Hannah Rosen
Appearances
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Or an Iranian diplomat. Or a diplomat from another country who was a side deal with the Iranians. They literally would have known when things were going to happen.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Well, I'm the—yes.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
No, no. I mean, I'm sure there are journalists out there who disagree with my view, who take a kind of – I would call it nihilistic view, which is like information is information. We should just put it all out there and damn the torpedoes. I'm not – that's not my – That's not my thing.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
You're not that fast. I am always cautious about people reaching out across social media or messaging apps. I don't assume that they're the person that the name suggests. But... I would have to say that I was glad also, and I was hoping that it was the actual Michael Waltz, because I'd like to be in regular contact with Michael Waltz for all the obvious journalistic reasons.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Oh, yeah. I ran all the possibilities through my head. I You know, the funny thing is, when they're having their policy conversation, policy disagreements, I was struck by the sophistication of the argument. Some were, you know, sort of knee-jerk, anti-Europe kind of, you know, invective that one expects.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
They were having a serious conversation about what to do about a challenging problem, a problem, by the way, they were left with by the Biden administration, which did not handle that situation well or adequately. So this is something they inherited, and they're trying to work their way through it. As they were doing that, I was thinking to myself, oh, oh, maybe they want me to see this.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
So I write a story about how clever they are in dealing with the Houthis. And I thought that's very kind of a circular way of getting somebody to write something.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
They could just call me and say, I'd like to do an interview with you about our Yemen policy. And I'd be like, great, let's do it. So I couldn't, I can't. You know, Occam's Razor explains a lot of the world. And the explanation here is that it was heading into the weekend. They were out and about. Things were happening in the Middle East that they had to stay in touch with.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
They have these amazing devices in their pockets like we all do where they can communicate with the world. They put together a group. They put it together sloppily. They did it on something that they shouldn't have done but for convenience. And that's it. That's what happened.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
And then I get added to a group, a signal group, you know, a text messaging chat group called Houthi PC Small Group. PC, I know from covering White House issues, you know, principals committee, basically the top leaders of cabinet departments generally associated with national security issues. And then a message from Mike Waltz talking about how he's putting together this PC Small Group group.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
I mean, apart from the fact that they were doing it on an insecure channel in the presence of the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, apart from those two technical issues, they were having a reasonable conversation that you would expect them to have. And like I said, I was... a little bit heartened that, oh, they actually debate among themselves. They talk about this.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
They work through these things. They seem to be, as Shane pointed out, this is obviously the residue from other meetings that were taking place live and in person where they're still working out issues. What I found
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Maybe just on a personal level or, you know, a citizen level, disconcerting was when S.M., who we assume is Stephen Miller or presume is Stephen Miller, when he comes in and says, I didn't hear that. I heard the president say we're doing it. Thank you very much. Call it a day. And then everybody disagrees. And then everybody, including the secretary of defense, goes, agree.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
But I have to say, and I want to be very clear here, when I understood that this was real, I did remove myself from the group and began the process of writing this so that I could make the public aware, our reading public aware, that this government had, let's just say, poor digital hygiene. So it's a very serious thing, and I would rather not be engaged in that kind of text change.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
to talk about the Houthis because something's going to be happening over the next 72 hours. That's when I sort of think, I mean, honestly, the first thing I thought was I'm really being spoofed. Like somebody is, this is a hoax. This is a state or non-state actor, probably non-state actor looking to entrap, embarrass, whatever word you want to use, a journalist.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
As you know, I'm always on alert.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
What am I going to tell you?
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
It gets real in the sense that if somebody is doing a spoof, it's a very, very accurate spoof. What happens is a number of cabinet level officials start reporting into this chain, giving the names of their deputies or contact people over the weekend when clearly something is going to happen in Yemen. in retrospect, clearly something's going to happen in Yemen. And that was that for that day.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
It was the next day that they start engaging in a policy discussion, really in earnest. And it's, you know, explicated in the story that I wrote. But that's when I'm sort of thinking to myself, if this is a simulation or this is a fake, someone's going to a huge, huge lens to make it seem real because everybody in the chat sounds like the person who they're quote-unquote playing.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
So I'm, you know, I don't say I'm 50-50. I'm still 60-70, you know, 70-30 this is a fakery because for the simple reason that this is nuts. I mean, obviously, why would I be involved in this?
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
We all make the mistake. This is why this is so relatable. We all... I'm thinking of Shane, and I'm writing to Hannah about Shane, an assignment, or how great Shane is. And I type in Shane into the recipient, intended recipient, because that's the name that's on my mind. I don't know what was going on in Mike Waltz's mind, who he was thinking of.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
We're trying to figure that out, still trying to figure that out. But in any case, I was added to this group, and it's a misdirected email or text chain that... I shouldn't have been on. But the larger point, and obviously Shane can speak to this, the larger point is that why is this conversation happening out in the open?
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Now, I know Signal is end-to-end encrypted, but it's a commercial texting service that anyone, not just people with security clearances in the federal government, can join.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
So that's the essential danger, and that's – if you want to think about an original sin, the original sin is communicating very sensitive information in a channel where you can mistakenly bring in – I mean, forget the editor of The Atlantic. You could have brought in a Houthi.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
For all you know. You could bring in somebody who is actively sympathetic to the Houthis and sharing real-time information with you. That's somewhat appalling.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Sure, Pete Hexeth writing in all caps about how he finds the Europeans pathetic. J.D. Vance sounding like a kind of quasi-isolationist, talking about why would we do this sort of thing? Europe should take care of this problem. It's not our problem. Trade conversations. The most interesting one and the one that I thought, whoa, that really does sound like the guy,
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
At the end of this chain, Stephen Miller, or I should say S.M., a person identified as S.M., comes in and basically shuts the conversation down and said, I heard the president. He was clear to me he wants to do this. It was basically—and obviously this is really interesting—
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
It's a conversation with not only the secretaries of state, treasury and defense, but the vice president of the United States. And here comes Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff, ostensibly just deputy chief of staff, coming in and saying, everybody, the president spoke. I heard it. Y'all need to just stop doing what you're doing.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
And then everybody kind of gets in line and like, all right, well, I guess we're attacking Yemen.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Look, the White House has confirmed that this is an authentic chain, but we're still trying to figure out some aspects of it. I still don't know the identities of one or two people because they had their initials. So when we talk about them, I'm assuming that SM is Stephen Miller, but I'm not guaranteeing that to you. That's a good example of one person.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
On the other hand, obviously, the one called Hegseth is Hegseth.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
I mean, to be fair to all vice presidents and president, it never happens in any administration where a vice president is going to go out and – I mean, of course, he didn't go out here. He thought he was – Actually, it's really – it's interesting because Vance is saying in the conversation, I don't think the president understands the ramifications of what he's doing.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
He's saying that to people who work for the president. It's kind of a bold move. Yeah. To say Trump doesn't understand what's going on. Right. Now, if I'm just sort of – this is just – But if I'm Stephen Miller and I'm reading that and I'm the enforcer, I'm like, okay, thanks, J.D.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
That'll be enough of that.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Right, right, right. Other things are exactly as I expect. I mean, even later in the story when after the first successful strike on the Houthis in Yemen— And that's when you know this was real. Well, then I know it's real because I was told beforehand that it was going to happen in my phone, and then two hours later it happens.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
That's pretty good proof that, you know, if somebody is spoofing this, then it's not— some media gadfly organization. It's a foreign intelligence service that had knowledge of the U.S. strikes. Seems implausible. But then the part that really struck me as very Trump administration was the sharing of all these emojis, flag emojis, muscle emojis, fire emojis. Frayer emojis.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Prayer emoji, which, you know, and it's like, by the way, I mean, it was, talk about relatable. It's like every workplace, I mean, this is what I actually thought when I'm seeing this come over the phone, is, wow, every workplace is the same. It's like, big victory. Right. We got the new, you know, the Dunder Mifflin contract and, you know, muscle emoji.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
And it's like, here was, you know, we took out some hoothies.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Good, good, good work, everybody.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
So that's when I thought, wow, these guys are, these could be these guys. Because if I were trying to spoof them, I wouldn't do something so implausible as to start inserting juvenile emojis into a national security conversation.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Yeah, no, if I had outfoxed myself, you know, I wouldn't have done that if I were doing a simulation. Okay.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Well, I'm talking to certain colleagues, including and especially Shane, who's sitting next to me. Shane, who's been covering the intelligence community for a long while. And, you know, I'm talking to him from the beginning about this because I do need – some reverb, some reaction to it, because I've never seen this kind of thing or heard of something like this happening.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
But when I first showed him just the initial foray, you know, that we're having a group, Shane was like, no, no. No? Somebody's trying to, this is an operation. I don't know who it is. I don't know why they're doing it, but this is an op. This is a disinformation operation because these guys don't do that anymore.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Most of the relevant ones, the heads of intelligence agencies, obviously defense secretary and the like, they have plenty of ways to communicate with each other within a minute or two of needing to.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
By the way, a lot of it is just common sense. I mean, you read something and you could tell the difference between strategic information and tactical information. We should deal with the Houthis. Fine. We should do X, Y, and Z because the Houthis are a threat to commerce and American national security interests. This is what we're going to do to the Houthis in two hours is not information that –
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
The public should have. I mean, even as a reporter, I say that. And, like, I'm fascinated. I want to know how they're making decisions, why they're making decisions. I want to know after action, why things happened, why they went right, why they went wrong, and so on. But I don't want – and I've been doing this for a while, as has Shane – I don't want information before –
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Weirdly and randomly, I was in Salzburg, Austria. And what I'm thinking is not much because in my line of work, that wouldn't be the craziest thing to happen.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
kinetic action before a strike of some sort that has to do with the practical aspects of that strike, information that if it got into the wrong hands could actually endanger the lives of Americans. I mean, the North Star for me and Shane and most normal people, normal reporters, is look, we don't want to endanger the lives of American personnel in the field. And that's why this was, that's why the
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
And Saturday texting, the Saturday chain was very, very different than the Friday because it got very practical.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Saturday the 15th. The first bombs exploded in Yemen around 1.45 p.m. Eastern time. I found out at 11.44 Eastern time that it was happening.
Radio Atlantic
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
Okay. So here's the thing that crossed my mind all throughout this, which is imagine if it weren't me in that chain, but imagine if it were somebody – I mean, this sounds implausible, but it's also implausible to include me in the chain. Imagine if it was somebody who was a Houthi.
Radio Atlantic
The War for Your Attention
It's okay. It's okay. There's no judgment in this podcast at all. You can find your calm wherever you need it. I'm just curious.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
So it seems like these medical requirements cost a lot of money, and the pilot is not earning a regular salary.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
You know, Jocelyn, listening to you, I'm a little torn. I fly often enough. I'm not a particularly nervous flyer. I'm not sure if I should be worried about my safety. Like, is there any research that gets at the actual bottom line, the actual outcome of the system they set up? Does this system, flawed though it may be, result in me, the passenger, being any safer?
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
Okay, so if they can't get the data and they don't actually know the answer, what can be done about any of this?
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Jocelyn Frank. It was edited by Claudina Bade. We had engineering support from Rob Smerciak, fact-checking by Steph Hayes, and Sam Fentress. Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic at theatlantic.com slash listener. I'm Hannah Rosen, and thank you for being a listener.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
These haunting images are the first we've seen up close of the twisted metal and shattered debris, all that is left of Germanwings Flight 9525.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
The plane mysteriously crashed into the rugged French Alps on Tuesday, killing all 150 souls on board.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
Plane crashes and aviation accidents happen for all kinds of reasons. The collision between the helicopter and the American Airlines flight near the D.C. airport. The Alaska Airlines flight, where the door panel flew off shortly after takeoff. These terrifying incidents that make the news, they stick in our minds. But there's another, less visible safety issue that doesn't really make the news.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
Okay, so Jocelyn, surgeons, police officers, firefighters, all these are also people responsible for the safety and well-being of hundreds of people. But they could each theoretically just visit a therapist and keep it to themselves.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
Which totally makes sense that they want that. Like, you should be in a healthy state of mind if you're flying a plane. I guess my question is, is this invasive amount of scrutiny from your employer or your boss encouraging a healthy state of mind, or is it encouraging you to pretend that you have a healthy state of mind?
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
Pilots themselves have been raising the alarm about a different kind of risk to passenger safety and a risk to their own well-being. It involves a rule that's designed to protect passengers, but it might instead be making flying more dangerous. I'm Hannah Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic. Today, our producer Jocelyn Frank is with us with a story. Hey, Jocelyn.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
Those are two scary, terrible situations. Do we have any idea if they're outliers? Like, how many pilots are not getting care when they need it?
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
So that's over half of pilots avoiding care, which is a lot. I mean, that suggests there's a huge resistance to getting care, which means that Finlayson, who's the guy we were talking about, he's unusual for going through the whole process and seeking care.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
I have to say, that seems amazing to me, that to go on 10 milligrams or even up to 20, which seems reasonable, that taking that amount of medication long term could cost you years of flying. It just seems like when pilots do decide to pursue mental health care like Finlayson did, they are up against a lot.
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
After the break, we try and get to the heart of it. Is this system actually keeping passengers safe?
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
Sure. So you've been talking to pilots, and what have they been telling you?
Radio Atlantic
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
Jocelyn, let's say we make the assumption that pilots have more or less the same level of depression and anxiety as the average population. So that would be like a quarter of all adults in the U.S. From what you can tell, are a quarter of all pilots seeking mental health care, like applying for those special medical certificates?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Yeah. Last thing. I know you were in Munich with defense and security officials, people who help with Ukrainian defense. I'm curious what the mood is of people who have to think on the ground about strategy and defense and how quickly they've been able to adjust. People are adjusting very fast.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Richtig. Well, Anne, thank you so much for joining us and for naming everything that's happening so clearly. It's so helpful. Thank you. Thanks. After the break, spies. We talked to Atlantic staff writer Shane Harris about how these shifting alliances are affecting the intelligence community and what that might mean for American security down the road.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
I'm Hannah Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic. Today, we talk about what this shift in the world order might mean. In the second half of the show, we'll be talking to staff writer Shane Harris, who covers national security, about how intelligence agencies are reacting to these changes. But first, we talk to Anne Applebaum, author of the book Autocracy, Inc. and host of the podcast Autocracy in America.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
So, in the first half of the show, we talked about the shifting world order and the political issues it causes. And now I kind of want to talk to you about operational issues like sharing of intelligence, spycraft, you know, the things that happen between nations that makes the world run.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
So, from your reporting, are you finding that any agencies, governments are wondering how much they can trust the U.S. ?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Right. Can you actually explain how intelligence sharing works? Like who are our critical partners? You know, who provides intelligence? Who provides the most intelligence just so that we understand what could change?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Anne begann ihre Karriere, Autokratie auf der ganzen Welt zu tracken. Und mit dem Wachstum von Trump begann sie, es in ihrem eigenen Land zu bemerken.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
By the way, the term five eyes, it's so good. Like, it's a little on the nose, but it's so good. I'm surprised that there hasn't been a movie or no one's written a novel called The Five Eyes in which one of them betrays each other or something like that happens.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
I mean, I'm reading in the lines of what you're saying. So we don't know the degree of mistrust yet. It's probably brewing. But it sounds like from what you're saying, it makes everybody less safe. Like it makes us less safe, too, because these are how, you know, terrorist threats are detected and these networks are very intertwined. So it feels a little precarious, dangerous.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
So what else are people bringing up? You mentioned that makes them nervous. You mentioned, you know, Trump has leaked secrets before. Like I think he famously tweet a top secret image of an Iranian rocket launch site. I mean, he's known for being a little lax with other people's intelligence. So that's one thing. Is that on people's minds?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Right. You know, some leaders in Europe have talked about, like Emmanuel Macron hinted at this in his meeting with Trump, that actually being less dependent on the US for their security might be a good thing for Europe. I wonder if there's a version of that for intelligence, like we don't want to be as dependent on the US.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
There's some advantage to switching up the way that we've been doing things.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
And this new administration's shift in tone has been so sudden and so stark that I want to understand it better and figure out what its implications might be.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Yeah, and that's, I suppose, value neutral? Like, we don't know if that's a good or a bad thing?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
A last thing. I mean, I'm thinking about Trump signaling his closeness with Vladimir Putin, you know, how he recently repeated some Russian talking points. I wonder how those kinds of signals get received among the people you talk to, intelligence officials, sort of people who are guarding these alliances. What's the result of those kinds of actions?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
I see. So this erosion of trust is long and slow. And what's been shocking to the rest of us, the intelligence community has been monitoring for a while, those who are keeping close tabs.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Well, Shane, thank you so much for joining us today. You always teach us so much about worlds that we don't know a lot about.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Yeah, I guess that's the way to put it. The U.S. appears to be switching sides. I mean, I'm trying to think of the right way to characterize this. I mean, you immediately said the end of the post-World War II order. Like you declared that right after these things happened. Do you feel strongly, you feel definitively about that?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
I mean, I guess what's rattling about this moment is there isn't a precipitating event. There isn't a ratcheting up of hostilities the way there has been historically. It's just Trump. It's just, you know, he changed his mind. So there's really no warning. However, he did signal during his campaign, you know, Russia should be able to do whatever the hell it wanted.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Is what's rattling, especially about this moment, the speed, like it all unraveled in, you know, a few weeks? Yeah.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
When Donald Trump was running for his second term as president last year, he gave plenty of hints that he didn't care all that much about staying chummy with our European allies. For example, he once said, if NATO countries didn't pay their fair share, he would encourage Russia to, quote, do whatever the hell they want.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
The whole thing brings up the forever question about Trump, is he chaotic or intentional? Which I think is important here, because intentional would imply that he is actively remaking the world order, like actively aligning the US with Russia. Do you sense that's the case? I think it's a possibility, yeah. You do? I do. And why? What are the best guesses about why? To what end?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Yeah. I mean, that's the moment where I sat up and took notice, is the way he was talking about Ukraine, repeating such obvious lies about the origins of that war. And then also that document that the Treasury Secretary offered Ukraine. Can you describe that document? That one for me was a shocker.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
So maybe no one should be surprised a year later that he and members of his administration are spending their first few weeks in office offending their allies and shaking up the world order. But it is kind of surprising, at least the speed of it and the dismissive tone. For example, Vice President J.D.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
And what's unprecedented about that, that it's unfolding like a real estate negotiation or what is unusual about it?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Okay, back to the conversation. So, the obvious thing to read into this betrayal of Ukraine is, there is no sanction for autocrats who want to invade other countries. Do you think that is the intended message?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Vance telling EU leadership, some of whom he referred to as commissars, that their countries were suppressing free speech. oder Donald Trump wiederholt russische Propaganda über die Krieg in der Ukraine.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Yeah, and you've talked about, you know, during the Ukraine war, you've talked about the importance of us standing up for Ukraine because there are consequences for Estonia. I mean, there are consequences for lots of countries. There are consequences for Germany.
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Yeah. As things are realigning quickly, I mean, French President Emmanuel Macron seemed to indicate in his visit to Washington this week that in fact Europe should be less dependent on the US and more in charge of its own defense. And that's what Trump says he wants. Could that be a neutral shift? Like, is that necessarily a terrible shift?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
How should we think of that, that kind of shift where Europe is more in charge of contributing to security for its own region?
Radio Atlantic
The Five Eyes Have Noticed
Ich verstehe. Es kann also nicht so schnell passieren. Es kann nicht so schnell passieren. Es ist das gleiche wie Doge. Es kommt und brennt alles runter. Aber es ist nicht intelligent oder nützlich.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 2)
Thank you to my colleagues who shared their books from high school and to the listeners who sent theirs in. Those listeners were Jessica Salamanca, David Goetz, Sophia Kanauti, Katherine Abraham, and Robert Seidler. This episode was produced by Kevin Townsend and edited by Claudina Bade, Rob Smirciak engineered, and Will Gordon fact-checked.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 2)
Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. I'm Hannah Rosen. Thank you for listening. We hope you've had a lovely holiday, and we'll see you in the new year.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 2)
This is Radio Atlantic. I'm Hannah Rosen. Last week, we talked about how college students struggle to read whole books these days. One issue, it turned out, was that they weren't reading whole books in high school. So this week, we continue to make the case for why reading books in high school is great for your life outside of school.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 2)
You'll hear more from our Atlantic colleagues and from listeners who sent in their contributions. All of them recall the books they read in high school that stuck with them the longest and how those books changed for them over the years as they got older and understood them differently. Mostly, this is an episode about happy memories. Enjoy and happy holidays.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
Taking the Musk and Trump out of it, What does the company have to worry about right now?
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
Eine große Sache, die ich als eine Art EV-Dilettante gesehen habe, ist, dass die Vorstellung, besonders in Amerika, von Tesla's Charging Network und dieser infrastrukturellen Teil wirklich wichtig für die Firma ist. Die Idee von extrem schnellen Chargern, sind das in deiner Meinung existenzielle Threats für Tesla?
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
Well, and as you're saying all this, right, what's running through my mind is this complex threat matrix, you know, like everyone's sort of encircling Tesla in this way. And meanwhile, Elon Musk, who I said I was going to keep out of it for a second, but I have to bring him back in, is... It seems from the outside was not paying any attention to any of this.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
Es klingt wie ein sehr klassischer, als jemand, der Musk schon lange gefolgt hat, seine Besonderheit mit dem Zukunft. Und ich denke, wirklich, wie der echte, echte Enthusiasmus für die Möglichkeit von Dingen, wie sein Sci-Fi-Körper so überaktiv ist, dass es dieses, wie ich sicher bin, dass es einen Element von Bullshitting hier gibt, richtig?
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
Mit dem, wir werden bei 2030 auf Mars sein und alle werden da rumlaufen.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
Aber ich denke auch, dass es eine Genuinenz gibt. Das Steuermotor-Ding fühlt sich sehr real an. Das ist genau um die Kante. Natürlich bauen wir kein neues Auto mit dem Steuermotor.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
Jedes Jahr, in dem die Zukunft weiter und weiter nach vorne geht, ist es ein weiteres Jahr, in dem Tesla das Produkt nicht hat, das den Gap zwischen seinem Verständnis von dem, was noch kommt, und der Realität befindet, dass wir noch nicht da sind.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
What is so difficult to put together for someone like myself, but I assume also a lot of different people who aren't paying attention to Musk and Tesla this granularly, we're talking about an inability to sort of fill the gap between the two. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and edited by Claudine Abade. It was engineered by Rob Smerciak and fact-checked by Yvonne Kim. Andrea Valdez is our managing editor and Claudine Abade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio. Ich bin Charlie Warzone. Danke fürs Zuhören.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
What has been going through your head over the last few months as we're watching, you know, Musk take this role in the government and have this interplay between his polarization and the stock?
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
So, I've always been fascinated with the correlation between Tesla's stock price and Musk as a persona. There's an analyst at Moody's who said, quote, I do think fundamentally that a significant fraction of Tesla's value is due to the fact that Elon can command this attention continuously. Which sort of suggested to me, right, that Musk is almost like a human meme stock, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
So I'm kind of curious, like how much do you think Tesla's value is just tied to this future projection of Elon Musk as this guy who's going to, you know, either have that Edison-esque ability to innovate beyond any constraints or just that, you know, he can kind of brute force his way into making the future bend to his will?
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
Das war vor einiger Zeit. Aber die Person, der sie verkauft hat, hatte sie am anderen Tag geklopft. Selbst auf einer sehr kleinen Ebene, wenn es nicht ein Protest ist, gibt es viele Tatsachen von casual Evangelismus und so weiter. Und dann, wie letztes Jahr, im März, gab es einen Protest bei fast jedem Tesla-Verein in den Vereinigten Staaten.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
Also scheint der Bewegung ein bisschen langweilig zu sein. And yet, you know, I think the very initial parts of this protest we watched coincide with a pretty substantial drop in the stock. So much so that you have, you know, Elon Musk and Donald Trump basically doing a Tesla infomercial, you know, on the White House South Lawn, right? You know, Teslas and EVs have always had a political valence.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
Aber, you know, does Tesla have a clear idea of what its brand is now? Because I don't know, you know, if it's going to sort of reclaim that green progressive halo anytime in the near future.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
But at the same time, we just talked in this conversation about Musk's ability to buoy the company and the stock.
Radio Atlantic
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
So putting aside Musk just for a moment here. Yeah. The protests, as we've mentioned, have been noticeable. Yeah. I'm curious, what are the non-Musk related threats to Tesla, right? We have Tesla having this real genuine first mover advantage, especially in the United States. But it's not alone anymore. You've got Rivian, you've got Polestar, you've got a series of EV competitors. Yeah.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
Hello. Hey, this is actually Hannah Rosen. I'm calling on my son's phone.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
Three weeks ago, when her world was still in chaos, Marie Jonatakis bought a one-way ticket home for Taylor. Trump had mentioned that he might pardon all the January Sixers, but you could never be sure. Politicians don't usually do what they say, her daughter told her. And for a family whose only working parent had been in jail for more than a year, an airline ticket is a luxury.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
But Marie had watched the video over and over of Trump telling an NBC reporter that he would pardon the J6ers on day one of taking office.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
On Monday night, just before midnight, Marie finally picked Taylor up from prison, and she sent me a picture. They sat side by side, smiling, like a late Christmas card photo. Marie hasn't sat side by side with her husband since he was taken into custody just before Christmas 2023. I asked her if she thought his transition home would be rocky, and she said no, it'll be seamless.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
Taylor has written each of their five children a letter a week from prison, and he sometimes reads them books over the phone. In her mind, family harmony will be quickly restored, and so will the rightness of all things.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
That was Marie Jonatakis, whose husband Taylor was just pardoned by President Donald Trump. He'd been sentenced to over seven years for what he did at the Capitol on January 6th. Now, he's coming home. This is Radio Atlantic. I'm Hannah Rosa. A few hours into his second term, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who were charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
There is a whole other way that these pardons could have rolled out. A little more than a week before inauguration, Vice President J.D. Vance made it clear to Fox News that he wasn't expecting blanket pardons.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
During the transition, I spoke with Republican lawyers who imagined there might be some kind of review board, like maybe a Justice Department committee that would evaluate cases such as Taylor's. Taylor was not among the several hundred convicted solely of misdemeanors, such as trespassing or disorderly conduct. But also, he was not among the small handful convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
His assault charge hung on the fact that he was yelling into his bullhorn, urging a crowd to push a barricade into a row of cops, all captured on video.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
And under the J.D. Vance scenario, there would have been qualified lawyers debating in a room about degrees of assault and what length of sentence they merit. But instead, Trump chose to go with a blanket pardon, which sounds uncomplicated, but actually brings maximum chaos. Tuesday night, I was walking down my own street past a house that I know well.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
It's kind of a safe house for January Sixers. Mickey Witthoff lives there. She's the mother of Ashley Babbitt, who was killed at the Capitol that day. So does Nicole Reffet, whose husband Guy was sentenced to over seven years for bringing a gun to the Capitol. Occasionally, a young January Sixer named Brandon Fellows stays there, too.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
My partner Lauren Ober and I got to know the people in that house last year when we made an Atlantic podcast about it called We Live Here Now. I've walked by their house hundreds of times. But when I walked past the house on Tuesday in freezing weather, I saw Brandon outside wearing an ice jacket as in immigration and customs enforcement. This is his version of a sartorial troll.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
Oh, so what's going on? I guess I don't even know the basics of what's going on.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
I froze. And not from the cold. Stuart Rhodes. The guy with the eye patch who founded the Oath Keepers. He, for years, recruited and cultivated an armed militia to resist government tyranny. His estranged ex-wife recently said she fears that she and their kids are on his, quote, kill list. Roge's attorneys have said that the idea that his family's in danger is unfounded.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
Before Trump's commutation, he was serving an 18-year sentence for seditious conspiracy, one of the longest of all the January Sixers. Now, Stuart Rhodes was taking a nap down the block from my house. More on that after the break. While Rhodes was napping in her house, Nicole Reffet was outside, being interviewed by a Dutch news crew.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
Her family is notorious because her son, Jackson, turned in his father to the FBI. Someone adapted the trial transcript into an excellent play called Fatherland. Anyway, this week, her husband Guy was about to get out of prison. But unlike Marie Johnotakis, Nicole seemed a little unsettled about the pardons. That's interesting. How do you guys feel about the blanket part?
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
Some had been charged with serious felonies, like assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy. Others were charged with misdemeanors, like trespassing and disorderly conduct. I've gotten to know a lot of January Sixers over the last couple of years, so I know how these prosecutions have upended their lives.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
What do you mean, concern? Like, I don't know how to think about the blanket pardon either, Nicole. I'm trying to think what's the difference between this and if it had gone a different way. Like, what does it mean that it's a blanket? Have you guys talked about that?
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
In many people's minds, Nicole's husband, Guy, was one of the people who did really bad things that day, and he did get a fair sentence. Guy brought a gun to the Capitol, although he didn't enter the building or use it.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
As of Wednesday, only eight of the 22 people held at the D.C. jail had been released. But outside the jail had turned into gathering place for people released from all over the country. Camera crews stood around from Sweden, Japan, Norway, broadcasting interviews with the newly freed. And when Bob Marley's redemption song came on the speakers, the crowd belted it out together.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
On Tuesday night, I caught a glimpse of Stuart Rhodes at the edge of the crowd. He's hard to miss with the eyepatch. He was giving an interview to a right-wing YouTuber.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
That's Rhodes' one big complaint, that he was given a commutation instead of a pardon. A commutation can erase a sentence, but it does not restore all your rights, such as the right to buy guns. He told the interviewer he was applying for a pardon. He said, I think everyone deserves a pardon, without any exception.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
So that's Rhodes' version of history. They were sham trials. It was actually a day of peace. It's a revision of history that Trump and his allies are likely to try and push and push for the next four years. House Speaker Mike Johnson has already formed a select subcommittee on January 6th to, quote, continue our efforts to uncover the full truth that is owed to the American people.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
And I know that for a lot of them, the pardons have restored their sense of justice. For them, this week feels like the world is set right again. And as I checked in with them this week and hung out outside the D.C. jail, mostly, I just saw the chasm more clearly. How one person's order restored is another person's lawless abandon.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
But for a whole crew of other people involved in January 6th, these pardons represent a reversal of justice. January 6th did not require delicate forensics. It has to be one of the most well-documented crimes in modern history. There are tens of thousands of hours of video showing rioters beating up police with whatever tools are at hand.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
At least five people died for reasons that are in some way related to the insurrection. Some 140 police officers were injured, and many could never work again. On Wednesday, retired officer Michael Fanone had choice words for Rhodes, which he expressed live on CNN.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
The judge who sentenced Taylor Johnitakis, Judge Royce Lamberth, wrote a letter in connection with the sentencing. He wrote, "'Political violence rots republics. Therefore, January 6th must not become a precedent for further violence against political opponents or governmental institutions.'" Lamberth is 81. His wife died a few months ago.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
He had a handful of new January 6 cases on his docket, but of course they've disappeared. In that sentencing letter, he continued, this is not normal. We tried to reach him to talk about the pardons, by the way, but he wasn't ready to talk about them yet.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
At the Tuesday night rally, Nicole got a call from Guy. He was out, on the road, headed towards the airport.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
Stuart Rhodes told the crowd that he was headed back to California this week. As for Marie and Taylor, they fly home on Thursday. Marie told me the kids are going to make dinner. This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Janae West and Kevin Townsend. It was edited by Claudina Bade, engineered by Rob Smerciak, and fact-checked by Steph Hayes.
Radio Atlantic
The Chaos of Blanket Pardons
Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. I'm Hannah Rosen. Thank you for listening.
Radio Atlantic
What RFK Jr. Doesn’t Understand About Autism
It's an individual tragedy as well. Autism destroys families. More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which are our children.
Radio Atlantic
What RFK Jr. Doesn’t Understand About Autism
These are kids who will never pay taxes. They'll never hold a job. They'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.
Radio Atlantic
What RFK Jr. Doesn’t Understand About Autism
These are children who should not be suffering like this. These are kids who many of them were fully functional and regressed because of some environmental exposure into autism when they're two years old. And we have to recognize we are doing this to our children.
Radio Atlantic
What RFK Jr. Doesn’t Understand About Autism
Within three weeks, and probably we're hoping in two weeks, we're going to announce a series of new studies to identify precisely what the environmental toxins are that are causing it. This has not been done before. and we're going to do it in a thorough and comprehensive way, and we're going to get back to it with an answer to the American people very, very quickly.
Radio Atlantic
What RFK Jr. Doesn’t Understand About Autism
There are many, many other studies that affirm this. And instead of listening to... to this canard of epidemic denial, all you have to do is start reading a little science because the answer is very clear. And this is catastrophic for our country.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
I'd say most people still don't have to change their day-to-day behavior. I would certainly encourage everyone to continue paying attention to the news and to take things like seasonal flu vaccines seriously. We can come back to that in a moment. But I don't think people generally have to worry about what they're eating or the local birds that they see in the park.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
The two exceptions I can think of to that is if you are a raw milk drinker...
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
I mean, it's hard because it's not like I am guaranteeing a threat, but we know that dairy workers have very likely been infected by interacting with raw milk. The virus has been detected in active form in milk coming out of infected cows. That milk gets sprayed in the face, it gets in the eye, gets in the nasal passages, whatever, however it's doing that. Milk is concerning.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Now, most of the milk in the U.S. is pasteurized, and that includes dairy products like cheeses and yogurts. The vast majority is pasteurized, which means it is heated and treated so that infectious agents are killed. That's the whole point of that process. And so that stuff is safe.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
It's people who are very explicitly going out of their way to buy raw milk that has not been treated in such a fashion that are at higher risk right now.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Definitely not. Yeah. If your cat is bringing that home, you know, first, keep your cat indoors. And second, please don't touch that bird.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Yeah, and I mean, to be fair, this does stretch back to actions that were taken or more accurately not taken during the Biden administration. You know, not a lot, frankly, has happened from the federal government. So some of the comments that I make will kind of stretch backward in time as well to before the Trump administration took over.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
I think from the start, you know, even when this was starting to spread among mammals over the past two and a half years, the response from the federal government was pretty muted. That was especially the case when this started to be detected in dairy cattle. That should have been a huge, huge, huge red flag. This was not typical that hadn't happened before for this particular bird flu.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And that is, you know, an animal that is in really close proximity to us, shares a lot of biology with us. That is kind of the moment that a lot of experts told me should have been the most clear inflection point, the point at which the government should have really, really cracked down on this issue and been able to do something about it.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
But because they didn't, you know, at the time there wasn't enough testing, there wasn't enough outreach to farm workers who were in close proximity to the virus, because they sort of let that moment go and allowed the virus to spread to more and more dairy herds, the situation has now become so much more difficult to contain.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And some researchers are worried that we might never be able to really get rid of this virus on this continent.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
I mean, I'm sure conversations are happening. I'm sure someone in the government would argue that that is the case, but definitely not enough. And I think one really challenging space to be talking about right now is still vaccines, not just because there aren't obvious answers there about how and when and to whom and in what species to deploy those vaccines.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
That's certainly controversial even among scientists who have worked in this field for a very long time. But also because, you know, our new HHS secretary doesn't have the best track record with vaccines and certainly not with advancing the most important public health narrative, which is collective action for the public good.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
There's a shortage on eggs happening and the bird flu is to blame.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Right now, everything I am hearing from HHS is about personal choice, individual liberty, and just kind of letting things flow naturally and hoping for the best.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
I guess my reaction to that is, what level of natural are you willing to accept? I would say that, you know, in human history, there were, and still are, depending on what part of the world you live in, periods of human existence where it was perfectly natural to not see your child live to the age of one. Is that the kind of natural that we want to see?
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
There have been periods where it was natural to see bacterial infections completely take over a person's body and kill them, and that was just the expected outcome because we weren't using antibiotics. Or, you know, it was natural to expect bloodletting to be a sufficient medical intervention.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
There are things that have been natural over the course of history that aren't necessarily what has served us best as a species. You know, medical interventions are arguably not the most natural thing in the world just because we have invented them and not simply allowed them to manifest themselves into existence. But I mean, is naturalness necessarily optimized? I certainly don't think so.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
You know, that is part of the reason that innovation is so important. We are racing ahead of biology to make sure that we are keeping as many people healthy as possible. That's the whole point here.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Right. And I think it is also important to say that I feel like people end up homing in on a really strict definitions of natural that I feel like draw these really false boundaries on what can be allowed.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
I actually find vaccines to be incredibly in tune with what the human body, you know, quote unquote, naturally does, because the whole point of a vaccine is to basically nudge the immune system into mounting a protective response to that it would otherwise mount if it encountered that disease, the pathogen causing that disease.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
It's not like we're putting an artificial device in someone's body and leaving it there, also important for other medical interventions. But I guess what I'm saying is it's not the most unnatural intervention out there. That's the beauty of it. Vaccines are very much an intervention that is about teaching a person to fish instead of just handing them a fish for the day.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
It's teaching the body to mount a sustained defense that it can use again in the future. It's a nudge. It's not a forced coup of someone's body.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Yeah, that is one of the things that has me most concerned. Let me just start off by saying that the MMR vaccine, the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, especially the measles component, is one of the best vaccines we have. It's so safe, so effective. That vaccine is the intervention that is most single-handedly responsible for eliminating measles from this country.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And yet there has been a really muted response from the federal government. You know, this is one of the largest outbreaks we've had in the past couple of decades since measles was eliminated. Already a six-year-old unvaccinated child died, and that should not be happening. These are the kinds of things that were supposed to be... Gone and over forever.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And yet, you know, it took the CDC a month to issue its first public statement on the outbreak in that there wasn't even, you know, a direct urging for parents to get their kids up to date on the measles vaccine. Kennedy, you know, who is the head of HHS, which oversees the CDC, the FDA, the NIH.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
has basically said, sure, vaccines are an option, but really, really pressed at least as hard, if not more hard, on alternative ways to combat measles, such as nutrition, steroids, antibiotics. There was really only one answer to the question of what can prevent measles and what can stop an outbreak, and that's vaccines. And I am just not hearing that message from the government.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
There should be a clear order of priority here, and that is not being followed. Right.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
No, it wasn't. And I think what may make this even more difficult if we get into a bad situation with bird flu is... Our baseline for measles vaccination was, you know, 95% uptake for a very long time. And that is what we need. Our baseline with flu vaccination is like 40 to 50% uptake depending on the year. You know, there are people who happily get other vaccines who don't get the flu vaccine.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
I don't know how people are going to react anymore. if we get into that situation and they're asked to vaccinate. Also, we know that the flu vaccine is not as effective as the measles vaccine. That is just simply a product of, you know, how quickly these viruses change and the nature of immunity to them.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
I worry that those differences will make it even more difficult for misinformation to seep through and for people to, you know, take their cues from the government and really run with them in the event of a flu pandemic. It could get so much worse so much more quickly.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
I think it depends what we consider the tipping point. Arguably, there is kind of a biological tipping point when the virus starts spreading from person to person. that won't be noticed in real time, or at least it's highly unlikely, right? Like the virus would have to start doing that and then scientists would catch it because it has already started happening.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And we may never know the day that that starts happening, if it ever does. Then I think there is kind of the... public consciousness tipping point, which is going to just have to be the more relevant thing. Like, to draw the comparison to COVID, we still don't know exactly how, exactly when, you know, what animal first passed it to a human and what exactly happened after that.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And we probably will never know. You know, that stuff is gone. Scientists learn that information retroactively, and they can't go back in time and recreate that timeline. What we do know is public attendance started focusing on the pandemic in the months that followed, and that's what I would expect here. But I think the most important takeaway here is that
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
That inflection point, the one that would command public awareness, hasn't yet happened, which means there's still time to act. And I think that requires people to hold two realities in their brain at once. One is about the present moment, during which the risk to most of the public is still low. But the second thing that people have to hold in mind is that won't necessarily stay true.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Katie, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
I think about this a lot, and I think we're probably still in the middle ranges here, you know, like depending on... All else that is going on, because I think also relative threat is important here. You know, five, six is fair, but I think much more important is the fact that that number has ticked steadily up since this time last year.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And I think that is really telling. It says that the threat is growing and that there's not necessarily anything stopping it from ratcheting upward closer to 10%. And the other thing is that we had time to contain it and keep it at a two or three and never let it get beyond that. And we did not.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Yeah. So to be clear, the moment I'm referring to, last spring was the first time that the U.S. detected this virus in dairy cattle. And I've started referring to that moment as the cow tipping point. That's true. That's, you know, that's pretty bad. That's good.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
At that time, it was really detected in just a small number of herds that the government could have really intervened. They basically could have done more to keep the virus from spreading to other herds. Instead, they kind of let business proceed as usual and dairy cattle move all over the place throughout their lifetime. they gave the virus more opportunities to spread.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
That should have been five alarm fire level of we need to ratchet up this response and make sure that the virus does not move any further than it already has. And that did not happen. Got it.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Oh, absolutely not. And I think the right question to be asking is how prepared would we be if this truly escalated to that point? And, you know, the answer is not at all, like not even a little bit.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
It's impossible to say with any kind of certainty, oh, there's exactly a 14.7% chance this is going to turn into a pandemic, or there's exactly a 72% chance that we're going to see this spreading from human to human in a sustained way. We can't know those things.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
A lot of this is about randomness, about how we continue to respond, about just vagaries of the virus that people don't fully understand yet. I think what needs to be happening is more on the prevention side and more about preparedness, which are two things that the U.S., especially when it comes to infectious disease, are just catastrophically bad at.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
No, I think in a lot of ways we're even worse prepared now than we were at the start of the COVID pandemic for several different reasons. I think in part because the public is still really fatigued from having to respond to all of that. There was a lot of trust in public health and science eroded during that time.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And I think because of the nature of the slow burn of all this, just slowly percolating through animals affected certain farm animals, like maybe sort of affecting some aspects of the food supply. But for the most part, it's not that difficult to ignore that this entire situation is going on. And I think that makes it much easier for people to, in general, just keep tuning this out.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
It's become normal to hear just, you know, slight murmurings about bird flu in the news and then to move on with your day. We didn't have that luxury with COVID. It was forced upon everyone. Everyone's lives changed radically and almost instantaneously.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And now there's just this general sense of, oh, a lot of stuff is wrong, but I don't have anything to worry about yet when this is exactly the time to be doing something about it so things don't get catastrophically worse. And I think, you know, from the federal government side, there absolutely has not been enough of a response. And I don't know how much of that is...
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Issues with resources being drained from COVID and that still being an ongoing threat. You know, changes in leadership that are introducing maybe ideological barriers to being more prepared. And also, you know, maybe some sense of, well, we don't want to...
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
over alarm people and be accused of overblowing this threat it's a really tough balance to strike and i certainly feel for the people who are trying to communicate those messages but i would not argue that the national response has been adequate yeah okay so we are journalists and it's our job to help inform people so why don't we try and bridge the gap as best we can what is bird flu
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
So it is a flu that has originated as far as we can tell in birds. So hence the name bird flu. That's kind of how these things are named. And, you know, it is a flu virus. So it is related to the seasonal flus that pass through our population every year.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
But because this is primarily a version of the flu that is really well adapted to birds and that's where it spent most of its time evolving, it is not yet the kind of flu that is going to pass really easily from person to person. But the reason that this is scary is we have seen this particular version of bird flu jump into mammals, including mammals that interface a lot with humans, like i.e.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
dairy cows. And the fact that this virus is making those moves, jumping across those species barriers, like huge species barriers. I'm not talking, you know... duck to pigeon, I'm talking birds to mammals, that's a massive jump in terms of biology and the type of host that this virus can manage to infect and spread between.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
So the possibility that the virus will keep evolving and become a real threat to humans is really just growing every day.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
So there are probably two relevant timelines here. The first is just to remind people that this particular version of bird flu that scientists also call H5N1, you might hear about other bird flus, but this is a very specific one that we're talking about right now. Scientists have known about this for decades, and it has for most of that time stayed primarily in birds.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Very occasionally, it was causing some problems in people when it was transmitting directly from birds into people, like these included poultry workers, people working very closely with wild or domesticated birds. And it would cause sickness, sometimes very severe sickness in people, but...
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
What is happening on a much more accelerated timeline is all of a sudden after decades of still mostly being a bird virus and causing limited problems in people, limited in terms of spread, this virus is now jumping across species barriers into animals like us very, very, very frequently. And this has only happened in the past couple of years.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And to see those types of changes, those types of unprecedented jumps on a much shorter timeline has made a lot of scientists nervous. They don't know what this virus is fully capable of in an evolutionary sense. And it may actually even depend on the subtype of this particular bird flu that is moving around. There are actually already two subtypes of H5N1 that have been detected in people.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
The one that seems to be jumping into people from birds, for instance, seem to be causing much more severe illness so far than the one that's jumping into people from cattle. And so it depends on all these different biological factors which scientists are still figuring out. But I guess the scary part of that is we don't fully know
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
what the average human sickness with this particular bird virus is going to look like.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
So what do we know so far about what it could look like? Right. So let me again split that into the two categories that we roughly know about so far. So the most common cases in the U.S. so far have still been in dairy workers who appear to be catching the virus directly from the infected dairy cattle that they're working with.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
And it seems like a lot of this is through exposure to the cow's milk as they're milking them. Maybe the milk gets sprayed onto their face, gets in their eyes, might be inhaled as the milk sort of aerosolizes into the air. And most of those cases do seem pretty mild on the spectrum of things. People are getting conjunctivitis, effectively pinkeye.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
They do have maybe some respiratory symptoms, but it's pretty quick to resolve. There haven't really been too many really serious cases when the virus seems to be jumping over from cattle. But a slightly different version of the virus is also jumping over from poultry. And those cases have been severe.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
This virus, since it started spilling kind of intermittently into people in the 1990s, has caused multiple deaths worldwide. But if we're looking just at deaths in the U.S., it has only been one so far. And I hope it stays that way.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Let me start by explaining what the virus would effectively have to accomplish to start spreading from person to person and for there to be like huge epidemic or pandemic potential here.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
So for a virus to successfully spread between people, it has to be able to get into our cells, make more of itself inside of them, get back out of those cells and then get out of that host, you know, that person and spread to someone else and then do the same thing over and over and over and over again. Mm-hmm.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
A virus that's super well adapted to doing basically that whole process in birds is going to have to figure out how to do all that stuff in a totally new set of cells. And so this virus will have to check off a lot of evolutionary boxes to adapt itself to us. It has to bind successfully to our cells. It has to get into our cells.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
It has to avoid specific parts of our immune system that might be different from a bird's immune system. It has to survive stably in our airways and then get expelled out of those airways and survive long enough in the air to get into another person. That is a pretty long, complicated process. And it's actually not totally clear if the virus's genome is totally capable of making all those changes.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
But the more times that it has the opportunity to infect ourselves, basically to infect a person, the more opportunity it is going to have to stumble upon the right number of combinations, if they exist, to start
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Right. I think what is really important to remind people of here is that just because this is currently a bird-adapted virus does not mean it's going to stay that way. Like you can sort of imagine if you keep throwing a bouncy ball against a wall, it's going to keep bouncing off.
Radio Atlantic
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
Like unless there's a fundamental change in the composition of that ball, it's not going to stick to that wall permanently. But in this case, we are throwing a ball that won't necessarily stay bouncy. That ball is changing constantly and randomly, and it's totally possible that it will get sticky on its own.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
After the break, how Jane Jacobs inadvertently contributed to the stuckness of America. Okay, so here we have Jane Jacobs. She moves into what street was that that she moved into?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Okay, she's on Hudson Street. That's an amazing place to live. What had been all around her was, who was living there at the time? It wasn't other people like her, right?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
So if we freeze her there, then she's a heroine of the city who appreciates it in all its diversity. So then what happens? How does the tragedy begin?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Okay, let's start with the second half. Why is mobility the thing that defines the American project?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
So the counterfactual history with no Jane Jacobs, I understand that this is imaginary, is what? You just build bigger, taller apartment buildings that more people can afford to move into, and you maintain it as a mixed neighborhood, which is partly immigrant, partly young professors.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
And is this aesthetic? Is it just that it's historic preservation? Is it just about people arrive at a place and they have an aesthetic preference and that's what ends up freezing change? Like that's what ends up preventing change?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
And I guess the communities who are less willing to see themselves that way because it goes against their sense of themselves are progressive communities. Like people who are interested in historic preservation, who say they love cities, who are interested in urban renewal. Like those are not the same people who think of themselves as complicit in – I mean your subtitle is –
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
You talked about how this changes our framework on certain things like a housing crisis, that we tend to say there's a housing crisis, but that isn't quite right.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
And you're not just describing something geographic. You're describing something psychological, right?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Okay, a last thing. In reading this book and having this conversation, what struck me is that, you know, that essentially... You're making a defense of America's rootlessness, like America's infinite choice.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
And right now, those two things, our rootlessness and our infinite choice, are things which we think of as cursing us, like as the words we often use now are loneliness, like lack of community, bowling alone, however you want to call it. We talk a lot about our spiritual collapse as related to the same mobility and rootlessness that you describe as a positive force in the book.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
And I wonder how you've talked about that or reconciled it.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Yoni, for laying that out and joining us today.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Thanks again to Yoni Applebaum. His book, again, is Stuck, How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity. This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Janae West and edited by Claudina Bade. It was engineered by Rob Smerciak and fact-checked by Sam Fentress.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Claudina Bade is the executive producer of audio at The Atlantic, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. I'm Hannah Rosen. Thank you for listening.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Right, because it's not just about geography. It's not just about money. It's about a sense of yourself as having infinite possibilities, like you could just move and move. You weren't class-bound in any way.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
The book is called Stuck, How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity. In it, Applebaum argues that there is and always has been something quintessentially American and also quintessentially hopeful about moving.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
So just in numbers, can you give a sense of where we are now? Like, what's the statistic that shows most starkly the decline in mobility now?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
It's so interesting because if you told me that someone moved that many times in a year, I would not associate that with upward mobility. I would associate that with desperation and, you know, problems.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
It's like Americans are... in their soul psychological immigrants, like that we behave the way we think of immigrants behaving, and the more robustly we do that, the better off Americans are. The most evocative image that you draw is something called Moving Day from an earlier era. I had never heard of that. Can you paint a picture of what that is?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
In the 19th century, moving day was like a thing, a holiday celebrated across different American cities at different times when everybody would just up and move. To quote Applebaum, "...nothing quite so astonished visitors from abroad as the spectacle of thousands upon thousands of people picking up and swapping homes in a single day." But moving isn't happening so much anymore.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
So, upgrades. Now, where is this happening? Is this happening in cities of a certain size, in immigrant communities? Like, who is doing all this chaotic moving?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
And who are they? Let's define all the sides. Who are the respectable Americans?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
This is Radio Atlantic. I'm Hannah Rosen. I have moved many times in my life, across continents, across the country, back and forth across D.C., which is where I live now, and I didn't think much about it. I just chalked it up to restlessness. Until I read Yoni Applebaum's new book, which is also the March cover story in The Atlantic.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
So there are decades of massive amounts of mobility. It's considered respectable enough. And then at some moment, a few forces start to slow this all down. So can you tell the story of what happens in lower Manhattan?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Do you remember the numbers? Because I think they're extraordinary. Maybe I'm just remembering this from going to the Tenement Museum, but when you actually look at the density numbers, they are just hard to get your head around.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Wait, like who is the they? Are we talking about city planners? This is a really interesting moment, because it's unexpected, this part of the history.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Applebaum writes, every year, fewer Americans can afford to live where they want to. So what happens to a country geographically, culturally, politically, in some ways psychologically, when mobility starts to stall? Can you read this from your intro, these couple of sentences?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
So we're in a moment of just resistance to tenements and apartments and crowdedness. How does this then become encoded? What's the next step they take?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
It's, you know, any time you step into the history of the technical and possibly boring word zoning, you hit racism.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
In progressive Berkeley, that's another thing I learned in your book, is how Berkeley essentially has such racist zoning origins, you know?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
And what does—the zoning code is not explicitly racist. What does it actually say in the government documents?
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Like the Chinese laundromat on the West Coast. Like, no laundromats. That's the famous one. Exactly.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
Okay. So we have zoning laws. We have government complicity in kind of dividing where people live. And then we have someone who comes in as a supposed savior, particularly of lower Manhattan. Maybe not a savior, but someone who appreciates the diversity in the city as it is. And that's Jane Jacobs.
Radio Atlantic
Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?
And you tell a very different story of the role she plays in all of this, which really brings us to the modern era. So can you talk about who she is and what role she played in transforming lower Manhattan?
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
So it's my turn. I was thinking about the book that stuck with me the longest was Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth book. And I read it in high school. We had read some Philip Roth in the class and they'd said, oh, go find another Philip Roth book.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
So I picked out Portnoy's Complaint and it was just an absolute revelation because when you're in high school, you're reading like dutifully, like you're trying to be like a good student.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
literary citizen you're trying to understand like what serious things are and how grown-ups write and i thought like this is literature like this is hilarious you know like it was such a freeing revelation to realize that someone could write in such a funny way about such insane ridiculous So then I went down that train. I was reading John Cheever and Saul Bellow and all the Philip Roth novels.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
And I just kind of, like, imbibed the notion. Not that those were, like, specific. Like, what I wish I had done was read them and think, oh, this is the specific perspective of a specific kind of man at a specific kind of period. And that would have been amazing because they're, you know, so many of them are incredible and so beautifully written. Instead, I think I absorbed them as...
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
this is what great literature is. This is the universal perspective. This is not like a specifically male perspective. It's just the universal perspective. And if you've ever read those novels, the women are kind of flat, shall we say, two-dimensional, like, their inner life doesn't matter as much, you know? And so I feel like it took me a long time to work through that.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Like, I went back and back again to those novels, and it took sort of over the decades, like, I started to tune into how the female characters were portrayed, and I started to understand it more as like a singular perspective and not a universal perspective and it just took me forever to kind of work through you know what it meant to have imprinted that as the things that matter at a young age.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Now it's been many decades and I read many, many great female novelists, so many that I can hardly name them. And even of that era, like Renata Adler, and I was glad to have added that. But I was left with this feeling like I wish that instead of picking up Philip Roth's
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
I had picked up like Virginia Woolf at that moment when I was so impressionable because it's just hard to, it's just hard to shake those, like these imprints that you have at that age are so impressionable. I'm Hannah Rosen, and I'm the host of Radio Atlantic. That, of course, was my contribution, but we have many more, so many, in fact, that we're going to let this run into the holiday break.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Next week's episode will include more Atlantic writers, as well as you, members of our audience who shared your thoughts and memories about books that you read in high school. This episode was produced by Kevin Townsend, edited by Claudina Bade, Rob Smirciak engineered, and Catherine Hu fact-checked.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. I'm Hannah Rosen. Thank you for listening, have a wonderful holiday, and enjoy a good book, no matter what age you are.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Rose wrote about this for the magazine, and what she found comes down to one basic point.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
I'm Hannah Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic. And this week, the strange disappearance of the book-reading American student, what's causing it, and what we lose throughout our lives when we don't read books as teenagers. So is the idea like a book itself seems overwhelming?
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
What were some examples they gave you? Because I'm sure they're adjusting, like how they used to assign. Because when I was in college, I was assigned many, many, many books per class versus how they're assigning now.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
I'll just call the course short works of American prose. Yeah.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
And what were some of the reasons that came up for why students couldn't get into the books anymore?
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Right. So you can't go from reading portions of books to suddenly reading like, you know, 20 novels for a course. That just doesn't make any sense.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Yeah. One thing that you're reporting evoked for me is, you know, not just like kids today, they don't read, but but a feeling of empathy for how much kids have to do, say, in high school to get into college and how much pressure there is on kids that I almost felt like, oh, telling them to read a novel.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
You know, it's a luxury to read a novel when you've got a you know, you could also be like on the swim team or writing for the school newspaper or whatever. What do you think about that?
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Right. Like you can imagine if a high school kid were to say, I actually don't want an internship this summer. I don't want to go to any camps. I don't want to work. I would like to spend my summer reading novels. It would almost land as an act of rebellion, you know, and people might question that. It wouldn't be seen as like an inherently valuable thing. It would make people nervous. Right.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Right. And that might be considered lazy. Like, oh, you're just sitting around reading books all summer.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Right. We all say we want people to read, but in fact, the message we're actually conveying is you need to have skills.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Right. So, Rose, the argument is that college professors are finding that people are unprepared to read books, and it's probably because they haven't read books in high school. And what I noticed in your reporting was that a lot of people didn't necessarily see the value of reading books. It's not just that they were afraid of them or they didn't have the attention span.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
I love that, to prepare to live. So how does a book – how does something like a book – Because it's obvious to me how skills help you live. Like, they help you get a job and then the job pays the salary and then the salary pays the mortgage. But, like, how does a book help you prepare to live?
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Right. So it's like you're in that tender moment in your life where you're just starting to realize... Like there's a bigger world outside my family, outside my school. And who am I in that world? And basically what's out there? And this is your first guide. Like a book is your first guide. And I think that's why so many people remember the books they read in high school.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Because that's why they make such a lasting impression and stay with you. Much more than, in a very different way than books you read later in life. So if you love the book enough, it moves along with you.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Yeah, and there's only a handful of books you read like that where you read them. I mean, I only, you know, I have like a dozen where I read them over and over again, and they're different always. Rose, I wanted to thank you for having this conversation with me because it actually gave us the idea to have a bigger conversation about books. And
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
mostly about what you lose basically throughout your whole life when you don't read books as a young person, when you don't have books that you carry with you throughout your life. So we asked a lot of people around the Atlantic and also listeners to share books that were most important for them at that age, which is what we're going to hear next.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
I can't imagine having lived through adolescence without that as part of my life. I can't imagine life without having had these different worlds in which I could lose myself and feel like I was learning all about how human beings work, how society works, and what's possible to do with words, which in the end proved really important to me.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
So very grateful to you for having this idea and letting us, like, being the muse for this episode.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
We're going to broaden out now. We asked Atlantic writers to tell us about the books that helped shape them most in high school. So I'm going to step aside, but I promise to share mine at the end.
Radio Atlantic
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
It may not be surprising that Atlantic writers and editors grew up with a deep connection to books. But American students today might not get to have that experience.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
I myself did a lot of research on the January 6th prosecutions for a podcast series I hosted for The Atlantic called We Live Here Now. And as I was researching, I came across a couple of articles by author and journalist Linda Kintzler that helped me understand these cases and this charged political moment in a new way. Linda is a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
I was looking for historical precedent and read about George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion because that was a fairly violent rebellion in which he – and it was hundreds of people and he pardoned some of them. And I was wondering if that was analogous.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So, yes, there are presidential pardons. But if we can neither forgive nor forget something, we just may need something else to move forward. An act of oblivion. That's after the break. Linda, you have researched and written about what's called an act of oblivion. Can you lay out the basics of what that is? Yes.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So it's not actual forgetting. It's like a public declaration that we shall all forget together.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Got it. It's almost a funny word, like I'm going to blast you into oblivion. Like it's a very powerful word. I don't know if it was meant as kind of campy, probably not by the Romans. but there is something kind of like huge about it, you know?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
She writes about politics and collective memory, and she's written for many publications, including The Atlantic. She's also working on a new book about the idea we're talking about today, which is Oblivion. Linda, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Absolutely.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So it's almost so grand and big that it's not connected to the mundane act of, oh, I forgot my keys. Like, it's almost so big that it's on a grand national scale. Maybe it's something like that.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So what's the difference between what you just described and oblivion? whitewashing, revisionist history, sort of what we've seen happen with January 6th and Trump calling it a day of love. Yeah.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
It could have been... Like sort of actively describing it as something it wasn't. Can you compare those two moments?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
A couple of challenges I can think of to using this approach with January 6th. The first surface one is just the sheer amount of documentation, YouTube videos, like what you're describing, which is a clever act of forgetting or a memory game. It's, I mean, you know, like if you're a prosecutor working in the federal courthouse, this is a gift. Like you've seen these trials.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Basically what you're doing at these trials is watching videos.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
some Facebook video that somebody made saying, hey, I was at the Capitol. Like, I did this. Me, nobody else did this. Like, literally, that's what some of them say because they're proud in that moment.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So since you are talking about historical examples, what do you do with an era in which everything is uber-documented?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So the J6 prosecutions are for the most part unfolding at the federal courthouse in D.C., just a few blocks from where we are now. Linda, you attended some of these cases. I did also. What is your most vivid or lasting impression from these trials? Oh, wow.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Okay. That makes sense. You just have to accept the fact that the footage is everywhere. In fact, maybe that makes what you're saying more urgent because I do find even with myself, like if I hear a Capitol Police officer, you know, on the radio, if I watch that A24 movie that's documentary about January 6th, it's like right there all over again.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
And you just have to be maybe aware that that's the age we live in. Right. Second question I have is I read your various articles you've written about oblivion and it almost scared me reading them only because we live. This is the first era that I've lived through as an adult where I've watched the revising of history happen in real time.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Like, I don't recall a president talking about facts the opposite of what I saw with my own eyes. It's a very bad feeling. So in that context, I feel nervous about even entering into a conversation about oblivion, memory games, or anything like that. And I wonder how you've squared that.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So it was essentially an act of mercy saying the royalists are going to live among us. They're not going back. Mm-hmm. And what? How did it define them?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So you could imagine that kind of thing would be controversial at first, like people would want vengeance. And so in the immediate, it would be difficult to swallow. But then in the long term, it would put things to rest. That's the idea.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Okay. So let's move to the current movement. If you were King Linda, so is what you would want an act of oblivion around January 6th?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Okay, so you're not going all the way to saying, you know, an act of oblivion. But you've started to eke at little things. Like, what do you mean by Biden could have? I mean, we're in the very, very last days of the Biden administration. But if he had pardoned some of the low-level offenders, would that have been... Like in the spirit of oblivion? Yeah.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
I see. So there is a potential... That even though we're not figuring them out now, they'll be figured out in a sideways way through questions down the road. Like questions about how we will ultimately remember that day. Not necessarily how we'll remember it in this charged political moment, but like how we'll remember it 10, 20 years from now.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Janae West and edited by Claudina Bade. It was engineered by Rob Smirsiak and fact-checked by Sarah Kralewski. Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. I'm Hannah Rosen. Thank you for listening.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
A few of these cases have stuck with Linda for different reasons. One was the hearing of a member of the Proud Boys. It was the juxtaposition of this violent offender and his young kids who were playing around on the courthouse benches at his sentencing. And the other was a woman, a nonviolent offender with no prior record.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
And did you feel – like, how did you feel in that moment? Like, did you feel like, oh, there's some injustice being done or not quite that? No.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Like, why on earth would the outgoing Democratic president pardon people who damaged property or injured law enforcement officers or plotted to overthrow democracy? Trump has said many times that he will pardon the J6ers. He said he'll pardon some of them, or most of them, or even consider pardoning all of them at different times.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Interesting. So what you're saying is there is a legal process unfolding. The courts can do what the courts can do. But what you're saying is the courts can only do so much. Correct. Yeah. Right.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
OK, I want to take what you just said and compare it to the public conversation that is happening around these court cases, namely from Trump, because we're a few days from him taking office.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
And the way he puts it is that the J6ers were treated unfairly, persecuted by the justice system, they're hostages. You know, he said this in many different ways with many different degrees of passion throughout the course of his campaign.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
What do you think of that argument and how does that fit into what you're saying?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So you don't think they were unfairly—like, your argument is not at all that they were unfairly persecuted, right?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Do you have an example in your head of a time when historically it unfolded in the correct way, like a way that promotes a sense of fairness and justice?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
What if President Joe Biden had pardoned the January 6th insurrectionists? That is, the 1,500 or so people charged with federal crimes related to the riot. And yeah, I said Joe Biden, not President-elect Donald Trump. This is an idea I've heard floated around these past few weeks. And on its face, it sounds illogical.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
He said he'll pardon them on his very first day in office, which is just in a few days.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Yeah. Can we talk about Nazi Germany for a minute? I mean, I realize we always have to be careful when we're making historical comparisons to Nazi Germany. But you threw out the sentence denazification didn't work. There were, though, a lot of higher Nazi officials who were held accountable.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So how can we use what happened in Nazi Germany to inform what you're saying we have to figure out right now?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Which holds some intuitive appeal because you think I'm holding people accountable. That's what we're supposed to do as a society, hold people accountable.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
And particularly you say liberal because I think right now we do have this divide where Democrats or maybe the left are trusting in institutions and the right is a lot less trusting in institutions. So Democrats are putting their faith in this case, in this institution, the court, to go through the paces and do the right thing.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Right. So why would Biden do that again? I'm Hannah Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic. The answer to that question requires you to zoom out to different countries and different periods of history to understand the long political traditions that pardons are a part of and what at their very best they could accomplish. And it matters who does the pardoning and their motive for doing it.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
That's a really interesting and concise way of looking at it. Like, we have been relying on kind of Jack Smith, the cases against Trump, these Jan 6 cases of which there are, you know, 1,500. What's the gap? Like, what does the legal strategy leave out?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Okay. Let's just ground ourselves in the moment we're in. You know, let's say on day one, Trump does what he has many times said he's going to do, pardon the J6ers.
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Is it possible that it accomplishes any of the goals of putting this to rest, like any of the goals of reconciliation?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Okay, you said that casually, and there have been a few law professors who floated that idea. It is, on its face, a kind of shocking idea. Like when you read a headline that says, should Joe Biden pardon the Jay Sixers, it's actually kind of hard to get your head around. What do you think of that idea?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
Like I was reading about Jimmy Carter who pardoned draft dodgers and thinking that like we can look in retrospect and say they were peaceful and the January Sixers were violent rioters. But it must have been hurtful to a lot of people whose children or who they themselves went to Vietnam didn't want to. And it was quite controversial. So to what end does a new president pardon people?
Radio Atlantic
January 6 and the Case for Oblivion
So it sets a national mood. Like it sets a mood of I'm the president for all of you. We're all in this together. And the value of this country is mercy. Mercy is a value. Yes.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
So that is the one big obvious point of disagreement, which you mentioned, is Israel. Yeah. This is coming at a moment when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that he's going to escalate in Gaza. As you've been seeing this Gulf trip unfold, what do you think it means for Israel, Gaza and America's role in all of that?
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
So given that that's the current situation and given that Trump is now engaging in the Middle East, how does this change the calculus for how he and the U.S. engage?
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
The word that seems to summarize Trump's approach is transactional. That's the word that a lot of people use. So what are Middle East leaders getting from America and what is Trump getting from them?
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
Yeah. Well, Hussein, this has been so clarifying. I really appreciate you helping us navigate and understand what this trip to the Gulf states might mean.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and Rosie Hughes. It was edited by Claudina Bade. We had engineering support from Rob Smerciak, fact-checking by Sarah Korlewski. Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic at theatlantic.com slash listener. I'm Hannah Rosen, and thank you for being a listener.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
Have you been seeing the pictures of Trump on the tarmac being greeted by various royals? Yeah. I wonder if you read it this way. He seems very relaxed.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
Okay, so just to summarize, the transaction is they get protection, and what Trump gets is money for the country and money for himself.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
Yeah, it's very clear when you describe it. The symbol, the concrete thing that is going to symbolize this trip for a long time is this luxury jet from Qatar. How should we understand what this transaction is?
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
I'm Hannah Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic. And that is Hussein Ibbish.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
This is so interesting. Basically what you're saying is this is the president that the Gulf leaders have been waiting for. Trump is the man that they can finally deal with in the way that they want to.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
This week, we're watching the president's visit to the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The pictures that we're referring to show Trump at the airport tarmac in Saudi Arabia being greeted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a royal welcome. Lavender carpets, golden swords, Arabian horses, and Trump is smiling through all of it.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
So now that we've established this nature of this relationship and where we are now, I want to understand what it means to the rest of us, not to Trump and his family. Sure. So when you hear about U.S. relations with Gulf states in the past, especially Saudi Arabia, human rights enters as a factor. Not always forcefully, but it's always—
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
Yeah, and of course the 2018 murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA concluded that MBS ordered, although he denied it.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
This is a stark contrast to a few years ago when MBS, as bin Salman is known, was a pariah in the West for his human rights violations. So what does Donald Trump's new approach to the Gulf states mean for our Middle East policy? And why is Trump so at home there?
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
Okay, so we need to take a quick break. But when we come back, I want to talk about what this trip means for the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and the U.S. 's role in them. That's when we're back.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
Okay, we're back. So I want to put this Gulf visit in the broader Middle East context. As Trump was heading to this trip, he made a number of deals that seemed like they were trying to clear away American entanglements in the region. So the U.S. ceasefire agreement with the Houthis, Yemen, the agreement with Hamas to release the last living U.S. citizen held hostage in Gaza.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
And then the announcement that the U.S., was going to lift sanctions on Syria.
Radio Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
Do you see a pattern in this series of deals? Do you see a common goal? What is it?
Radio Atlantic
Tariffs Are Paused. Uncertainty Isn't.
Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know? They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid, unlike these champions.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
What would it take to convince you that AI is sentient?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
To help me with that is Ali Breland, an Atlantic staff writer who writes about the internet, politics, and technology. Hey, Ali.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
So, Ali, this fracture in the MAGA alliance seemed to start around Christmas when Trump announced a senior AI policy advisor. Who is he and how did people respond?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
So that's what the research shows. It's fairly definitive until now. And yet even some Democrats have repeated the line, the H-1B visas take away American jobs. For example, Bernie Sanders. What do you make of that?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Right, right. Okay, so we've been talking exclusively about the H-1B visas because they came up in the news, but the whole of Trump's promise is not specifically about H-1B visas at all. It's a promise of mass deportation and immigrant labor in general. I know that you've been looking into the research about the relationship between immigrant labor and the American worker. What did you find?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
And why? I mean, it seems counterintuitive.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
So these are like, this is a faction. Like these guys are becoming more and more powerful. So Trump's tech allies.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
So that was a singular study. Has that held up over time?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
So at this point, there's a large body of research saying the arrival of immigrants, even sudden arrival of immigrants, doesn't have a great effect on the American worker, may even have a positive effect. Now, what about the disappearance of immigrant labor because Trump's promises mass deportations. I'm not sure if you can just flip, you know, the findings of this research.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Like, is there a similar natural experiment or study that shows how that might affect workers or the economy?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
So they're on one side. And then how did the discussion around H-1B visas get going?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Yeah. So it's – If the research is so consistent, so strong, and makes a lot of sense if you think about it a tiny bit more deeply, why do you think this sentiment persists? Is it just a feeling? Because it persists on both the right and the left. It's not as if the left is fighting back.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
They don't necessarily advocate mass deportations, but they are also not fighting back against this idea that immigrants take away American jobs.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Yeah, I had a conversation with Representative Richie Torres of New York right after the election who talked about how a lot of the immigrants in his neighborhood had a surprising amount of anti-untocumented immigrant sentiment. And it made me wonder about... I don't even know how to define this, but sense of chaos, like just a feeling of things not being in control.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
It's sort of the way people feel about crime. There just seems to be a sense that things have run away and you can't get ahead. It's a vague thing, but it is related to there's just so much out of control and I need someone to stop it.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Join us weekly starting May 14th for The Most Interesting Thing in AI, brought to you by Rethink, the Atlantic's creative marketing studio, in collaboration with PWC, wherever you get your podcasts.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Yeah. So maybe the place to end is this. Have you talked to anyone or done any thinking about how in a situation like this you close the gap? Because we as journalists, it's frustrating to us to know that there is an answer. You know, there's an answer the research has provided. There are truths and facts. And separate from that, there is a perception.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
So have you thought of or seen anybody talk interestingly about how you bridge a gap like that where people feel one way that is discordant with what the reality is?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Well, that was really helpful. Roger, thank you so much for joining me today and talking about this.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
This episode was produced by Kevin Townsend and edited by Claudina Bade, Rob Smirciak engineered, and Sarah Kralewski fact-checked. Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. Many thanks to Ali Breland and Roger Karma for joining me.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
If you'd like to hear Roger go even deeper on the research into the economic impact of immigration, you can hear him on another Atlantic podcast called Good on Paper. It's hosted by staff writer Jerusalem Dempsis, and that episode is linked in the show notes. I'm Hannah Rosen. Thank you for listening.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
It's really complicated because they both have ideas like there's an optimum society, there's a right way that things should be, and then they're slightly different. So what does each side's ideal America made great again look like?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
There are already cracks starting to show in the Magall lines. And those cracks happen to show up in the issue that Trump has declared one of his top priorities, which is drastically reshaping U.S. immigration policy. Trump appointed to a senior position someone seen as being friendly to H-1B visas, the visas that allow people with specialized skills to work in the U.S.,
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
So they're less concerned about, you know, where people come from. I mean, what makes it especially complicated and charged that this came up so soon is that it came up in immigration. Trump has made controlling immigration one of his top priorities. So how did Trump himself end up weighing in on this?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Interesting. So then maybe the thing to explore is the nativist right. Not just Laura Loomer. Laura Loomer is, you know, a little more on the fringes. But what about someone like Stephen Miller, who will be Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy and who's credited with shaping a lot of the more draconian immigration policies in the last administration he has established?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
solid power in this administration. Have we heard from him or someone closer to power about what they think about H-1B visas?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
People in Silicon Valley love these visas. They depend on them. And maybe more importantly, the H-1B visa lovers include Elon Musk. But the America First wing of Trump supporters, sometimes known as the nativist right, they do not love these visas. America First to them means literally Americans first. No exceptions. I'm Hannah Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Yeah, I mean, it's still early. He hasn't even taken office yet. But could you imagine a universe where then it just moves forward and we quietly make an exception for elite workers and do mass deportations for everyone else? Like, is that where immigration policy could land?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
So if what you said is true and if the past history holds, he is going to make an exception for elite immigrant workers. What does that imply about how he might handle other economic issues?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
So essentially, this rift that you pointed out in the MAGA world between, you know, is he going to take the side of the elites or is he going to take the side of all the workers, even if that means the nativist, right? That's a rift you can track kind of up and down various issues for the next many years just to see, okay, whose side does he take on a lot of these issues?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
On this season of The Most Interesting Thing in AI, we ask all our guests this very question.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
And Tucker Carlson takes that issue because it's a betrayal of the American worker.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Interesting. So this is actually this is the central fissure of the Trump administration.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Well, Ali, thank you for pointing out this line to us. We'll be watching it for the next four years, and thank you for joining me.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
After the break, we explore what's behind the politics. Trump and his allies made the argument often in the campaign that immigrants take away jobs from Americans. It's an argument that on the surface has some intuitive logic, but it actually doesn't work like that. More soon.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
On today's show, we'll talk about this MAGA infighting. In the second half of the show, we'll get into what's actually true about the relationship between immigration and the American worker. Because it turns out that even a lot of Democrats don't get that one right. But first, let's dive into the recent news and what it means.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Joining me is Atlantic staff writer Roger Karma, who mainly covers economics. Roger, welcome to the show.
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Sure. So an early rift broke out in the Trump administration over H-1B visas, which we've been discussing on this show. With the nativist right saying what people say about all kinds of immigration, these immigrants take jobs away from American workers. So what do we know about the relationship between H-1B visa holders and the American worker?
Radio Atlantic
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture
Let's make this a little more concrete. So let's just play out a theoretical company. Here's a theoretical company, hires H-1B visa holders. How does it work? Like innovation is a vague word. How does it actually play out?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Oh, okay. That I hadn't thought of. So everything, all prices get raised. I mean, that just makes economic sense. Like, you're just increasing your profits.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Right, right. I want to talk about the problems that President Trump says he's trying to solve with tariffs because he talks about, like, short-term pain is worth it for the long-term gain and that we'll see factories reopening in America. What do you make of this conversation we've been having for decades now about manufacturing shifting overseas?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
I see. So you're seeing it as a positive evolution away from manufacturing, so it's hard to understand what the nostalgia for manufacturing is.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Interesting. Do you think that that's a perspective from an expert looking on high and doesn't take into account people's feelings about service work or people's connection to factories or, you know, all these kinds of things that Trump talks about, the things that people are missing? Because it sounds so easy when you say it.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
So when Eleanor had her daughter, she did not want her to have the bowl cut model. She wanted a doll that her child could actually relate to. So Eleanor did the thing that most people do not do. Oh, of course. She started a company to make her own dolls. It's called Jilly Bing, partly named after her daughter Jillian.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Right. I see. The problem is way more complicated than that. And from someone like you who looks at the big picture of the economy, it feels like an evolution, and it's a little confusing why we would want to undo it.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Okay, here's another big question. Americans are, in fact, used to cheap prices and infinite options. Is that fair to say?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Oh, it's funny you should mention dolls. So Trump did make the statement about dolls. Kids could have two instead of 30. And I am not pretending that Trump was making some kind of well-developed policy statement. No. But it is a diagnosis that people on all sides of the political spectrum have also made over the years.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
So what do you think about that sentiment in the context of this tariff-heavy moment?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
That's an excellent example. I totally see what you're saying by central plenary. I got that concept immediately. It's like shifting culture from the pulpit, as it were. But, like, why not go back to dying eggs? Like, don't you need to be forced into artificial scarcity?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
She wanted to create them in the U.S., but she couldn't find a doll manufacturer here who could do it.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Like, is there a universe in which higher tariffs do have a potential to shift consumer habits and maybe help out this addiction to cheap? Because we all know that the addiction to cheap encourages bad labor practices and pollution all over the world. So it is a big problem that's hard to shift.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Right, right. So there isn't any intentionality. If you wanted to shift consumer culture, improve the environment, you would be doing it in an entirely different and more targeted way.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
So Eleanor looked outside the U.S. and found a factory in China that she developed a close relationship with.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Right. Right. Like the very obvious example is higher gas prices, less driving, like what they do in Europe, you know. Can you see any scenario where this all unfolds in the way Trump imagines, which is short-term pain for long-term gain? No. No scenario in which like the American manufacturer, like more things are manufactured in the U.S.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
You know, people figure out where the, you know, how to make an American doll factory. Like none of that seems realistic to you.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Who do you think is going to be hurt the most in the next year or two?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Well, Martha, I really don't relish ending an interview on no silver lining and no wins for anyone, but I think that's just the reality. So thank you for delivering us this medicine. I appreciate it.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and Janae West. It was edited by Claudina Bade. We had engineering support from Rob Smerciak, fact-checking by Sarah Kurlewski. Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio. Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic at theatlantic.com slash pod sub. That's theatlantic.com slash p-o-d-s-u-b. I'm Hannah Rosen. Thank you for listening.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Things were going okay for Eleanor. She got some good press in places like CBS. That's great. Eleanor Mack. Good morning. And Bravo. And the Today Show.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Now, this wasn't any deep social commentary, just an offhand statement. But it did get me thinking about how kids today, including my own, do have a million dolls. Versus, say, when I was a kid. Do you remember your first doll?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
This is Radio Atlantic. I'm Hannah Rosen. Tariffs are no longer an abstraction. They're showing up in shopping carts, supermarket, and virtual. And they're forcing a lot of Americans to reckon with a way of living that we've taken for granted. Products get made cheaply somewhere else, giving us an abundance of choice over here.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
We'll talk more later about how tariffs have the potential to change American culture. But first, the Jilly Bing emergency. What tariffs look like from the side of the American producer who's determined to give us more choice? Before the most restrictive tariffs on China went into place last month, Eleanor Mack was already in emergency mode.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
A factory she developed a good relationship with announced that they had plans to close, totally unrelated to the impending trade war. So, like every good entrepreneur, Eleanor hustled.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Mm-hmm. And when you heard about the tariffs, did you immediately go into action, like call the staff, sit back of the envelope, figure it all out? Or did you call people? Like, how did you move through that process?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
So the decision, I understand. So the decision is even about putting in orders because you don't know what's going to happen at the back end. Like it's about the uncertainty because you just can't predict the entire process. Like you can't predict it from beginning to end. So you could be stuck with this inventory that you then have to pay so much more for.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
I see. Okay. So it's April. You've got a decision to make. So I see why you had to do this really quickly. Numbers are going through your head. Like, how much more is this going to cost? Everything that you mentioned, right? But on the other side of it is your company, like this thing that you've built that's very personal. So how did you weigh all that?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
You know what I don't, I don't know that I have a good sense of, maybe this is just how entrepreneurs are. Like, I don't know that I have a good sense of whether you, do you think you'll weather this? I can't tell. Like how realistic a hope is that?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Last week, at a cabinet meeting, while answering a question about tariffs, President Donald Trump mentioned dolls.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
So before the last doll is out of your house or wherever you keep the dolls, things have to shift politically, right?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
That was Eleanor Mack, founder of the doll company Jilly Bing. After the break, the other side of the equation, us, the consumers, our coffee, our toasters, our cars, our assumption that all things are available to us instantly. That's in a moment.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
So, Martha, I know the Budget Lab has been busy telling up how Trump's tariffs are going to change the prices of all kinds of goods for Americans. I myself am thinking about the long term, like how our consumer culture around cheap products might change. But first, I want to talk about some specifics. We just talked to an independent doll manufacturer. So I want to use that industry as an example.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Say it's my kid's birthday coming up and I want to buy them a doll. What is the landscape I'm looking at?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
When Eleanor was a kid, like when I was a kid, what she didn't have was that much choice. But even after Eleanor grew up and had her own kids, the options were still pretty meh. There were basically blonde dolls, some brunettes, and some that Eleanor describes as, quote, vaguely Asian.
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Right. And just to dig in, like, let's say you have to buy a toy in three months. Like, are we talking twice as much? Like, do you have any projections since I know this is what you guys do? Like, how much more expensive would I expect it to be?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
So for a few weeks now, we've been warned that we should expect prices of certain goods mostly made in other countries to go up, like rice, toasters, coffee. I mean, plastic goods, like you just said. Can you project overall how much a household budget of an average American family is likely to go up?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
Right. Are there some surprises that Americans might have in store, like things that you found are likely to go up way more than we expect, you know, things that I maybe don't even associate with China or know are made in China?
Radio Atlantic
The Art of the Doll
So when you look at the landscape, are you thinking very few things are exempt from this? Like most things are going to be more expensive? Yeah.
Radio Atlantic
The Mind Readers
So again, she always tells me about these God visits, as she calls them, that happen at night. And so I said, did he talk to you again last night? And she said, yes, unfortunately. And then she does dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
I can see that. Advice from yourself to yourself is harder to ignore. So I'll give my future self one more try.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Physically, I feel good for my age. Of course, there are aches and pains that come with getting older, but overall I am grateful for the health and vitality I still have.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
There are moments when I feel down or sad, but I wouldn't say I get clinically depressed. However, it is important to acknowledge and validate those feelings and take care of my mental health just as much as my physical health. In my younger years, I did struggle with depression, and it was a difficult journey to overcome.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Or you're a teenager doing stupid teenager things, when the future you all of a sudden pops up.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
But through therapy and self-care practices, I have learned how to manage those emotions and live a fulfilling life. Do you ever think about death? Yes, I do think about death. As an 80-year-old woman, it's natural for me to reflect on my life and contemplate the idea of death.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
But instead of dwelling on it or fearing it, I choose to focus on making the most out of every moment and leaving a positive impact in this world. Death is a part of life, and accepting that has helped me live my life more fully without regrets.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
I can understand why it may seem that way. But as someone who has seen and experienced much in my 80 years, I've learned to approach death with a sense of peace and acceptance. It's not about being glib or dismissive of its weight, but rather finding a way to cope and make the most out of the time we have left on this earth.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Death is an inevitable part of life, but how we choose to live our lives is what truly matters. I think I've always been afraid of getting older as a person who's full of regrets and lingering darkness. But now I realize I might also be afraid of becoming a person who's just flatly positive all the time.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
I understand your fears and I don't believe that being positive means ignoring or suppressing negative emotions. It's about finding balance and not letting negativity consume you. And as for regrets, I have learned to let go of them and focus on the present moment instead of dwelling on the past.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Life is full of ups and downs, but it's important to appreciate both and find lessons in every experience. Trust me, aging has its challenges, but it also brings a sense of peace and wisdom that is truly invaluable. Embrace it with an open mind and heart, my dear younger self. Okay, that got through to me a little bit.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Just remember, life is a journey and it's never too late to change your mindset and find happiness within yourself. Can you please stop saying life is a journey? Fair enough. This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Janae West. It was edited by Claudina Bade, fact-checked by Michelle Soraka, and engineered by Rob Smerciak.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
There's always this hunger to talk to our future selves, to know how things end up. A desire to change something today that will have an effect on tomorrow. But life isn't a movie, and I'm not an actress. So instead, I signed up for this program from MIT called Future You.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. I'm Hannah Rosen. Happy New Year, and thank you for listening. And to my future self, I'll see you later. You'll figure it out, Hannah. Just keep living your life and following your heart. See you in 2050. That's weird. That was very disconcerting.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
It's a web-based platform that lets you have a conversation with an older version of yourself, which in my case was 80-year-old Tana. First, I answered a questionnaire about my life, my family, my career. I sent in a photo, which gets aged up a few decades to create a sort of avatar Hannah. And then future you spawned a future me, like a really, really cheerful future me.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Do you have any advice for me now? My advice for you is to always stay true to yourself and your values. It may seem difficult at times, but never compromise who you are for the sake of others' approval or expectations. Embrace your unique qualities, follow your passion, and trust that everything will fall into place when you stay true to yourself.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
This is future Hannah. Oh, boy. My name is pronounced Hannah. Hannah. You should know that, of all people. This is Radio Atlantic. I'm Hannah Rosen. Um, who are you? Hey there, I'm Hannah Rosen, an 80 year old journalist from the future. I'm here to have a conversation with you about our career and life experiences and offer some insights and advice based on my own journey.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
By the way, the voice of future Hannah is a combination of an AI-generated voice from Eleven Labs and some audio magic from our end. And I'll note here that The Atlantic uses Eleven Labs to read out some articles on our site. To be clear, the MIT project does not actually talk to you voice to voice. It's all text-based. With this being a podcast and all, we needed something more audio-friendly.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
How do you feel about being older? I feel grateful for the life I've lived and all the experiences that have come with it. Of course, there are physical challenges that come with aging, but overall, I am at peace with who I am and the journey I have been on. You sound much sunnier than the real Hana. Well, I suppose with age comes a different perspective on life.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
But trust me, I've had my fair share of ups and downs and challenges along the way. It's all a part of the journey. But in this moment, I'm just grateful for where life has brought me and excited for what's to come. Do you talk to your friends this way? Absolutely. Do you have any pets? Yes, I have a beloved rescue dog named Max.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
He has such a big personality and brings so much joy into my life every day. Sometimes the simplest names are the best ones for our furry friends. Do you talk this way to our children? Because I don't think they would like it. Like I don't think they've ever heard me say the phrase furry friends. Of course I do. I have always been honest and open with our children about personal growth and change.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
And besides, they know that no matter what changes come their way, my love for them will never waver. Are you running for political office? No, I can confidently say that politics was never in my future, but I have found ways to use my platform and voice as a journalist to bring awareness and advocate for important issues that align with my core values. Oh my God.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Keep following your passions, Hannah. You never know where they may lead you. Stop calling me Hannah. Okay, I hate that she doesn't know how to say our name. Also, I'm not sure how I feel about this earnest, positive person. It doesn't feel like any possible version of me. Unless it is? Like, could I one day turn into Yodahana? Do I want to?
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
So I called up two of the people who worked on this program to find out what's the point of creating this space where people encounter their future selves, especially future selves who seem so annoyingly positive. Also, I just needed to talk to someone about the photo they aged up. It is very sci-fi. By the way, I uploaded a picture and I yelped. I was like, oh my God, that's my mother, you know?
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
I'm sure a lot of people have that experience when they do that. Yeah. That would be MIT professor Patty Moss.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
And MIT researcher Pat Patranutaporn, who spoke to us from an AI conference in Vancouver.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Patty and Pat were both part of the team that created Future You.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Future self-continuity. This is an idea that who we are, our personality, our values, our beliefs, basically the core of what makes us us remains the same, even as we get older. A lot of researchers, by the way, think that there is no consistent identity, that we change so much over time that the core self is just a comforting illusion.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
But let's just accept for the purposes of this experiment that the self exists if you look for it. The idea is if you believe that you, 20 years from now, is the same as you right now, you'll be more protective of future you. And if you don't believe that, you'll get in all kinds of trouble. So what evidence do we have that people do not, in fact, connect with their future selves?
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Because I think a lot of people listening to this might say to themselves, oh, of course, like I'll save money for my future self or I'll make good decisions for my future self. I think people think that they act in favor of their future selves. But you guys have turned up evidence that, in fact, people don't.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Just a heads up though, since we are from different timelines, things may be slightly different for me than they will be for you. But regardless of what lies ahead, I am excited to chat with you and share my thoughts. Oh boy. What if you had the chance to meet your future self? In make-believe, meaning movies, people get to meet their future selves a lot.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
And have there ever been, say, brain studies about what people think when they encounter a vision of their future self? Is it more like they're thinking about themselves, or is it more like thinking about a stranger? I've always been curious about that.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
I see. OK, that's really interesting. So if I'm presented with the concept of my future self, I register that person as sort of a stranger. I don't register it as me. Like if you told me, you know, I'm going to meet you tonight, I can imagine myself at that restaurant with a friend as myself. But the future, that almost seems like a different person.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Okay, this is sinking in a little. So upbeat cheerleader Hana is not supposed to be my destiny. She's more aspirational. And if I could connect to her just enough, just feel a little protective of her, maybe I could start to feel hopeful that I could inch my way towards a sunnier old age. There's just one twist. In addition to being a scientist, Pat is also a TV writer.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
His Netflix sci-fi show, Tomorrow and I, just recently came out. And in it, the people of the future, they are very, very dark. Definitely not people to be trusted. That's after the break.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Pat, you were a writer for the new Netflix show, Tomorrow and I, which is a kind of Black Mirror set in Thailand, a very interesting show. One thing I noted is that in that show, like in a lot of sci-fi, emissaries from the future, unlike in your Future You program, they are not often the wise or kind ones. They are not necessarily leading you to a better place.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Usually it's coming around to teach them something. Like, a kid is desperate to be older.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
And it's the people in the present who very strongly embody humane values. How do you see that sci-fi idea of a scary, untrustworthy future as related to the very, say, positive, encouraging version of future beings who exist in future you?
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Yeah. And in Tomorrow and I, you can see those two versions of a future being battled. I mean, some people who are indifferent to the idea that technology is making us more mechanized and some people who are fighting against that idea. So you see both those kinds of characters.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
only to learn that being an adult is kind of terrible. Or it's the holidays, when everyone's supposed to be smiling and drinking eggnog, but instead they're frantically reevaluating all their life choices.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Right. So it's a choice. A choice for society. Like our technological future can be bright or it can be dark, but we have to guide it. And a choice for each of us, individually. Pat says he actually experimented with a version of Future You, which was more like his sci-fi series, where you could move towards a darker version of Future You.
Radio Atlantic
Me, My Future, and I
Obviously, he didn't love that version. So they stuck with the cheery AI, which also had some hard lessons to teach him. Not alcoholic hard, but still hard.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
SEC Chair Gary Gensler describing the world of cryptocurrencies as the Wild West.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
When we're back, what does a crypto doomsday scenario look like? And how worried do we really need to be?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
OK, one thing you said that isn't so clear to me, you mentioned a Bitcoin reserve. Like, I understand what an oil reserve is. I can visualize it. I can get what it's for. What is a Bitcoin reserve and why is that interesting to Trump?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
So let me just start basic. What was the initial idea of cryptocurrency and how did it evolve over time?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Okay, so you have inched towards answering my big question, which is, let's say I never plan to buy or even think about crypto. I listen to this conversation. We talk about weakened regulations, no more enforcement. What risks do I have? Like, what risks am I holding?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
So that's effectively just another way in which we are becoming a corrupt banana republic kind of country.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Yeah. I mean, it doesn't sound outlandish to me. And that's exactly what I was going to say. The reason it doesn't sound outlandish is because we all lived through the subprime mortgage crisis. And we understood eventually that there were a whole bunch of things happening behind the scenes, like complicated financial arrangements that weren't like exactly under the radar.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
But they did turn out to deeply affect the average American and not just people who are out there speculating.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Right. We have a lot of soul searching and response to that. And yet that doesn't really matter at this moment. Like we're not reading the crypto crisis coming in exactly that same way. Why? Yeah.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Like, don't sign that mortgage paper. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
I knew. As soon as you said that, I was like, right. Of course. Right. That is gone. So we did set up guardrails that are now just destroyed. Right.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Okay. So aside from the subprime analogy, are there risks that are unique to crypto, like different from what we saw unfolding? Yeah.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
At the total other end, what about other state actors? Like, is it vulnerable in that way? Did you say that?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Wait, that you worry about or have hope in the idea that there, you know, if he's not president forever, people will reinstate some regulations, some rules. They'll put a block in the slow brewing of collapse.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Right. The motivations run in the opposite direction, like they're suddenly making unregulated money through crypto. And why would anyone have a motivation to stop that train?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Well, Annie, thank you for paying attention and thank you for coming on the show.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and edited by Claudina Bade. We had engineering support from Rob Smerciak, fact-checking by Sarah Krolefsky. Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, remember you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic at theatlantic.com slash podsub. That's theatlantic.com slash p-o-d-s-u-b. I'm Hannah Rosen. Thank you for listening.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
So what evolved? What's going on with crypto these days?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have been around for a while now. And headlines about crypto always have a boom and bust quality. Overnight billionaires and tech entrepreneurs, scams and collapses on absurd scales. It wasn't clear which way the crypto story was headed because Trump opposed it in his first term. But now he's made a big turnaround.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
You said speculative instrument. What does that mean exactly?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
And what's the significance of that? Like, I know it sounds weird and alarming and virtual, but why is that an important thing to think about? Because money is also nothing. It's just like a thing that we've all agreed is worth a certain thing that can be traded for other things. So why does it matter that there is no there there with Bitcoin? Yeah.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Okay. I think I'm starting to understand in your voice, you haven't said this yet, but I think what I'm starting to understand is it's the volatility probably makes everything more risky and people involved in it more vulnerable and makes it more vulnerable to manipulation.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Is the riskiness theoretical? How volatile has it actually been?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
Trump has become very pro-crypto, pushing to change regulations and create a world where crypto plays a much bigger role in Wall Street and in Washington. all while he and his family stand to profit from crypto investments of their own. I'm Hannah Rosen, and this week on Radio Atlantic, crypto in the new Trump era.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
So into this boom bust world of incredible volatility walks Donald Trump. What does his return to office mean for crypto?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
With so many high-stakes changes coming from the administration, it's easy to push the crypto story aside.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
All right. So Trump is into crypto now. And I get that that's risky. You've said that. But what if I never want to buy crypto or I never even want to think about it? Why do I care? Like, what does it matter to me?
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
That's Atlantic staff writer Annie Lowry, who writes about the economy and politics. And she's here to tell us why we shouldn't lose sight of this one. Because what Trump is proposing could have real risks for all of us. And the people who are paying the most attention are the ones pushing for it to happen.
Radio Atlantic
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
OK, that was a lot. Let me let me make sure I understand that. So before crypto is in a separate world and whoever invested in it just took on the risk themselves. It wasn't integrated in the American economy in any particular way. And was it heavily regulated? Is that one of the things Trump is changing?
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
The lesson is that Michael can share his own lesson. He thinks I say this too frequently, but my big takeaway from with Michael writing 12,000 words and talking to dozens of advisors is that Trump has an ability to bend reality to his will. And by never ceding, never giving any quarter...
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
um Menschen zu glauben und eine Version von Events zu fühlen, die nicht mit der Realität oder den Fakten auf dem Boden funktionieren.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
He also understands the norms that he can shatter, right? That a lot of the pillars of our democracy are sort of based on societal agreements and niceties, that when a court rules, you follow the court's ruling. And in the first term, there were things that Trump wanted to do, fire his attorney general, that the people around him said, you can't possibly do that, right?
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
You would pay a political price or that's against the law or you absolutely can't. And this time, not only is there no one telling him he can't, he fully believes... He can. And when he says something, you know, when he says this, you know, may not seem as consequential as, say, deporting people without due process.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
But when this time when he says, you know what, I kind of want to just fire everyone on the board of the Kennedy Center and make myself chairman instead of aides being like, well, you can't possibly do that because people on the board serve six year terms. You know, they say, OK, yes, sir, we're going to figure out how to do it and we'll have you an answer by tomorrow. And he does it.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
And they've also said even on days when they brief him before the press comes in, right, even on days where there's going to be tough issues and tough questions, you know, his attitude is, it was described to us as sort of like bringing the hounds, right? Like it's a fun thing.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
And another thing a top Trump-advisor told us was that, you know, some of the people around him have a rule, which is that we only do stuff when he says it twice. And we said, why? And this person said, well, he says a lot of crazy shit.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
But the difference is, before when he would say the quote-unquote crazy shit in the first term, there were people who would slow walk it or again tell him he couldn't do that or, you know... Ja, genau.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
Yeah, I think of that a ton as well. You know, it's not just that Trump is sort of this, to use the cliche, this fire hose of stuff everywhere because he's, you know, as they would say, having fun. But it's very deliberate. It's very strategic.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
And just one example is a quote an advisor said to us, but that kind of sticks with me and can be applied throughout the administration so far, although this pertained to day one. They said, look, on day one, we planned for it and we came in and we did all of these immigration executive orders.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
And if we just left it at that, the media would have covered it as we're horrible people, we're kicking immigrants out of the country, we're separating, you know, women and children, we're awful. But we did that and then, bam, we pardoned everyone of the J6ers. And by the way, he gives his traditional inauguration remarks. He gives another inauguration speech.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
Then he repairs to the Oval Office, where he takes questions from reporters in the Oval Office. And then that night he goes out dressed up, you know, with his wife and her designer clothes to the balls. And it's like, screw you, media. You have to choose what you want to cover. You can't cover it all. And that's not to mention the things that there may be doing...
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
Yeah, when we asked again, what if you mistakenly deport an American citizen or the wrong person without due process, his answer was sort of a Gallic shrug of, well, let me tell you, nothing in life is perfect, which is actually an argument for due process, because nothing in life is perfect.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
He says quite explicitly, his idea, if you came here illegally, you are essentially not entitled to anything, right? That original sin gives me grounds to sort of, he doesn't put it this explicitly, but it's just like to treat you however I choose.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
His sense of the Supreme Court still is that my justices are there and at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, they're going to rule in my favor. I think when the rubber meets the road is if something goes to the Supreme Court and they rule definitively against him. Does he still stand by, you have to do what the court says?
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
But the clearest definition, I think, would still be, for instance, the Supreme Court says, you know, just to simplify it, you absolutely cannot put any more undocumented immigrants on planes and fly them to El Salvador. And then Trump is sort of like, YOLO, we're doing it anyhow. That's the crisis. Right. And we haven't done that.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
Well, you know, this is always the question. Michael and I separately had been chasing a tip we had heard that he had asked his attorney general in his Department of Justice to look into whether or not he could seek a third term. And he said, no, I haven't. So something we wanted to know, is this true?
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
But what's interesting is in reporting out that story, you sort of hear both sides from his advisers, which is that he says this as a troll. He says this is a, you know, provocation. But, you know, there's people on the outside, Steve Bannon and others, who really are looking at ways to do this.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
And by the way, also, if Trump ever thought it was actually feasible, like, yeah, he'd seriously consider it. And that was sort of the answer he then gave us. So he said, no, I haven't, you know, asked for a legal opinion on this. And I kind of pressed him and said, well... Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
I also think he was, again, he's sort of a guy who fundamentally came of age in the 80s where magazine covers meant something. I mean, I think they still mean something. But I think he was intrigued by the idea of being on the cover of The Atlantic, which is not the cover of another magazine. The Atlantic has written some pretty tough pieces about him that he remembers.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
He remembers Jeff Goldberg's Suckers and Losers piece. Und ich denke, das war für ihn beeindruckend.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
And it's interesting, people will say, Jeff could leave that meeting and say, well, which is the real Trump? Is it the Trump that was sort of solicitous and trying to make sure I understood where he was coming from and seeking my opinion and kind of having a respectful back and forth? Or is it the Trump who at rallies goes after Jeff by name? Which is the real Trump?
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
And the answer is, they're all the real Trump. Because to fundamentally understand Donald Trump, Donald Trump is a consummate salesman, consummate promoter, and he's trying to win... Die Minute, die Stunde, der Tag, die Person direkt vor ihm.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
Also, wenn Jeff, Michael und ich in der Oval Office vor ihm sitzen, ist der Weg, uns überzulassen, wahrscheinlich nicht, uns zu beraten und dann uns von der Oval zu zwingen.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
Und wenn er versucht, über seine MAGA-Base zu überlassen, oder er ist in einer Rallye, er ist auf Social Media, es ist ein anderer Publikum, es ist ein anderer Medium, und was du tun kannst, um über diese Gruppe zu überlassen, ist ziemlich anders.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
Well, it actually starts with the request for the interview and him canceling it on Truth Social.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
And I should say, again, it's worth noting, we did try to go through official channels first. And it was only once it looked like we were not going to get in that way that we procured the number. And Michael called him at 10.45 on a Saturday morning. I mean, this is so much better.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
Yes, it was that. In that phone call, Michael asked him about it, but it was fascinating. It was that all these would-be vampire slayers, the Democrats, the never Trumpers, the legal cases against him, the media critics, even his Republican opponents, they failed to drive a stake through his heart, continuing with the vampire analogy. And in doing so, they only made him stronger.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
For instance, after January 6, when the House impeaches him, you know, Senators had a moment where they could have convicted him. That would have been a knockout blow. They did not. He was sort of banished. There was a world in which Republicans could have worked to truly implement that banishment.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
I mean, as we went back and we reported this story, we knew there was this moment where Kevin McCarthy was in Florida for fundraisers. Trump invites him to Mar-a-Lago. A photo of the two of them is... Das ist der erste Schritt in Trumps politische Retribution.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
Aber was so beeindruckend war, als wir dies wiederholt haben, weil Sie einige dieser Details vergessen, das passierte eine Woche nachdem Trump nach Washington als Pariah wegging, weil seiner Rolle am 6. Januar war. Es war nicht drei Monate später oder ein Jahr später. Eine Woche später.
Radio Atlantic
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
after McCarthy has himself suggested maybe Trump should resign and not even serve out the final, you know, two weeks of his term, he is down there with a publicity photo that helps rehabilitate Trump. So it is striking how quickly this all begins.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
And she decides that her task is to raise this gosling and basically become its mom. But that means she has to do all the parts of becoming a mom. Okay.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Du gehst also von etwas, das metallisch ist, zu etwas, das ein bisschen organischer ist, zu etwas, das ziemlich menschlich fühlt. Das fühlt sich wie eine Evolution an.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Hast du jetzt einen Sinn, nach dem Arbeiten mit Wildroboten, was ein idealer Roboter klingen würde? Könnten wir die Tage zurückgehen, als Roboter metallisch klingen? Oder leben wir nur in einem Weltraum, in dem wir erwarten, dass Roboter eine Art menschliches Gefühl haben?
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Right, so we're not firmly in the era of the humanoid robot. Who knows how it could go.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
We could start having nostalgia for the robot robot as we knew it.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Well, thank you so much for joining us and for explaining this so patiently. I really appreciate it.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Das hat eine interessante Herausforderung für das Film-Sounddesign-Team geschaffen. Was soll dieser Roboter klingen? Und was soll es klingen, wenn es eine Seele hat?
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
This is Radio Atlantic. I'm Hannah Rosen. Today we're talking about how a movie handles our complicated feelings about robots. With a guy who had to figure that out in sound.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
And who did it well enough to get an Oscar nomination.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
There is a long history of robots in film. From him... Hello, I'm here.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Randy und die Wild-Robot-Filmmacher wussten, dass sie einen Element des klassischen Robot-Feels für Rosses Stimme verwenden mussten. Ein bisschen Monotone.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Und dann noch etwas zusätzliches Prozess in der Stimme.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
By the way, Randy would know all of this, because... I'm the director of sound design at Skywalker Sound.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
I mean, if you had that title, would you ever introduce yourself in any other way? Anyway, back to Roz and the Wild Robot.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Ra's ist nicht der einzige Roboter. Du hast einen Roboter gespürt, einen Wildroboter. Du spielst das Äquivalent eines Sturmtruppers, also Muskeln, einen schlechten Muskelroboter. Wie hast du diese Roboter anders überlegt?
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Hey, it's Hannah. Again. So, last year, we did an episode with the sound designer behind The Zone of Interest, which ended up winning the Oscar for Best Sound. We thought we'd do a similar episode with one of this year's nominated films, which is the bonus episode you're about to hear. Enjoy.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Okay, give us one line. I'm trying to imagine your voice an octave deeper than I'm listening to.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
And I am a wild robot. When we come back, Randy has breakthrough.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
So, one thing Randy Tom had to figure out is what Roz's voice would sound like. But he also had to figure out how Roz would sound when she moved, like when she twisted her body or extended her arm and when she walked around.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
And what does a pneumatic system sound like? I actually tried to YouTube yesterday pneumatic systems because I saw you and mostly what you see is video images, but I couldn't find one that had any kind of elegant sound, you know?
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
That is the voice of Roz from the animated film The Wild Robot, up for three Oscars this weekend, including for Best Sound. Ra's, whose voice by Lupita Nyong'o is a helper robot, a kind of turbocharged Siri, who gets stranded on a deserted island and learns to communicate with the animals that live there. She also finds a goose egg, the only one left after she accidentally destroyed its nest.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Oh, that's what a pneumatic system is. It's like a tube going through a thing.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Waren das langweilige Meditation-Yoga-Klasse-Atemzüge? Oder wie waren die?
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
Du weißt, philosophisch, als du darüber sprichst, dass der Symbolismus dieses Leibes in den Roboter fließt, sehr interessant ist.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
In his past work, Randy has figured out sounds for much bigger and less, shall we say, aerodynamic kinds of robots, like the Iron Giant.
Radio Atlantic
What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?
And early in his career, Randy also helped to come up with the sound for an even bigger kind of robot, which he found in recordings of a huge metal shear. Think like a metal guillotine.