TRTWORLD — Strait Talk
20260915 173000 UTC
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[00:00:00] and the competitors will be able to absorb the riders, increase their market
[00:00:04] share, have more drivers that
[00:00:06] you know they can deploy to carrying out this particular ride healing
[00:00:09] business. the bigger question for former uber
[00:00:13] drivers is what replaces their income and how
[00:00:23] the Philippines, the first ever democratic
[00:00:25] of election in the Bangzamoro autonomous
[00:00:28] a region in Muslim, Mindano has resulted
[00:00:31] in a hung parliament. The landmark vote follows a decades
[00:00:35] long bloody civil war for autonomy. Yanyan
[00:00:39] of
[00:00:39] a camenzin bromby has more of
[00:00:43] political campaigning and decades of fighting here to
[00:00:47] establish the balm region and its first
[00:00:50] of directly democratically elected
[00:00:52] of government. It's going to be a hung parliament. And that really brings up
[00:00:56] few new questions, one of which is how are the political relations?
[00:01:00] between the leaders
[00:01:03] of of the two main parties, one of them the UBJP, one
[00:01:04] of them the BFP
[00:01:06] of going to play out in the coming weeks. Let's not
[00:01:09] in forget that these two parties themselves emerged from a high
[00:01:13] level split in the
[00:01:15] of rebel group that was fighting for the establishment of this
[00:01:19] autonomous region, some bad blood then potentially between those
[00:01:22] senior political figures, can they figure out a
[00:01:25] of way to move from the fighting towards political negotiation, can they figure
[00:01:29] out way to hash out deal, or is one
[00:01:33] of the smaller parties, perhaps the Grand Banksamorrow coalition
[00:01:37] going to become Kingmaker, they're the party that came in third
[00:01:41] place in these elections, are they going to be the important
[00:01:44] political figures that help tip the balance and help swing one
[00:01:48] of these parties over that all important 41 seat threshold that will be
[00:01:52] required to govern here. another question of course
[00:01:56] is can the peace last? it has been remarkable,
[00:02:00] the level of peace that we've seen across the region, there have of course
[00:02:03] of been explosions, there were shootings, especially
[00:02:05] of here in kotabaro city, but
[00:02:08] of broadly comelect, the election officials from Manila were
[00:02:12] pretty happy it seems
[00:02:14] of with the way in which the elections have gone despite some
[00:02:17] allegations of fraudulent voting, some allegations of election
[00:02:22] of interference and of course spats of violence, they are pretty happy with how things
[00:02:26] are, especially when when compared to the large scale violence that we've seen in
[00:02:30] decades gone by, the question then is can the peace last, can these
[00:02:34] of political agents, can these politicians find a way on the
[00:02:38] negotiating table to make things work, to come together and to
[00:02:42] of work for the sake
[00:02:42] of the bangsa people, that's what they've been saying that their aim is
[00:02:46] after
[00:03:06] of On this
[00:03:10] episode of
[00:03:11] of Inside of America, we ask, will the US
[00:03:14] of ever heal its COVID
[00:03:16] wounds? I think that the COVID
[00:03:20] pandemic supercharged the lack of trust in public health
[00:03:24] institution. Commander and chief at the time was Donald John Trump, he pushed
[00:03:28] the vaccine, he got the vaccine himself.
[00:03:30] a and then he also lead conspiracy theory. what we're seeing is increased
[00:03:34] use
[00:03:34] of the federal government to punish political enemies. it's
[00:03:37] of dangerous when republicans
[00:03:38] in do it, it's dangerous when democrats do it. it's the wow wow west across social
[00:03:42] media.
[00:03:43] it erodes democracy in its entirety. people don't believe in the public institutions that are
[00:03:47] a supposed to serve
[00:03:48] a them. hello and welcome to the show. i'm selena downs
[00:03:52] and today i'm joined by the political analysts Amisha Cross
[00:03:55] of and Matthew Hurt.
[00:03:57] in a moment we'll be debating whether the us can ever
[00:04:01] a heal its covid wounds. It's been six years
[00:04:04] since
[00:04:05] of the pandemic, but the divisions it caused still run deep through American
[00:04:09] politics
[00:04:10] of and culture. Annapolis in Maryland was one
[00:04:13] of the many cities
[00:04:14] of which saw covid protests back in 2020. I went to speak
[00:04:18] to people there to see how they feel today. This is
[00:04:22] street pulse. When Covid came
[00:04:25] around, people were going to get vaccinated because that's what we were trained
[00:04:29] to do. so then then you get vaccinated again,
[00:04:32] and then you get vaccinated again, and now people start to wonder, what is
[00:04:36] this about? today, Annapolis is bustling coastal city
[00:04:40] with vibrant community
[00:04:43] of spirit, but in 2020, during the height
[00:04:45] of the
[00:04:45] of COVID pandemic, politically charged protests gridlocked
[00:04:49] these streets. hundreds of demonstrators paraded through the
[00:04:53] streets, demonstrators railed against government lockdowns
[00:04:56] and questioned the science behind the vaccine.
[00:05:01] Six years on, some of that skepticism
[00:05:04] remains.
[00:05:07] of Originally, before COVID-19, I didn't have any like vaccine
[00:05:10] hesitancy, I'm... vaxed, my
[00:05:13] family's
[00:05:15] vaxed um, but then after and I actually did get the COVID-19 vaccine, but
[00:05:19] then now I'm like hearing a lot of
[00:05:22] kind of, you know, maybe it wasn't actually
[00:05:26] as necessary as they kind of were pushing it on um
[00:05:29] Americans, and where are you getting your
[00:05:33] information from? um, I see lot of videos on like social
[00:05:37] media as well as like my family actually went
[00:05:40] through recent like... health kind of scared and she kind of thought
[00:05:44] maybe it was from the COVID-19 vaccine.
[00:05:47] Penelope is not alone, latest research shows more Americans
[00:05:51] than ever before, don't trust vaccines, the science
[00:05:55] behind them, or their government. How do you feel
[00:05:59] now about vaccines? Maybe some
[00:06:02] them, we can wait a little longer than pushing them right at
[00:06:06] birth, just what they found, maybe
[00:06:10] that things that can cause issues. single cause, i won't get another
[00:06:14] vaccination, you know, i just have to deal with the consequences,
[00:06:17] you know, because it didn't, it didn't help cuz i
[00:06:21] still caught covid, i really don't think they work,
[00:06:24] you know, and then again i don't know what they really injected in
[00:06:27] me, for many americans the rise in
[00:06:31] vaccine skepticism and declining trust is worrying,
[00:06:35] i'm very pro vaccines, we've vaccinated all of our
[00:06:38] kids, i'm vaccinated and why
[00:06:42] are you pro vaccine? what is it? do you believe the science? do you believe the government
[00:06:46] advice? what is it that you you trust? pretty much all of that. i believe the science
[00:06:50] of it.
[00:06:50] i believe it helps prevent the spread of diseases and that's the best way to do
[00:06:54] that for our kids. think a lot of has to do with social media that
[00:06:58] people put it out there without based any real
[00:07:02] evidence, and then people tend to um
[00:07:06] buy into these conspiracy theories and like the
[00:07:09] drama of what if. do you think COVID?
[00:07:13] um maybe exacerbated some the the vaccine skepticism or
[00:07:17] just the skepticism against public institutions? i don't think it's a new
[00:07:20] phenomenon that people are not trusting in institutions and the police
[00:07:24] and the government overall, because if you go back historically in the
[00:07:28] 60s and 70s there was major protests, so there's always
[00:07:32] been, what's the difference now? it's blasted all over social
[00:07:35] media, so it's much more of a conversation than it was
[00:07:39] before, but there's always been... a
[00:07:43] influx of younger people, and we were probably one them that
[00:07:47] questioned the establishment. some
[00:07:51] reaction there from the streets of Annapolis: well, vaccine hesitancy
[00:07:55] has grown here in recent years. the Trump
[00:07:58] administration with health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has
[00:08:02] attempted to reduce childhood vaccination in the face of established
[00:08:06] medical advice. I sat down with pediatrician Dr.
[00:08:10] Paul Offert, who was dismissed. from a government vaccine advisory board
[00:08:14] last year over his criticism of Robert
[00:08:17] Kennedy. I think that the COVID pandemic
[00:08:21] supercharged the lack of trust in public health institutions.
[00:08:25] This was virus that was spread person to person and it could be spread from somebody who
[00:08:28] had no symptoms, so all we could do was prevent human
[00:08:32] to human contact. So we closed schools and shuttered businesses and
[00:08:36] restricted travel
[00:08:40] and social distance and quarantine. was that was that government overreach in your
[00:08:44] opinion? it certainly was perceived by a group of people in this country,
[00:08:48] section of this country as massive government overreach. you couldn't go to your favorite bar or
[00:08:51] restaurant or sporting event without your vaccination car. you may be fired from your job. that too was seen as
[00:08:55] government overreach. they did people didn't like being told what to do, they didn't like being
[00:08:59] told by the government what to do, and we certainly could have done a better job at
[00:09:03] explaining it. so i think people didn't like that, but i don't think it was the it
[00:09:07] was the the cause the distrust. i think it's also part of a general
[00:09:10] anti-government sort of um, action, not just against public
[00:09:14] health, but in many other arenas? yeah, I mean, we're seeing
[00:09:17] that, um, right now, it's not just public health that's taking a hit, it's trust in
[00:09:21] public education, in congress, the Supreme Court, even even the
[00:09:25] media, um, 12 the 14 core US institutions
[00:09:28] rated annually since 1993 are at or
[00:09:32] near their lowest ever approval rating, so where
[00:09:36] does that leave the country if there is this, if there is no perceived
[00:09:39] standard bearer of trusted information? well, I think... "if you have an anti-government
[00:09:43] movement because public health is considered to be a government function, then you're having an
[00:09:47] anti-public health movement, and that's true, that's what you're seeing, this kind of under the the
[00:09:51] euphemistic name medical freedom, people are saying I'm going to do what I want,
[00:09:55] um, I don't care how it affects somebody else. Americans are very protective their first
[00:09:58] amendment rights aren't they, they're calling it medical freedom, there's a sort of freedom of
[00:10:02] religion, press freedom, um,
[00:10:05] you know, the right to bear arms, but but how concerning is it when it relates
[00:10:09] to to public health policy, it's very..." concerning, I
[00:10:13] mean, basically what you're saying is it's my right to catch and transmit a potentially fatal
[00:10:16] infection, knowing that there are a certain number of people, millions of people in this
[00:10:20] country for example, can't be vaccinated, who depend on me and
[00:10:24] the people around them to... protect them
[00:10:25] and what you're saying by saying I'm
[00:10:26] going to do whatever I want to do, I don't care how it affects others, that causes an erosion
[00:10:30] in public health, and that's what you're saying, you're seeing now an
[00:10:34] epidemic of measels in this country, we've had thousands of cases of measles over the
[00:10:38] last year and a half, we've had we've had five people die of measels over the last year and a
[00:10:42] half, and that equals the total number of measles deaths in the previous 25
[00:10:45] years was three, so and you're seeing more hoopingkough deaths, more
[00:10:49] influenza deaths in children, um, so this is the outcome
[00:10:53] of I'm going to do whatever the hell i want to do. "it doesn't matter what the government tells me. how
[00:10:57] much of this is is partisan politics in your opinion and the
[00:11:00] politicization of so many different issues in America right now?
[00:11:04] i think when Robert F Kennedy Jr. who's currently the secretary of health and human services says,
[00:11:08] "i am in this position because of covid," he's right
[00:11:11] and and
[00:11:11] be and for that reason people
[00:11:13] felt that there
[00:11:14] was too much government overreach, what what he is, he is the belief
[00:11:18] that you should do whatever you want, you shouldn't have vaccine mandates, that you should beneficially
[00:11:22] make vaccines optional, and then that's that's just..." enormous erosion in
[00:11:26] public health and we're paying a price for it in terms the infectious diseases that we're
[00:11:29] seeing, you've been highly critical the health secretary, Robert F
[00:11:33] Kennedy Jr. he's blocked you from the government's vaccine advisory panel which he
[00:11:37] served on for for many years. the president has issued this
[00:11:41] executive order that reduces the number of vaccines given to children by
[00:11:44] about a third and then it seeks to separate the combined measles,
[00:11:48] mumps and rebellla vaccine into these uh single dose
[00:11:52] shots. what do you make of all of this?
[00:11:57] It was silly is what I make of it. I mean, you have President Trump having a press
[00:12:01] conference with, you know, Robert
[00:12:03] F Can his side, saying he wants to separate the mezels mumster bella vaccine into
[00:12:07] its three component parts, so instead of having two doses of of vaccine, you would
[00:12:11] have six for no benefit. I mean, the mesel bumps for bella vaccine doesn't
[00:12:15] cause autism, there's more than 25 studies that have shown that
[00:12:18] in seven countries and three continents and involving hundreds of thousands of children,
[00:12:22] so why is separating it out make it uh... make it safer, all it does is
[00:12:26] increase the period of time during which children are susceptible to these diseases with no
[00:12:30] benefit. he's also said that he wants to lessen the number of routinely recommended
[00:12:34] vaccines from 17 to 10 because he thinks they're just getting too many and
[00:12:38] it's just wrong. how much do you think social media in the internet now plays
[00:12:41] into all of this? there is so much information, good information on the
[00:12:45] internet, but there is so much misinformation also. do you
[00:12:49] think that plays into the echo chambers?
[00:12:53] yes, you said it perfectly, "the internet is source of great and awful
[00:12:56] information, and if you're looking for something to scare you about vaccines,
[00:13:00] it's not hard to find it on the internet, if you're looking for any particular conspiracy
[00:13:04] theory that you buy into, it's not hard to find fellow travelers
[00:13:08] who like you share the same conspiracy theory. there has been an enormous
[00:13:12] erosion in trust in institutions, and I think it's
[00:13:16] been going on for a while, I do think that the COVID pandemic supercharge that
[00:13:19] distrust, and um, I'm not sure what is going to have to happen
[00:13:23] to get it back." Maybe the only way that we're going to be able to get it back is when
[00:13:27] people see what happens when you do have an erosion in that trust in terms
[00:13:31] the number of children who are suffering or being hospitalized or dying, and
[00:13:35] that hasn't been enough yet, because the most recent CDC data show
[00:13:39] that more parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children, it's happening in
[00:13:42] all states and there's some areas where as high as 7% of parents are choosing
[00:13:46] not to vaccinate their children, and and this is the result, but it hasn't scared parents
[00:13:50] enough to to move that trend in the other direction. I mean, I was getting to
[00:13:54] ask you. how you think you restore the public trust in america's
[00:13:57] institutions, but you just said you don't know. oh, i think the
[00:14:01] viruses and bacteria are going to be doing the educating. um, do you think
[00:14:05] that the US can ever heal its COVID wounds, or do you think COVID killed that
[00:14:09] trust in US institutions forever? well, I'm an
[00:14:13] optimist. i think that we can get past this. i think these things generally
[00:14:17] cycle. i think people felt the same way during the Nixon administration when you saw
[00:14:21] what was going on behind the scenes with regard things things like the Pentagon paper. or
[00:14:25] Woodgate and people had lost trust in in uh
[00:14:29] the government and then gradually it they regained it and you know now
[00:14:33] we're basically I think Donald Trump is president the United States because there was
[00:14:36] a distrust in the government he sort of rode in on his horse
[00:14:40] with you it's it's a swamp and I'm going to drain it I guess I buy
[00:14:44] into the line by Hegel where he said what we learned from history is that we
[00:14:48] never learned from history I think that's the way this plays
[00:14:57] to today's debate. I'm joined uh by Amisha Cross
[00:15:00] a Democrat and former advisor to president Barack Obama's
[00:15:04] campaign and Matthew Hurt, a political analyst and chair
[00:15:08] the Arlington Republican Party in Virginia.
[00:15:14] to the rule of law, from security to the government.
[00:15:17] Americans trust each other less today than they
[00:15:20] did decades ago. Matthew, did Covid kill
[00:15:24] Trust? or do you think it exposed something that was already
[00:15:28] crumbling in America? I think that
[00:15:30] the COVID pandemic actually exposed something that had been happening and that is
[00:15:34] played out in the polls for number of decades, trust and inst.
[00:15:37] like government uh and neighborhoods has has been on
[00:15:40] the decline and what we saw in the early days of 2020 with people
[00:15:44] like Dr. Anthony Fauti was shifting the goal posts on
[00:15:48] what people should do uh mandating vaccines that were
[00:15:51] untested uh and number of things that really caused parents to
[00:15:55] question uh what they were putting into their bodies and their children's
[00:15:59] bodies. The federal government lost America's trust a long time ago, they did
[00:16:03] have lot more faith in their state and local governments. I think that what we saw during the COVID
[00:16:07] pandemic. covid-19 pandemic was that there were people who were
[00:16:10] questioning how fast things were moving, um,
[00:16:13] you know, a couple of weeks we heard that it was social distancing, then you couldn't go to
[00:16:16] restaurant past like 10 p.m. i don't, covid came out and danced at night, um, there
[00:16:20] were people who had lot of frustrations with the idea that they did
[00:16:24] not have enough information, and they will say you, the idea of following the science
[00:16:28] for lot of folks um, when the science seemed to be changing month after month and in
[00:16:32] some cases week after week was very frustrating, and in large part i think having people in
[00:16:36] their homes and not being able to socialize for months a time um was
[00:16:40] something that affected the social, emotional and mental psychee of lot of individuals. we did what
[00:16:44] we had to do with the information we had at the time, and i think that
[00:16:47] positing uh Anthony Fouchy as the scape goat was and still remains a
[00:16:51] problem, but moreover, people often forget that the you know commander and
[00:16:55] chief at the time was Donald John Trump, and Donald John, Donald John
[00:16:59] Trump also pushed and initiated operation warp speed, it was one
[00:17:03] the you know highlight moments of his entire administration, and I think
[00:17:07] that it's should be, however, when we reflect, lot of people don't want to talk about that, he
[00:17:11] pushed the vaccine, he got the vaccine himself, and then he also led conspiracy
[00:17:14] theories, that's a problem. Amisha makes a really interesting point about
[00:17:18] President Trump's operation warp speed, in August of 2020,
[00:17:22] then vice presidential nominee Camala Harris raised serious questions about operation
[00:17:26] warp speed, in September of 2020, Joe Biden raised serious
[00:17:30] questions about operation warp speed, and so there is some level to this
[00:17:33] conversation where people say, is it President Trump's fault, is it uh secretary?
[00:17:37] of human health and human services Robert F Kennedy's fault uh, we've got
[00:17:41] plenty of distrust on both sides the aisle that have led to this. I i'm
[00:17:45] certain today that many democrats, many my friends on the left, do not
[00:17:49] trust the federal government, uh, they may say weaponization the department of justice and other
[00:17:53] things, and I think that what we're seeing and what we've seen over the last 10 or
[00:17:56] 15 years, is increased use the federal government in
[00:18:00] particular to punish political enemies and that has raised serious
[00:18:04] questions uh among folks. I think if we zoom out and... look at
[00:18:08] COVID and and vaccines more broadly, when I was
[00:18:11] growing up in
[00:18:12] the in the late 1980s, my vaccine schedule was many fewer
[00:18:16] vaccines a much uh much wider timeline, and what we've seen now,
[00:18:20] I've got a 12-year-old niece and a three-year-old nephew, both who were on
[00:18:24] rapidly increasing vaccine schedules uh, and we're told
[00:18:28] during the pandemic, you must get this, you must get something that is that is
[00:18:32] untested, and the CDC in June of last year
[00:18:36] said that some these vaccine. particularly related to COVID-19
[00:18:39] have led to and can be related to the myocarditis that we're seeing among young
[00:18:43] people. yeah, I mean, we spoke to people on the streets of Annapolis, there. there were some them
[00:18:47] were skeptical the information now coming from
[00:18:51] institutions like the CDC, but it's not just with regards to
[00:18:54] vaccines, I mean people have less trust now in the Supreme Court,
[00:18:58] in elected officials, in the media. do you think both sides are
[00:19:02] responsible for that? both political parties are responsible for
[00:19:05] declining trust? i think declining. as result of few things, um,
[00:19:09] one,
[00:19:09] you know, uh, lot of what has been said by by certain media
[00:19:13] uh, certain media outlets has been debunked. um, addition to that, we
[00:19:17] do have various people who can't tell the difference between actual media
[00:19:21] frameworks and journalism versus those who are taking off on social media and
[00:19:24] digital outlets who are not journalists, who do not have the same standards, who honestly, in many
[00:19:28] cases have much bigger following and people who watch them regularly, so there's media
[00:19:32] literacy
[00:19:33] that is huge problem in the United States. beyond that, I also think that we cannot be
[00:19:37] remissed. and how this administration has gone about dismantling
[00:19:40] various uh various parts the federal government and
[00:19:44] within that process they have also gone against the
[00:19:48] um the reasons why those departments even exist, we've seen this with the department of
[00:19:52] education, we've seen it with the office of civil rights, we've seen it with the department of justice
[00:19:56] which is now um basically operating as a go after
[00:19:59] Trump's enemies vengeance tour rather than actually prosecuting and going after cases
[00:20:03] of legitimate mail feasants uh this administration has tried to
[00:20:07] create the federal government in its own image, in president Trump's image, which has
[00:20:11] in many cases made people question the use of of those
[00:20:15] agencies up to including even the FDA, um, because right
[00:20:19] now we also have in America where we we're afraid eat the lettuce
[00:20:22] because it has not gone through the process of testing
[00:20:26] that it should, and I think that people are questioning lot of things at the federal level because
[00:20:30] this president seems to do everything else, he wants to beautify the city, he is you know the
[00:20:34] commander and chief of all things pretty in DC, but he is not... paying attention to
[00:20:38] the things that matter the most when it comes to federal regulations, why they exist,
[00:20:42] why we should be having those checks and balances, and people are rightfully afraid
[00:20:46] because people now are having measles throughout their communities, that's something that we are.
[00:20:50] cated generations ago, they're afraid to go to the grocery store because they don't know if their produce is
[00:20:54] actually going to kill them or send them to the hospital for days a time. these are things we
[00:20:58] weren't worried about four, eight, 12 years ago, that we do have to worry about
[00:21:01] today. is skepticism is good, a little skepticism is
[00:21:05] good, we should be holding our elected officials to account. i come from a
[00:21:09] position that healthy skepticism of government any level is good.
[00:21:13] do think is amisha said, we're in this weird period of of
[00:21:17] information consumption, and i hesitate to say, disinformation or
[00:21:20] misinformation, but particularly with the rise of AI, in what is real,
[00:21:24] what are people watching and consuming that is real and factual information? to
[00:21:28] the point the of lettuce, there is a there's an outbreak of
[00:21:32] listeria or something among among vegetables once every 18 to 24
[00:21:36] months regardless of who the president is uh, but I do think that that where we're
[00:21:40] getting our information, where we're getting accurate information and how we're
[00:21:44] discerning that information is uh, we're in sort of limbo
[00:21:47] situation right? yeah, I mean social media obviously... saw um
[00:21:51] you know the rise of sort of alternative media sources,
[00:21:54] substacks, podcasts, alternative health resources,
[00:21:58] um, how dangerous is social media amplifying the distrust
[00:22:02] or misinformation? well, I think it makes anybody a journalist um, and at the end the
[00:22:06] day lot of people are looking at that not through a media lens, but they're taking it is truth, because
[00:22:09] even in traditional journalism um, there is such thing as confirmation
[00:22:13] bias, so if you come a uh, you start a
[00:22:17] anti-vax point, then you're going to go towards the... sources that continue
[00:22:21] to influence your anti-vax positioning um and not those
[00:22:25] that have alternative viewpoints or those that are backed by science or those that are you
[00:22:29] know fuel through medical journals you're not going to see that so
[00:22:31] i think that part of it is again media literacy the other part is there's so many
[00:22:35] different places to find media today. this is not the era of
[00:22:39] Walter Cronkight, CBS, NBC, ABC News, and then
[00:22:43] you know few decades later a handful of cable news sources, no, it's the wow
[00:22:46] wow West across social media and everybody is... picking one that
[00:22:50] confirms what they already believe? well, and also with social media, the algorithms
[00:22:54] will be, if you're feeding into one theory, it will probably deliver you
[00:22:58] more the same. um, I mean, how dangerous is that? well, we're seeing right now
[00:23:02] play out in the courts with with Facebook and meta and in how we consume
[00:23:06] information and how the algorithm pushes that information to us. I can
[00:23:10] tell you right now, my Instagram feed is a wild expanse of
[00:23:13] of professional memes and political memes from across the spectrum, but I
[00:23:17] guarantee, I can almost guarantee that most... people do get funneled
[00:23:21] into one direction or another uh and that is what they're
[00:23:25] consuming and they're they're taking those many of those things is opinion or
[00:23:29] is fact? um amisha, how dangerous is it? mean
[00:23:32] democracy is really unbuilt on trust, people have to trust the
[00:23:36] institution, so how damaging, what are the implications if people are
[00:23:40] losing trust in public institutions? well, i think that
[00:23:44] the it erodes democracy in its entirety, if people don't believe in
[00:23:48] the public institutions that are supposed to serve. them i think that this president has not
[00:23:52] done his due diligence and one understanding what democracy is, but beyond that
[00:23:56] upholding our constitution, and we've seen example after example uh,
[00:23:59] unfortunately we give Matthew a chance there
[00:24:01] to to jump in, do you agree with that? look, i think that weaponization the federal
[00:24:05] government has happened under the last several administrations. i think that we saw
[00:24:08] President Obama weaponize the government against uh the IRS against
[00:24:12] conservative groups like t- party organizations. i think that it has
[00:24:16] escalated and that is natural inclination of of...
[00:24:20] weaponization of government, it's dangerous, it's dangerous when Republicans do it, it's
[00:24:23] dangerous when Democrats do it, and that's why it's so important for people to get outside
[00:24:27] their screens and go out and be involved in the community. I live just across the
[00:24:31] river, I go to the farmer's market, I know my neighbors in my apartment building, I'm
[00:24:35] engaged in in interacting with folks, it is responsibility of
[00:24:38] citizen to not only engage in what's happening right down the street
[00:24:42] here, but also engage in what's happening in their neighborhoods and to know the people
[00:24:46] who live next door so that we can't go onto the internet and hate those people.
[00:24:50] once when when we have difference of opinion, do you agree, it's a responsibility of citizens? i definitely think it's a
[00:24:54] responsibility of citizens to be informed. i also think that citizens are rising
[00:24:58] up, they rose up during the no king's rallies, they rise up in communities every
[00:25:01] day, they are challenging the media narratives, meanwhile the president is
[00:25:05] threatening to shut some down, he is you know advocating for FCC to
[00:25:09] quiet individuals that he doesn't want to hear from, um,
[00:25:13] there's a false equival equivalency that you just made, because there has not been a
[00:25:16] single president who has reacted um in the way Donald Trump
[00:25:20] has, not only in terms of dismansling government, but also again,
[00:25:24] recreating it away from how the founders designed it to be, and
[00:25:27] disrupting those checks and balances, because advocacy only goes so far, the people
[00:25:31] can speak as much as they want, but when you have a president who is going against the
[00:25:35] courts, when you have a president who is arguing that they should always side
[00:25:39] with him no matter what, when you have a president who has a triage
[00:25:43] of individuals who will docs people across social media for any
[00:25:46] conversation that does not align with his political view.
[00:25:50] That is a problem. Amisha makes an interesting point about uh
[00:25:54] the the struggle between the three branches of government. One the big things that I
[00:25:58] think may happen if democrats take the house in the senate is court
[00:26:01] packing.
[00:26:02] It has been. It is not written into the constitution, but it has been an agreement for for
[00:26:05] 100 plus years that there are nine justices on the Supreme Court, and
[00:26:09] it is very clear to me in in public statements by members of congress
[00:26:13] democrats that they intend to pack the Supreme Court which would undermine our
[00:26:17] judicial system uh through the through the legislative branch, well some
[00:26:21] people would say it's packed with conservative judges right now, well I mean it's packed at nine with of
[00:26:25] justices who were up with advice and consent the United States Senate
[00:26:29] were appointed as as they as it is outlined in the U.S. constitution so is
[00:26:33] it the fact that the Supreme Court are political appointees, perhaps that is also
[00:26:37] responsible for an erosion of tris? they're answering more political questions these
[00:26:41] days, and I think especially under the Trump administration, but it has always been
[00:26:45] the the role of our court system and particularly the Supreme Court to
[00:26:48] answer those big constitutional questions. Amisha, where do we go from
[00:26:52] here? um, how can public institutions rebuild
[00:26:55] trust within the American king? well, I think that that's an ever revolving question, um,
[00:26:59] the public institutions themselves need to do better job of... being transparent, they need to
[00:27:03] do better job of um being vocal outside of DC, it's seen as a bubble
[00:27:07] in and of itself, and people in communities across the country don't necessarily resonate with
[00:27:11] that, but they also believe that
[00:27:14] the book stops with the president, the president has to, is
[00:27:17] part of his job, his, hers, whoever is president, to ensure that our
[00:27:21] democracy is functioning, to ensure that there is um an
[00:27:25] amount of faith that exists between the public and the people who it
[00:27:28] elects, but also to consider that our democracy
[00:27:32] was built and shaped to last through generations, anyone who moves
[00:27:36] to erode that is not only undemocratic, but is also somebody who is
[00:27:40] flying in the face of our constitution and its design. Matthew, do you think the crisis of
[00:27:44] trust is reversible? i am eternally optimistic in the
[00:27:48] crisis of trust being reversible. this why
[00:27:50] i come
[00:27:50] and have conversations like this with amisha, think
[00:27:53] it is so important, it not only is incumbant on our elected
[00:27:56] officials, but it is so important in people in in communities and
[00:28:00] neighborhoods across the country, it's exactly Alexis de Tokful wrote in
[00:28:04] Democracy in America, he was amazed at the the little germs of
[00:28:07] society and and organizations that exists in our churches and our civic
[00:28:10] institutions, and it's why I'm committed as local political leader to go out
[00:28:14] into the community and meet my neighbors. Do you think if we had another
[00:28:18] um national crisis tomorrow, do we have enough
[00:28:22] institutional capital left to respond
[00:28:25] decisively? We we have national crisis in America every
[00:28:28] day. Um, no, I, I don't think that we do. I think that the...
[00:28:32] structure has been so badly disrupted that it would one be
[00:28:36] extremely hard to respond in kind, but also and oftentimes people
[00:28:40] don't know where the direction is coming from, and the information that is coming from the white
[00:28:43] house and from some these agencies is often conflicting. okay, i'm going to
[00:28:47] leave you matthew with the final word, because you are the optimist. well, you
[00:28:51] know, think i tend to agree with Amisha on that, whatever the big next big
[00:28:55] national crisis is, particularly as it pertains to
[00:28:59] healthcare or vaccinations, i think there's a big question mark there. but when it comes to
[00:29:03] natural disasters, when it comes to where the solutions come from our
[00:29:06] communities, uh, the affected communities, I think we see solutions a
[00:29:10] daily basis and that brings
[00:30:20] fresh exchanges of fire between the hoothies and the Saudi backed government in
[00:30:23] Yemen. The UN says more than 100,00 people have been
[00:30:26] displaced. The leaders of Saudi Arabia and
[00:30:30] Egypt hold crisis talks in Cairo. to address the widening conflict in the Middle
[00:30:34] East. Hello, welcome to TRT World
[00:30:38] Live from London. I'm Aron Armstrong, also coming up on the
[00:30:40] program. Two sailors are missing after another attack on shipping
[00:30:44] in the straight of Formus. The US has blamed Iran. Tiran says the ship
[00:30:48] hit mines. And the top US law
[00:30:52] maker echoes President Trump's hoax claims about the dangers of AI
[00:30:56] and the risks of falling behind
[00:30:58] China.