Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show
Speaker 1: where we explored the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman, and right now the only story that
Speaker 1: anyone is talking about is coronavirus. In order to make
Speaker 1: sense of coronavirus, we decided to speak to Sidhart Mukherjee,
Speaker 1: who is probably the foremost interpreter in my generation of
Speaker 1: the meaning of disease and how it affects our daily lives.
Speaker 1: You probably know his book The Emperor of All Maladies
Speaker 1: of Biography of Cancer, which one the twenty eleven Pulitzer
Speaker 1: Prize for General Nonfiction. You may also know his twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen book The Gene and Intimate History. Sidhart is a
Speaker 1: voice of reason, logic, and thoughtfulness, and he's the person
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear from at exactly this moment of panic.
Speaker 1: So Sid, maybe we can start by a my just
Speaker 1: asking you, how have you been thinking medically, statistically, personally,
Speaker 1: or otherwise about the coronavirus epidemic as it gradually rolls
Speaker 1: itself out. Well, so there are several questions in that,
Speaker 1: because there's that I've been thinking different medically, personally and statistically.
Speaker 1: But let me just tell you a very broad through
Speaker 1: landscape view. Right now, we're in a moment of some
Speaker 1: degree of confusion. There are, like any epidemic, or like
Speaker 1: any virus, coronavirus has some absolutes. In other words, there's
Speaker 1: some absolute things about the virus that are determined by
Speaker 1: its biology and by the interaction of that biology with
Speaker 1: the host. There's a real number which predicts how many
Speaker 1: people you infect if you you know what the so
Speaker 1: called are not value is and what the case fatality
Speaker 1: rate is, etc. And we need to know those very
Speaker 1: much in order to understand how to develop an effective
Speaker 1: strategy against it, whether it be quarantine or you know,
Speaker 1: medicines or whatever it might be. The problem is that
Speaker 1: those numbers are included by random chance events and by
Speaker 1: underreporting of the actual virus. So what do I mean
Speaker 1: that by that? If you look at the map of
Speaker 1: the spread, there are, as you know, eighty thousand odd
Speaker 1: cases in China, there are one thousand od cases in Japan.
Speaker 1: There are x thousand odd cases you know, in neighboring countries.
Speaker 1: But then there are some obviously some peculiar anomalies. There's
Speaker 1: this big case load in the Italy of all places
Speaker 1: in northern Italy and Lombardy and other places. Why did
Speaker 1: all of a sudden it skip all of Europe and
Speaker 1: become this major infection in northern Italy. It's not as
Speaker 1: if you know Han and you know Venus our major
Speaker 1: criss crossing destinations for each other. I mean, there is
Speaker 1: tourism of course between Italy and China. But something bizarre
Speaker 1: happened there, something that we can we cannot simply explain.
Speaker 1: So we are in a situation where we have to
Speaker 1: get we have to provide two kinds of explanations. One
Speaker 1: kind of explanation is as what I call are the
Speaker 1: viral absolutes, the epidemiological absolutes, and the statistical absolutes. What
Speaker 1: is the actual number of cases that is being detected
Speaker 1: or found? And then there are these things that, you know,
Speaker 1: how do we explain it that places that shouldn't seem
Speaker 1: to have any connection are suddenly epicenters of the worst
Speaker 1: parts of the epidemic. And that's what's that's what's very
Speaker 1: confusing about it at the moment. So from what you've said,
Speaker 1: the problem is that although there are absolutes, we definitely
Speaker 1: don't know them now and we may not know them
Speaker 1: until very very late in this process. They are there somewhere,
Speaker 1: but we can't get at them. The best way to
Speaker 1: get at them is is to let time is a
Speaker 1: little bit more time pass, And I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: a lot of time. I'm talking about, you know, a
Speaker 1: process of weeks, maybe a couple of weeks, three weeks, etc.
Speaker 1: And then also to in the meantime to separate the
Speaker 1: wheat from the shaft, so to separate out the things
Speaker 1: that are including these absolutes such as random movements and underreporting,
Speaker 1: and find out what the real numbers are, so that
Speaker 1: we get some sense in a given population what these
Speaker 1: epidemological absolutes are. What is the actual case fatality rate?
Speaker 1: So if you look, for instance, in the United States,
Speaker 1: there have been five hundred odd cases and twenty two deaths,
Speaker 1: that would put the case fatality rate at four percent,
Speaker 1: give or take. If you look at another place in
Speaker 1: parts of Europe, there've been a thousand cases and three deaths,
Speaker 1: which would put it a full magnitude less than the
Speaker 1: United States. But there is there is an actual number.
Speaker 1: There's a number to be had, or even a range
Speaker 1: of numbers to be had, of what the actual case
Speaker 1: fatality rate is and the decision of the severity of
Speaker 1: the epidemic will depend on that actual case fatality rate.
Speaker 1: There is an actual number, an absolute truth as to
Speaker 1: the number of people you are likely to infect under
Speaker 1: normal circumstances in it through going through a normal day.
Speaker 1: So it will take a few days, perhaps weeks, before
Speaker 1: some of these clouds clear and we begin to get actual,
Speaker 1: real estimates of what those numbers are. We're getting there.
Speaker 1: We have a sense of what it is, I think
Speaker 1: with COVID nineteen, but it's not all there yet and
Speaker 1: we're slowly getting there. So first point then for listeners,
Speaker 1: I think, is that this number, which we're all going
Speaker 1: to have to become very familiar with, the R zero
Speaker 1: or are not as you called it, which is the
Speaker 1: number that tells us for a person who's infected and
Speaker 1: is exposed to others, how many people will become infected,
Speaker 1: is going to become clearer in the relatively near future.
Speaker 1: And of course it might depend on the genetics of
Speaker 1: a population. That's a very important point, which is to
Speaker 1: figure out whether there's some populations that are particularly susceptible,
Speaker 1: whereas some populations are particularly non susceptible. We just don't
Speaker 1: know that yet. But again, these numbers will become clear.
Speaker 1: Once they do become clearer, what will the next step
Speaker 1: really be, Because then we leave the realm of absolutes
Speaker 1: and we enter the realm of social policy response. First
Speaker 1: of all, if it turns out that the number of
Speaker 1: people that you can infect while you're an asymptomatic carrier
Speaker 1: of the virus is large, then it makes most sense
Speaker 1: to impose quarantining and rather draconian quarantining in areas that
Speaker 1: are very severely affected, as China has done. As China
Speaker 1: has done. That's correct. So if both those things are true,
Speaker 1: if you're an asymptomatic carrier and you can infect a
Speaker 1: large number of people, then quarantining and other sort of
Speaker 1: I would say broadly prophylactic measures. Work Number two is
Speaker 1: to identify the susceptible population, like who is the most
Speaker 1: susceptible population to the exposure. Remember in the early days
Speaker 1: of the HIV epidemic in the United States, those numbers
Speaker 1: came about quite slowly, but eventually wor figure out there
Speaker 1: was a susceptible population men who had sex with men,
Speaker 1: and there was a susceptible population of hemophiliacs who are
Speaker 1: receiving blood transfusions. Of course, internationally, now that's no longer true.
Speaker 1: The vast number of people infectively HIV are no longer
Speaker 1: those two populations. It's now become a completely different disease.
Speaker 1: But when you identify susceptible populations where you have a
Speaker 1: high level of transmission of risk, then you can make
Speaker 1: social policy measures which are not as blunt as the
Speaker 1: ones that are are made without those so they can
Speaker 1: be much more targeted. You target the people at risk,
Speaker 1: and you try to figure out how to move about
Speaker 1: life in business and economy without imposing the kind of
Speaker 1: very draconian quarantining efforts that we've seen in places like China.
Speaker 1: So let's try to see if even under these conditions
Speaker 1: of uncertainty, you can't guide our listeners through some kind
Speaker 1: of rational behavior. I'm not saying rational behavior once we
Speaker 1: know the numbers, but rational behavior right now under conditions
Speaker 1: of uncertainty. So let's take a really simple example. You know,
Speaker 1: I planned a month ago to bring my kids on
Speaker 1: a spring break trip to New Orleans, so it's domestic
Speaker 1: travel their kids. Very few kids have gotten this. If
Speaker 1: they have gotten it, they haven't haven't had very bad symptoms.
Speaker 1: But of course New Orleans is a tourist destination. There
Speaker 1: are lots of people there. If you click on the
Speaker 1: Louisiana State Board of Health, they say there are no
Speaker 1: reported cases in Louisiana. Now you look at the CDC website,
Speaker 1: it doesn't tell you not to engage in any domestic travel.
Speaker 1: And yet, on the other hand, you know universities are
Speaker 1: in the process as we speak, of telling everybody that
Speaker 1: they're going to run their classes remotely, even in places
Speaker 1: with very few cases of the disease reported. How irrational
Speaker 1: is it or how rational is it to say, you know,
Speaker 1: we've planned this trip, we're going to go. We're not
Speaker 1: in any great risk factor. Airplane travel is not inherently
Speaker 1: more dangerous than getting on public transportation. There's a question
Speaker 1: of particular in dissociety. There's a question of personal liability
Speaker 1: versus I would say institutional liability. So, and they're different.
Speaker 1: When you're taking your children to travel with you to
Speaker 1: New Orleans, I agree with you that the risk is
Speaker 1: small children, as you very well know, don't seem to
Speaker 1: get the severe variant of the disease. In fact, i'd
Speaker 1: be more worried about you than your children. But you're
Speaker 1: taking that on as a personal liability. Institutions, as you know,
Speaker 1: especially in this climate, political climate, and social climate, don't
Speaker 1: want to take institutional liabilities. It's a difference between personal
Speaker 1: liability and institutional liability that we're talking about. I would
Speaker 1: say the likelihood that a Stanford student will get a
Speaker 1: severe variant of COVID nineteen is extremely low. The closure
Speaker 1: of the university and conversion of into remote classes is
Speaker 1: not the biggest deal, and so in that risk benefit analysis,
Speaker 1: the institution chose to diminish their institutional liability by saying, look,
Speaker 1: you know, we have the infrastructure already to do this,
Speaker 1: and so we'll go ahead. This is in great contrast too.
Speaker 1: For instance, the New York school system. As you very
Speaker 1: well know, the New York school system is not just
Speaker 1: a school system, but it's a social network, and it's
Speaker 1: a social network that provides meals, often to under privileged
Speaker 1: and kids from very poor back grounds. If they were
Speaker 1: to stay at home, they would mean that their parents
Speaker 1: would need to take time off work, and you know,
Speaker 1: the economic costs would be staggering. So it's closing down
Speaker 1: a school system where there is no simple infrastructure for
Speaker 1: remote schooling anyway. Plus the actual school provides a safe
Speaker 1: haven for millions of kids. The question of institutional liability
Speaker 1: is completely different. So in your particular case, I think
Speaker 1: that's a personal liability that you're taking with pretty minimal risk.
Speaker 1: And then that, by the way, that might not only
Speaker 1: be about any potential downside for a mere my kids.
Speaker 1: It might be about we don't want to become carriers.
Speaker 1: And the reality is that the more people circulating, the
Speaker 1: more difficult it becomes to restrain the spread of the virus.
Speaker 1: And so it might be as a publicly interested matter,
Speaker 1: you know, one arguably ought to stay home, right, And
Speaker 1: again the question really becomes a question of looking very
Speaker 1: dispassionately at risk versus benefit. So remember that if you
Speaker 1: look through as anyone might, you can it's all accessible.
Speaker 1: There are recommendations now for virtually every country where you
Speaker 1: could travel too, in terms of completely rest travel, restrict
Speaker 1: unnecessary travel, or be free to travel. It would be
Speaker 1: helpful to have that for the United States as well,
Speaker 1: in terms of potentially every city or state that you're
Speaker 1: traveling to, because the hotspot areas are known. So in
Speaker 1: other words, someone like you should be able to without
Speaker 1: multiple clicks, go to Louisiana, go to New Orleans, figure
Speaker 1: out what the case numbers are today, and figure out
Speaker 1: what the actual risk is, and make a personal decision
Speaker 1: whether to take on that risk, whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: Can I ask a policy question that follows from that?
Speaker 1: So one interesting thing to me is that no government
Speaker 1: website has said the following, we advise you not to
Speaker 1: engage in unnecessary travel, even to places where there are
Speaker 1: no reported cases. That has not been said on any
Speaker 1: government website. And yet my guess is that many physicians
Speaker 1: would say, well, this is common sense, don't engage in
Speaker 1: unnecessary travel, even to an unaffected place. I mean, my
Speaker 1: university sent around guidelines saying if it's university business, no
Speaker 1: unnecessary travel on university business anywhere within the domestic United States.
Speaker 1: So what I'm wondering is, as a physician, do you
Speaker 1: have the sense that there is some gap between what
Speaker 1: rational medical professionals would at this point recommend and what
Speaker 1: government agencies are recommending, maybe potentially for political reasons, you know.
Speaker 1: In other words, I I don't have the faith that
Speaker 1: I would like to have that the CDC hasn't advised
Speaker 1: me not to travel domestically because it's safe to do so,
Speaker 1: as opposed to the CDC hasn't recommended that I not
Speaker 1: traveled domestley because they're worried that the President will get
Speaker 1: angry at them because he'll say there's down the economy. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the CDC is being quite rational and careful here.
Speaker 1: I don't think. I'm not sure, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that the reason that the CDC has not issued a
Speaker 1: blanket statement against travel is that it's it's it's trying
Speaker 1: to appease the president. I just think the CDC is
Speaker 1: trying to be reasonable about shutting down, you know, things
Speaker 1: that make the normal business and the normal lives of
Speaker 1: Americans livable under these circumstances. Said, one of your superpowers
Speaker 1: is not only to be a top and scientist, but
Speaker 1: also to be able to explain to us the cultural
Speaker 1: meanings of our interaction with scientific reality. When you wear
Speaker 1: that hat, your interpreter of maladies had, how do you
Speaker 1: think about what we're going through at the moment. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that in some ways this reads like a
Speaker 1: modern version of Cameos. The plague. The first set of
Speaker 1: decisions that were made in Wuhan which we now know
Speaker 1: and understand a little bit better, were made out of
Speaker 1: fear and were actually extraordinarily erroneous decisions, which in turn
Speaker 1: points to the idea that given the globalization of the world,
Speaker 1: given the nature of travel, given the nature of the
Speaker 1: interactions between people, you know, this isn't this isn't a
Speaker 1: China only problem. It soon becomes a world problem. China's
Speaker 1: suffering grave economic consequences of this now, and it will
Speaker 1: continue to suffer grave economic consequences. But those grave economic
Speaker 1: consequences were themselves the consequences of a political regime which
Speaker 1: is fundamentally unable to be free with information. So the
Speaker 1: first thing it highlights, I think in the cultural realm
Speaker 1: is that information moves at light speed around the world today,
Speaker 1: and that's a good thing in the case of an epidemic.
Speaker 1: The suppression of information, a paternalistic attitude towards a grave
Speaker 1: disease is a terrible decision to make, And in some ways,
Speaker 1: there's a kind of reckoning that's going on within China,
Speaker 1: as many people have noted, there's a reckoning that's going
Speaker 1: on whether this can continue or not, I mean, can
Speaker 1: this statewide a suppression of facts we still don't know
Speaker 1: actually what's true and what's not true. The Chinese are
Speaker 1: now telling us that they're quarantining has been extraordinarily successful, etc.
Speaker 1: Strong Men presidents who believe in confining people are very
Speaker 1: likely to believe this kind of rhetoric. Oh, you know,
Speaker 1: just throw everyone into, you know, behind blue doors and
Speaker 1: it'll all be fine. So I think what it's revealed,
Speaker 1: I think is the is how vulnerable the world is
Speaker 1: to political regimes that have really become outdated, and how
Speaker 1: quickly information can move, how restricting that information can have
Speaker 1: grave consequences for the country itself. What if it turns out, though, that,
Speaker 1: notwithstanding China's restriction on information, and notwithstanding the fact that
Speaker 1: we of course can't trust what the government is saying
Speaker 1: about data, that the rather draconian response that they did
Speaker 1: worked really well. I mean, I can imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: this is just one of the possible states of the world,
Speaker 1: but I can imagine an outcome where it actually turns
Speaker 1: out that the draconian response was very effective, and that
Speaker 1: the less draconian responses that may be undertaken by more
Speaker 1: liberal countries like the United States turn out not to
Speaker 1: contain the disease as well, absolutely, and which is again
Speaker 1: why you know a kind of help from the the
Speaker 1: CDC would be is coming and is most appreciated. I
Speaker 1: should also say that the way to do this, it's
Speaker 1: really threading a needle, and threading a needle very carefully.
Speaker 1: This is going on right now in Italy, as you
Speaker 1: very well know. I mean, the Italians are famously suspicious
Speaker 1: of their political system. They enjoy an enormous number of
Speaker 1: liberties and freedoms, and you know their police cars parked
Speaker 1: along the major highways of in northern Italy making sure
Speaker 1: that people don't move. You can't imagine the conflict between
Speaker 1: those two cultures. Giving up the people who have enjoyed
Speaker 1: historical and continue to enjoy an enormous amount of personal freedoms,
Speaker 1: forcing them not to move, not to congregate in the square,
Speaker 1: or to go to their local bar for casual drink
Speaker 1: is obviously extraordinarily disruptive. So I think we'll have to
Speaker 1: thread a very fine needle in terms of identifying hotspots,
Speaker 1: identifying the vulnerable populations, and giving reasonable advice which takes
Speaker 1: the cost and benefit risk appropriately. And it has to
Speaker 1: be done on a case by case basis. It can't
Speaker 1: be done on a blanket basis. Yet, Now, if it
Speaker 1: turns out that the you know, there's more mutations coming more,
Speaker 1: you know, if it turns out that you can get
Speaker 1: reinfected by the virus, which we don't know yet. It's unlikely,
Speaker 1: but we don't know yet, then of course all bets
Speaker 1: are off. I wanted to ask you actually about that,
Speaker 1: about the genetic side of it, wearing your geneticis had.
Speaker 1: What do you think are Maybe it's impossible to say,
Speaker 1: but the probabilities of evolution happening rather quickly in the
Speaker 1: middle of the outbreak in such a way that we
Speaker 1: get not only the question of people getting reinfected, but
Speaker 1: also potentially just different strains of COVID nineteen, you know,
Speaker 1: COVID twenty or twenty one making their way into the population. Well,
Speaker 1: it depends on what the counter pressure are, as it were,
Speaker 1: because evolution happens through various mechanisms with these viruses, with
Speaker 1: these families of viruses, and usually the sort of the
Speaker 1: big evolutionary change, as it were, which is the assortment
Speaker 1: of the segments of RNA, have already happened. Most of
Speaker 1: these viruses come from other populations, other animals and so
Speaker 1: therefore usually have not developed strategies to evade the immune
Speaker 1: system and remain or become chronic in humans. In terms
Speaker 1: of new epidemics. It was an exception with HIV, but
Speaker 1: aside from that, most of these viruses usually once you
Speaker 1: get immunity to it, you get immunity to it and
Speaker 1: you don't get reinfected. We think that that's the case
Speaker 1: given what's happened. Otherwise you you know, WUHAN would still
Speaker 1: be flaring. So based on all the information that we have,
Speaker 1: if it's true information, we have a center of the
Speaker 1: epidemic where there was a wave of deaths unfortunately, but
Speaker 1: then it stopped brewing. It's not flaring still. So to
Speaker 1: some extent, the best information that we have so far
Speaker 1: is that the virus, of course it will mutate, but
Speaker 1: that immunity does develop to it, and that immunity is protective.
Speaker 1: That's very good news for future vaccines. A vaccine is
Speaker 1: not coming tomorrow, but that's very good news for a
Speaker 1: future vaccine because of course you need community. Is there
Speaker 1: anything that you think we're missing from the public discourse
Speaker 1: around COVID nineteen right now, Well, one thing that's missing
Speaker 1: is you know, look getting a vaccine will take a
Speaker 1: long time because vaccines are complicated to make. They're complicated
Speaker 1: a test. They have to be tested on populations to
Speaker 1: be produced at a very high standard. What's missing is
Speaker 1: why and why not for the people who are actually
Speaker 1: falling sick. Why or why not? We don't have either
Speaker 1: antibodies or in others biological or small molecules that are
Speaker 1: directed against the viral enzymes. We know them. The genome
Speaker 1: has been sequenced, we know what the what the vulnerabilities are,
Speaker 1: and I know that there's several facilities that are screening
Speaker 1: for small molecules as well as biologics that will help.
Speaker 1: These are not vaccines, right, so these are injected biologics
Speaker 1: that will enact, hopefully inactivate the virus. So an update
Speaker 1: from the CDC on that process, those kinds of ideas
Speaker 1: from the nation's highest authority in terms of the management
Speaker 1: of illness would be a helpful thing to have, because
Speaker 1: talking emptily about a vaccine which could really be months away,
Speaker 1: is not not going to help right now. If we
Speaker 1: could say to it to you that you know, if
Speaker 1: you get really, really sick, Here's where we are in
Speaker 1: terms of medicine development for this, and there's no better
Speaker 1: country in the world, I think, than the United States
Speaker 1: in developing medicines. Then I think there will be less
Speaker 1: uncertainty and a panic around what's happening next in terms
Speaker 1: of medical development against the virus. Last question for you,
Speaker 1: who said, where are you telling your kids? Well, so,
Speaker 1: I mean we've been following every day what the CDC
Speaker 1: has been recommending. I mean, thankfully, as I said, children
Speaker 1: are not the worst affected. We have not been doing
Speaker 1: anything except saying to them, try to in New York City,
Speaker 1: where now there are several cases, we've been telling them,
Speaker 1: try to avoid public places which are not you know,
Speaker 1: where there's where it's not necessary to go, wash your
Speaker 1: hands frequently, as frequently as possible. And if you know
Speaker 1: someone who's sick, or obviously if you have symptoms yourself,
Speaker 1: let us know at the earliest. I mean, nothing more,
Speaker 1: nothing less than that. I also led with my kids
Speaker 1: with the don't worry, you're going to be fine. Kids
Speaker 1: don't seem to be getting this, and that an amazingly
Speaker 1: calming effect on them. So I appreciate that part of
Speaker 1: the advice as well as the rest of it. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for a really calm and rational account
Speaker 1: of an ongoing breaking story that continues to have scary parts,
Speaker 1: but that, as you say, canna, ultimately be managed by
Speaker 1: getting to the absolute truths that are out there and
Speaker 1: then using logic and reason and risk benefit analysis to
Speaker 1: try to get us to a manageable outcome and perhaps
Speaker 1: even to some potential treatments for the worst affected. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much for your time, my pleasure. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. We'll be back with this week's playback in
Speaker 1: just a moment now for our playback. I want to
Speaker 1: tell you Gorezuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh, you
Speaker 1: have released earl Wind and you will pay the price.
Speaker 1: That's Democratic Senator Charles Schumer last week, speaking in a
Speaker 1: slightly unhinged tone, if you ask me, in front of
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court at an abortion rights rally while an
Speaker 1: oral argument was going on about an important abortion rights case.
Speaker 1: Since then, Schumer received intense criticism from President Trump, but
Speaker 1: maybe more significantly from Chief Justice John Roberts and a
Speaker 1: number of Republican senators, and he apologized, kind of saying
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have used the words I did. Here's why
Speaker 1: this whole moment in the news is actually a pretty
Speaker 1: big deal. Ever since Donald Trump became president, and in
Speaker 1: fact even before that when he was running for office,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has made the federal judiciary one of his
Speaker 1: central targets. He has a specific goal in mind to
Speaker 1: undercut and undermine public trust in the judiciary, and he
Speaker 1: has a very Trumpian way of doing it. He singles
Speaker 1: out individual judges, often by name. He says that they're illegitimate,
Speaker 1: He points to who appointed them and says that that
Speaker 1: will determine what they're going to do when they're in office,
Speaker 1: and ultimately he hints that he would like to be
Speaker 1: able to push them around. What Schumer was doing was
Speaker 1: borrowing a page from the Trumpian rhetoric a threat. Each
Speaker 1: time someone outside of the Trump administration does that, it
Speaker 1: tends to suggest the Trump's approach is perfectly fine. It
Speaker 1: tends not only to further undercut the judiciary, it also
Speaker 1: tends to suggest that we should all move to a
Speaker 1: world where it's completely normal and fine to threaten and
Speaker 1: attack judges. And there's one more problem with what Schumer's doing.
Speaker 1: It's pretty much guaranteed to backfire. In the case that
Speaker 1: was going on in the Supreme Court when Schumer was
Speaker 1: outside making his threats. The primary issue before the justices
Speaker 1: was whether the Court would follow its precedent that would
Speaker 1: actually lead to the striking down of a Louisiana anti
Speaker 1: abortion law, or whether the justices would deviate from a
Speaker 1: relatively recently created precedent and go a different way. In
Speaker 1: that debate, Chief Justice John Roberts is the absolutely all
Speaker 1: important swing vote. He in fact did not vote for
Speaker 1: the decision on which the precedent would be based in
Speaker 1: this case, so we know that he didn't agree with
Speaker 1: that case. But what he was thinking about, and this
Speaker 1: was very clear in the oral argument, was precisely whether
Speaker 1: to follow that precedent even if he didn't like it,
Speaker 1: even though that would send the public message that the
Speaker 1: Court was not following precedent. There's probably no more pressing
Speaker 1: issue in front of the Supreme Court right at this
Speaker 1: juncture than how much precedent should matter. Roberts is the
Speaker 1: swing vote. By attacking other justices, Schumer guaranteed that Roberts
Speaker 1: would have to come out against him, and in the
Speaker 1: process of doing so, Roberts would find that he did
Speaker 1: not want to signal to the world that he was
Speaker 1: listening to Schumer. Schumer very possibly caused Liberals Roberts's own
Speaker 1: vote in this case. In other words, Schumer was really
Speaker 1: playing with fire. His words at the margin might be
Speaker 1: a decisive factor in pushing John Roberts to the conservative
Speaker 1: side in a case where his comments and oral arguments
Speaker 1: suggest he was at least toying with the possibility of
Speaker 1: sticking with the Liberals on a precedent theory. We don't
Speaker 1: know how this case will come out, and we don't
Speaker 1: know how the other important cases involving president will come out.
Speaker 1: We do know that in this moment, John Roberts must
Speaker 1: be thinking about nothing but the question of precedent all day,
Speaker 1: every day. In that environment, it is remarkably unwise for
Speaker 1: the Senate minority leader to contribute to an environment where
Speaker 1: Democrats are threatening the courts in just the way that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the correct narrative for Democrats and indeed
Speaker 1: for anyone who wants to protect the independence of the
Speaker 1: judiciary and precedent, and the value of the rule of
Speaker 1: law is that the courts should be allowed to do
Speaker 1: their job and should be treated respectfully in the process.
Speaker 1: Chumer wasn't just wrong on the merits, he was dangerously
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