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Over the course of the pandemic, the stark political divide in the US around implementing public health measures has at times been as perplexing for public health officials as the virus itself.

On the one hand, the former Republican president Donald Trump avoided making any clear directives about Covid-19 while he was still in office last year, and the conservative talkshow host Tucker Carlson likened mask-wearing for children to child abuse. On the other, something as simple as easing restrictions on outdoor masking has revved up a new heated debate among cautious residents of Democratic cities.

In the United States, our federalist approach to government creates problems. And Im not recommending we do away with it, but I do think we have to come up with creative solutions to responding to epidemics, said Ricky Bluthenthal, an associate dean at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. He pointed out that while scientific expertise and emergency response lies at the federal level, states and local governments are in charge of implementing them.

But though the specific circumstances of this moment and country seem unique, some experts say that another, time-tested approach could have helped cut through some of this polarization and the culture wars: harm reduction.

The principles of the harm reduction model can differ, but focus on some core concepts. It accepts that some people will continue harmful behaviors. It aims to build a healthy community without judgment or coercion, providing other health-focused services. It also tries to minimize risky behavior by carefully tailoring messages, and choosing trustworthy messengers to approach each community instead of relying on broad government guidance.

While harm reduction has largely been used to combat drug abuse and HIV/Aids, experts say it could inform the coming months, and how the US tackles other health crises in the future.

Since the idea of a Covid-19 vaccine was introduced last year it has been met with skepticism in some quarters. Almost half of Republican men surveyed said they are not planning to take the Covid-19 vaccine. And many other Americans hesitant about the vaccines have been seen as anti-vaxxers a term otherwise reserved for a very small population of people who believe inoculation is harmful.

To combat this, public health officials have largely pushed studies and fact-based arguments in their attempt to enforce mask mandates and vaccines. And Democrats have campaigned on the idea that they are the party of science.

But through the lens of harm reduction, that approach could backfire.

Whether or not you believe the misinformation or belief someone holds, that belief is real to them, said Emily Bancroft, a public health expert who consults with governments and local partners across Africa to deliver healthcare through the non-profit Village Reach. We think people just need to hear the facts. No, you need to acknowledge these feelings are real.

Bancroft gave the examples of a widespread belief in witchcraft in Malawi. When setting up a prenatal health hotline for expectant mothers, health workers would often encounter these local beliefs that contradicted evidenced-based health guidance. But rather than attempting to dispel these ideas, the workers were trained to acknowledge them, and then advocate for healthy practices throughout the prenatal and postpartum process.

Recently, the media outlet Vice talked to Americans who were scared about getting the Covid-19 vaccine for various reasons, including side-effects or how recently the trials happened. When asked why many of them eventually changed their minds, it wasnt facts or science, it was knowing someone who was immunocompromised, or even watching devastating news from other countries on TV.

In other harm reduction models, combating risky behavior can mean trying to engage people in an intervention without judgment, whether or not they comply with the specific guidance.

In recent years, for example, public health workers have shifted from trying to get people who suffer from substance use disorders to cease all drug use and instead try to minimize risky behaviors such as sharing needles, which can spread infection and viruses. For example, a harm reduction group in Baltimore houses syringe service programs, but also ancillary services to build trust, said Susan Sherman, a Bloomberg professor of American health in the department of health, behavior and society at Johns Hopkins and co-director of the Baltimore HIV laboratory.

In the case of Covid-19, the interventions would be different, but could focus on having people wear masks in the highest-risk situations, instead of most of the day, or focusing on vaccinations for only the most vulnerable groups.

Setting up masks versus business is a false dichotomy, just like sterile syringes versus drug treatment, is false dichotomy, Sherman said, pointing out that many people who were ardently opposed to wearing masks throughout the pandemic also felt that Covid restrictions were unnecessarily harming the economy and business owners.

Working with a population that is distrustful of the government, or authority, also requires taking culture and history into account when choosing which messenger and medium to inform the public.

In Israel, a significant population of ultra-Orthodox Jewish families did not want to get vaccinated, partly because of unfounded conspiracy theories, according to NPR. One ultra-Orthodox government consultant, Ari Blumenthal, found a tragic but effective window of opportunity. When a young, pregnant woman died after refusing a vaccine he asked the family for permission to share her story. The family, too, started to speak publicly about their loss. It humanized the risk, and the community started to get vaccinated at higher rates.

A similar strategy reached some of the last people in India who were refusing to get the polio vaccine. Some Muslim communities were fearful because of widespread distrust of the government and rumors about the vaccine containing pig products, which they do not consume. It was only when science-minded imams, or religious leaders, stepped in and publicly vaccinated their own children that things began to change.

Finding those messengers in the US can prove a challenge, said Sheila Davis, the CEO of Partners in Health who holds a doctorate in nursing. While many countries have built a system of community health workers over time, the US relies mainly on doctors offices or clinics, making it hard to disseminate more personalized information.

Daviss organization has attempted to fill some of those gaps. In high-risk communities such as agricultural Immokalee, Florida, or neighborhoods of Chicago they set up community health teams to figure out the needs of the population. She also pointed out how quickly vaccination programs were carried out in Navajo communities because the tight-knit communities already had built-in communication systems and leaders who they relied on for information.

They were very clear who was the most vulnerable in their communities, and who needed the most support, she said.

While much of US Covid-19 interventions have been focused on masks, social distancing and vaccines, those working with high-risk communities say that the best public health models take into account the whole community and their needs beyond the specific virus.

Davis said getting people vaccinated against the virus is only one part of the picture in communities like Immokalee Partners in Health also provided food assistance, mobile rapid testing, financial aid and other social services to 35,000 households.

Its providing tangible, concrete things making sure were addressing the whole person, she said. That includes making things like vaccines and masks as easy to obtain as possible.

Similarly, Shermans group in Baltimore offers showers, clothing, reproductive health consultations and other services to women suffering from drug abuse to keep them engaged in the system and get a sense of their needs. Harm reduction organizations are nimble, they know how to ramp up their services and meet people where they are, Sherman said.

This approach could also serve to address the economic concerns families faced during the pandemic, and the frustration with lockdowns and other safety protocols that were sometimes viewed as a threat to livelihoods, income and education. Closing schools, for example, might have been done more judiciously since children remain at low risk for contracting Covid-19.

That has downward impacts schools in other countries were not closed throughout the pandemic. Perhaps that would have gone a long way and wouldve been a neutralizer, Sherman said.

The US is at a pivotal moment in the pandemic. About half of the adults in the country have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, while the virus claims thousands of lives every day in countries like India and Brazil, threatening the progress made across the globe.

In some ways, its not the government, or the virus trends, but communities of people who will decide when the pandemic ends. For example, Joe Bidens administration announced last week that vaccinated Americans dont need to wear a mask when outside as long as they are not in densely populated settings. But even with a greenlight from the highest public office, many vaccinated people in cities like New York, Boston and Washington DC continue to wear their masks outside.

While the political system is not bound to change any time soon, public health experts said there are lessons to make it easier to keep people safe in the coming months.

You have to segment your audience and tailor your message, Sherman said. If we set the foundation, and set the message about liberty centered around the person who could get the virus that could make a difference.

And if were vigilant, the US could even emerge from the pandemic with a stronger network of messengers than it began with, even if disagreement and discord remains.

We can really use this opportunity to build a public health and community workforce that didnt exist before, Davis said. And we may not be able to combat the final percentage [of people who dont want vaccines] but I focus my energy and attention on people who are wanting to try and make a difference.

See the original post here:
How harm reduction models can save US lives in the pandemic - The Guardian

Whatever else, the man is certainly eccentric. He appeared on The Joe Rogan Podcast and took a vexed-looking hit from a pot-laced cigar, launching a thousand memes. (The SEC slapped him with a $20 million fine for joking in a tweet the month before that he would take Tesla private once its share price reached, wait for it $420.) He engaged in a jealous vendetta against a diving expert whod advised the 2018 Thai cave rescue operation. He began dating the influential cool-girl synth-pop star Grimes, infuriating her Bernie-loving young fanbase. They had a child and named him X A-12. (Its pronounced like its spelled.)

Along with his unapologetic dedication to the free market and association with right-leaning figures like Kanye West and Joe Rogan, such incidents have made him a reliable culture-war punching bag. But Musk isnt the first controversial SNL host, nor the most politically fraught Donald Trump himself has hosted twice, once while a presidential candidate. In the early 1990s, a stint from misogynist shock comedian Andrew Dice Clay led to a boycott from (and the eventual departure of) cast member Nora Dunn. But Clay and Trump, provocative entertainers above all else, have far more in common with each other than they do with Musk, an honest-to-God engineer, aspiring space colonist, and the second-wealthiest man on the planet. Its far weirder that Musk is joining the show, as if Carl Icahn or Steve Jobs were suddenly tapped to host American Idol. Perplexity would seem a more appropriate response than outrage.

And yet: the biggest institutions in both comedy and media are disproportionately young, urbane, and progressive. Since 2016, SNL has affixed itself solidly in the firmament of liberal-leaning late-night television through its relentless tweaking of Trump, as well as a series of occasionally bizarre and earnest political statements. Despite SNLs eternal thirst for buzz, turning to an Ozymandias-esque capitalist like Musk would have been an awkward fit even in the cooler atmosphere of the pre-Trump era. (It didnt help, of course, that he piped up on Twitter immediately after his hosting gig was anounced, floating the idea of a presumably derisive sketch about Woke James Bond.)

Even as mainstream comedy is increasingly wracked by concerns about equity, representation, and punching up or down, SNL occasionally betrays its genesis in the more anarchic world of post-Watergate 1970s showbiz. With that legacy in mind, bringing on Musk is simply the price of doing business that is to say, staying in headlines like the one affixed to this story.

The loathing Musk inspires from the left is uniquely intense and personal, not unlike that directed toward his fellow techno-optimists in the Democratic Party like Andrew Yang and Pete Buttigieg. Musk shares their cardinal sin: that of cringe, an obliviousness toward, or unwillingness to acknowledge, the tastemakers who define pop culture at its highest level which increasingly includes policy positions, like police abolition or massive wealth redistribution. Musk has remained stubbornly committed to a brash and vague tech-bro libertarianism that was already wearing out its welcome among cultural elites in 2011, and seems fully retrograde in the world of 2021.

Musks arc as a public figure serves as a neat lesson in how and where the battle lines of our current culture wars came to be drawn.

***

Before evaluating his cultural impact or status, its worth asking: What does Elon Musk actually do?

Arriving in the United States from his native South Africa (by way of Canada) in the early 1990s, Musk was at first like any number of other young techies striving to make it in Silicon Valley during the early days of the World Wide Web. An early success with an internet city guide startup led to co-founding X.com, one of the first federally-insured online banks, which eventually led to a merger with the competitor Confinity itself co-founded by Peter Thiel, who would later become a far more direct liberal antagonist than Musk himself.

Confinity boasted a money-transfer service of which you might have heard: PayPal. Both Musk and Thiel are members of a cohort known as the PayPal Mafia, men who used their money and connections from the service to launch companies like YouTube, Yelp, and LinkedIn. After a bout of corporate musical chairs Musk departed the company in 2000, eventually receiving a payout of more than $100 million. That helped him seed the two companies hes still best known for: Tesla, the pioneering electric car company, and SpaceX, the rocket, satellite and aeronautics manufacturer.

But Musk cut a significantly different cultural figure than other 21st century tech tycoons like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. Where Bezos brought us same-day delivery of cat food and laundry detergent, and Zuck developed a forum for meeting other Ravenclaw Clinton Supporters In Peoria, Illinois (CLOSED GROUP NO LURKERS), Musks investments are capital in the truest sense of the term requiring construction and manufacturing at a mass scale, while looking forward, not backward like so many of those who hope to re-industrialize our increasingly service-oriented economy.

Some of the ire Musk has earned is serious. Black workers at Tesla accused the company of a culture of racism. Various investigations revealed unsafe conditions at the companys futuristic, highly-automated factories, and Teslas have experienced a series of high-profile safety incidents that have deepened the perception of Musk as a corner-cutting flim-flam artist. Critics have also accused him of hypocrisy for his relentless cheerleading of cryptocurrency, the energy-intensive production of which could undermine Teslas ostensibly eco-friendly mission. (Studies find cryptocurrency mining responsible for a miniscule fraction of annual CO2 emissions.)

Theres also the matter of his rabid online fanbase, which treats any affront to their chosen ubermensch as personal and responds in trolling kind. His brand of celebrity is tailor-made to scramble the brains of his detractors: a futurist whose cultural attitudes are stuck in the past; a tech genius who tweets (frequently, nonsense) in the erratic style of a non-digital native; a guy who hangs out with Joe Rogan but is super fired up about the Biden climate agenda. As Insider columnist Josh Barro pointed out amid the initial outcry over his SNL appearance, Musks uncouth attitude and gauche bear-hug of market capitalism frequently blind his liberal critics to how his fundamental mission of scientific and environmental progress is perfectly aligned with theirs.

These contradictions, along with his cultural transgressions and alleged ethical shortcomings as a capitalist, make him a perfect target for the hyper-progressive, image-conscious social media mavens that shape our media landscape.

Its a position shared by a sizable number of Americans, but a decided minority of them. According to a recent Vox/Data for Progress poll, 68 percent [of Americans] say they disagree that its immoral for a society to allow people to become billionaires. Theyre especially warm and fuzzy, as it turns out, when it comes to Musk himself: his net approval rating among the general public is +27 points behind Bill Gates, but ahead of Bezos and Zuckerberg and 52 percent of Democrats see him favorably.

The extent to which SNLs decision to invite him was baffling depends on ones perspective. Inside the bubble the show inhabits and largely embodies, it was a betrayal of core principles. Outside, it was just another celebrity news item about the raffish eccentric who builds rockets and tweets all day about Dogecoin.

Musks actual appearance on SNL, however potentially awkward, will likely result in much less heat and light than the controversy surrounding it. In their definitive oral history of the show, Live From New York, Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller quote the series creator Lorne Michaels on the Dice Clay controversy. You dont invite somebody to your house to piss on him, Michaels said. [T]his person has put themselves in your hands, theyre completely vulnerable, the show only works if they look good, so why would you have anybody over that you dont like? What because you need the ratings? It doesnt make any sense.

And so will Musk be treated, even by the cast members who couldnt conceal their disdain for his presence none of whom, it should be noted, chose to follow in Nora Dunns footsteps and exclude themselves out of principle. The controversy around his appearance reveals the extent of the non-representative filter bubbles that social media has allowed Americans to place themselves in, not least those at SNL who are among Musks critics. They, to echo the apocryphal Pauline Kael comment about Nixon voters, likely dont have a representative number of people in their lives who see him not as a uniquely malevolent entity, but as an entertaining futurist with admitted personal flaws.

In that light, Musk might find himself in an unusual role when he takes the stage at 30 Rock to deliver the shows opening monologue: That of an emissary from reality.

Read the rest here:
How the Internet Turned on Elon Musk - POLITICO

Recently, the Carleton College historian Amna Khalid argued in our pages against what she sees as unproductively bureaucratic or administrative approaches to student demands for social justice and diversity on campus. I spoke with Khalid about her essay and her larger thinking. Here's some of that discussion.

You begin by noting what you suggest is an irony: While many student-activists insist that they are poised against the increasingly corporate logic of the contemporary university, they end up recapitulating and even intensifying it. What happens?

I dont think its primarily the fault of the students. They are operating inside the ber-administrative university. Every complaint on campus has to be filed through an administrative office. So Im not really blaming the students thats the system they know. But I do want to point out that there is a contradiction within their own logic. A neoliberal logic has now suffused the ways in which we think to the extent that we are unable to conceive of alternatives to bureaucratic solutions.

But I also think that as educators it is our responsibility to point out to students where the gaps in their logic are. Thats our job. We must challenge them to help them grow. We must do this responsibly, but I dont think that means handling them with kid gloves.

Some critics have suggested that students own real desire at some very intimate level is for bureaucratic management.

Perhaps. But its more complicated and I think theyre unaware of it. First, I dont think that all students feel this way. Arguably its a minority, albeit a loud one, that is setting the tone here. These are students who feel that theyre entitled to a certain way of being treated. I dont know why that is I really dont. But coming from the outside: I think it is a peculiarly American thing. Id argue that kind of entitlement has been fostered by the growth of the administrative university. Students are told: Youre entitled to a certain standard of well-being, support services, recreational facilities, which is why we must create offices to cater to all these needs.

This entitlement dovetails with what I call debased identity politics. The result is powerful and potent. Theres both a sense of entitlement and a sense of being a victim a dangerous combination.

You mention the quixotic rhetorical goals offered by many university administrations as they try to satisfy the demands of student activists. Another word for quixotic rhetorical goals is cant. Do students ever bristle?

Students are capable of noticing when administrative measures are perfunctory. Often they are further frustrated by this. But their next step is to ask for more administrative solutions. We have lost the capacity to think outside of administrative solutions: Whether its bias-response teams, diversity training, cultural competency or sensitivity training. Initiatives like these debase the very idea of diversity into a meaningless etiquette exercise.

Theres always the risk that an essay like yours will be received as a kids these days lament a sort of debased culture wars piece. But far from just complaining, you offer solutions, like the course of study at Pitt. And what you suggest is, rather than hiring outside consultants or whatever, using the expertise of faculty members themselves.

At Pitt, theyve used their own faculty theyve pooled their intellectual resources in order to understand social-justice problems in not just an academic and abstract sense but also in terms of the local situation. I love it because its truly multidisciplinary. Theyre reading scholarship. Some of that scholarship you might agree with, some you might not. Theres viewpoint diversity that suggests robust engagement. And most of all the course seems to open up conversation and pose intellectual questions as opposed to providing the kinds of pat answers that trainings provide.

A number of universities have created seminars and lecture series. I do worry sometimes that these lecture series are offering only one point of view, which is not that dissimilar from the kinds of training I refer to. My problem with the training model is that it presumes that there is a perfect recipe for doing diversity: Just put in the right ingredients and youll get your pie. Thats not how this works!

Conflict and disagreement are necessary for reaping the benefits of diversity. Engaging with difference engenders discomfort and risk. We have become conflict averse and the fear of causing offense reigns supreme. But you cant do this work without taking the risk of occasionally offending someone, and learning how to forgive. Walking in someone elses shoes is rarely comfortable or pleasant at first. But a novel perspective is its own reward. When you learn that, you become more willing to embrace risk and conflict as positives.

More:
The Review: Hilarious Netanyahus; Diversity Demands; an Interview With Amna Khalid - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Summary

Trump loyalists look to purge GOP of those who dare tell the truth about 2020 election. Pfizer seeks full FDA COVID-19 vaccine approval. The fight over Trump`s big lie further divides the GOP. Former first lady of the U.S., Michelle Obama, said that many black Americans live in fear and she also praises Black Lives Matter. U.S. doctors join India`s desperate COVID fight.

ALI VELSHI, MSNBC HOST: That`s it for me. The 11th Hour with Brian Williams begins right now.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: Well, good evening once again, day 108 of the Biden administration and the opposition to the Biden administration, A.K.A the Republican Party is not only firmly in the grip of Donald Trump. Tonight, two of his most devoted acolytes are on the road pushing the big lie to a crowd of loyal Trump supporters. Congressman Matt Gaetz, who happens to be currently under federal investigation for possible sex trafficking and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a conspiracy theorist and QAnon supporter will join forces tonight to launch an America First tour with a rally at the largest retirement community in our country, the villages in Florida.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): We have never abandoned Trump, and he has never abandoned America. If Liz Cheney could even find Wyoming on a map and went there, she would find a lot of very angry cowboys who are not happy with the fact that she`s sort of for every war, war in Syria for it, war against Trump and his supporters for it, war against the Republican Conference, war against her own voters. And it appears that Liz Cheney may no longer be the chair of the Republican Conference. This might be the first war she`s ever sought to end.

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): The Democrats that say they won the presidential race, the Democrats that are working very, very hard and very fast and aggressively to pass their socialist agenda. You are not going to put us down for loving President Trump and what he did for the past four years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

B. WILLIAMS: This comes at the end of a week in which we witnessed Republicans set in motion the removal of Congresswoman Liz Cheney from the leadership bracket in the House for the crime of rejecting the big lie and actually saying Joe Biden won the election.

"Washington Post" out with new reporting on how the ousting of Republicans like Cheney and control of the party are now at the top of Donald Trump`s post White House agenda. They write that Trump is now quote, refashioning himself as the president of the Republican States of America and reshaping the party in ways both micro and macro. He has privately revived his claims that he plans to run for president again in 2024. And is propelled primarily by a thirst for retribution, an insatiable quest for the spotlight and a desire to establish and maintain total dominance and control over the Republican base.

"New York Times" notes that the party now sees reigniting its culture wars, as their way back to the White House and majorities in Congress. The party is focused on quote, polarizing issues that stoke conservative outrage, like the court expansion bill, calls to defund the police, which many Democrats oppose, and efforts to provide legal status to undocumented immigrants and grant statehood to the District of Columbia.

Even as Trump and his allies focus on future elections, "The Washington Post" has another disturbing report about how Donald Trump`s Justice Department secretly obtained the phone records of Washington Post journalists and tried to obtain their email records over reporting they did in the early months of the administration on Russia`s role in our 2016 election. Here is what Trump was saying during those initial months in office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I`ve actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks. Those are criminal leaks. I want the Attorney General to be much tougher on the leaks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

B. WILLIAMS: So there you have it. Right now Republicans in several states where they control the legislatures are putting all of their efforts into making it harder to vote, bills introduced in the Ohio House would limit mail-in balloting and reduce early voting. This morning Texas lawmakers passed a bill that would rollback access to the ballot. That comes just a day after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed that measure that also restricts voting in his state. He even held it up to show it off just the way Donald Trump used to.

Meanwhile, the President today faced the biggest challenge yet to his strategy to revive the economy. The Labor Department reported 266,000 jobs were added in April. That`s far short of the 1 million that some economists have expected. Republicans took that data as a sign that the generous jobless benefits included in his American rescue plan, the almost $2 trillion aid bill he signed into law back in March. That is causing a labor shortage and risking inflation.

At the White House, Biden not only defended his strategy, but made a new pitch for his plan to spend another 4 trillion on infrastructure, job creation, and other measures.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We never thought that after the first 50 or 60 days, everything would be fine. Today, there`s more evidence that our economy is moving in the right direction. But it`s clear we have a long way to go. Some critics said that we didn`t need the American rescue plan, that this economy would just heal itself. Today`s report just underscores in my view, how vital the actions we`re taking are, but that`s not nearly enough. We have to build back better. That`s why we need the American jobs plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

B. WILLIAMS: With that, let`s bring in our leadoff guests on this Friday night. Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, Susan Page, a veteran journalists bestselling author, USA Today Washington bureau chief, her latest is "Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power" just out, and Stephanie Ruhle is with us Host of the 9:00 a.m. Eastern hour on MSNBC reports and the NBC News senior business correspondent, good evening, and welcome to you all.

Susan, I would like to start with you. This roadshow in Florida, one member of Congress under federal investigation, the other a QAnon enthusiast, what does it tell you about the state of the party and the depth of the control by one man?

SUSAN PAGE, USA TODAY WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Yes, you know, some people thought we were heading into a post Trump era for the Republican Party with his defeat for reelection. That is clearly not true. It is still Trump`s Republican Party, in which Matt Gaetz is welcome and Liz Cheney, daughter of the former vice president herself, a veteran member of the Republican establishment is not welcome.

You know, this is not the way -- this is not the customary treatment of losing presidential candidates. Typically, their party finds them to be persona non grata. Not the case with Donald Trump, who`s control of the party and who`s not just big picture things like what does a party stand for, what this message. But down to small things like who`s going to challenge incumbent Republicans like Liz Cheney, in their home state primaries.

B. WILLIAMS: Peter Baker, our mutual friend, Carl Hulse of your paper, writes that Republicans are reviving the battles over cultural issues. But the White House strategy has been to not engage on that level. Is that sustainable for the Biden White House, as they are kind of putting their heads down and pushing through or trying to?

PETER BAKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I think they don`t want to get distracted from their agenda. Their agenda, of course, is pretty expansive already. They have these $4 trillion, and spending bills you mentioned to build infrastructure and expand the social safety net. They`ve got an immigration overhaul plan. They would like to push through. They`ve got climate initiatives that they`re focused on.

And they understand that every minute they spend talking about Dr. Seuss or some other, you know, cultural wedge issue, that their focus would like to focus on is a moment lost in terms of pushing through that agenda. So they have a kind of discipline we often don`t see in Washington so far. And we`ll see eventually, at some point, of course, you know, President Biden could be, you know, enticed into that conversation.

But for the most part, he`s shown, especially for a guy who spent a lifetime in Washington, kind of popping off sort of ad hoc, he has shown a remarkable, you know, message discipline that we had not used to, from Joe Biden.

B. WILLIAMS: Steph Ruhle to your beat, the -- I think the conventional wisdom was that the economic figures out today were a setback. Can you tell us once and for all what`s going on also in the once and for all category, how much truth is it to the mostly Republican talking point, that people staying home during a pandemic idol are making so much money from the federal government as to not want to or be incentivized to return to work?

STEPHANIE RUHLE, NBC NEWS SR. BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: OK. Well, why don`t we start with that? Yes, there are some people who are being paid more money by the federal government while they`re on this expanded unemployment than they would out there getting a job, but it doesn`t necessarily mean there`s anything wrong with that. It potentially means that this is another call to action to raise the federal minimum wage, right, Brian?

You know, what are we seeing? We`re seeing restaurants, service industry really struggled to rehire. Well, they`ve lost employee because during the pandemic, a lot of those employees went to go work warehouse jobs that do offer health care, that do pay 15, $16 an hour, a regular schedule. When you go back to where we are, those service jobs and restaurants don`t.

This could actually be the final push we get to increase wages. We`re actually seeing that happen. So yes, on its level, you can point to the Democrats and say, look, people are choosing to stay home, even if they are, it`s only for a few more months. And don`t forget, the American rescue plan was just one month ago, and there`s a lot of money in there meant to help get people back to work. It`s not even in the system yet.

Here`s just one example, the $39 billion Biden put forth for childcare, that`s barely even been implemented. So because it hasn`t been yet, all these parents, mostly mothers who are home, can`t suddenly say, oh, there`s 39 billion. Let me hop back to work. None of that money has been spent yet. So to look at this in one month, and say the Biden program isn`t working, we`re just paying people to stay home is completely exaggerated. We`re absolutely on the road to recovery, but it`s not a straight shot.

B. WILLIAMS: Susan, get us back into politics, specifically the Republican Party. Are you mystified at the speed of the eclipse of Liz Cheney helped along by the public directed groveling of Congresswoman Stefanik right to Trump hoping that Trump through McCarthy, she will get that job?

PAGE: Stefanik who was of course a big critic of Trump at one point and has a much more moderate voting record than Liz Cheney does. Yes, I think it is a sign of exactly where the Republican Party is these days. And, you know, we`re now in a situation where even though Trump is out of office, the people in the Republican Party who held office and oppose Trump are now either not Republicans or they`re no longer in office or they decided to stay silent.

There is almost no voice being raised within the GOP at odds with the debunked claim by President Trump, that he actually won the election last November.

B. WILLIAMS: Peter Baker, how did it go over in the newsroom of "The New York Times" when you learn that the reporters in the newsroom of "The Washington Post" had their phone records looked at? What does it reveal or confirm to you and your colleagues?

BAKER: Well, I think like a lot of things over the last four years, it was very shocking, and not at all surprising. In our newsroom at that time in early 2017, there was an extraordinary sense of concern that our communications could be in some way or another intercepted or, you know, turn up in record someplace. I think that`s why you saw a lot of sources in Washington turn to more, you know, encrypted type of communications like signal and other ways of speaking, that would protect hopefully, the confidentiality of the people who are providing us important information.

But you`re right, it`s simply confirms what we`ve known or believed or suspected or feared, basically, for a number of years, which is that in fact, you know, reporter conversations with sources not necessarily respected by our government. By the way that precedes this last administration. That was true during the Obama administration too. Remember the Obama ministration launched more leak investigations than every other president before them combined.

So this is now becoming a trend that is very concerning. Now, we don`t know enough about the specifics of what happened to these particular Washington Post reporters, but they were some of the best reporters out there, breaking some of the biggest stories on the Russia interference in the 2016 election. And I think that this begs for a whole lot more information to come out about what was going on at the Justice Department at that time of why they were trying to obtain these records and what basis they use to do it.

B. WILLIAMS: Stephanie Ruhle, let`s bump the conversation up to a 102 level econ course, of course, I can say that having taken one of them. And here`s the question, higher taxes and the Biden administration effort to raise taxes on certain individuals in our country on the wealthy side, and corporations who got such a gigantic break during the Trump years. Well, anything about that further, negatively, infect number -- affect numbers like the kind that came out today and talk about the risk and worries that we`re starting to pick up you mentioned on inflation.

RUHLE: Listen, inflation is a real worry. We`ve got shortages across this country from chicken to lumber to furniture. And we are seeing things push forward. And things are starting to cost a whole lot more. These concerns are real. Another concern is yes, the Republicans may have this infighting. They may be causing nonsense culture wars. But at the end of the day in 2022, millions of people vote based on what affects them, not offends them.

And they are going to vote, they`re going to say Joe Biden just spent X trillions of dollars, is my life better or is my life worse? And a lot of that rides on the amount of money he`s spending right now and is it going to work. So he`s in a little bit of a tricky situation here. He has a very ambitious plan.

And yes, at a top level, a headline level, we`re going to make things better. We`re going to help the American people. And we`re going to tax the rich. We`re going to tax corporations. That sounds great. But like anything, the devils in the details, right now you`ve got all sorts of high tax blue-ish states, like New York, New Jersey, California, or a Joe Biden needs those people in every possible election. And if they get taxed too much, they may say this plan doesn`t work for me.

B. WILLIAMS: Already hearing today, California had its first dip in population in the modern era with the new census figures just out so this will get interesting. We are much obliged to our big three at the end of a long week on this Friday night. Peter Baker, Susan Page, Stephanie Ruhle, thank you for starting us off.

Coming up for us, how much longer will we have to wear masks indoors? One former chief of the FDA says not much longer at all. We`ll get a second opinion next from our doctor who happens to be standing by. And later, does calling out the big lie make it easier for Republicans to ignore it? We`ll ask two of our favorite experts if something a little stronger like the attempt to overthrow a Democratic election would be more effective. All of it as the 11th Hour is just getting underway on this Friday night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: So to meet the President`s goal of 70 percent of adult Americans with at least one shot, we need to vaccinate at least another 13 percent of adult Americans by July 4. Our wartime effort is mobilized to meet the President`s goal. And we are in all out implementation and execution mode.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

B. WILLIAMS: That was clear and understandable information from our government today. Indeed, as of tonight, over 150 million Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine. While the administration as you heard moves to ramp up vaccination rates, Pfizer has applied for full and official FDA approval of its vaccine.

The vaccine is currently being given out under that temporary emergency use authorization we all became so familiar with. The process for full approval could take months but this change could help breach ongoing hesitancy and raise the issue of mandates. We are pleased to have back with us tonight to help explain all this. Dr. Kavita Patel, a clinical physician, former senior policy aide during the Obama administration. She is for good reason among our public health experts. Additionally, she is a nonresident Fellow at Brookings.

Doctor, again, this is your world and not mine, which is exactly why we have you on and regular intervals. But so many of the interviews you hear in the media with the vaccine hesitant including a heck of a lot of young people, I`m going to wait it out. I`m going to see if it`s safe. I`m going to make sure it works.

So this process of giving it official approval, could that be sped up if we`re clear the medicine is good, if we`re clear about the efficacy knowing that we could use that to get to the hesitant.

DR. KAVITA PATEL, FMR. OBAMA WHITE HOUSE AIDE TO VALERIE JARRETT: Yes, Brian, I think it can be a huge green light because the full approval is basically a little bit of the FDA not just stamp of approval, but it shows through data that we`ve had safety and rigorous evaluations passed that kind of time period six months in longer, so that we understand what the adverse effects could be.

And we`ve got a mounting database of what we call real world evidence in the form of tens of millions of Americans who have received the vaccine. I think the bigger issue is really going to be now we can get these into doctor`s offices much easier. And Brian, I have to tell you, they`ve changed those ultra-freezer requirements. I can have this in one of my offices, seven doses in a vial, which also makes it less wasteful, compared to other more, higher multi dose vials.

So this is a big step. But the communication is going to be key because the avalanche of misinformation, Brian, is far greater than even the FDA is kind of approval clarion call from up high.

B. WILLIAMS: Boy, you`re right about that. And I`m thrilled to hear it is so transportable. That was a big problem early on at what 100, negative 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Let`s switch to the topic of masks. I`m going to play for you the comments today from the former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. We`ll discuss on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHEPARD SMITH, NBC HOST: Do you think the CDC can have a meaningful conversation about lifting the mask mandates indoors?

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, PFIZER & ILLUMINA BOARD MEMBER: I think we can do it right around now. I think --

SMITH: Now?

GOTTLIEB: -- we should started lifting these restrictions as -- I think we should start lifting these restrictions as aggressively as we put them in. We need to preserve the credibility of public health officials to perhaps reimplement some of these provisions as we get into next winter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

B. WILLIAMS: Scott Gottlieb with Shep Smith on CNBC. So Doctor is I want to know if that`s too aggressive or too rosy or just right, and how would any of this have changed if we hadn`t lived through those Trump daily briefings, meaning if we had left this up to science and medicine from the start and never let it touch the politics of mask wearing?

PATEL: Yes, I think that we could have done a lot to kind of prevent what`s happened now with not just mask, Brian, with vaccines, with mandate, the requirements. I mean, it seems like anywhere you turn, if you have a blue state governor saying one thing, you have an immediate kind of visceral opposite reaction on the science.

So, yes, that would have made a huge difference. The Biden administration is trying to kind of correct that, if you will, regular briefings, transparency. I think so Dr. Gottlieb has been right on so many things. And I think he`s correct in part. I do think that what we need is to give people who were vaccinated a little bit more of that sense of, here`s why you got vaccinated, the data shows us that, Brian, if you get vaccinated, you`re much less likely to get COVID and to give COVID to someone else, but it`s not zero.

And I think what Dr. Gottlieb is really trying to push on is if we can accelerate the incentives to have people have a more normal life, we can also hopefully increase vaccination rate. And I hope that`s what his kind of longer message is. And the reason I`m hesitant, three reasons very quickly, number one, the variant. There an untold -- we just do not know what is coming in around us. And you just have to look at India and Japan and other countries to be scared.

Number two, we still have tens of millions of Americans, Brian, who can`t get vaccinated. Children, they do not have as severe of a form of disease, but they do get hospitalized and they do die. So we do need to be respective of that. But we know that they`ll start to get vaccinated slowly over this year.

And then the third, I think even the most important is that we`re still at about 35,000 cases in a day, coming down 15 to 20 percent each week, Brian. I would love to start seeing cases in the hundreds. That should happen soon. So do I think today take masks off indoors? No. Do I think it`s possible by the end of the summer or kind of around that July 4th period? I think it`s possible.

B. WILLIAMS: Thank you for that explanation and as always for your expertise. Our guest tonight, Dr. Kavita Patel.

Coming up, it`s an all-out attack on the five families not the mob, mind you. It`s the Republican Party we`re talking about. We`ll explain and discuss with two important friends of this broadcast right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

B. WILLIAMS: A new piece out in POLITICO today points out that Donald Trump has reserved a special kind of fury for families that helped shape the Republican Party over the years. David Siders writes, quote, whether it`s the Cheneys, the Bushes, the lesser bloodlines such as the Romneys or the Murkowskis, Trump has been relentless in his efforts to force them to bend the knee. Even Cindy McCain, the widow of the late Senator John McCain, who herself has never run for office has been knocked down censured by Trump allies who run the state Republican Party in Arizona. It`s the clearest sign that the modern Republican Party hasn`t just broken with its traditionalist past. It is shredding every vestige of it.

Back with us again tonight, Caroline Randall Williams, author, poet, academic, and observer of all things political, writer-in-residence with the Department of Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize winning author, presidential historian on the Rogers chair in the American presidency at the aforementioned Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt is well represented tonight. He occasionally advises President Biden on historical matters and major speeches. He also has a new podcast Fate of Fact, which looks back through history for times when fear conquered truth. The first two episodes are now up and available.

I hope there are other people left on the payroll while you two are busy with us. Jon, I`d like to begin with you. Mr. Better Angels, can you name a time when there has been such a public and thorough top to bottom shredding of the ideals and ideas of a major Republican Party, a major political party, forgive me.

JON MEACHAM, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Not since 18, the late 1850s and the early 1860s. I will say thankfully, I am not a poet. So I`m glad Caroline is here to do this. The conflicting visions of identity, the conflicting visions of power, and the basis on which those two visions were founded, were most in conflict in the Civil War. But it was two fundamentally different visions.

One, they both had theological components. They both had economic components. They both had political components. And Abraham Lincoln, it felt to him to adjudicate between those two conflicting visions of reality. And my native region, the South -- the white South, decided that they would rather take a stand, secede and preserve and antiquated and the forced labor slavery order.

So that`s the last time you had something as stark as what we`re seeing now. And I think that my own view is that you`re always going to have QAnon people, you know, we`re always going to have John Birch society, you know, there`s always a fringe in American politics.

What is so destabilizing and dispiriting about this moment in American life is that the party of Eisenhower and Reagan and the Bushes, no matter how much you want in Nixon, no matter how much you disagree with those folks, they were part of a coherent conversation that represented reform and reaction conservatism and progressivism. And that`s what the constitution was set up to preserve, to establish that conversation to set its norms and to understanding that we were all fall and frail and fallible, and we were all -- we needed those guardrails in order to adjudicate our interests. The Republican Party, as currently constituted and run is not part of that coherent conversation right now.

B. WILLIAMS: Professor Williams indeed, the CNN polling this week that has garnered so much attention says that 70 percent of Republican respondents believe the election was indeed stolen. Tom Friedman wrote a bracing column this week that actually echoes things I have heard you say, it`s his opinion that our democracy is still very much in real danger with everything coming out of the big lie.

My question to you Professor has to do with the phrase I just used. And this in a way calls artillery in -- on our own business. Are we diminishing it by using a kind of jargon, a toss off phrase, the big lie? Would it do a better service to the attacked democracy was under and is under to say things like the attempt to violently overthrow a Democratic election?

CAROLINE RANDALL WILLIAMS, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE: I`m so grateful for that question actually, Brian, because I think it hadn`t occurred to me to think about reframing the big lie. But I think, yes, I think that we are doing a disservice. But I think that we can only reframe it and change our language, if we`re prepared to back up our articulation of what`s actually going on with some kind of ordered action in terms of, you know, shoring up people`s voting rights, shoring up people`s capacity to have access to an education about what this country has been.

I live in a state where there are bills on the floor that would defund schools that teach critical race theory, that teach what`s actually going on, the extraordinary exchange that happened on the floor in Texas where that, you know, moron didn`t know what the purity, you know, what the what -- what the purity the language around purity of the vote was about, right?

So I think, if we are actually going to say democracy is under attack, and we`re actually in danger, and that when Benjamin Franklin said, this is Republic, if we can keep it and that if is underscored, you know, infinite times right now. If, if, if we can keep it, if we are prepared to acknowledge that that`s where we are. Because Jon is right, this is deeply reminiscent in some terrifying and complicated ways of a pre-Civil War America.

It`s also in my mind, deeply reminiscent, you know, this sort of disenfranchisement of the Republican elite in America right now feels like, you know, the fall of the Kaiser like, I feel like we`re in 1919 Germany right now, too. Like, there`s echoes of that as well. Stephen Miller is like gobbles to be, I shouldn`t say that but it`s just, it`s true. We`re having this conversation.

We`re in danger. We have to figure out how to preserve decency. And we have to also acknowledge that there are Americans in this country that aren`t actually interested in preserving the unalienable rights of all Americans. That`s what the America first caucus is about. And we just have to name that and figure out what to do with it if we`re brave enough to name it.

B. WILLIAMS: Both of our guests thankfully staying with us as I fit in a break. When we come back, Michelle Obama`s candid take on the Chauvin verdict and all related matters.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FMR. FIRST LADY: We know that while we`re all breathing a sigh of relief over the verdict, there`s still work to be done. And so we can`t sort of say, great that happened. Let`s move on. I know that people in the black community don`t feel that way because they -- many of us still live in fear as we go to the grocery store or worry about our --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Walking our dogs.

OBAMA: Walking our dogs or allowing our children to get a license. I like so many parents of black kids have to -- that the innocent act of getting a license puts fear in our hearts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

B. WILLIAMS: Some very candid comments from the former first lady that will ring true for so many of our fellow citizens just over two weeks after a jury convicted Derek Chauvin of murdering George Floyd. He is now facing federal charges. Grand jury indicted Chauvin and three other Minneapolis officers for violating George Floyd civil rights during the arrest that led to his death. Chauvin also facing an additional separate civil rights charge for a 2017 incident where he struck a 14-year-old boy in the head with a flashlight before holding his knee on the boy`s back for 17 minutes.

In that incident, our guests remain with us, Professor Williams to you about what the former first lady had to say. Most popular woman in the world and opinion poll after opinion poll, no matter, arguably among the most powerful in the world, no matter, Princeton undergrad Harvard Law School, immaterial. For the purposes of this conversation, she`s the mom of two black children in the United States of America in 2021. Your thoughts?

C. WILLIAMS: -- is on trial right now. Our capacity to imagine the legitimate fears of our fellow Americans is on trial, our capacity to especially when it comes to white Americans imagining the legitimate fear of black lives in the face of police. The capacity of white police officers to harness their -- not harness, to manage and understand their own bias before they make decisions is on trial right now.

I think this is a question of us figuring out what it means when we ask someone to trust us. And I think that everyone in America has to take a very serious look at why on earth. Given the legacy of this country, you know, from its inception, to the present to George Ford`s trial, why on earth should people of color be the first ones to, you know, lay down, lay down their grievances and say we trust you back.

We need trustworthiness to be fortified and restored from the side of the people in positions of power in this country. I think about I don`t have any children yet. But my children will be black Americans too. And I -- this climate is making me change my mind about my hopes for the future. It`s complicating the way that I make choices because I don`t -- I`m terrified of the idea of giving birth to people who I know will be in danger by virtue of where I chose to give birth to them.

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Transcript: The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, 5/7/21 - MSNBC

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) A day after Governor Bill Lee and Republican legislative leaders celebrated the end of the 2021 session, pastors from West to East Tennessee are sounding the alarm, calling many of the key legislative priorities heartless.

Republicans at the Tennessee State Capitol say they have delivered conservative wins to address many of the states most pressing problems.

Amos 5:15 states hate evil, love good and establish justice in the gate. Our state leaders are the guardians of the gate; it is their job to establish justice and care for the community inside the gate, but instead they have abandoned that role for political game, corrupt power grabs and culture wars, Rev. Matt Steinhauer, Pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Lebanon said.

Lee is touting bills on education, infrastructure, public safety and criminal justice reform.

Faith leaders say the attempts to address the issues are misguided.

Our legislators spent a good part of this years session moving legislation rooted in fear and divisive partisan issues, such as banning trans-youth from athletics and this week to ban public school educators from teaching about the history and realities of systemic racism, said Rev. Dr. Lillian Slammers, Associate Pastor of First Congregational Church in Memphis.

They also say cutting unemployment benefits in a pandemic is atypical of Christian teachings.

People looking for work, people who have to jump through hoops and climb hurdles to get that assistance and to wait for weeks and weeks and weeks to receive it have 26 weeks of insurance when they finally clear that hurdle, the Tennessee legislature has kept cut help from 26 weeks more in half to 12 weeks, Rev James Sessions, retired United Methodist pastor in Knoxville said.

Cameron Sexton, Speaker of the House, said the bills passed in the session will continue to move this state forward in a conservative direction.

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Heartless: Tennessee pastors blast legislation passed in the 2021 General Assembly - WJHL-TV News Channel 11