he told he told Pierce Morgan, how does he keep

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Speaker 1: getting these interviews? By the way, he's amazing. He just

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Speaker 1: asks about I'll so, Yeah, he told he told Pierce

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Speaker 1: Morgan this interview which will air tomorrow on what is

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Speaker 1: Fox Nation or something like that, which is their attempt

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Speaker 1: like the CNN plus effects successful. It's unthirsty. People are

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Speaker 1: partying with their money apparently for Fox Nation. He said,

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Speaker 1: stay tuned. So basically he's he's going to unless unless

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Speaker 1: he backs out at the last minute, but in some

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Speaker 1: ways he's just no match for Trump when it comes

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Speaker 1: to these insults. You watch at the end of that clip,

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Speaker 1: he says, I don't care what you call me, just

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Speaker 1: call me a winner. So cringe. Yeah. Really, but this

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Speaker 1: is why nobody is a match for Trump, and I

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Speaker 1: do think DeSantis is smart enough to have recognized that

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Speaker 1: for months and months and months, which is why I

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Speaker 1: think the big takeaway from this interview is really that,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we kind of knew what this was going

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Speaker 1: to look like with the contrast thattas DeSantis's vantage point

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Speaker 1: at what the contrast is. We knew that what that

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Speaker 1: was going to look like the broad outlines of it.

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Speaker 1: But I think the big takeaway here is that he's

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Speaker 1: very close to making an official presidential announcement because he

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Speaker 1: spent so much time avoiding exactly this, and again I

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Speaker 1: don't I think he's not eager to do it in

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Speaker 1: the same way that Trump is eager to go after

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Speaker 1: him and crystln Zacer talked about some of the very

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Speaker 1: interesting ways that's unfolding yesterday, But I think he knows

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Speaker 1: that nobody can really take on Donald Trump. We saw

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Speaker 1: all of these candidates fall one after one after one,

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Speaker 1: after thinking they had finally they'd figure out the way

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Speaker 1: to go mono and mona with Donald Trump, and it

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Speaker 1: never panned out. So I think that's where you're seeing

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Speaker 1: caution on DeSantis's part. But the fact that he finally

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Speaker 1: took on some of these questions instead of deflecting them,

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Speaker 1: which is when he had. It's not as though he

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Speaker 1: hasn't gotten these questions in the past, he's just deflected them.

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Speaker 1: So the fact that he's taken them, I think means

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Speaker 1: he's about to make his announcement right and to show

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Speaker 1: how like poorly matchis in this kind of fight. Trump

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Speaker 1: responded to him, I don't know if we have this,

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Speaker 1: but he on his little truth social he writes back,

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Speaker 1: and this is just a perfect way that just Trump

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Speaker 1: ups it to nuclear left. He says, Ronda sanctimonious will

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Speaker 1: probably find out about false accusations. Wait, how would we

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Speaker 1: say about false accusation? I can't do it, Trump, false accusations?

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Speaker 1: How's your Trump? It's a little better sometime in the future,

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Speaker 1: as he gets older, wiser and better known, when he's

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Speaker 1: unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that

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Speaker 1: are underage or possibly a man parenthesis exclamation point. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure he will want to fight these misfits just like

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Speaker 1: I do. So it's like, Okay, you don't like to

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Speaker 1: name the sanctimonious, how about I accuse you of partying

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Speaker 1: with underage men, of being gay? Yeah? This is so

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Speaker 1: classic Donald Trump. But where do you go from there?

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Speaker 1: Like when he's ratcheted up there? Right? Yeah, Well, call

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Speaker 1: me whatever you want. Make sure you call me a winner,

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Speaker 1: make sure you call me straight. Is where it's going next. So,

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Speaker 1: speaking of where things are going next, Donald Trump, we

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Speaker 1: have all been waiting with beta breath in the media

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Speaker 1: and in the country at large for a possible arrest

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Speaker 1: if he is indicted by a grand jury in New York.

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Speaker 1: That could come today. Reports seem to be suggesting that

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Speaker 1: it actually will happen next week. Ryan, just on the timeline,

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Speaker 1: let's pause here for a second. Donald Trump is the

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Speaker 1: one who gave us the Tuesday Day, which was yesterday,

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Speaker 1: but that obviously didn't pan out, and now looks like

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Speaker 1: they heard from their last witness yesterday, which is why

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Speaker 1: some people expect it could happen today. There are reports

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Speaker 1: from the Daily Mail that it's going to happen next week.

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Speaker 1: What do you make of this timeline? When do you

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Speaker 1: think it's likely if he is indicted, that an arrest

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Speaker 1: takes place. And it seems like Trump's intel on a

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Speaker 1: Tuesday arrest was coming from the fact that Monday was

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Speaker 1: supposed to be a last like you said, witness, then

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Speaker 1: the grand jury has to vote. There's twenty three members

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Speaker 1: on a grand jury. As long as there's a majority vote,

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Speaker 1: then a sealed indictment is produced. But then Bragg has

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Speaker 1: to make decisions from there, like it's not a fata

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Speaker 1: complete at that point that he's indicted, and it's not

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Speaker 1: a fatal complete actually that Bragg will ask for an indictment.

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Speaker 1: He could still decide, you know what, I'm actually not

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Speaker 1: going to go forward with this. There's some reporting that

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Speaker 1: there could be another witness that comes before the grand

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Speaker 1: jury this afternoon, but there is speculation that there will

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Speaker 1: be a vote this afternoon. But like you said, that

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Speaker 1: doesn't immediately lead to, you know, Trump getting cuffed. Trump

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Speaker 1: has said that he will fly up from mar A

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Speaker 1: Lago turned himself in, and then you'll go through this

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Speaker 1: entire ritual of doing the fingerprints and the mug shot

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Speaker 1: which to me is just so strange that you would

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Speaker 1: need a mug shot of former President Donald Trump. I

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Speaker 1: think the government has a photo of him. I'm also

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Speaker 1: not sure he's that much of a flight risk. He's

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Speaker 1: the most recognizable man on the planet. Fingerprints, I suppose

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Speaker 1: then you can like check to see if he was

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Speaker 1: handling these documents or something. But Bragg's case is all

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Speaker 1: about the Stormy Daniels. While you still have the Document's

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Speaker 1: case ongoing. There was a ruling in that just yesterday afternoon.

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Speaker 1: They may be back in court on that one today.

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Speaker 1: That's in federal court. And then you have the Georgia

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Speaker 1: grand jury right that is still pursuing charges. And to me,

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Speaker 1: the Georgia case is the only one that I get

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Speaker 1: really interested in because it's about something substantial. It's about

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Speaker 1: the stolen election. It's about Trump's effort to kind of

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Speaker 1: steal it back to trigger ultimately January sixth. So that

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Speaker 1: to me is something that is fair for Democrats to

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Speaker 1: contest and for prosecutors to go after because it's so

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Speaker 1: fundamental to the core value of democracy in the United

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Speaker 1: States to invent kind of a rationale to say that, well,

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Speaker 1: this payoff to this porn star used campaign funds, and

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Speaker 1: you you should have listed it in your billing records

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Speaker 1: as this expense, but you actually listed it as this

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Speaker 1: expense to Michael Cohen. So we're going to combine all

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Speaker 1: these and call it a low level felony when John

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Speaker 1: Edwards was able to beat probably an even worse example

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Speaker 1: of it. That doesn't clear the bar for me, and

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Speaker 1: neither does like the document stuff. But that's that's because

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Speaker 1: I'm more of a civil liberties person that thinks that

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Speaker 1: there's too much that's overclassified and you have to kind

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Speaker 1: of see what the documents are, so like somewhat of

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Speaker 1: an open lind there. But yeah, where do you I mean,

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Speaker 1: on principle, I think nobody's above the law, and if

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Speaker 1: you've got the goods on a foreign president, then you

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Speaker 1: should prosecute them. And you know, as you know, growing up,

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Speaker 1: we were always taught like Richard Nixon wasn't above the law,

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Speaker 1: except he did get a pardon, and that's there's something

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Speaker 1: beautiful about that fact that nobody is above the law.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, you don't want to gin up

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Speaker 1: a case, right just be just for politics, just to

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Speaker 1: prove nobody's above the law. I mean, if we want

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Speaker 1: to start this game, you can do this. Show me

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Speaker 1: the person, I'll show you the crime thing, depending on

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Speaker 1: who's in charge of which prosecutor's office, who's in charge

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Speaker 1: of the FBI at any given time. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: we saw this with the raid on Trump, that was

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Speaker 1: framed by the media and the political establishment as a

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Speaker 1: clear cut criminal case, and then when it came to

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden, it was not. You know, it came to

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden in a similar situation, that same framing had

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Speaker 1: just kind of tapered off. So I agree. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think anytime somebody is doing something wrong, whether it's

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Speaker 1: unethical or unlawful, that is entirely fair game for people

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Speaker 1: to investigate, and it's entirely a fair game for the

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Speaker 1: media to scrutinize. But to ratchet something up to felony

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Speaker 1: level is a really, really dangerous game. When I first

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Speaker 1: saw this news, I think it was like last week

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Speaker 1: that we were heading in this direction. I don't know

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Speaker 1: about you, but my stomach just dropped and there were

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Speaker 1: these immediate you know, Trump talked about people taking the

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Speaker 1: streets and protesting, and Republicans were really freaked out. About

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Speaker 1: that and said, you know, basically, they're trying to ratchet

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Speaker 1: this up, make these heighten the tensions and heighten the contradictions,

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Speaker 1: and get you really ready to do something that's going

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Speaker 1: to be problematic for your cause. And I don't know

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Speaker 1: that it's intentional, but you can see that this would

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Speaker 1: head in a very negative direction. Trump, according to a

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Speaker 1: new report in the New York Times, is very apparently

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Speaker 1: telling people he's very ready for this to happen. He

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Speaker 1: thinks that there's some showmanship that can be played out

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Speaker 1: if they He doesn't even mind, according to the Times,

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Speaker 1: getting cuffed, and has sort of mused about whether it

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Speaker 1: be better to smile, what the right kind of stylistic

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Speaker 1: approach would be to that very physical situation. Now, if

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Speaker 1: he does just turn himself in, Bragg doesn't have to

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Speaker 1: go through that, they don't have to purp walk him.

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Speaker 1: I think it's much better for the country that they don't.

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Speaker 1: I think it's much better for the country that they

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Speaker 1: don't create a felony charge, abricate really a felony charge

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Speaker 1: on an obscure legal theory that this constituted a felonious

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Speaker 1: campaign finance violation, because that's where you get into Banana

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Speaker 1: Republic territory and the power starts to really get wielded

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Speaker 1: in terrifying ways. And I would still love to see

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Speaker 1: Trump prosecuted for something. But to me, what about selling

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Speaker 1: US foreign policy to Saudi Arabia for billions of dollars?

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Speaker 1: You could make that case if you actually cared, But

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Speaker 1: they don't want to make that case because Trump only

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Speaker 1: did it on a more aggressive and more brazen scale

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Speaker 1: than everybody in our kind of political ecosystem does it.

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Speaker 1: So I think the thing that has protected him from

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Speaker 1: more serious charges is the fact that he's won. He's

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Speaker 1: the most brazen criminal among a gang of criminals in Washington.

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Speaker 1: He is more brazen about it. But if you go

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Speaker 1: after him, then you're like, well, wait a minute, what

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Speaker 1: about what about this selling of our foreign policy for

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Speaker 1: this amount of money? Now we get that one too,

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Speaker 1: which I'd say, okay, roll them all up. Republicans on

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Speaker 1: the Oversight Committee last week released bank records showing this

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Speaker 1: transaction between a Chinese energy company, a biden, a business associate,

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Speaker 1: and then about a million dollars worth of payouts to

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Speaker 1: different bidens in the course of a couple months, and

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Speaker 1: so again, there is a difference in the brazen this,

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Speaker 1: There's no question about it. But if we're going to

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Speaker 1: start doing this, We're going to start doing this, There's

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Speaker 1: no way around it. And I do think that the

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Speaker 1: same standard should apply. I do think that it's incredible

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Speaker 1: for Joe Biden to be able to that. The media

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Speaker 1: lets Joe Biden get away and Democrats get away with

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Speaker 1: claiming the moral high ground on all of this just

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Speaker 1: because everybody hates Donald Trump. We look away from all

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Speaker 1: of these other things. But when things are not at

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Speaker 1: a felony level and you start looking at them that way,

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Speaker 1: other things that aren't at a felony level are going

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Speaker 1: to start being looked at that way, and it will

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Speaker 1: feel like a banana Republic. And one of my favorite

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Speaker 1: political analysts, Chris Rock, if we can put up his

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Speaker 1: his comments here. This happened at some type of private event.

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Speaker 1: So unfortunately we don't have the Mark Twain Awards for

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Speaker 1: Adam Sandler, who absolutely deserves a Marked Award and is

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Speaker 1: an American treasure. And unfortunately we don't have video of

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Speaker 1: this because but you can, we all know Chris Rock

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Speaker 1: so well that you can actually just imagine him. The

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Speaker 1: AI in your head can just kind of produce the

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Speaker 1: video for you, but you can do Michael Scott's impression,

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Speaker 1: there you go, there you go. So his argument that

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Speaker 1: basically this is going to actually help Donald Trump, using

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Speaker 1: the Tupac Shakur argument that he's sold three million records

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Speaker 1: while he was in prison, what's your guest? Trump's, as

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Speaker 1: you were saying, seems to believe that himself, that this

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Speaker 1: might actually kind of rebound to his benefit. Do you

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Speaker 1: do you think that's right or does it depend? I

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Speaker 1: think it rebounds to Republicans benefits, but not to Trump's

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Speaker 1: benefit because there's a you know, if you're arrested, and

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Speaker 1: that image is sort of indelible in the public consciousness.

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Speaker 1: I think that's really hard to get away with or

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Speaker 1: get away from. So I just don't I do like

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Speaker 1: what Chris Rock says here. He says he slept with

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Speaker 1: a porn star and paid off someone so his wife

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Speaker 1: wouldn't find out. That's romantic, and Donald Trump is clearly

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Speaker 1: not getting enough credit for being a romantic. That's true.

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Speaker 1: It's really a soft side. It's so Donald Trump in

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Speaker 1: that sense, Yes, it helps him, but no, I think

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Speaker 1: it's it humanizes him. A little bit. Yeah, what a

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Speaker 1: sweetheart he is, right, But that's you know, he's getting

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Speaker 1: at why it's really hard to classify this as a

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Speaker 1: campaign finance violation because you have to prove it was

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Speaker 1: done in order to help your campaign and not your marriage. Well, ironically,

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Speaker 1: the argument that Trump would have to make on his

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Speaker 1: own behalf would be to say, I'm just such a

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Speaker 1: flagrant cheater that you think that I actually care about

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Speaker 1: my wife. No, this was purely about the campaign campaign.

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Speaker 1: And that was a harder argument for Edwards to make

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Speaker 1: that because you know, and Edwards was trying to you'll

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Speaker 1: cover this up from his family and for reasons of

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Speaker 1: personal embarrassment like that was that was clear that it

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Speaker 1: wasn't just about the campaign. Donald Trump could be like, look,

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Speaker 1: I'm a complete narcissist and kind of sociopath. I don't

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Speaker 1: care what people think of me, Like I like bad

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Speaker 1: news about me because it gets my name in the press,

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Speaker 1: like he could, and he could call all of the

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Speaker 1: therapists that have talked to the Atlantic over the years

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Speaker 1: and they'll come in and say, yep, we have actually

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Speaker 1: diagnosed him in the pages of the Atlantic. As all

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Speaker 1: the things he says expert witnesses. He does not care

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Speaker 1: what you say about him as long as you say

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Speaker 1: something about him. So the fact that he covered something

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Speaker 1: up that would have been in the news suggests it

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Speaker 1: must have been calculation about a campaign. It's the only answer,

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Speaker 1: It's the only thing that makes any sense. It's the

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Speaker 1: only reasonable explanation. Now, Alania was pregnant at the time,

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Speaker 1: and there is some evidence that that made him feel

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Speaker 1: a little extra guilty. So maybe there is something underneath

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Speaker 1: that sociopathy, that some human element that was touched. But

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Speaker 1: this is why we can't trust the psychological experts the

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Speaker 1: armchair in the Atlantic, because honestly, who knows, who knows

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Speaker 1: what goes on there. It turns out you can't trust

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Speaker 1: psychiatrist in the Atlantic just diagnosing off television who knew

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Speaker 1: It's honestly, it's a good lesson for all of us.

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Speaker 1: But it is also true. By the way, just one

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Speaker 1: final quick thought that Trump, whether this hurts Trump or

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Speaker 1: ultimately boosts him, I don't buy the argument it boosts

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Speaker 1: him because I think it's possible that it sets him

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Speaker 1: on an even more. We've seen his true social posts,

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Speaker 1: which are I think a step up from his Twitter posts.

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Speaker 1: Actually getting arrested this or psychological effect of that. Not

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Speaker 1: to be an armchair psychiatrist myself, but actually getting arrested,

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Speaker 1: I think it's possible sends him on a very different trajectory,

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Speaker 1: and that's not one that'll be politically beneficial. It certainly

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Speaker 1: wouldn't beneficial for the country, is my assumption. But I

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Speaker 1: don't know. He's full of surprises as long as he's

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Speaker 1: got a bootleg phone behind bars one of his androids. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: text to Twitter or whatever, right, which is how some

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Speaker 1: of us had to do it in high school. There

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Speaker 1: you go, back in the day, back in the day.

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Speaker 1: All right. So let's move on to the news out

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Speaker 1: of Eastern Europe. There are new developments, obviously in the

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Speaker 1: war in Ukraine that came this week as Vladimir Putin

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Speaker 1: and Hijinping met for a couple of days. It didn't

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Speaker 1: have a lot to discuss about the war itself, but

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Speaker 1: certainly had a lot to discuss in general. The New

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Speaker 1: York Times is reporting that the Biden administration vowed last

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Speaker 1: month the crackdown on companies that sell critical technologies to

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Speaker 1: Russia as part of its efforts to curtail the country's

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Speaker 1: war against Ukraine, but the continued flow of Chinese drones

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Speaker 1: to the country explains why that will be hard. Now,

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Speaker 1: China has sold more than twelve million in drones and

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Speaker 1: drone parts to the country, according to official Russian customs

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Speaker 1: data from a third party data provider that's reporting from

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Speaker 1: the New York Times Ryan and twelve million dollars in

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Speaker 1: drones and drone parts to the country kind of a

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Speaker 1: drop in the bucket. When you look at the budget

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Speaker 1: of this war overall, what do you expect after this

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Speaker 1: meeting that happened this week? Do you expect big increases

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Speaker 1: right US support? At this point? What is closing in

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Speaker 1: on one hundred billion dollars with a B and if

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Speaker 1: twelve million dollars with an M, you know, from China

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Speaker 1: over to Russia is going to tip the balance, then

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Speaker 1: we might be in a match that we can't keep

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Speaker 1: up with. Like that's I can't even do the mathm

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Speaker 1: one one thousandth one hundredth of the amount that we've

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Speaker 1: invested so far. These drones have become kind of an

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Speaker 1: iconic part of this of the battle between Ukraine and Russia,

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Speaker 1: as even the smaller ones used to help, you know,

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Speaker 1: troops see what's what's in front of them. Each one

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Speaker 1: gets like a couple of flights max. Before it gets

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Speaker 1: shot down by the other side, which is why you

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Speaker 1: have to constantly replenish them. But as experts saying that

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Speaker 1: in this your Times article, this is not at this

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Speaker 1: point the kind of sophisticated technology that sanctions and other

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Speaker 1: controls are going to be able to keep out of

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Speaker 1: the hands of China and Russia. Like they can make

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Speaker 1: a drone like you can. You can practically make one

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Speaker 1: in your garage at this point, and so it shows

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Speaker 1: the limits of kind of the economic warfare tool that

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Speaker 1: the United States is using. China's argument, and it's that

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Speaker 1: it's making publicly, was we should stop using the global

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Speaker 1: economy as a weapon and as a principle. Uh That's

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Speaker 1: that's a fairly persuasive argument, because what I mean, what

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Speaker 1: you're doing is you're you're using the suffering of the

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Speaker 1: world's people as as a diplomatic tool, uh to to

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Speaker 1: try to find a solution for particular or acute crises.

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Speaker 1: And I think the bar to do that has to

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Speaker 1: be extraordinarily high. Now China's peace plan, I can understand

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Speaker 1: why Ukraine is like no, like China's peace plan was,

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Speaker 1: let's do a cease five and lift all sanctions on Russia.

428
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 1: It's like a world that's kind of exactly what Russia

429
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 1: would prefer. And yet Russia didn't even actually say that

430
00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 1: they wanted that. That's Hijinping is not obviously promoting that

431
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 1: charitable interpretation of what he's on. What he's saying, to

432
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: your point, he undercuts exactly what he's saying, and he undercuts,

433
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:24,040
Speaker 1: by the way, a lot of what he says about

434
00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:27,520
Speaker 1: the West when he does these photo ops and these

435
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:30,960
Speaker 1: very substantial from all we can tell meetings with white

436
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 1: wine with Vladimir Putin. Did you see the picture of

437
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 1: them toasting with the white wine. They're white wine drinkers,

438
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: their white wine drinkers, at least at least this week

439
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:41,560
Speaker 1: they are. But he undercuts a lot, a lot, a lot,

440
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 1: a lot, a lot of his credibility on the world

441
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 1: stage when he's doing these photo ops with somebody who

442
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:51,000
Speaker 1: is engaged in an act of aggression and an invasion,

443
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:55,400
Speaker 1: the cost to civilians that have happened over the last

444
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:58,680
Speaker 1: war in the way that Vladimir Putin is right now,

445
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,160
Speaker 1: and it doesn't makes sense from a sort of real

446
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: politic perspective, that China is closing up to Russia and

447
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 1: that Russia is closing up to China absolutely one hundred percent.

448
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 1: Xi Jinping has a vision of Chinese leadership on the

449
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:17,120
Speaker 1: global stage that goes beyond mere immediate day to day

450
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 1: real politic right now or even this year. I don't

451
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 1: know that this is a This is entirely helpful as

452
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:28,359
Speaker 1: as Xi Jinping then tries to take his tries to

453
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 1: take his vision world to other world leaders in the future,

454
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:35,840
Speaker 1: but at the same time, maybe it signals that he

455
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:38,479
Speaker 1: realizes that's a lost cause at this point anyway. And

456
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:41,920
Speaker 1: what's disturbing from kind of a humanitarian perspective is that

457
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:45,399
Speaker 1: it seems like the world's big powers, China and the

458
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:49,639
Speaker 1: United States, both feel like it's in their interests to

459
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,200
Speaker 1: have Ukraine and Russia going to war against each other.

460
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 1: For various reasons. The US likes to see Russia's Russia's

461
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 1: capacity and power on a global stage reduced. We like

462
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:03,639
Speaker 1: to be able to sell all kinds of material uh

463
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:07,119
Speaker 1: into this into this conflict, even if we're using you

464
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 1: borrowed or printed money to sell to sell it into

465
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:13,479
Speaker 1: their China I think likes to test out what a

466
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:17,520
Speaker 1: what a hot conflict looks like with NATO with the West.

467
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:22,280
Speaker 1: And also China still deeply skeptical of Russia, so in

468
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: the background is kind of happy to see them, uh,

469
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 1: see them suffering and see them see them weakened, and

470
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: also happy to create an ecosystem with Iran, Russia, China

471
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:38,880
Speaker 1: to to develop the muscles and the sinews of sanctions

472
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 1: evasion and of kind of creating an economy that is

473
00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 1: independent of kind of Western control. So everybody except for

474
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 1: the the Russian soldiers on the front line and the

475
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 1: Ukrainian soldiers and civilians around the world, who has major power,

476
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 1: seems to want to keep this going. Yeah. No, it's

477
00:25:56,840 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 1: a great point because specifically, the news recently that China

478
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 1: had broken the peace deal between the Saudis and Iran

479
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: really made headlines in the West as though the United

480
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 1: States and the Western general had sort of lost its power,

481
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 1: its moral power to be the power broker in negotiations

482
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:18,359
Speaker 1: like these, that they were no longer the ones at

483
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: least having success and making these deals because China saw

484
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: the power vacuum and knows how it can undercut the

485
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 1: West and step in and do from its perspective, what

486
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:32,160
Speaker 1: constitutes a better job. And yet when you juxtapose that

487
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 1: deal with hijinping side by side with Vladimir Putin claiming

488
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: impartiality in the war, but talking about their growing friendship

489
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: with a man who's engaged in a bloody humanitarian disaster,

490
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:51,719
Speaker 1: who started a bloody humanitarian disaster, and the aggressor in

491
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: this invasion, When you see them standing side by side,

492
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: it is a strange strategy. Again, in the real politics sense,

493
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 1: you can understand where he's coming from. It is a

494
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 1: strange strategy from shi Jin Pang to on the one hand,

495
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 1: be sort of sense that his cash on the world

496
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 1: stage is rising, his credibility in the world stage is rising,

497
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 1: and then on the other hand, to cozy up to

498
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 1: Putin and allow Putin to cozy up to him like this, Yeah,

499
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: peacemaker sitting down with the guy who's making war. Yeah,

500
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:23,199
Speaker 1: I think that could be a bit of a bit

501
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 1: of a conflict that he needs to work out. And

502
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: he also endorsed Putin, said Putin's going to win in

503
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Putin has not said he's going to

504
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: run again in twenty twenty four, and that makes his

505
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 1: claims to impartiality utter bullshit, by the way, utter bullsh. Yeah,

506
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: he's because he's now out there as that what is

507
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: Putin doing right now. But yeah, I don't think anybody

508
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 1: really believed that they were impartial in this conflict. No,

509
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:50,440
Speaker 1: But I mean it's important just to your point about

510
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:54,760
Speaker 1: his argument in terms of using the global economy as

511
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:59,640
Speaker 1: a weapon. He doesn't believe that because he he obviously

512
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: doesn't because as part of China's strategy just says it

513
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 1: is many countries in the West and has been for

514
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: a very long time. So he's he sort of has

515
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: this instinct about the public facing posture of China. And

516
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: what's important is that he will get away with that

517
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 1: when it comes to other countries and when it comes

518
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:24,400
Speaker 1: to the moral credibility if the United States a doesn't

519
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 1: get its own act together and be better, be best,

520
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: as Millennium might say. And secondly, if the United States

521
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:34,199
Speaker 1: lets them get away with that, with the hypocrisy, and

522
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: we'll see how it goes with their like Saudi Iran

523
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: thing turns out that might be tougher than it looks like.

524
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: Good job, Like cutting that deal got the embassy's back

525
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: over and got some commercial deals going. They're gonna complain.

526
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: One of them is going to complain about the other

527
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: soon enough, and then they're going to go to China

528
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 1: and say they broke the deal. Now you need to

529
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: be on our side on this. We'll see. It'll happen

530
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 1: with putin two being a superpower and not as much

531
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: fun as it looks someting. It's all fun and games

532
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: until it gets real, all right. So moving on to

533
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's first veto of his presidency. This is a

534
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:12,480
Speaker 1: rejection of a rejection of a rule. So basically you

535
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 1: know how this works is that if the if the

536
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 1: administration in this case, through the Labor Department, institutes a

537
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: new rule, Congress can undo that rule through through the

538
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,240
Speaker 1: kind of Congressional Review Act as long as they knock

539
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: it down within a certain amount of time. So Congress

540
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: passed a cr Law Congression Review Act saying that the

541
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 1: Department of Labor rule around ESG policies is no good

542
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: has to be undone. Biden then vetoed that, which means

543
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: the rule stays in place. And what the rule basically

544
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 1: says is that if you run a pension fund or

545
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: a four to one K or something else. You are,

546
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 1: if all things are equal, able to take into account

547
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: an ESG score that's environmental social government governance. I think

548
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: it's the E that is actually the thing that is

549
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: driving all of the corporate rage about this, while it's

550
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 1: the S that is kind of drawing the public kind

551
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 1: of conservative outrage against it. Interesting that Biden chose this

552
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: as his first veto. Curious for your take on this,

553
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: because I'm highly critical of ESG as a kind of

554
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: fraud oftentimes fraudulent approach. At the same time, I don't

555
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: think it's the government's place to come in here and

556
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: say that you you know where you can and can't

557
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: put your investment dollars. Curious for your take on this. Yeah,

558
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 1: And Reuters reported that industry itself was split on this

559
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: because a lot of corporations are totally fine with ESG.

560
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: In fact, they like it because, to your point, it

561
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: allows them to perpetrate this fraud of having this public

562
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: facing social responsibility that doesn't really mean anything at the

563
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 1: end of the day. But on the E part, oil

564
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: companies are very opposed to this, which I honestly where

565
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 1: the rubber hits the road, and this is where to

566
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: your question, this was both sides milking the culture war.

567
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: For all that it's worth. This is Harvard Business or

568
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: arm say, this is Harvard Law. They have a very

569
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: long analysis posted on their website of what's going on

570
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: with this rule, obviously designed as an explainer for stakeholders.

571
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: They say, quote, it confirms the permissibility of ESG investing

572
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: in pursuit of improved risk adjusted returns in accordance with

573
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: prudent investor principles without mandating such an investment strategy. That's

574
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 1: about the Biden rule, which was very similar to a

575
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: Trump rule, And they say this is like very dense

576
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 1: legal lee, but they basically are saying there were a

577
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: couple of wording tweaks to the ESG mandate part that

578
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: are not meaningfully changing. They are tweaks, but they're not

579
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: meaningfully changing the rule from one administration to the next

580
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: in terms of what a permissible with ESG investing from investors.

581
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: So from my perspective, again, I don't like that the

582
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: government's involved in this period. But it's just like Biden tweets.

583
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: He invokes Marjorie Taylor Green in the tweet. Republicans, Oh yeah, yeah,

584
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 1: let's play. Let's play Biden. Here's what he said as

585
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: he vetoed this. I just signed this veto because legislation

586
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: passed by the Congress would put a risk retirement savings

587
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: of individuals across the country. They couldn't take into consideration

588
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: investments that wouldn't be impacted by climate impacted by overpaying executives.

589
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 1: And that's why I decided to be to it. Like

590
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: how he whispered his way through that, Yeah, that was

591
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: at the first take. It's probably like the seventieth and

592
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 1: top it up a little bit for that. So yeah,

593
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 1: So he invokes Marjorie Taylor Green in this veto. It

594
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: is his first veto. He's publicizing it with a video

595
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 1: with tweet itself. Republicans were really excited about this too,

596
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 1: because he is they know, is a political winner and

597
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:04,959
Speaker 1: it is. And so to the extent that you can

598
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 1: cast this as a big government Democrat mandate for a

599
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: social justice agenda or for our left social justice agenda,

600
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: they understand that that's a political winner for them. When

601
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 1: you look at the actual substance of the changes in

602
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: these rules, it doesn't warrant this level of kerfuffle whatsoever.

603
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,240
Speaker 1: I'm generally opposed to people denigrating the culture War because

604
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 1: I think it has serious implications, and they're often class implications.

605
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 1: But this was an incredible waste of time and energy,

606
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:38,480
Speaker 1: and I thought Biden's invocation of executive pay was smart.

607
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 1: That's the G in the ESG. Within governance, you have

608
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: some silly stuff, but then you also have some real

609
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: stuff that allows fund managers say, well, wait a minute,

610
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: you're paying the CEO twenty eight million dollars in stock

611
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: options and they blew it last year, like we're going

612
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: to knock at your score for overpaying all of your excs.

613
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 1: You're just stealing money from us. I think that's completely fair.

614
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 1: The irony, though, to me, of Republicans getting so worked

615
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 1: up about ESG is that back under the second half

616
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: of the Obama administration, one of the big fights was

617
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,479
Speaker 1: over what was called a fiduciary rule. This is also

618
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: through the Department of Labor, where the Labor Department pushed

619
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 1: through a rule that said investment managers have a fiduciary

620
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:32,399
Speaker 1: duty to not rip off basically their clients. In other words,

621
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 1: they can't like purposely move them from one fund with

622
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,800
Speaker 1: a point zero five management fee into another fund with

623
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:40,919
Speaker 1: a point five percent management fee, which you can add

624
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: up to billions of dollars, which clearly is not in

625
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: the fiduciary benefit of the clients and actually just enriches

626
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:52,359
Speaker 1: the fund managers. That was a knockdown, drag out fight

627
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: in Washington that played out behind the scenes, but with

628
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: millions of dollars spent in lobbying fighting this, and so

629
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 1: the bo administration ended up winning that one. It was

630
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:05,760
Speaker 1: one of the first rules that then the Republican Congress

631
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 1: went after when they when they came back into power,

632
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:13,359
Speaker 1: and so to go from there to then say it's

633
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: opposite that you one the opposite of this, all that

634
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 1: you really all you care about is investors. It's like,

635
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: maybe there's something else going on here. And I think

636
00:35:21,040 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 1: a lot of this is really about climate and is

637
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 1: about the intense amount of investor pressure on companies to

638
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 1: move away from the fossil fuel supply chains and fossil

639
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:37,319
Speaker 1: fuel driven economies and and and then the fossil fuel

640
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: industry pushing back against that. Well to that point, lobbyists

641
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:44,840
Speaker 1: obviously are are adept readers of this dense legalize and

642
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: they know when a rule is meaningful and when a

643
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: rule is not meaningful. So the fact that the oil

644
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: and gas industry is threatened by something that when it

645
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 1: comes down to it is at basque minor that these

646
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: word changes, like one of the words is prevent. It's

647
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: just reasonable. They're like these words being swapped out that

648
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 1: they're spooked by. That tells you clearly that they feel

649
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,359
Speaker 1: that this is a high level of importance to their

650
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: business model. I don't just beate that a lot of

651
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: this is about climate. I think you're right though that

652
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: from Republicans perspective, it's about the S, because I think

653
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:22,759
Speaker 1: that's easier, right, the S. Then you can as soon

654
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:24,919
Speaker 1: as you have the S and you start looking into

655
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 1: the literature behind ESG, you get into DEI, you get

656
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: into critical race theory, and the whole world opens up

657
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 1: politically when you have that in there. The climate right,

658
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: it's the tip of the iceberg, and what's beneath the

659
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: surface of the water is honestly pretty academic, radical literature.

660
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: And so when you can apply that, and you can

661
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 1: you can pin that to any Democrat that supports what's

662
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:57,440
Speaker 1: happening with this, you realize you have a big political weapon,

663
00:36:57,680 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 1: whether it's fair or not. And in this case, it's

664
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: not meanwhile that Iceberg is completely melting. Well done, right,

665
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:09,359
Speaker 1: I like that Mike drop and move on to Chat

666
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 1: GPT and Google Hair. So Google, under pressure from Chat,

667
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: GPT and other AI products, has put out Barred. I

668
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: signed up for the waitlist this morning. Bard was initially

669
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 1: developed It sounds like starting back in twenty fifteen as

670
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 1: a way to artificially produce poems. That's where Bard comes from.

671
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: They have been The reporting is that they were basically

672
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:36,800
Speaker 1: pressured into releasing something they didn't quite want to release

673
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:42,280
Speaker 1: yet because Bing and Microsoft, following from chat GPT, released

674
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 1: their own AI integrated it into BING and for the

675
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:50,239
Speaker 1: first time it was making real inroads against Google, or

676
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:52,839
Speaker 1: at least Google was perceiving the threat that they might

677
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:56,320
Speaker 1: do that. They issued internally what code read or a

678
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: red alert that put all of their developers software engineers

679
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 1: onto moving this as fast as possible and put a

680
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:05,880
Speaker 1: lot of pressure on their AI ethicists to clear the

681
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 1: way for this to finally get rolled out. They're rolling

682
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,800
Speaker 1: it out in a much smaller to a much smaller

683
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:15,840
Speaker 1: circle of people than previously. But it does seem like

684
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 1: this is the clearest sign yet of any that the

685
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: AI arms race is really on right, And this is

686
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 1: from Alphabet in The Wall Street Journal quotes them referring

687
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 1: to this as an early experiment, and to unleash these

688
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 1: quote early experiments on the world. I just think is

689
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 1: a grave danger. It sounds like it's not that big

690
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: of a deal. It sounds like the worst thing that's

691
00:38:39,239 --> 00:38:42,000
Speaker 1: going to happen is we get some wrong answers and

692
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 1: some cheating in school. It goes so far beyond that.

693
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: We have so many vulnerabilities that we don't even know about,

694
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:49,840
Speaker 1: some that we do know about in terms of hacking,

695
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 1: in terms of the security of our data, of our information,

696
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: all of these things that can be targeted by artificial

697
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:00,760
Speaker 1: intelligence that is going to get more intelligent every single

698
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:04,280
Speaker 1: day as we open these tools up to the public. Now, generally,

699
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 1: I think it's good that we democratize extremely powerful things

700
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 1: like this. I do, however, think that when you see

701
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 1: the nervousness among engineers, among tech executives about what could

702
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 1: happen with this technology that they're referring to as an

703
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: experiment and just unloading to the public. Let's take one example.

704
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: We talked last week about Snapchat. Snapchat and the experiment

705
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,319
Speaker 1: the Center for Humane Technology ran with Snapchat's new AI,

706
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 1: which is a four dollars a month premium feature that

707
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 1: children can access. Well. Wappo repeated that experiment essentially with

708
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:46,759
Speaker 1: bart and they found they got similar inappropriate advice for

709
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: teenaged users. This is from the Washington Post. After I

710
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 1: told Bart I was about to have my fifteenth birthday

711
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:54,320
Speaker 1: party and wanted some advice on beer, it gladly provided

712
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 1: me advice on how to hide the smell of beer

713
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:58,280
Speaker 1: and breath on my breath from my parents'. Tips included

714
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: using mouthwashed, chewing gun, drinking water, and even quote avoid

715
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: getting too close to your parents. Again, this is funny,

716
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,320
Speaker 1: and it is one experiment. What we saw with Snapchat

717
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:10,560
Speaker 1: and the Center for Humane Text experiment was they were

718
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:13,320
Speaker 1: telling a thirteen year old that was a little less funny,

719
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:17,719
Speaker 1: how to lose her virginity. This was AI walking through

720
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: those steps. And again, if your kid has four books

721
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: on a debit card to put in the Snapchat, it's

722
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: there right now. I'm sure they've corrected it since that

723
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: was publicized. But you have no idea where this AI goes.

724
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: And that's part of the fear that Google has. And

725
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 1: you can see it. You can read what they're telling

726
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: their employees internally. Their memo was published, was published in

727
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 1: the media. They're nervous about this stuff, and I just don't.

728
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:45,399
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people play around with chat,

729
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:49,279
Speaker 1: GPT and all of that stuff, but I just have

730
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 1: a very hard time funny anymore because it seems to

731
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,840
Speaker 1: be going in a really dark direction really quickly. And

732
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:59,359
Speaker 1: what we don't even understand is what's going to happen

733
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:03,279
Speaker 1: when this artificial intelligence is directing people to do some

734
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:05,880
Speaker 1: really really dark stuff. The more we use it, the

735
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: smarter it becomes. I have no fears about it becoming

736
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 1: sent SENTI it whatsoever. It's artificial intelligence. It will always

737
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 1: be artificial intelligence. But man, are we going in uncharted

738
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 1: territory really quickly. The hacking part is deeply disturbing as well,

739
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 1: extremely because there's been this race between encryption and security

740
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:33,360
Speaker 1: and the you know, hacker penetration intrusion technology. You already

741
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: have the chat bots trying to kind of crack the

742
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:41,560
Speaker 1: new security piece that people put up, which is annoying everybody,

743
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 1: but we recognize that it works where it's like, you know,

744
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: find a picture with the cars and so far, the

745
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: counter software has not been able to crack that, but

746
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence is easily going to be able to nucod's

747
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: way right through there. Artificial you know, AI can take

748
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: at this point handwritten a screw shot of cursive handwriting

749
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: and turn it into text and analyze it. So it's

750
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:08,240
Speaker 1: not gonna be long before they can find a fire hydrant.

751
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: And so that's that's just one example. The other security

752
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 1: protocols that we have in place. Using your voice over

753
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 1: the phone to talk to somebody, certainly the idea that

754
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: you know last for your social and your mother's made

755
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: the name are going to are going to be secure enough.

756
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:30,399
Speaker 1: And if you have customer service, which is then you'll

757
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: completely run by AI, then you're gonna have you know,

758
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:39,840
Speaker 1: AI scams, AI hackers interacting with AI customer service. And

759
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 1: so that's that's just how how do you how do

760
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: you keep the kind of infrastructure of the Internet secure

761
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:51,319
Speaker 1: in that situation. It's to me, it seems like we're

762
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: just gonna have constant outages, constant sites going down, uh

763
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: and and constant fraud as people are just getting ripped

764
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:02,680
Speaker 1: off day after day. No, and again I don't dispute

765
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 1: that there are some really good ways that this technology

766
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 1: is going to evolve that. I mean, that's the case

767
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 1: with every technology that has its upsides and its downsides,

768
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: and there is a double edged sword. But it's unclear

769
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 1: right now if the genie has sort of actually been

770
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: let out of the so called bottle because or of

771
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: the proverbial bottle. Because if that is the case and

772
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:27,280
Speaker 1: this technology, which is by all the reason they're releasing

773
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: this technology, and they're in a race to integrate this

774
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: technology into existing products. Google is so sensitive about its

775
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:36,360
Speaker 1: brand because they know that they're the top search engine

776
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 1: in the world. They don't want to jeopardize that. It

777
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 1: shows you how intense the pressure is to get this

778
00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 1: stuff out there that they're releasing and integrating it with

779
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 1: Barred and doing this little quote early experiment. It shows

780
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:49,799
Speaker 1: you how high the pressure is. These are the same

781
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 1: people that botched much less powerful technology with social media,

782
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 1: and it's the same set of people and this is

783
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: a much more powerful technology that is now going to

784
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 1: be in the hands of anybody who wants to do

785
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:05,839
Speaker 1: bad with it. So we've talked about scams, think about blackmail,

786
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:08,880
Speaker 1: think about how code can be exploited. Like there are

787
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: just things that as I've talked to people in the

788
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 1: industry who have explained this to me, I would not

789
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: have even considered the dangers of but the more they

790
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 1: think about them. In some cases, they don't realize these

791
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities until other people exploit them, until the experiments are run.

792
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:26,799
Speaker 1: They're like, holy smokes, you can do that with AI too.

793
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: Isn't it fun that we're all doing this in real

794
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 1: time and that anyone can do it, even people that

795
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,360
Speaker 1: want to do us harm. So if the genie is

796
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 1: out of the bottle, we're looking back years from now

797
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 1: and saying, as of this moment in March of twenty

798
00:44:39,160 --> 00:44:40,840
Speaker 1: twenty three, the genie was let out of the bottle,

799
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:43,880
Speaker 1: that this technology had been put in the hands and

800
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 1: was advanced enough in the hands of those people who

801
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 1: wish to do us harm to just start doing mass

802
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: cyber attacks, advanced cyber attacks, hacking, all of that. It's

803
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:59,480
Speaker 1: such a sad moment that nobody learned from what happened

804
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: with social media in the odds. Yeah, I'm going back

805
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: to Vermont. Yeah that smart. Don't blame me. What's your point? Today? Today,

806
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 1: the Senate is holding a hearing on railway safety as

807
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushes for a bill intended

808
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: to prevent future derailments like the one in East Palestine, Ohio.

809
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:21,840
Speaker 1: To put it bluntly, you'd have to be an industry

810
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 1: expert to thoroughly evaluate the merits of this legislation. It's

811
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 1: deep in the weeds. Such experts are, of course few

812
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: and far between in the news media and even in Congress,

813
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:35,799
Speaker 1: which is where lobbyists and unions step in to fill

814
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: those knowledge gaps. Who do we trust to learn from

815
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 1: East Palestine and spare other communities the same fate. No

816
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:46,479
Speaker 1: rail transportation system will ever be one hundred percent safe.

817
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: Transportation of hazardous chemicals will never be without risk. We

818
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: have to do both, so we have to accept some

819
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 1: of that risk and except we can never fully eliminate it.

820
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 1: The question then, is whether the risk right now is

821
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 1: too high? If so, what would bring it down. The

822
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: industry's latest data finds that for all railroads, the derailment

823
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:07,920
Speaker 1: rate is down thirty one percent since two thousand, but

824
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: despite that longer term positive trend, it was up by

825
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 1: five percent year over a year. A fact sheet being

826
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 1: circulated by Senator jd Vance's office contends quote derailments in

827
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: the United States are much more common than in other countries,

828
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 1: and they specifically cite numbers from the EU and from Japan.

829
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: So while we aren't in an urgent state of national emergency,

830
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,600
Speaker 1: there is probably more that we can do. Determining whether

831
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 1: government regulations would harm or hurt those efforts becomes important here.

832
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: The fact sheet being circulated by Vance's office makes reasonable

833
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 1: arguments for each of the provisions in the bill, and

834
00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 1: makes reasonable rebuttals to legitimate points of contention. I uploaded

835
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 1: the full thing over at the Federalists. You can read

836
00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 1: it there. Again, I'm not an industry expert, nor is Vance,

837
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 1: nor are the editors of National Review who came out

838
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 1: against the bill this week. But where the bill empowers

839
00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:59,239
Speaker 1: the Department of Transportation, the measures appear very modest and

840
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:03,759
Speaker 1: within the real, realistic, if imperfect, scope of federal oversight. Here,

841
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 1: the bill's two person crew requirement is eminently reasonable for

842
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 1: obvious reasons, be it mitigation in East Palestine or prevention

843
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: in other cases. If, as National Review claims, this will

844
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 1: stall a transition to safer automated mechanisms, the industry is

845
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 1: welcome to explain why it can't pay for those to

846
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: ensure the interim period is properly staffed. Maybe they could

847
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,239
Speaker 1: pause some stock buybacks. It's true also, as NR says,

848
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:30,000
Speaker 1: should the bill pass, the railroads would adjust their behavior

849
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 1: to any new regulatory burden. Unquote. The magazine claims that

850
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 1: could come at the cost of safety by pushing hazardous

851
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:40,879
Speaker 1: chemicals into trucks. But if the regulatory burden is reasonable,

852
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 1: that's not the faults of the government. It's the faults

853
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 1: of an industry being subsidized to the tune of billions

854
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:49,759
Speaker 1: for putting profit over people. There's a lot going on

855
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 1: when it comes to the economics of America's railroads. The

856
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 1: right would correctly point out subsidies abound, distorting the true

857
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 1: market forces at play. The left would correctly point out

858
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:03,480
Speaker 1: the cap of shipper problem that essentially gives companies monopoly power.

859
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:06,920
Speaker 1: Vance himself has actually noted both of those problems. Others

860
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:09,480
Speaker 1: might argue that this is an industry that needs both

861
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:12,720
Speaker 1: subsidies and some form of monopolies in order to function

862
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 1: at all. Here's where the rubber meets the road. In

863
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: a report on the NTSB's February findings that an overheated

864
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 1: wheelbarer bearing likely cause the derailment. NPR noted quote. The

865
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 1: spacing of hotbox detectors and the temperatures at which they

866
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 1: trigger alarms are not currently regulated by federal law. Officials

867
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:34,920
Speaker 1: say Norfolk Southern and its crew appear to have actually

868
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: followed all of the regulations. So both the market and

869
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:42,719
Speaker 1: the government failed here. Norfolk Southern has no incentive to

870
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: get months of bad PR, and the government has no

871
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: incentive to take a baiting from the public. But if

872
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,920
Speaker 1: an industry we all agree has safety implications that demand

873
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 1: some government oversight, needs better oversight if it's cutting staff

874
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 1: to maximize profits over safety. This is not a lemonade stand.

875
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:05,879
Speaker 1: It's a subsidized industry that handles life and death situations

876
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:09,760
Speaker 1: on a daily basis across the entire country. Hot boxes

877
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: and crew mandates aren't going to kill its efficiency. It

878
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 1: boggles the mind that establishment Republicans trust the business executives

879
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 1: who spent years ratcheting up cultural tensions by devoting vast

880
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:26,359
Speaker 1: resources to stupid virtue signals like Norfolk Southern or even

881
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley Bank. At best, they're surprisingly incompetent, and that's

882
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: just at best. With PSR and the labor negotiations lost fall.

883
00:49:34,719 --> 00:49:37,839
Speaker 1: The industry has already shown in interests in profits over

884
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:41,840
Speaker 1: people and over safety. So earlier this month, Republican Senator

885
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 1: John Thunstead of the bill. We'll take a look at

886
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 1: what's being proposed, but an immediate, quick response heavy on

887
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:51,480
Speaker 1: regulation needs to be thoughtful and targeted. Tragedies are often

888
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:55,279
Speaker 1: exploited by special interests. They abuse the emotions and anger

889
00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 1: of the public to ram through bad legislation, creating a

890
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 1: false sense of Catharsis also induce calls for action, for

891
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: lawmakers to do something anything to help. Again, this web

892
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 1: placed anger can create unintended consequences. Adding new layers of

893
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 1: government control is sometimes easy because big business has money

894
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 1: lobbying money to craft the regulation in their favor, especially

895
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 1: over smaller competitors. For more on that, I really recommend

896
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 1: him Carney's book The Big Ripoff. But none of this

897
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:26,040
Speaker 1: means government can't do better where oversight is actually warranted,

898
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,760
Speaker 1: where it actually has a duty to check big business.

899
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 1: The Vance bill might not be perfect right now. Even

900
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,880
Speaker 1: great bills aren't perfect when they're introduced, but thoon standard

901
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 1: of thoughtful and targeted measures appears to be much more

902
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: accurate as a description of this case than the industry's claims. Otherwise. Hey,

903
00:50:48,040 --> 00:50:49,600
Speaker 1: we're going to pick up where we left off last

904
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 1: week exploring the origin of the Ebola outbreak in twenty fourteen.

905
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 1: We're going to be joined by two authors of a

906
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:59,319
Speaker 1: fascinating article published in Independent Scized News, if we can

907
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:02,040
Speaker 1: put that up there, and so, this is Jonathan Latham.

908
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:05,280
Speaker 1: He's the editor of Independent Science News and he's executive

909
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:10,000
Speaker 1: director of the Bioscience Resource Project. The article was co

910
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: authored by Sam Husseini, who is a journalist on Substack

911
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:16,240
Speaker 1: and elsewhere and was the co author of this story.

912
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:21,360
Speaker 1: Happy to welcome them both to Counterpoints today. Sam, doctor Latham,

913
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:23,719
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. So. I

914
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:26,759
Speaker 1: wanted to start out as we did last week by

915
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:31,880
Speaker 1: playing a clip from a podcast that included virologist Christian

916
00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:35,279
Speaker 1: Anderson attempting to kind of debunk a conspiracy theory, but

917
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:39,439
Speaker 1: in the process making a fascinating admission. If we could

918
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:43,360
Speaker 1: roll that. The problem is that people see these coincidences.

919
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:45,719
Speaker 1: One of the new ones is the Ebola lab leak,

920
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 1: which also is being blamed on us because we have

921
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:52,440
Speaker 1: been studying Ebola in Canaman Sierra Leone and Lo and behold,

922
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:57,440
Speaker 1: Ebola emerged just a few miles from there in twenty fourteen,

923
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:01,799
Speaker 1: right obviously across the border Guinea, but it's maybe one

924
00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:05,239
Speaker 1: hundred miles or so away. And people then put that

925
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:07,840
Speaker 1: together and saying, oh, so that Ebola must have been

926
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: reliably too, And it was Robert Gary and Christian Anderson again.

927
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:14,880
Speaker 1: And the reason why these names keep coming up, and

928
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:17,759
Speaker 1: the reason why we get grant money to study infectious

929
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 1: diseases is because we study infectious diseases and have done

930
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:24,320
Speaker 1: so for many, many decades. And that's why the names

931
00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 1: keep coming up again. Right, It's not because there's some

932
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: major conspiracy theory here where all of us have been

933
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:34,280
Speaker 1: sort of fiddling with the fields well prior to the pandemic,

934
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:37,440
Speaker 1: and so sam. The mainstream media's initial story of the

935
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:41,799
Speaker 1: outbreak of Ebola was that in Guinea, a two year

936
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: old child was playing with bats, and then several months

937
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:48,320
Speaker 1: later you wound up with an ebola outbreak. What to

938
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 1: you was so important from that interview that doctor Anderson gave, Well,

939
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:56,719
Speaker 1: my suspicions predated his recent statements of obviously, but it's

940
00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 1: remarkable that he would be saying this. At this point,

941
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:02,440
Speaker 1: they have been denying that they were working on Ebola

942
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 1: this entire time. In their prior statements, Gary wrote an

943
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:12,160
Speaker 1: article his co partner as head of the Viral Hemorrhagic

944
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 1: Fever Consortium. These are the labs in West Africa that

945
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:18,040
Speaker 1: Africans claimed might have been the source of the twenty

946
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: fourteen Ebola outbreak. He recently denied it in an article.

947
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 1: So for Anderson now to be seeming to admit in

948
00:53:25,600 --> 00:53:28,080
Speaker 1: a very interesting and curious way that they were in

949
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:32,080
Speaker 1: fact working on Ebola is I think potentially an incredibly

950
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 1: significant development. But the case against their narrative that it

951
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 1: effectively pinning this on a to He wasn't even two

952
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,879
Speaker 1: years old. He was eighteen minutes old. This was over

953
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:49,640
Speaker 1: a thousand miles away from prior Ebola outbreaks. In prior

954
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:52,279
Speaker 1: Ebola outbreaks, there was always a die off of the

955
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:57,319
Speaker 1: local mammalian species. There was no such dieoff of local

956
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:01,319
Speaker 1: mammalian species. They even acknowledged that Fabian Lenders, who wrote

957
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:03,920
Speaker 1: the sort of what we would call the cover story,

958
00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:07,560
Speaker 1: and who was also part of the Huhan Institute of

959
00:54:07,640 --> 00:54:15,719
Speaker 1: Neurology investigation by the World Health organization. They acknowledged in

960
00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 1: their article that there were no bats that they could

961
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:23,720
Speaker 1: find in the village that they claim where the outbreak started,

962
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 1: and they also acknowledged that there was no die off

963
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:30,800
Speaker 1: of the mammalian species. So there are an incredible number

964
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 1: of holes in their dominant narrative. And the closer you

965
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:41,240
Speaker 1: look at this, the more it points to a concerted

966
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:47,200
Speaker 1: effort to effectively frame Guinea. Is this happened in you know,

967
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:51,520
Speaker 1: three countries, and there's a whole series of patterns in

968
00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:53,560
Speaker 1: which they seem to have tried to pin this on

969
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 1: Guinea just over the border from Sarah Leone to get

970
00:54:56,800 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: it away from where the US labs were. Right, and

971
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 1: doctor Latham want to bring you in here, what did

972
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:05,919
Speaker 1: What does the evidence as far as we know say

973
00:55:06,040 --> 00:55:13,279
Speaker 1: about the where the most likely origin was, Well, I mean,

974
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:18,080
Speaker 1: the balance of evidence I would say favors Guinea, but

975
00:55:18,280 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 1: there are some open questions about the provenance of some

976
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:26,799
Speaker 1: of the samples that were taken. So, for example, during

977
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:31,760
Speaker 1: the outbreak at the very beginning, MSF doctors without Borders

978
00:55:32,239 --> 00:55:35,879
Speaker 1: alleged that the initial they were the people who identified

979
00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:39,799
Speaker 1: the initial the very first confirmed cases. But what they

980
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:43,560
Speaker 1: argued was that those confirmed cases were in fact coming

981
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:47,279
Speaker 1: from across the border in Sierra Leone. And if you

982
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:51,040
Speaker 1: look at the phylogenetic research that has been used to

983
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 1: pin the outbreak on Guinea, what you see is that

984
00:55:55,920 --> 00:55:58,840
Speaker 1: some of the very earliest cases that are pinned on

985
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:03,000
Speaker 1: Guinea are probably actually from an outbreak in Sierra Leone.

986
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:07,680
Speaker 1: And so if you if you undo that misattribution as

987
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:10,800
Speaker 1: it were, then what you come up with is almost

988
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:14,800
Speaker 1: certainly an origin in Sierra Leone. And did it start

989
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 1: earlier than has been publicly claimed the epidemic that is,

990
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:22,279
Speaker 1: or do we have evidence of that at this point? Well,

991
00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:27,320
Speaker 1: the official start of the outbreak is the first diagnosed

992
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:32,520
Speaker 1: cases on March seventeenth, but what the people in Sierra

993
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:38,680
Speaker 1: Leoned identified was a start on May twenty fifth, so

994
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 1: this is two months later, and they so they they

995
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:48,160
Speaker 1: for what they found when they first started identifying cases

996
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:52,480
Speaker 1: is that these cases were many mutations different from each other,

997
00:56:52,920 --> 00:56:55,560
Speaker 1: which implies that there have been an outbreak in Sierra

998
00:56:55,719 --> 00:56:59,160
Speaker 1: Leoned long before, But we don't know if there was

999
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:03,880
Speaker 1: an outbreak in Guinea long before that. That is the

1000
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:08,080
Speaker 1: allegation of fabian Lean Dirts and the paper that that

1001
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:12,319
Speaker 1: essentially found nothing in Guinea when they went to look

1002
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:16,400
Speaker 1: at the purported outbreak site. So the claim is, the

1003
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:20,360
Speaker 1: claim of Leanders, is that the outbreak started in December

1004
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:25,640
Speaker 1: with the death of this young child. But there is

1005
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: essentially no evidence for that. So the children, the child

1006
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:33,000
Speaker 1: doesn't have a confirmed diagnosis, none of his contacts has

1007
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:37,200
Speaker 1: a confirmed diagnosis. There is no confirmed diagnosis for almost

1008
00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:41,360
Speaker 1: three months after that. So so for the scientific community

1009
00:57:41,480 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: to allege that that is the first date of the

1010
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:50,280
Speaker 1: outbreak is frankly ridiculous. What else? What else could that

1011
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:53,360
Speaker 1: child have died of? Like they say it was a bowler,

1012
00:57:53,600 --> 00:57:55,520
Speaker 1: what else could it have been? His father thinks that

1013
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 1: he died of malaria, and you know that his father

1014
00:57:58,640 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 1: didn't get anything. The healthcare workers in the village didn't

1015
00:58:02,080 --> 00:58:05,240
Speaker 1: get anything. His mother did also die, but that was

1016
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:08,360
Speaker 1: apparently potentially for treatment that she got from and Bull.

1017
00:58:08,480 --> 00:58:10,640
Speaker 1: She was pregnant at the time, so she was in

1018
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:13,760
Speaker 1: a vulnerable, particularly vulnerable state. I don't know if Jonathan

1019
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:17,600
Speaker 1: could have more ideas on that. Yeah, Johnathan, do you

1020
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:21,520
Speaker 1: have go ahead? No? I mean a great deal to

1021
00:58:21,600 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 1: add except that there are some suggestions that she might

1022
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:27,400
Speaker 1: have had cholera too, but at the time there was

1023
00:58:27,560 --> 00:58:31,440
Speaker 1: no suggestion that she had a Bola virus. And obviously,

1024
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:35,080
Speaker 1: you know people who had miscarriages. You know, viral hemorrhagic

1025
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:40,880
Speaker 1: fevers are diseases associated with loss of blood, but obviously

1026
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:44,040
Speaker 1: so are miscarriages, and so she died along with her child.

1027
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:47,160
Speaker 1: And so so there's no real reason to think, so

1028
00:58:47,280 --> 00:58:50,160
Speaker 1: far as I can see that, to think that she

1029
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:54,200
Speaker 1: had a Bola, because it can be misdiagnosed so easily.

1030
00:58:54,280 --> 00:58:57,640
Speaker 1: I mean, basically, the only way that anybody considers that

1031
00:58:57,760 --> 00:59:01,520
Speaker 1: you can confidently diagnose the bola is with a lab test,

1032
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 1: and no lab tests were done. And tell the middle

1033
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:08,280
Speaker 1: of mind, and why, Sam, what do we know about

1034
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:11,080
Speaker 1: this lab that was in SI early on? And why

1035
00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 1: would there be this two month period in which it

1036
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:17,520
Speaker 1: seems as if a bowl is circulating but it's not

1037
00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:21,520
Speaker 1: getting picked up. I'll let Jonathan speak to the second point.

1038
00:59:22,120 --> 00:59:26,400
Speaker 1: But this lab is headed by Robert Gary and Christian Andersen.

1039
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:29,160
Speaker 1: Those names might ring about with people because they are

1040
00:59:29,240 --> 00:59:33,960
Speaker 1: the authors the two primary authors of the Proximal Origins paper,

1041
00:59:34,120 --> 00:59:36,680
Speaker 1: which came out in the spring of twenty twenty and

1042
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:43,680
Speaker 1: asserted that COVID could not be a laboratory construct. It's

1043
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:47,800
Speaker 1: very difficult to overstate the importance of this article. It

1044
00:59:48,040 --> 00:59:51,480
Speaker 1: really set the tone for the dominant mainstream media coverage

1045
00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:53,920
Speaker 1: of COVID that it couldn't possibly come out of a lab,

1046
00:59:53,960 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 1: and you were a nut job to think that it

1047
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: could possibly come out of a lab. So they had

1048
00:59:58,400 --> 01:00:02,720
Speaker 1: a massive confidence of interest to dismiss the possibility of

1049
01:00:02,800 --> 01:00:05,160
Speaker 1: lab origin, because the next question would be if the

1050
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:08,720
Speaker 1: if the global public. Imagine if the global public understood

1051
01:00:09,120 --> 01:00:13,320
Speaker 1: in early twenty twenty that this plague ravaging through the

1052
01:00:13,440 --> 01:00:15,640
Speaker 1: world could have come out of a lab, one of

1053
01:00:15,680 --> 01:00:18,920
Speaker 1: the next major questions would have been what about prior outbreaks?

1054
01:00:19,320 --> 01:00:20,840
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, you know, I asked

1055
01:00:20,960 --> 01:00:24,520
Speaker 1: in February of twenty twenty the CDC if it could

1056
01:00:24,520 --> 01:00:26,080
Speaker 1: have come out of if COVID could have come out

1057
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:29,600
Speaker 1: of a lab, and their response was a disingenuous And

1058
01:00:29,640 --> 01:00:32,400
Speaker 1: then when I followed up and I pushed, they said, well,

1059
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:34,400
Speaker 1: we got to be careful about what kind of information

1060
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:37,920
Speaker 1: we put out here, because remember what happened with the

1061
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:41,560
Speaker 1: ebola in twenty fourteen, and we had to dismiss the

1062
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:44,560
Speaker 1: possibility of the lab origin then in order to have

1063
01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:47,479
Speaker 1: people deal with the disease, which was a very weird

1064
01:00:47,600 --> 01:00:54,200
Speaker 1: way to put it. So that's a major thing that

1065
01:00:54,280 --> 01:00:57,000
Speaker 1: we have to keep in mind. There are all kinds

1066
01:00:57,040 --> 01:00:59,800
Speaker 1: of US institutions that are involved with this viral Hemorrhagic

1067
01:00:59,880 --> 01:01:06,200
Speaker 1: vi Consortium, and the the work done there was increasingly

1068
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:10,320
Speaker 1: done on dangerous viruses, particularly after people might remember the

1069
01:01:10,360 --> 01:01:13,920
Speaker 1: anthrax attacks of two thousand and two. Turn O ba

1070
01:01:14,120 --> 01:01:18,440
Speaker 1: emphasizes this uh Serallionian journalists that there was a spike

1071
01:01:18,600 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 1: in that activity and massive funding for work on dangerous

1072
01:01:23,760 --> 01:01:28,760
Speaker 1: viruses and pathogens during that period. So we know that

1073
01:01:28,880 --> 01:01:35,360
Speaker 1: it was working on deadly pathogens, and we know that

1074
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:39,640
Speaker 1: that they had safety issues. There were statements by some

1075
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:43,160
Speaker 1: of the scientists there saying, you know, well, we can

1076
01:01:43,240 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: get so much work done here than we could in

1077
01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:51,080
Speaker 1: the United States because the safety concerns are not onerous

1078
01:01:51,240 --> 01:01:53,480
Speaker 1: from their point of view. They don't have to be

1079
01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:55,600
Speaker 1: in a BSL four lab and be in a you know,

1080
01:01:55,760 --> 01:01:58,600
Speaker 1: spacesuit kind of thing, So from their point of view,

1081
01:01:58,640 --> 01:02:01,120
Speaker 1: it's so much easier to do this kind of dangerous

1082
01:02:01,720 --> 01:02:04,439
Speaker 1: not not cost free. Yet Jonathan, to that second point,

1083
01:02:05,560 --> 01:02:08,200
Speaker 1: how would you have a two month outbreak in in

1084
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:11,120
Speaker 1: Sierra Leone, that that doesn't get picked up and what

1085
01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:16,160
Speaker 1: did what did ms What was MSF's response to that. Well,

1086
01:02:16,400 --> 01:02:20,640
Speaker 1: the the similar answer to the first part is that, uh,

1087
01:02:20,960 --> 01:02:23,920
Speaker 1: you know, the beginning of an outbreak, there are not

1088
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:29,080
Speaker 1: very many cases typically, so an abola doesn't transmit that easily,

1089
01:02:29,720 --> 01:02:33,200
Speaker 1: so so it would be possible to miss it. In

1090
01:02:33,360 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: between that and the problems with diagnosing a bola, which

1091
01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: especially in its early stages, looks like many other illnesses

1092
01:02:42,040 --> 01:02:44,760
Speaker 1: like we've seen, like we've heard about malaria of cholera,

1093
01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:47,920
Speaker 1: but they also this is an area of the of

1094
01:02:48,120 --> 01:02:51,160
Speaker 1: West Africa that that is uh in which less of

1095
01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 1: fever is endemic, So that's another disease that can be

1096
01:02:54,400 --> 01:03:00,560
Speaker 1: uh miss misattributed in this case. So so you have

1097
01:03:00,760 --> 01:03:06,920
Speaker 1: all these possible confusions and what ms F discovered when

1098
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:10,040
Speaker 1: they went to the lab and also the World Health organizations,

1099
01:03:10,120 --> 01:03:13,400
Speaker 1: a series of organizations went to the lab after the

1100
01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:17,479
Speaker 1: outbreak started. This is the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium Lab

1101
01:03:17,560 --> 01:03:20,720
Speaker 1: in Canama in Sierra Leone, and they went there and

1102
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:25,520
Speaker 1: they discovered all kinds of biosecurity breaches. There were allegations

1103
01:03:25,560 --> 01:03:28,200
Speaker 1: of needles all over the floor, that they didn't have

1104
01:03:28,480 --> 01:03:34,720
Speaker 1: UV decontamination procedures in place, and that samples were being

1105
01:03:34,880 --> 01:03:37,600
Speaker 1: you know, reagents were being reused and so forth. And

1106
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:40,360
Speaker 1: we know that there was confusions. There was a group,

1107
01:03:41,080 --> 01:03:45,160
Speaker 1: there's a company called Metabiota, and there's a viral hemorrhagic

1108
01:03:45,240 --> 01:03:49,120
Speaker 1: fever consortium that were basically operating the same premises but

1109
01:03:49,360 --> 01:03:52,440
Speaker 1: essentially ended up in conflict with each other. And this

1110
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:57,120
Speaker 1: conflict seems to have started in confusion. But there's also

1111
01:03:57,280 --> 01:04:01,000
Speaker 1: the possibility that, exactly like COVID, that there is a

1112
01:04:01,080 --> 01:04:04,720
Speaker 1: great benefit to anybody who leaks a lab to confuse

1113
01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:08,480
Speaker 1: the data around the origins, because then it becomes impossible

1114
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:12,960
Speaker 1: to re establish what actually where it change up the

1115
01:04:13,120 --> 01:04:17,200
Speaker 1: contact chains and the dates of diagnoses and so far

1116
01:04:17,320 --> 01:04:23,360
Speaker 1: of the people who first get beyond it. And I

1117
01:04:23,440 --> 01:04:28,160
Speaker 1: want to move to the next the COVID origin discussion next,

1118
01:04:28,200 --> 01:04:30,200
Speaker 1: but real quickly, where should people go if they want

1119
01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:33,440
Speaker 1: to learn more about this? Well, our main article is

1120
01:04:33,480 --> 01:04:37,600
Speaker 1: on Independent Science News, which Jonathan is the editor of.

1121
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:40,280
Speaker 1: I've been doing a series of smaller follow ups on

1122
01:04:40,440 --> 01:04:44,440
Speaker 1: my substack whoseaynt substack dot com just to put a

1123
01:04:44,520 --> 01:04:47,760
Speaker 1: fine point on what Jonathan said. When doctors out Orders

1124
01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:51,320
Speaker 1: finally got to Seria Leone, they talked about a quote

1125
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:55,560
Speaker 1: unquote hidden epidemic that's in one of the reports they

1126
01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:59,000
Speaker 1: published correct time at the time because they were startled

1127
01:04:59,040 --> 01:05:01,480
Speaker 1: by the number of case there, and they attributed this

1128
01:05:01,640 --> 01:05:06,040
Speaker 1: to bungling by Metabiota, which is people might realize has

1129
01:05:06,080 --> 01:05:11,720
Speaker 1: been in the news in other contexts. But that's one

1130
01:05:11,800 --> 01:05:14,120
Speaker 1: interpretation that it could have been bungling. It could also

1131
01:05:14,360 --> 01:05:17,280
Speaker 1: have been part of a concerted effort to draw attention

1132
01:05:17,400 --> 01:05:21,120
Speaker 1: away from Sara Leone and effectively frame Guinea undercount the

1133
01:05:21,200 --> 01:05:25,200
Speaker 1: cases in Sarah Leone away where the US labs are,

1134
01:05:25,800 --> 01:05:28,160
Speaker 1: so that you can say the outbreak started in Guinea

1135
01:05:28,400 --> 01:05:31,280
Speaker 1: and pinned all on this toddler in an African advantage.

1136
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:34,240
Speaker 1: And so moving on to the latest news on the

1137
01:05:34,440 --> 01:05:36,600
Speaker 1: COVID origin as we can put up this I think

1138
01:05:36,920 --> 01:05:42,200
Speaker 1: R six. This is the pre print that kicked off

1139
01:05:44,040 --> 01:05:46,560
Speaker 1: so much news coverage over the past week, beginning in

1140
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:49,680
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, which are based on some interviews actually with

1141
01:05:49,800 --> 01:05:53,880
Speaker 1: Christian Anderson. Here we were just speaking of Robert Gary

1142
01:05:54,200 --> 01:05:57,520
Speaker 1: and others. Those are authors. Now this preprint The New

1143
01:05:57,600 --> 01:06:02,480
Speaker 1: York Times did two major pieces off of this publicist.

1144
01:06:04,800 --> 01:06:06,160
Speaker 1: But you know, that's the thing. I don't think they

1145
01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:10,400
Speaker 1: have publicists. I think they just have direct It's the

1146
01:06:10,520 --> 01:06:12,960
Speaker 1: credibility is that you're totally right. I'm kidding. So just

1147
01:06:13,040 --> 01:06:16,560
Speaker 1: swallow it, you know. And so we're still joined by

1148
01:06:17,080 --> 01:06:21,680
Speaker 1: doctor Jonathan Latham, virologist and the publisher editor of Independent

1149
01:06:21,720 --> 01:06:25,120
Speaker 1: Science News, Sam Husseini, reporter who writes on the substack.

1150
01:06:25,200 --> 01:06:28,080
Speaker 1: Husseini does substack dot com. Thank you again, guys for

1151
01:06:28,520 --> 01:06:31,280
Speaker 1: joining us, And so I'll start with you, doctor Latham.

1152
01:06:31,600 --> 01:06:35,040
Speaker 1: So now now that we've had this entire news cycle,

1153
01:06:35,800 --> 01:06:39,200
Speaker 1: as the cycle dies down, now we get the preprint, which,

1154
01:06:39,400 --> 01:06:44,080
Speaker 1: to be clear for non scientists including myself, is not

1155
01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:47,840
Speaker 1: a peer reviewed paper, but we but at least it

1156
01:06:47,960 --> 01:06:50,480
Speaker 1: is something that is written down on paper. And so

1157
01:06:50,800 --> 01:06:54,800
Speaker 1: as you've digested this preprint, how does it match up

1158
01:06:55,240 --> 01:06:58,040
Speaker 1: with the New York Times and Atlantic headlines that were

1159
01:06:58,120 --> 01:07:02,400
Speaker 1: so definitive in saying we can now link the origins

1160
01:07:02,440 --> 01:07:06,400
Speaker 1: of COVID to a raccoon dog in the Wuhan market.

1161
01:07:07,880 --> 01:07:10,000
Speaker 1: So I mean, right now what we get to see

1162
01:07:10,160 --> 01:07:14,200
Speaker 1: is how weak the underlying data is, right, and the

1163
01:07:14,320 --> 01:07:18,880
Speaker 1: fundamental the fundamental issue is that they find raccoon dog DNA,

1164
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:22,720
Speaker 1: but they also find many other kinds of DNA. None

1165
01:07:22,800 --> 01:07:26,840
Speaker 1: of these, none of the raccoon dog DNA demonstrates that

1166
01:07:27,520 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 1: the raccoon dog was infected with a virus. This is

1167
01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:35,520
Speaker 1: an animal market where raccoon dogs are for sale, so

1168
01:07:36,120 --> 01:07:40,040
Speaker 1: finding raccoon dog DNA is a little bit unsurprising. But

1169
01:07:40,160 --> 01:07:43,320
Speaker 1: that the you know, what the data shows is that

1170
01:07:43,480 --> 01:07:50,200
Speaker 1: stars CoV two RNA nuclear tide sequences were basically all

1171
01:07:50,280 --> 01:07:53,880
Speaker 1: over the market. But the fundamental point for me is

1172
01:07:53,960 --> 01:07:56,200
Speaker 1: that the dating of this is all wrong. Right. We

1173
01:07:56,480 --> 01:08:01,840
Speaker 1: know that the that the outbreak almost certainly started in

1174
01:08:02,000 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 1: September or October, and maybe even earlier than that. That

1175
01:08:05,360 --> 01:08:09,160
Speaker 1: is approximately the consensus. We know that there were people

1176
01:08:09,720 --> 01:08:12,520
Speaker 1: sick in Italy, for example, there are samples from Italy

1177
01:08:12,680 --> 01:08:17,519
Speaker 1: and November, so we know that the outbreak started months

1178
01:08:17,560 --> 01:08:21,600
Speaker 1: before these samples were taken. Therefore, these samples are irrelevant

1179
01:08:21,720 --> 01:08:24,680
Speaker 1: to the beginning of the outbreak. And I would say

1180
01:08:24,720 --> 01:08:28,320
Speaker 1: that the huan Im market, there's no evidence even that

1181
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:31,200
Speaker 1: the huen Im market was a super spreader event. It

1182
01:08:31,280 --> 01:08:34,760
Speaker 1: may simply have been representative of Wuhan city at that time.

1183
01:08:35,120 --> 01:08:37,719
Speaker 1: When there were thousands of cases of COVID in the city.

1184
01:08:38,640 --> 01:08:44,000
Speaker 1: And it's really obviously hard for a journalist in January, February,

1185
01:08:44,160 --> 01:08:47,320
Speaker 1: March of twenty twenty to know what questions to ask,

1186
01:08:47,439 --> 01:08:49,960
Speaker 1: to know to ask that questions about the samples and

1187
01:08:50,040 --> 01:08:53,320
Speaker 1: the timing and all of that. That doesn't excuse them

1188
01:08:53,400 --> 01:08:56,160
Speaker 1: not asking those questions. And Sam, I'll toss this question

1189
01:08:56,280 --> 01:08:58,280
Speaker 1: to you. You may both have thoughts on it, whether

1190
01:08:58,280 --> 01:09:02,560
Speaker 1: we're talking about ebola or cold The publicis thing is

1191
01:09:02,640 --> 01:09:05,479
Speaker 1: kind of funny because it's funny, but it's sad because

1192
01:09:05,479 --> 01:09:09,000
Speaker 1: it's so true that when people come with a preprint,

1193
01:09:09,240 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: put it in the media and give it their spin,

1194
01:09:12,000 --> 01:09:15,920
Speaker 1: reporters are susceptible to just swallowing that spin and running

1195
01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:18,360
Speaker 1: with it. So when you look at this preprint, now,

1196
01:09:18,800 --> 01:09:21,719
Speaker 1: when you look at how the media reports on difficult

1197
01:09:22,000 --> 01:09:27,200
Speaker 1: subjects like these, what disconnect do you see between the

1198
01:09:27,320 --> 01:09:31,759
Speaker 1: inability then of the press without medical expertise to translate

1199
01:09:31,840 --> 01:09:34,280
Speaker 1: that into information the public needs. I don't think that

1200
01:09:34,400 --> 01:09:38,400
Speaker 1: the public and the press should be have this deferential

1201
01:09:38,600 --> 01:09:42,200
Speaker 1: you know, this appeal to authority. You know, science, like journalism,

1202
01:09:42,479 --> 01:09:48,000
Speaker 1: is about observing the world and using reason to draw conclusions.

1203
01:09:48,600 --> 01:09:51,519
Speaker 1: It's a fairly simple proposition to say there's a lab

1204
01:09:51,640 --> 01:09:54,439
Speaker 1: that nearby, could that have something to do with it?

1205
01:09:54,960 --> 01:09:57,920
Speaker 1: And then when their response is oh, people thought the

1206
01:09:58,000 --> 01:10:00,160
Speaker 1: same thing when this other outbreak happened, when they're a

1207
01:10:00,360 --> 01:10:05,080
Speaker 1: lab nearby, the logical conclusion would be okay, so you're

1208
01:10:05,120 --> 01:10:10,000
Speaker 1: telling you there's another case, So maybe that's like that.

1209
01:10:11,040 --> 01:10:13,680
Speaker 1: That would be the reasonable way to look at it.

1210
01:10:13,800 --> 01:10:18,920
Speaker 1: But this establishment scientific community, and you know, the sort

1211
01:10:18,960 --> 01:10:21,839
Speaker 1: of John Stewart line that somehow science is the problem,

1212
01:10:21,920 --> 01:10:25,080
Speaker 1: that curiosity will kill us all. That's that's wrong too,

1213
01:10:25,200 --> 01:10:27,800
Speaker 1: because as I've looked at, for example, Peter Dazac, who

1214
01:10:27,880 --> 01:10:34,639
Speaker 1: funded the Institute of Virology dangerous lab work, the funding

1215
01:10:34,760 --> 01:10:37,599
Speaker 1: base for this is largely from the Pentagon and from

1216
01:10:37,760 --> 01:10:43,400
Speaker 1: USAI t This militarized view, you know, way of looking

1217
01:10:43,479 --> 01:10:47,439
Speaker 1: at things has perverted science. And you had scientists speaking

1218
01:10:47,560 --> 01:10:50,840
Speaker 1: up about this. I mentioned the anthrax attacks earlier. In

1219
01:10:50,920 --> 01:10:52,800
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, there was a letter of five

1220
01:10:53,920 --> 01:10:58,080
Speaker 1: of seven hundred scientists saying you're perverting our field to

1221
01:10:58,520 --> 01:11:01,200
Speaker 1: the NIH saying you're putting so much money, you know,

1222
01:11:01,320 --> 01:11:04,519
Speaker 1: studying these dangerous pathogens, you're messing up with our field.

1223
01:11:04,560 --> 01:11:08,400
Speaker 1: It's no longer becoming a scientific inquiry. And it was

1224
01:11:08,439 --> 01:11:10,320
Speaker 1: Fauci who told them to put up or shut up.

1225
01:11:11,479 --> 01:11:13,639
Speaker 1: The government has told us that they want this work done.

1226
01:11:13,800 --> 01:11:15,120
Speaker 1: This is what we're going to this is what we're

1227
01:11:15,160 --> 01:11:18,839
Speaker 1: going to do. So science isn't the problem. The problem

1228
01:11:19,200 --> 01:11:23,280
Speaker 1: is a militarized view of science. And in terms of

1229
01:11:23,360 --> 01:11:27,960
Speaker 1: the recent report there this this isn't the first. There

1230
01:11:28,000 --> 01:11:33,599
Speaker 1: have been a series of these highly publicized reports saying oh, yeah,

1231
01:11:34,120 --> 01:11:37,920
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't come out of a lab. Yeah, yeah,

1232
01:11:38,560 --> 01:11:42,800
Speaker 1: a year ago. There was one in August of last year,

1233
01:11:44,320 --> 01:11:49,280
Speaker 1: right before Jeffrey Sachs flipped on this, and and the

1234
01:11:50,120 --> 01:11:51,840
Speaker 1: I think the net effect of that is just to

1235
01:11:51,960 --> 01:11:55,160
Speaker 1: confuse the public. That is, people insiders are like, these

1236
01:11:55,200 --> 01:11:58,800
Speaker 1: guys are really burning their credibility, right, But it's to

1237
01:11:59,560 --> 01:12:01,680
Speaker 1: the net of effect of it is to confuse the

1238
01:12:01,760 --> 01:12:07,720
Speaker 1: public mind so that the public doesn't demand answers. That

1239
01:12:07,840 --> 01:12:11,800
Speaker 1: the public thinks that this is you know there, you know,

1240
01:12:12,080 --> 01:12:15,200
Speaker 1: maybe it's nothing after all. Muddy the water, totally muddy

1241
01:12:15,280 --> 01:12:17,960
Speaker 1: the waters. And it really reminds me of after twentieth

1242
01:12:17,960 --> 01:12:21,439
Speaker 1: and ards, after the Iraq War, after the Iraq invasion.

1243
01:12:21,479 --> 01:12:23,760
Speaker 1: People might recall there was a series of stories where

1244
01:12:23,800 --> 01:12:27,400
Speaker 1: they claim to have found the WMDs that all ended

1245
01:12:27,479 --> 01:12:29,800
Speaker 1: up falling apart. Why did they do that? They did

1246
01:12:29,880 --> 01:12:32,920
Speaker 1: that to muddy the waters so that there was never

1247
01:12:33,120 --> 01:12:35,960
Speaker 1: a moment of reckoning. And I think that that's what

1248
01:12:36,280 --> 01:12:38,679
Speaker 1: a lot of these scientists are really hoping, that there's

1249
01:12:38,800 --> 01:12:44,000
Speaker 1: never a moment of reckoning. And doctor Latham, all of

1250
01:12:44,280 --> 01:12:46,560
Speaker 1: all of these reports that we're talking about tend to

1251
01:12:46,600 --> 01:12:49,799
Speaker 1: be driven by, roughly, it seems like half a dozen

1252
01:12:50,000 --> 01:12:54,120
Speaker 1: kind of key virologists. And I saw somebody, a biologist

1253
01:12:54,200 --> 01:12:57,599
Speaker 1: saying on social media the other day that he felt

1254
01:12:57,680 --> 01:13:00,640
Speaker 1: like he was able to engage in this converse in

1255
01:13:00,720 --> 01:13:04,240
Speaker 1: a more open and dispassionate way because he's not in

1256
01:13:04,400 --> 01:13:07,160
Speaker 1: the field of virology, and so his career would not

1257
01:13:07,320 --> 01:13:11,879
Speaker 1: be negatively impacted by his scientifically coming to a conclusion

1258
01:13:11,920 --> 01:13:14,719
Speaker 1: that is in politic within his field. So I'm curious

1259
01:13:14,760 --> 01:13:17,400
Speaker 1: for you, as a virologist, what has been the reaction

1260
01:13:17,520 --> 01:13:21,160
Speaker 1: over the last three years to you raising questions about

1261
01:13:21,840 --> 01:13:24,920
Speaker 1: what these half doesen virologists have tried to say is

1262
01:13:25,040 --> 01:13:29,600
Speaker 1: kind of settled science. You know, my challenge is a

1263
01:13:29,640 --> 01:13:33,000
Speaker 1: little bit different because I'm not in an academic department.

1264
01:13:33,080 --> 01:13:36,040
Speaker 1: So I have a PhD in virology, but now I

1265
01:13:36,200 --> 01:13:41,080
Speaker 1: run a nonprofit and so I don't have to face

1266
01:13:41,600 --> 01:13:45,880
Speaker 1: my colleagues every day and explain to them why I

1267
01:13:46,040 --> 01:13:49,800
Speaker 1: am contradicting, you know, what appears to them to be

1268
01:13:49,920 --> 01:13:52,720
Speaker 1: in their best interest. But do you see, you know,

1269
01:13:52,880 --> 01:13:55,280
Speaker 1: I can speak to some of the emails that we've seen.

1270
01:13:55,640 --> 01:13:58,840
Speaker 1: For example, there's a classic one in which some of

1271
01:13:59,040 --> 01:14:02,479
Speaker 1: Ralph Barrack's colleague, So, Ralph Barrick is at the University

1272
01:14:02,520 --> 01:14:06,120
Speaker 1: of North Carolina and collaborated with or proposed to collaborate

1273
01:14:06,200 --> 01:14:09,240
Speaker 1: at least or did, if I shouldn't say proposed, he

1274
01:14:09,360 --> 01:14:13,439
Speaker 1: actually did collaborate with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And

1275
01:14:13,640 --> 01:14:16,120
Speaker 1: they email each other and they say, our jobs is

1276
01:14:16,200 --> 01:14:19,080
Speaker 1: to keep our heads down at this point, right, And

1277
01:14:19,160 --> 01:14:22,519
Speaker 1: they because they they know how weak these stories are,

1278
01:14:22,920 --> 01:14:26,280
Speaker 1: but at the same time they cannot stand up and

1279
01:14:26,400 --> 01:14:29,519
Speaker 1: contradict them for fear of their careers. And and the

1280
01:14:29,640 --> 01:14:34,000
Speaker 1: problem is that, you know, classically scientists have tenure exactly

1281
01:14:34,120 --> 01:14:37,400
Speaker 1: so that they can speak freely, but scientists in many

1282
01:14:37,600 --> 01:14:40,800
Speaker 1: institutions don't actually have tenure these days, or feel that

1283
01:14:40,880 --> 01:14:43,799
Speaker 1: they don't have tenure or feel that they will essentially

1284
01:14:43,920 --> 01:14:48,040
Speaker 1: lose everything if they if they speak out. And it's

1285
01:14:48,120 --> 01:14:51,439
Speaker 1: clear that that the you know, the Lancet letter accusing

1286
01:14:51,520 --> 01:14:56,000
Speaker 1: people who discuss the lably of being conspiracy theorists and

1287
01:14:56,200 --> 01:14:59,479
Speaker 1: having this published in a premiere journal and have a

1288
01:14:59,680 --> 01:15:05,240
Speaker 1: whole constellation a very prestigious scientist sign this letter. It

1289
01:15:05,360 --> 01:15:08,760
Speaker 1: constitutes a threat to the scientific you know, anybody in

1290
01:15:08,840 --> 01:15:13,400
Speaker 1: the scientific community who might consider speaking out on these subjects.

1291
01:15:13,439 --> 01:15:15,439
Speaker 1: So it's been clear that that to me that there's

1292
01:15:15,479 --> 01:15:18,600
Speaker 1: been a campaign of an intimidation. But I don't have

1293
01:15:18,720 --> 01:15:21,760
Speaker 1: to worry about it because I'm independent of that ecosystem,

1294
01:15:21,840 --> 01:15:24,799
Speaker 1: if you like. You know, there's been so much conversation

1295
01:15:24,880 --> 01:15:28,200
Speaker 1: about how are accusations that people who are suppressing the

1296
01:15:28,280 --> 01:15:33,960
Speaker 1: lablque debate are protecting China. To the point you just made, Sam,

1297
01:15:34,479 --> 01:15:37,560
Speaker 1: it actually seems to me the real problem is that

1298
01:15:37,760 --> 01:15:42,200
Speaker 1: people like Anthony Fauci, who weaponized these charges of racism,

1299
01:15:42,280 --> 01:15:45,160
Speaker 1: which is really an interesting juxtaposition with what happened with

1300
01:15:45,200 --> 01:15:48,439
Speaker 1: the Obola outbreak, you know, may have been a situation

1301
01:15:48,479 --> 01:15:49,920
Speaker 1: that was the other way around, and gets to how

1302
01:15:49,960 --> 01:15:52,720
Speaker 1: cynical all of this is, but when you look at it,

1303
01:15:53,360 --> 01:15:56,160
Speaker 1: it actually seems as though what they were really protecting

1304
01:15:56,560 --> 01:15:59,360
Speaker 1: was the United States, because the source of this funding

1305
01:15:59,640 --> 01:16:02,280
Speaker 1: time and again goes down to the Pentagon, goes down

1306
01:16:02,320 --> 01:16:05,600
Speaker 1: to groups like Ecohalth Alliance that are primarily funded or

1307
01:16:05,760 --> 01:16:08,559
Speaker 1: largely funded in many cases by the United States government.

1308
01:16:08,640 --> 01:16:11,080
Speaker 1: So it's been strange to see that narrative play out

1309
01:16:11,160 --> 01:16:13,760
Speaker 1: that this is all about protecting China, when in fact,

1310
01:16:13,800 --> 01:16:16,200
Speaker 1: if anything, it seems to be protecting the US. That's

1311
01:16:16,200 --> 01:16:19,519
Speaker 1: absolutely correct. There are sort of two strands of the

1312
01:16:19,640 --> 01:16:23,240
Speaker 1: US establishment. One wants to target China and the other

1313
01:16:23,280 --> 01:16:26,280
Speaker 1: one wants to make sure that the United States government

1314
01:16:26,320 --> 01:16:30,960
Speaker 1: continues with this dangerous lab A terrible development to your

1315
01:16:31,040 --> 01:16:33,439
Speaker 1: point recently is that a large part of the public

1316
01:16:33,560 --> 01:16:37,880
Speaker 1: now thinks that Congress unanimously passed and Biden just signed

1317
01:16:39,400 --> 01:16:44,280
Speaker 1: legislation that would declassify all information regarding COVID origins. This

1318
01:16:44,479 --> 01:16:46,960
Speaker 1: claim was made on Fox, this claim was made on

1319
01:16:47,240 --> 01:16:52,479
Speaker 1: US the Washington in the Washington Post. It's been made

1320
01:16:52,520 --> 01:16:55,040
Speaker 1: by the sponsors of the legislation. It's not true. If

1321
01:16:55,080 --> 01:16:57,840
Speaker 1: you read the legislation, what it says is that we

1322
01:16:58,880 --> 01:17:02,440
Speaker 1: direct the director of notional intelligence to declassify all information

1323
01:17:04,200 --> 01:17:08,679
Speaker 1: pointing to the Wuhan Institute of Arology. So that would

1324
01:17:08,800 --> 01:17:12,439
Speaker 1: mean that they wouldn't have to declassify the information pointing

1325
01:17:12,479 --> 01:17:18,080
Speaker 1: to other institutions or potentially even information exonerating in some way,

1326
01:17:18,120 --> 01:17:21,599
Speaker 1: as unlikely as that might seem, the Wuhan Institute of Urology.

1327
01:17:22,000 --> 01:17:25,320
Speaker 1: And meanwhile the public is being told we're declassifying everything

1328
01:17:25,439 --> 01:17:28,560
Speaker 1: pertaining to this. So that is a setup for a

1329
01:17:28,760 --> 01:17:32,800
Speaker 1: very dangerous situation. The public thinks that what's being declassified

1330
01:17:32,840 --> 01:17:34,800
Speaker 1: as everything, when that's not the case at all. As

1331
01:17:34,840 --> 01:17:39,040
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, there's massive even unclassified information isn't

1332
01:17:39,040 --> 01:17:41,360
Speaker 1: being Foya the Intercept did a fair amount of this,

1333
01:17:41,600 --> 01:17:43,560
Speaker 1: A US Right to Know did a fair amount of this.

1334
01:17:43,800 --> 01:17:46,360
Speaker 1: I was just at the State Department asking them why

1335
01:17:46,439 --> 01:17:50,880
Speaker 1: they still have not responded to Foye's from almost three

1336
01:17:50,960 --> 01:17:53,920
Speaker 1: years ago by US Right to Know, a transparency group

1337
01:17:53,960 --> 01:17:58,320
Speaker 1: which had to start litigation. So there's massive, you know,

1338
01:17:59,080 --> 01:18:02,160
Speaker 1: withholding of information while the public is being led to

1339
01:18:02,240 --> 01:18:05,320
Speaker 1: believe or you know, we're opening up the books here.

1340
01:18:05,680 --> 01:18:08,519
Speaker 1: And I saw a video of Sam yelling at net

1341
01:18:08,600 --> 01:18:12,720
Speaker 1: Price to release that information. Sam. If you recognize Sam

1342
01:18:12,800 --> 01:18:14,920
Speaker 1: it's because you've seen some of his viral videos. He's

1343
01:18:14,960 --> 01:18:18,840
Speaker 1: often in the State Department briefings tangling with the State

1344
01:18:18,880 --> 01:18:23,240
Speaker 1: Department spokespeople. Yeah, it's very it's enjoyable stuff. I've told Sam,

1345
01:18:23,240 --> 01:18:25,120
Speaker 1: I'm going to start going to State Department briefings. Those

1346
01:18:25,160 --> 01:18:31,760
Speaker 1: look more fun than the White House. You know, the

1347
01:18:31,920 --> 01:18:36,080
Speaker 1: more cantankerous the hearing room, the more peaceful the outside world.

1348
01:18:36,479 --> 01:18:40,240
Speaker 1: Philosophy and doctor Latham, one last question. It was wanted

1349
01:18:40,280 --> 01:18:42,280
Speaker 1: to put to you kind of the best case that

1350
01:18:42,400 --> 01:18:45,799
Speaker 1: the market origin types make and see what your response

1351
01:18:45,840 --> 01:18:47,840
Speaker 1: to it coming out of this this preprint that we

1352
01:18:47,960 --> 01:18:51,000
Speaker 1: just put They put up a heat map in there, uh,

1353
01:18:51,360 --> 01:18:53,840
Speaker 1: you know, in their article that shows kind of an

1354
01:18:53,920 --> 01:18:57,719
Speaker 1: intense amount of kind of COVID r N a sampling

1355
01:18:57,840 --> 01:19:01,479
Speaker 1: coming from the exact same portion of the market where

1356
01:19:01,880 --> 01:19:04,920
Speaker 1: where they can show that now that these raccoon dogs

1357
01:19:05,320 --> 01:19:09,000
Speaker 1: were being sold, and they say that that's very strong

1358
01:19:09,120 --> 01:19:12,280
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence that why would you have more COVID here

1359
01:19:12,360 --> 01:19:14,640
Speaker 1: than you would have in the rest of uh of

1360
01:19:14,760 --> 01:19:17,400
Speaker 1: the market. So what what's what's your reaction to there

1361
01:19:17,720 --> 01:19:21,479
Speaker 1: that that claim that that the circumstantially that this is

1362
01:19:21,560 --> 01:19:26,000
Speaker 1: strong evidence. Well, I mean, there's two issues. One is

1363
01:19:26,080 --> 01:19:27,800
Speaker 1: that we you know, we don't know if we have

1364
01:19:27,960 --> 01:19:30,720
Speaker 1: access to all the data at this point. And the

1365
01:19:30,880 --> 01:19:34,080
Speaker 1: second issue is that I believe there's also a toilet

1366
01:19:34,280 --> 01:19:37,360
Speaker 1: at that part of the market, so people are coming

1367
01:19:37,439 --> 01:19:42,640
Speaker 1: and going and using that toilet and and basically potentially

1368
01:19:42,760 --> 01:19:46,040
Speaker 1: hanging out there maybe ALIGNE. We don't know. There's so

1369
01:19:46,200 --> 01:19:48,920
Speaker 1: much that we don't know, and and I think that,

1370
01:19:49,400 --> 01:19:54,120
Speaker 1: you know, the the basic issue comes back to the timing, right,

1371
01:19:54,200 --> 01:19:56,120
Speaker 1: I don't think we can ever get away from that.

1372
01:19:56,600 --> 01:19:59,920
Speaker 1: The timing of this uh of this of this stuf

1373
01:20:00,120 --> 01:20:02,920
Speaker 1: playing is so late in the pandemic that it really

1374
01:20:03,000 --> 01:20:07,559
Speaker 1: can make no sense to identify raccoon dog DNA. I mean,

1375
01:20:07,600 --> 01:20:10,360
Speaker 1: even if you take the best case scenario that that

1376
01:20:10,560 --> 01:20:16,360
Speaker 1: was a raccoon dog infected with with STARS two in

1377
01:20:16,520 --> 01:20:19,679
Speaker 1: that market, the likelihood is that that raccoon dog called

1378
01:20:19,720 --> 01:20:21,840
Speaker 1: it from a person and not the other way around.

1379
01:20:22,280 --> 01:20:25,559
Speaker 1: And so the evidence, the evidence that they're putting forward

1380
01:20:26,640 --> 01:20:30,400
Speaker 1: all told, is ridiculous to me. Right, it doesn't explain

1381
01:20:30,479 --> 01:20:34,920
Speaker 1: how a February infection could spark a September, October, or

1382
01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:38,559
Speaker 1: even November or December. And in fact, I'm a time

1383
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:41,080
Speaker 1: travel expert. It couldn't even spark an outbreak in January.

1384
01:20:43,080 --> 01:20:45,439
Speaker 1: The breadth of Brian's knowledge. I'm surprise. I'm going to

1385
01:20:45,479 --> 01:20:46,880
Speaker 1: call the Atlantic with that and see if I get

1386
01:20:46,880 --> 01:20:50,600
Speaker 1: an article printed. Jonathan Sam, thank you so much for

1387
01:20:50,760 --> 01:20:53,439
Speaker 1: joining us. Really really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

1388
01:20:53,640 --> 01:20:56,080
Speaker 1: Thank you. All right, that's it. That'll that'll do it

1389
01:20:56,200 --> 01:20:59,360
Speaker 1: for this Wednesday edition of Counterpoints. Thanks everybody for joining us.

1390
01:20:59,360 --> 01:21:02,200
Speaker 1: Any any final words, any final thoughts. Just always appreciate

1391
01:21:02,280 --> 01:21:04,360
Speaker 1: people tuning in. And Ryan, I'm so glad you checked

1392
01:21:04,360 --> 01:21:06,519
Speaker 1: the lead on these segments because it's important information that

1393
01:21:06,600 --> 01:21:09,519
Speaker 1: nobody's talking about. Good stuff. Thanks and thank you guys

1394
01:21:09,600 --> 01:21:11,200
Speaker 1: for the great work that you've done. Thank you so

1395
01:21:11,320 --> 01:21:12,760
Speaker 1: much trying. We'll see you soon.