Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00and the competitors will be able to absorb the riders, increase their market
00:00:04share, have more drivers that
00:00:06you know they can deploy to carrying out this particular ride healing
00:00:09business. the bigger question for former uber
00:00:13drivers is what replaces their income and how
00:00:23the Philippines, the first ever democratic
00:00:25of election in the Bangzamoro autonomous
00:00:28a region in Muslim, Mindano has resulted
00:00:31in a hung parliament. The landmark vote follows a decades
00:00:35long bloody civil war for autonomy. Yanyan
00:00:39of
00:00:39a camenzin bromby has more of
00:00:43political campaigning and decades of fighting here to
00:00:47establish the balm region and its first
00:00:50of directly democratically elected
00:00:52of government. It's going to be a hung parliament. And that really brings up
00:00:56few new questions, one of which is how are the political relations?
00:01:00between the leaders
00:01:03of of the two main parties, one of them the UBJP, one
00:01:04of them the BFP
00:01:06of going to play out in the coming weeks. Let's not
00:01:09in forget that these two parties themselves emerged from a high
00:01:13level split in the
00:01:15of rebel group that was fighting for the establishment of this
00:01:19autonomous region, some bad blood then potentially between those
00:01:22senior political figures, can they figure out a
00:01:25of way to move from the fighting towards political negotiation, can they figure
00:01:29out way to hash out deal, or is one
00:01:33of the smaller parties, perhaps the Grand Banksamorrow coalition
00:01:37going to become Kingmaker, they're the party that came in third
00:01:41place in these elections, are they going to be the important
00:01:44political figures that help tip the balance and help swing one
00:01:48of these parties over that all important 41 seat threshold that will be
00:01:52required to govern here. another question of course
00:01:56is can the peace last? it has been remarkable,
00:02:00the level of peace that we've seen across the region, there have of course
00:02:03of been explosions, there were shootings, especially
00:02:05of here in kotabaro city, but
00:02:08of broadly comelect, the election officials from Manila were
00:02:12pretty happy it seems
00:02:14of with the way in which the elections have gone despite some
00:02:17allegations of fraudulent voting, some allegations of election
00:02:22of interference and of course spats of violence, they are pretty happy with how things
00:02:26are, especially when when compared to the large scale violence that we've seen in
00:02:30decades gone by, the question then is can the peace last, can these
00:02:34of political agents, can these politicians find a way on the
00:02:38negotiating table to make things work, to come together and to
00:02:42of work for the sake
00:02:42of the bangsa people, that's what they've been saying that their aim is
00:02:46after
00:03:06of On this
00:03:10episode of
00:03:11of Inside of America, we ask, will the US
00:03:14of ever heal its COVID
00:03:16wounds? I think that the COVID
00:03:20pandemic supercharged the lack of trust in public health
00:03:24institution. Commander and chief at the time was Donald John Trump, he pushed
00:03:28the vaccine, he got the vaccine himself.
00:03:30a and then he also lead conspiracy theory. what we're seeing is increased
00:03:34use
00:03:34of the federal government to punish political enemies. it's
00:03:37of dangerous when republicans
00:03:38in do it, it's dangerous when democrats do it. it's the wow wow west across social
00:03:42media.
00:03:43it erodes democracy in its entirety. people don't believe in the public institutions that are
00:03:47a supposed to serve
00:03:48a them. hello and welcome to the show. i'm selena downs
00:03:52and today i'm joined by the political analysts Amisha Cross
00:03:55of and Matthew Hurt.
00:03:57in a moment we'll be debating whether the us can ever
00:04:01a heal its covid wounds. It's been six years
00:04:04since
00:04:05of the pandemic, but the divisions it caused still run deep through American
00:04:09politics
00:04:10of and culture. Annapolis in Maryland was one
00:04:13of the many cities
00:04:14of which saw covid protests back in 2020. I went to speak
00:04:18to people there to see how they feel today. This is
00:04:22street pulse. When Covid came
00:04:25around, people were going to get vaccinated because that's what we were trained
00:04:29to do. so then then you get vaccinated again,
00:04:32and then you get vaccinated again, and now people start to wonder, what is
00:04:36this about? today, Annapolis is bustling coastal city
00:04:40with vibrant community
00:04:43of spirit, but in 2020, during the height
00:04:45of the
00:04:45of COVID pandemic, politically charged protests gridlocked
00:04:49these streets. hundreds of demonstrators paraded through the
00:04:53streets, demonstrators railed against government lockdowns
00:04:56and questioned the science behind the vaccine.
00:05:01Six years on, some of that skepticism
00:05:04remains.
00:05:07of Originally, before COVID-19, I didn't have any like vaccine
00:05:10hesitancy, I'm... vaxed, my
00:05:13family's
00:05:15vaxed um, but then after and I actually did get the COVID-19 vaccine, but
00:05:19then now I'm like hearing a lot of
00:05:22kind of, you know, maybe it wasn't actually
00:05:26as necessary as they kind of were pushing it on um
00:05:29Americans, and where are you getting your
00:05:33information from? um, I see lot of videos on like social
00:05:37media as well as like my family actually went
00:05:40through recent like... health kind of scared and she kind of thought
00:05:44maybe it was from the COVID-19 vaccine.
00:05:47Penelope is not alone, latest research shows more Americans
00:05:51than ever before, don't trust vaccines, the science
00:05:55behind them, or their government. How do you feel
00:05:59now about vaccines? Maybe some
00:06:02them, we can wait a little longer than pushing them right at
00:06:06birth, just what they found, maybe
00:06:10that things that can cause issues. single cause, i won't get another
00:06:14vaccination, you know, i just have to deal with the consequences,
00:06:17you know, because it didn't, it didn't help cuz i
00:06:21still caught covid, i really don't think they work,
00:06:24you know, and then again i don't know what they really injected in
00:06:27me, for many americans the rise in
00:06:31vaccine skepticism and declining trust is worrying,
00:06:35i'm very pro vaccines, we've vaccinated all of our
00:06:38kids, i'm vaccinated and why
00:06:42are you pro vaccine? what is it? do you believe the science? do you believe the government
00:06:46advice? what is it that you you trust? pretty much all of that. i believe the science
00:06:50of it.
00:06:50i believe it helps prevent the spread of diseases and that's the best way to do
00:06:54that for our kids. think a lot of has to do with social media that
00:06:58people put it out there without based any real
00:07:02evidence, and then people tend to um
00:07:06buy into these conspiracy theories and like the
00:07:09drama of what if. do you think COVID?
00:07:13um maybe exacerbated some the the vaccine skepticism or
00:07:17just the skepticism against public institutions? i don't think it's a new
00:07:20phenomenon that people are not trusting in institutions and the police
00:07:24and the government overall, because if you go back historically in the
00:07:2860s and 70s there was major protests, so there's always
00:07:32been, what's the difference now? it's blasted all over social
00:07:35media, so it's much more of a conversation than it was
00:07:39before, but there's always been... a
00:07:43influx of younger people, and we were probably one them that
00:07:47questioned the establishment. some
00:07:51reaction there from the streets of Annapolis: well, vaccine hesitancy
00:07:55has grown here in recent years. the Trump
00:07:58administration with health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has
00:08:02attempted to reduce childhood vaccination in the face of established
00:08:06medical advice. I sat down with pediatrician Dr.
00:08:10Paul Offert, who was dismissed. from a government vaccine advisory board
00:08:14last year over his criticism of Robert
00:08:17Kennedy. I think that the COVID pandemic
00:08:21supercharged the lack of trust in public health institutions.
00:08:25This was virus that was spread person to person and it could be spread from somebody who
00:08:28had no symptoms, so all we could do was prevent human
00:08:32to human contact. So we closed schools and shuttered businesses and
00:08:36restricted travel
00:08:40and social distance and quarantine. was that was that government overreach in your
00:08:44opinion? it certainly was perceived by a group of people in this country,
00:08:48section of this country as massive government overreach. you couldn't go to your favorite bar or
00:08:51restaurant or sporting event without your vaccination car. you may be fired from your job. that too was seen as
00:08:55government overreach. they did people didn't like being told what to do, they didn't like being
00:08:59told by the government what to do, and we certainly could have done a better job at
00:09:03explaining it. so i think people didn't like that, but i don't think it was the it
00:09:07was the the cause the distrust. i think it's also part of a general
00:09:10anti-government sort of um, action, not just against public
00:09:14health, but in many other arenas? yeah, I mean, we're seeing
00:09:17that, um, right now, it's not just public health that's taking a hit, it's trust in
00:09:21public education, in congress, the Supreme Court, even even the
00:09:25media, um, 12 the 14 core US institutions
00:09:28rated annually since 1993 are at or
00:09:32near their lowest ever approval rating, so where
00:09:36does that leave the country if there is this, if there is no perceived
00:09:39standard bearer of trusted information? well, I think... "if you have an anti-government
00:09:43movement because public health is considered to be a government function, then you're having an
00:09:47anti-public health movement, and that's true, that's what you're seeing, this kind of under the the
00:09:51euphemistic name medical freedom, people are saying I'm going to do what I want,
00:09:55um, I don't care how it affects somebody else. Americans are very protective their first
00:09:58amendment rights aren't they, they're calling it medical freedom, there's a sort of freedom of
00:10:02religion, press freedom, um,
00:10:05you know, the right to bear arms, but but how concerning is it when it relates
00:10:09to to public health policy, it's very..." concerning, I
00:10:13mean, basically what you're saying is it's my right to catch and transmit a potentially fatal
00:10:16infection, knowing that there are a certain number of people, millions of people in this
00:10:20country for example, can't be vaccinated, who depend on me and
00:10:24the people around them to... protect them
00:10:25and what you're saying by saying I'm
00:10:26going to do whatever I want to do, I don't care how it affects others, that causes an erosion
00:10:30in public health, and that's what you're saying, you're seeing now an
00:10:34epidemic of measels in this country, we've had thousands of cases of measles over the
00:10:38last year and a half, we've had we've had five people die of measels over the last year and a
00:10:42half, and that equals the total number of measles deaths in the previous 25
00:10:45years was three, so and you're seeing more hoopingkough deaths, more
00:10:49influenza deaths in children, um, so this is the outcome
00:10:53of I'm going to do whatever the hell i want to do. "it doesn't matter what the government tells me. how
00:10:57much of this is is partisan politics in your opinion and the
00:11:00politicization of so many different issues in America right now?
00:11:04i 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
00:11:11and and
00:11:11be and for that reason people
00:11:13felt that there
00:11:14was too much government overreach, what what he is, he is the belief
00:11:18that you should do whatever you want, you shouldn't have vaccine mandates, that you should beneficially
00:11:22make vaccines optional, and then that's that's just..." enormous erosion in
00:11:26public health and we're paying a price for it in terms the infectious diseases that we're
00:11:29seeing, you've been highly critical the health secretary, Robert F
00:11:33Kennedy Jr. he's blocked you from the government's vaccine advisory panel which he
00:11:37served on for for many years. the president has issued this
00:11:41executive order that reduces the number of vaccines given to children by
00:11:44about a third and then it seeks to separate the combined measles,
00:11:48mumps and rebellla vaccine into these uh single dose
00:11:52shots. what do you make of all of this?
00:11:57It was silly is what I make of it. I mean, you have President Trump having a press
00:12:01conference with, you know, Robert
00:12:03F Can his side, saying he wants to separate the mezels mumster bella vaccine into
00:12:07its three component parts, so instead of having two doses of of vaccine, you would
00:12:11have six for no benefit. I mean, the mesel bumps for bella vaccine doesn't
00:12:15cause autism, there's more than 25 studies that have shown that
00:12:18in seven countries and three continents and involving hundreds of thousands of children,
00:12:22so why is separating it out make it uh... make it safer, all it does is
00:12:26increase the period of time during which children are susceptible to these diseases with no
00:12:30benefit. he's also said that he wants to lessen the number of routinely recommended
00:12:34vaccines from 17 to 10 because he thinks they're just getting too many and
00:12:38it's just wrong. how much do you think social media in the internet now plays
00:12:41into all of this? there is so much information, good information on the
00:12:45internet, but there is so much misinformation also. do you
00:12:49think that plays into the echo chambers?
00:12:53yes, you said it perfectly, "the internet is source of great and awful
00:12:56information, and if you're looking for something to scare you about vaccines,
00:13:00it's not hard to find it on the internet, if you're looking for any particular conspiracy
00:13:04theory that you buy into, it's not hard to find fellow travelers
00:13:08who like you share the same conspiracy theory. there has been an enormous
00:13:12erosion in trust in institutions, and I think it's
00:13:16been going on for a while, I do think that the COVID pandemic supercharge that
00:13:19distrust, and um, I'm not sure what is going to have to happen
00:13:23to get it back." Maybe the only way that we're going to be able to get it back is when
00:13:27people see what happens when you do have an erosion in that trust in terms
00:13:31the number of children who are suffering or being hospitalized or dying, and
00:13:35that hasn't been enough yet, because the most recent CDC data show
00:13:39that more parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children, it's happening in
00:13:42all states and there's some areas where as high as 7% of parents are choosing
00:13:46not to vaccinate their children, and and this is the result, but it hasn't scared parents
00:13:50enough to to move that trend in the other direction. I mean, I was getting to
00:13:54ask you. how you think you restore the public trust in america's
00:13:57institutions, but you just said you don't know. oh, i think the
00:14:01viruses and bacteria are going to be doing the educating. um, do you think
00:14:05that the US can ever heal its COVID wounds, or do you think COVID killed that
00:14:09trust in US institutions forever? well, I'm an
00:14:13optimist. i think that we can get past this. i think these things generally
00:14:17cycle. i think people felt the same way during the Nixon administration when you saw
00:14:21what was going on behind the scenes with regard things things like the Pentagon paper. or
00:14:25Woodgate and people had lost trust in in uh
00:14:29the government and then gradually it they regained it and you know now
00:14:33we're basically I think Donald Trump is president the United States because there was
00:14:36a distrust in the government he sort of rode in on his horse
00:14:40with you it's it's a swamp and I'm going to drain it I guess I buy
00:14:44into the line by Hegel where he said what we learned from history is that we
00:14:48never learned from history I think that's the way this plays
00:14:57to today's debate. I'm joined uh by Amisha Cross
00:15:00a Democrat and former advisor to president Barack Obama's
00:15:04campaign and Matthew Hurt, a political analyst and chair
00:15:08the Arlington Republican Party in Virginia.
00:15:14to the rule of law, from security to the government.
00:15:17Americans trust each other less today than they
00:15:20did decades ago. Matthew, did Covid kill
00:15:24Trust? or do you think it exposed something that was already
00:15:28crumbling in America? I think that
00:15:30the COVID pandemic actually exposed something that had been happening and that is
00:15:34played out in the polls for number of decades, trust and inst.
00:15:37like government uh and neighborhoods has has been on
00:15:40the decline and what we saw in the early days of 2020 with people
00:15:44like Dr. Anthony Fauti was shifting the goal posts on
00:15:48what people should do uh mandating vaccines that were
00:15:51untested uh and number of things that really caused parents to
00:15:55question uh what they were putting into their bodies and their children's
00:15:59bodies. The federal government lost America's trust a long time ago, they did
00:16:03have lot more faith in their state and local governments. I think that what we saw during the COVID
00:16:07pandemic. covid-19 pandemic was that there were people who were
00:16:10questioning how fast things were moving, um,
00:16:13you know, a couple of weeks we heard that it was social distancing, then you couldn't go to
00:16:16restaurant past like 10 p.m. i don't, covid came out and danced at night, um, there
00:16:20were people who had lot of frustrations with the idea that they did
00:16:24not have enough information, and they will say you, the idea of following the science
00:16:28for lot of folks um, when the science seemed to be changing month after month and in
00:16:32some cases week after week was very frustrating, and in large part i think having people in
00:16:36their homes and not being able to socialize for months a time um was
00:16:40something that affected the social, emotional and mental psychee of lot of individuals. we did what
00:16:44we had to do with the information we had at the time, and i think that
00:16:47positing uh Anthony Fouchy as the scape goat was and still remains a
00:16:51problem, but moreover, people often forget that the you know commander and
00:16:55chief at the time was Donald John Trump, and Donald John, Donald John
00:16:59Trump also pushed and initiated operation warp speed, it was one
00:17:03the you know highlight moments of his entire administration, and I think
00:17:07that it's should be, however, when we reflect, lot of people don't want to talk about that, he
00:17:11pushed the vaccine, he got the vaccine himself, and then he also led conspiracy
00:17:14theories, that's a problem. Amisha makes a really interesting point about
00:17:18President Trump's operation warp speed, in August of 2020,
00:17:22then vice presidential nominee Camala Harris raised serious questions about operation
00:17:26warp speed, in September of 2020, Joe Biden raised serious
00:17:30questions about operation warp speed, and so there is some level to this
00:17:33conversation where people say, is it President Trump's fault, is it uh secretary?
00:17:37of human health and human services Robert F Kennedy's fault uh, we've got
00:17:41plenty of distrust on both sides the aisle that have led to this. I i'm
00:17:45certain today that many democrats, many my friends on the left, do not
00:17:49trust the federal government, uh, they may say weaponization the department of justice and other
00:17:53things, and I think that what we're seeing and what we've seen over the last 10 or
00:17:5615 years, is increased use the federal government in
00:18:00particular to punish political enemies and that has raised serious
00:18:04questions uh among folks. I think if we zoom out and... look at
00:18:08COVID and and vaccines more broadly, when I was
00:18:11growing up in
00:18:12the in the late 1980s, my vaccine schedule was many fewer
00:18:16vaccines a much uh much wider timeline, and what we've seen now,
00:18:20I've got a 12-year-old niece and a three-year-old nephew, both who were on
00:18:24rapidly increasing vaccine schedules uh, and we're told
00:18:28during the pandemic, you must get this, you must get something that is that is
00:18:32untested, and the CDC in June of last year
00:18:36said that some these vaccine. particularly related to COVID-19
00:18:39have led to and can be related to the myocarditis that we're seeing among young
00:18:43people. yeah, I mean, we spoke to people on the streets of Annapolis, there. there were some them
00:18:47were skeptical the information now coming from
00:18:51institutions like the CDC, but it's not just with regards to
00:18:54vaccines, I mean people have less trust now in the Supreme Court,
00:18:58in elected officials, in the media. do you think both sides are
00:19:02responsible for that? both political parties are responsible for
00:19:05declining trust? i think declining. as result of few things, um,
00:19:09one,
00:19:09you know, uh, lot of what has been said by by certain media
00:19:13uh, certain media outlets has been debunked. um, addition to that, we
00:19:17do have various people who can't tell the difference between actual media
00:19:21frameworks and journalism versus those who are taking off on social media and
00:19:24digital outlets who are not journalists, who do not have the same standards, who honestly, in many
00:19:28cases have much bigger following and people who watch them regularly, so there's media
00:19:32literacy
00:19:33that is huge problem in the United States. beyond that, I also think that we cannot be
00:19:37remissed. and how this administration has gone about dismantling
00:19:40various uh various parts the federal government and
00:19:44within that process they have also gone against the
00:19:48um the reasons why those departments even exist, we've seen this with the department of
00:19:52education, we've seen it with the office of civil rights, we've seen it with the department of justice
00:19:56which is now um basically operating as a go after
00:19:59Trump's enemies vengeance tour rather than actually prosecuting and going after cases
00:20:03of legitimate mail feasants uh this administration has tried to
00:20:07create the federal government in its own image, in president Trump's image, which has
00:20:11in many cases made people question the use of of those
00:20:15agencies up to including even the FDA, um, because right
00:20:19now we also have in America where we we're afraid eat the lettuce
00:20:22because it has not gone through the process of testing
00:20:26that it should, and I think that people are questioning lot of things at the federal level because
00:20:30this president seems to do everything else, he wants to beautify the city, he is you know the
00:20:34commander and chief of all things pretty in DC, but he is not... paying attention to
00:20:38the things that matter the most when it comes to federal regulations, why they exist,
00:20:42why we should be having those checks and balances, and people are rightfully afraid
00:20:46because people now are having measles throughout their communities, that's something that we are.
00:20:50cated generations ago, they're afraid to go to the grocery store because they don't know if their produce is
00:20:54actually going to kill them or send them to the hospital for days a time. these are things we
00:20:58weren't worried about four, eight, 12 years ago, that we do have to worry about
00:21:01today. is skepticism is good, a little skepticism is
00:21:05good, we should be holding our elected officials to account. i come from a
00:21:09position that healthy skepticism of government any level is good.
00:21:13do think is amisha said, we're in this weird period of of
00:21:17information consumption, and i hesitate to say, disinformation or
00:21:20misinformation, but particularly with the rise of AI, in what is real,
00:21:24what are people watching and consuming that is real and factual information? to
00:21:28the point the of lettuce, there is a there's an outbreak of
00:21:32listeria or something among among vegetables once every 18 to 24
00:21:36months regardless of who the president is uh, but I do think that that where we're
00:21:40getting our information, where we're getting accurate information and how we're
00:21:44discerning that information is uh, we're in sort of limbo
00:21:47situation right? yeah, I mean social media obviously... saw um
00:21:51you know the rise of sort of alternative media sources,
00:21:54substacks, podcasts, alternative health resources,
00:21:58um, how dangerous is social media amplifying the distrust
00:22:02or misinformation? well, I think it makes anybody a journalist um, and at the end the
00:22:06day lot of people are looking at that not through a media lens, but they're taking it is truth, because
00:22:09even in traditional journalism um, there is such thing as confirmation
00:22:13bias, so if you come a uh, you start a
00:22:17anti-vax point, then you're going to go towards the... sources that continue
00:22:21to influence your anti-vax positioning um and not those
00:22:25that have alternative viewpoints or those that are backed by science or those that are you
00:22:29know fuel through medical journals you're not going to see that so
00:22:31i think that part of it is again media literacy the other part is there's so many
00:22:35different places to find media today. this is not the era of
00:22:39Walter Cronkight, CBS, NBC, ABC News, and then
00:22:43you know few decades later a handful of cable news sources, no, it's the wow
00:22:46wow West across social media and everybody is... picking one that
00:22:50confirms what they already believe? well, and also with social media, the algorithms
00:22:54will be, if you're feeding into one theory, it will probably deliver you
00:22:58more the same. um, I mean, how dangerous is that? well, we're seeing right now
00:23:02play out in the courts with with Facebook and meta and in how we consume
00:23:06information and how the algorithm pushes that information to us. I can
00:23:10tell you right now, my Instagram feed is a wild expanse of
00:23:13of professional memes and political memes from across the spectrum, but I
00:23:17guarantee, I can almost guarantee that most... people do get funneled
00:23:21into one direction or another uh and that is what they're
00:23:25consuming and they're they're taking those many of those things is opinion or
00:23:29is fact? um amisha, how dangerous is it? mean
00:23:32democracy is really unbuilt on trust, people have to trust the
00:23:36institution, so how damaging, what are the implications if people are
00:23:40losing trust in public institutions? well, i think that
00:23:44the it erodes democracy in its entirety, if people don't believe in
00:23:48the public institutions that are supposed to serve. them i think that this president has not
00:23:52done his due diligence and one understanding what democracy is, but beyond that
00:23:56upholding our constitution, and we've seen example after example uh,
00:23:59unfortunately we give Matthew a chance there
00:24:01to to jump in, do you agree with that? look, i think that weaponization the federal
00:24:05government has happened under the last several administrations. i think that we saw
00:24:08President Obama weaponize the government against uh the IRS against
00:24:12conservative groups like t- party organizations. i think that it has
00:24:16escalated and that is natural inclination of of...
00:24:20weaponization of government, it's dangerous, it's dangerous when Republicans do it, it's
00:24:23dangerous when Democrats do it, and that's why it's so important for people to get outside
00:24:27their screens and go out and be involved in the community. I live just across the
00:24:31river, I go to the farmer's market, I know my neighbors in my apartment building, I'm
00:24:35engaged in in interacting with folks, it is responsibility of
00:24:38citizen to not only engage in what's happening right down the street
00:24:42here, but also engage in what's happening in their neighborhoods and to know the people
00:24:46who live next door so that we can't go onto the internet and hate those people.
00:24:50once when when we have difference of opinion, do you agree, it's a responsibility of citizens? i definitely think it's a
00:24:54responsibility of citizens to be informed. i also think that citizens are rising
00:24:58up, they rose up during the no king's rallies, they rise up in communities every
00:25:01day, they are challenging the media narratives, meanwhile the president is
00:25:05threatening to shut some down, he is you know advocating for FCC to
00:25:09quiet individuals that he doesn't want to hear from, um,
00:25:13there's a false equival equivalency that you just made, because there has not been a
00:25:16single president who has reacted um in the way Donald Trump
00:25:20has, not only in terms of dismansling government, but also again,
00:25:24recreating it away from how the founders designed it to be, and
00:25:27disrupting those checks and balances, because advocacy only goes so far, the people
00:25:31can speak as much as they want, but when you have a president who is going against the
00:25:35courts, when you have a president who is arguing that they should always side
00:25:39with him no matter what, when you have a president who has a triage
00:25:43of individuals who will docs people across social media for any
00:25:46conversation that does not align with his political view.
00:25:50That is a problem. Amisha makes an interesting point about uh
00:25:54the the struggle between the three branches of government. One the big things that I
00:25:58think may happen if democrats take the house in the senate is court
00:26:01packing.
00:26:02It has been. It is not written into the constitution, but it has been an agreement for for
00:26:05100 plus years that there are nine justices on the Supreme Court, and
00:26:09it is very clear to me in in public statements by members of congress
00:26:13democrats that they intend to pack the Supreme Court which would undermine our
00:26:17judicial system uh through the through the legislative branch, well some
00:26:21people would say it's packed with conservative judges right now, well I mean it's packed at nine with of
00:26:25justices who were up with advice and consent the United States Senate
00:26:29were appointed as as they as it is outlined in the U.S. constitution so is
00:26:33it the fact that the Supreme Court are political appointees, perhaps that is also
00:26:37responsible for an erosion of tris? they're answering more political questions these
00:26:41days, and I think especially under the Trump administration, but it has always been
00:26:45the the role of our court system and particularly the Supreme Court to
00:26:48answer those big constitutional questions. Amisha, where do we go from
00:26:52here? um, how can public institutions rebuild
00:26:55trust within the American king? well, I think that that's an ever revolving question, um,
00:26:59the public institutions themselves need to do better job of... being transparent, they need to
00:27:03do better job of um being vocal outside of DC, it's seen as a bubble
00:27:07in and of itself, and people in communities across the country don't necessarily resonate with
00:27:11that, but they also believe that
00:27:14the book stops with the president, the president has to, is
00:27:17part of his job, his, hers, whoever is president, to ensure that our
00:27:21democracy is functioning, to ensure that there is um an
00:27:25amount of faith that exists between the public and the people who it
00:27:28elects, but also to consider that our democracy
00:27:32was built and shaped to last through generations, anyone who moves
00:27:36to erode that is not only undemocratic, but is also somebody who is
00:27:40flying in the face of our constitution and its design. Matthew, do you think the crisis of
00:27:44trust is reversible? i am eternally optimistic in the
00:27:48crisis of trust being reversible. this why
00:27:50i come
00:27:50and have conversations like this with amisha, think
00:27:53it is so important, it not only is incumbant on our elected
00:27:56officials, but it is so important in people in in communities and
00:28:00neighborhoods across the country, it's exactly Alexis de Tokful wrote in
00:28:04Democracy in America, he was amazed at the the little germs of
00:28:07society and and organizations that exists in our churches and our civic
00:28:10institutions, and it's why I'm committed as local political leader to go out
00:28:14into the community and meet my neighbors. Do you think if we had another
00:28:18um national crisis tomorrow, do we have enough
00:28:22institutional capital left to respond
00:28:25decisively? We we have national crisis in America every
00:28:28day. Um, no, I, I don't think that we do. I think that the...
00:28:32structure has been so badly disrupted that it would one be
00:28:36extremely hard to respond in kind, but also and oftentimes people
00:28:40don't know where the direction is coming from, and the information that is coming from the white
00:28:43house and from some these agencies is often conflicting. okay, i'm going to
00:28:47leave you matthew with the final word, because you are the optimist. well, you
00:28:51know, think i tend to agree with Amisha on that, whatever the big next big
00:28:55national crisis is, particularly as it pertains to
00:28:59healthcare or vaccinations, i think there's a big question mark there. but when it comes to
00:29:03natural disasters, when it comes to where the solutions come from our
00:29:06communities, uh, the affected communities, I think we see solutions a
00:29:10daily basis and that brings
00:30:20fresh exchanges of fire between the hoothies and the Saudi backed government in
00:30:23Yemen. The UN says more than 100,00 people have been
00:30:26displaced. The leaders of Saudi Arabia and
00:30:30Egypt hold crisis talks in Cairo. to address the widening conflict in the Middle
00:30:34East. Hello, welcome to TRT World
00:30:38Live from London. I'm Aron Armstrong, also coming up on the
00:30:40program. Two sailors are missing after another attack on shipping
00:30:44in the straight of Formus. The US has blamed Iran. Tiran says the ship
00:30:48hit mines. And the top US law
00:30:52maker echoes President Trump's hoax claims about the dangers of AI
00:30:56and the risks of falling behind
00:30:58China.