No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump’s massive missteps after his positive COVID test

Episode Date: October 11, 2020

Uncertainty surrounding when Trump last tested negative for coronavirus has led to everyone asking WHY exactly he might be hiding that information, and Trump makes a major misstep with the second presidential debate. Brian speaks with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist, about Trump’s positive test and whether he’s putting his own supporters’ lives at risk by continuing to hold rallies while infected with this virus.Written by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CAhttps://www.briantylercohen.com/podcast/Visit votesave.us/btc to register to vote, verify your registration, and find any information you need on voting.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the question at the top of everyone's mind, when was the last time Trump tested negative for coronavirus, and why exactly he might be hiding that information and his major misstep with the second presidential debate. And I speak with Dr. Abdul al-Sayed, an epidemiologist about Trump's positive test and whether he's putting his own supporters' lives at risk by continuing to hold rallies while infected with the virus. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Live. Let's jump in. So the question now is when did Trump last test negative for coronavirus, which is remarkable, right?

Because keep in mind, this is a president who's already overseen the deaths of 210,000 Americans, a president who's overseen almost 8 million cases across the U.S. A president who's overseen 11 million Americans losing their jobs. A president who's overseen the unemployment rate jumped to 8%. These things unto themselves are enough to cap off the greatest failure by a president in American history. And I say that objectively. There is no planet on which this is anything other than an unmitigated failure. But now, as dozens of people in Trump's orbit continue to test positive,

with Donald Trump being the common denominator here, it begs the question, why won't his campaign just say when the last time he tested negative was? And don't get me wrong, this question's been asked. Here's Kaylee McInney. Yeah, I'm not going to give you a detailed readout with timestamps that every time the president's tested. Here's Trump's physician, Dr. Connolly. I don't want to go backwards. Here's White House spokesman, Brian Morganstern.

The president doesn't check all of his hipper rights at the door just when he becomes president. The doctors obviously share fulsome information with the president. The president shares a great deal of information with the American public. White House Director of Strategic Communications, Alyssa Farras, said, I can't reveal that at this time. Doctors would like to keep it private. So you get it, right? The point here is that there is clearly a coordinated effort to not answer this question.

And right off the bat, I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you're trying to take the attention off of something, this ain't it. All this White House is done by outright refusing to be forthright here is to make the entire new cycle about this question. Because now, instead of it being a simple question that was asked and answered, this is all that we're talking about. Like, talk about the strice and effect, right? But think about it. The only logical reason that they'd withhold this information is that the actual answer is even more damaging than their silence. Like, why inflict all of this unwanted attention on their campaign if they could just say he tested negative on Wednesday, September 30th, and positive on Thursday, October 1st? The obvious answer being that there exists the possibility that Trump tested positive earlier.

Now, we know that Trump tested positive late on Thursday, October 1st, but did he test positive earlier that day before going to a fun. razor at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey? Did he test positive before his Wednesday, September 30th rally in Duluth, Minnesota? Did he test positive before the Tuesday, September 29th debate against Joe Biden? Trump's campaign apparently certified that he did, and yet no one is able to find out who exactly it was that certified it. Did he put a 77-year-old presidential candidate at risk by standing only a few feet away from him and screaming at him for 90 minutes?

Like, might that be why his campaign won't say if he tested positive or not? Did he test positive on Monday, September 28th during his Rose Garden press conference when he and Mike Pence mysteriously stood at separate podiums? What about earlier that day during his debate prep with his campaign manager Bill Steppian and former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, both of whom have since tested positive, with Christie being in the hospital for more than a week now? Did he test positive on Sunday, September 27th when he met with Gold Star families for a reception at the White House?

Admiral Charles Ray, the Vice-commandant of the Coast Guard, who was in attendance, has since tested positive for coronavirus, leading to the rest of the country's top military leaders, including the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff themselves going into quarantine. What about Saturday, September 26th, when Trump celebrated the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court with a super spedder event that was attended by himself in Melania, Kellyanne Conway, Kaylee McInney, Chris Christie, Senators Tom Tillis and Mike Lee, Notre Dame president, John Jenkins, a bunch of staffers in the White House press shop, all of whom then tested positive. Did Trump test positive before this super spreader event?

Was Donald Trump the super spreader? Imagine you have Donald Trump not only leading a failed national response to this virus, but personally spreading this virus to his own colleagues and friends and family members. The campaign's failure to rule that out is what is directly raising those questions. And I do have to offer this caveat. This is speculation, and I want to be clear about that. But with that said, all Trump and his campaign would have to do to put speculation like this to rest is to reveal when he last tested negative.

That's it. If they had the opportunity to put this to rest, don't you think they would? Don't you think they'd want this new cycle to end? I would. If I'm Donald Trump's campaign, the last thing I'd want is not only that Trump himself contracted the very virus that he failed to contain, but that he himself is the epicenter of it. This is devastating for him. So if I'm Trump's campaign and I have the information needed to put this to rest, I do it.

And the fact that they're not says a lot here. Next, I want to jump over to the issue of the second debate, which has officially been canceled. Now, here's how this went down. The debate commission announces that the next debate that was supposed to be held on October 15th would be virtual because, and I'm just throwing out a wild guess here, one of the candidates is infected with a deadly virus. Then Trump throws a temper tantrum and threatens to bail. So as a result, Biden calls his bluff, bails on the debate himself, and sets up his own primetime town hall with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. And Trump gets what, another rally? I mean, a colossal, colossal screw up by the Trump campaign.

I can just imagine Trump gambling one of his only two remaining opportunities to appeal to the American people away so that he could hand Joe Biden a primetime town hall, Trump leaning back in his chair, looking over at Jared Kushner and saying, and that Jared is the art of the deal. And of course, the Trump campaign is trying to spin this as Biden being like too afraid to face Trump. But two things. First, polling felon. overwhelmingly in Biden's favor after the last debate. Trump was a raving lunatic on that stage. In about a dozen polls taken before the debate, Biden's lead was about five and a half

points ahead of Trump. In the 10 polls taken after the debate, Biden's lead widened to almost 10 points ahead. Nobody who is still undecided watch that belligerent performance by Trump and decided, yep, that's my guy. I have been unsure until now, but watching Donald Trump up there, sweating, physically incapable of not blurting out words every literal second that he can finally help me make up my mind

and that's my guy like it just didn't happen and that leads me that leads me to my second point here which is that it's Trump not Biden who needs to appeal to the American people Trump's the one who's down in this race he's on the defensive he needs to change some minds

and by gambling away that October 15th debate by throwing a temper tantrum he just lost one of the last two remaining opportunities he had to reach a real audience And I'm not talking about a speech in the Rose Garden. I mean, a real audience. 73 million people watch that first debate.

And no, holding a rally instead won't come close to compensating for missing out on a debate. Like, speaking as a news consumer, not as a pundit or a political host, this is just me as a consumer of news. Trump's rallies are boring now. And they didn't used to be. I never liked him, but from a sheer entertainment perspective, I used to hang on his every word at these rallies. I watched every single one of them. You can hate Trump, but still have acknowledged the entertainment value in those rallies, right? I don't watch them anymore.

Honestly, I just don't. His rallies have basically devolved into the same desperate, maniacal Fox News fever dream recycled over and over again. No one's falling over themselves to watch Trump whine for the ninth time this week about Hillary's emails and water pressure in the deep state and killer windmills and slippery ramps and the two lovebirds Peter struck and Lisa Page and the rest of his greatest hits. It's just tired. But these final two debates were his last chances to actually make his case to people.

And instead of taking advantage of that, he gambled it away. And so instead, he'll get on stage somewhere and pander to his same dwindling base while failing to broaden his coalition, which is what he needs. And that's all the proof you need that the guy has no discernible strategy to win. He's just guided by this fatal short-termism. So, you know, he'll lash out with these impulsive fits and shoot himself in the foot over and over and over again. He will never manage to not be led by his own ego.

But the most ironic part of all of this is why he threw this tantrum in the first place. And that was because the debate was changed to a virtual format. Here's the thing. If Trump doesn't like virtual formats, one option to have prevented that would be to have contained the virus months ago. If he didn't want everything to be forced to go virtual, instead of downplaying the virus, he could have taken actual, meaningful steps to solve the problem. But he never bothered to.

He chose to lie. He chose to tell people it was contained and that it would go away with the heat and that cases were coming down to zero and that you should go to work and that your kids should go to school and definitely make sure you buy those dips in the stock market. That's what he did, meaning that he let the virus spread uninhibited across this country. Being forced to go virtual is a result of his own mismanagement. So if he wants to complain here, Trump has only himself to blame. And this is all part of a broader strategy of denialism that's being employed by the Trump

administration and campaign. They think that by virtue of pretending that the virus isn't here, that they can will it out of existence. And so they want no masks. They want no plexiglass barriers of debates. They want regular rallies because their goal here isn't to protect the American people. It's to perpetuate this PR campaign where everything is a-okay. and they've done a stellar job.

Never mind the fact that we have 210,000 deaths, never mind that we're losing 1,000 Americans a day, never mind that we have 8% unemployment, never mind that 11 million Americans have lost their jobs, never mind that this is objectively

a disaster of historic proportions and that Trump has no plan. So no, not in a million years should Joe Biden meet in person with Donald Trump, who's not only managed to allow this pandemic to explode across this country, but who himself is a walking vector for this virus. If Donald Trump wants to infect himself and his staff and his family, so

be it. And if Trump's Republican colleagues want to let him, hey man, your funerals. But Biden's entire campaign has been predicated on addressing this virus in a safe and responsible manner. And that's why people are supporting him. So Trump can go right on denying reality, but that is why we're in this mess in the first place. So if you want more of the same denialism that got us 210,000 dead Americans in counting, the same denialism that's got us mired in an economic recession, the same denialism that's cost millions of Americans their jobs, then Donald Trump is making it clear that he's your guy. But if you want this nightmare to be over, then you can vote for Joe Biden. Next up is my interview with Dr. Abdul al-Sayed. He's an epidemiologist,

and he ran for governor of Michigan in 2018. He is one of the smartest people who I've ever heard speak, and I've wanted to interview him for a really long time. So when Trump, self-contracted coronavirus? I figured this was the perfect opportunity, especially given all of the unanswered questions that we're faced with right now. All right, today we have Dr. Abdul-El-Said. He's an epidemiologist, the former Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Michigan, and the host of a great podcast, America Dissected. Dr. El-Sayad, thank you so much for coming on. Brian, thank you for having me. Appreciate it. So let's jump in, obviously, the news this week is that Trump tested positive for coronavirus. So let's talk about his positive test. Based on his

treatment. Does he have a severe case? Well, based on the treatment, he got, he got unprecedented treatment. I just want folks to understand this. He got a combination remdesivir dexamethosone. Remdesivir is a antiviral medication. It was initially created to battle Ebola. It wasn't particularly effective for that, but it was found to be effective against the coronavirus. And then dexamethosone is a corticosteroid. So you keep hearing the word steroids. It's not one of those like anabolic meathead steroids. It's a, It's a steroid that affects a different part of the anatomy, and it is designed to knock back the immune system because one of the things that makes you extra sick is that the immune system

has an overreaction to the coronavirus, and the symptoms can be really ugly. That's not unprecedented. What is unprecedented is that he got what's called compassionate use of this monoclonal antibody cocktail alongside the dexamethosone and the remdesivir. Now, that's unprecedented because, number one, that monoclonal antibody cocktail hasn't cleared phase three, meaning we don't have strong evidence about the safety and efficacy of that particular cocktail, although it seems that if you're going to give it to the president, there's pretty good indication that it's likely to clear, but we got to wait for the science, as we well know.

And then second, we have not seen it used ever in combination, at least as far as we know, with these other drugs. And so you don't give this, you know, throw the kitchen sink type of treatment to somebody who's not very sick. And so, you know, from what we understand based on the treatment and based on, you know, what we can glean from his medical team's non-transparent assessment and what they've shared with us is that he was pretty sick. And at several moments, his oxygen saturation, a measure of how much oxygen your lungs are letting into the body, dipped into a pretty scale.

levels. And then finally, you know, just the indication is that you don't send a president in the middle of a re-election campaign to the hospital unless you think they have real potential of getting quite sick. So yes, he had what is a serious case. It's unclear where he is now just because they're not sharing any real information. But this was a serious case. And so based on your experience and based on what you know about his case, I mean, would he still be contagious? Well, you know, the fact is that the CDC's recommendation is that anybody who has COVID-19 should be isolated away from anyone for 14 days. That is the recommendation. And, you know, the notion that they can rule him healthy at this point flies in the face of all the science we have. Even if he was to

test negative, meaning he wasn't shedding virus in his nasopharynx, the part of the body. that's swabbed, it still doesn't indicate that he's out of the woods, and it doesn't indicate that at a future point, you know, that he wouldn't be potentially shedding. And so, you know, even beyond that, right, this is the president of the United States. If anybody is going to follow CDC protocol in a moment we're trying to tell everybody that they ought to follow the protocol to keep the rest of the folks around them healthy, it should be the president of the United States. And yet, as we've seen, and as we've seen from the very beginning, this president cares very little about the well-being of people around him, cares a lot more about what he thinks to be in his

political self-interest. And the notion that he wants to go out in rally after, you know, just a week after having contracted a serious case of COVID-19 is in absurdity to me, because you shouldn't be rallying in the middle of a COVID pandemic anyway, even if you're not sick yourself. Right. Even if you yourself aren't the super spreader. And I'm going to get back to the rally in a moment. I just want to stay on this for a quick sec. So, you know, we hear about coronavirus. virus patients kind of dipping in and out, getting worse, you know, they might have it bad the first few days and then it might get better. What does that say about, you know, about Trump's case in particular? I mean, will he, is it likely that he can face the same, the same situation as we've

heard? It's certainly possible. I mean, look, we don't know what the consequences of his treatment are. It may be that the treatment that they gave him was particularly effective and, and he really is out of the woods. The fact is, it's hard to say without transparency, without a very, a very clear, direct indication of what his course looks like. But we do know that there's a classic second week slump in these patients. You know, they look good for five to eight days and then all of a sudden the second week takes a turn for the worst. And, you know, this is a 74-year-old man with clinical obesity and a history of other mild ailments. And, you know, these are the folks that you're most worried about. And so, you know, it really is hard to say. But he certainly,

you know, at this point, it's clear that it's still possible if you just just look at the clinical case data and ask, you know, what tends to happen to folks who are 74, who are obese, who've had a serious COVID-19 case, well, you know, there's a probability that is not negligible of him having a turn for the worst. So you had mentioned transparency. I want to talk about Trump's doctor for a moment. His doctor is technically like a naval officer, right? And so in theory, like his chain of command is up to as high as the president of the United States. So is he bound by the same rules as other regular doctors or is he allowed to kind of say whatever he wants because ultimately it's up to

the commander-in-chief's discretion, how and if he will continue to serve? What is what is frustrating here is you've got an individual who's caught between his allegiance to his profession as a physician and his position in the chain of command. as a military officer who answers to his patient. And here is a real challenge. You know, in this situation, given that you're talking about the health of the President of the United States, which is a clear national security question, you would expect that we would get full transparency and that there would be a decision from the patient, who is the President of the United States, to be fully transparent with the public because, of course, that's what the position

would require. That being said, we have seen the president, who is the single person who can address and clarify this conflict of interest that his doctor faces systematically put his perceived political self-interest ahead of the well-being and the interest of the American public to whom he is responsible. And so, you know, you're seeing the situation where this doctor is caught between a rock and a hard place and clearly fears more what Donald Trump will think of him than whether or not he's meeting his ethical duties to his profession. Yeah. And by the way, this isn't, you know, a new thing for Trump. I mean, this is putting his political fortunes above the health and safety of not only himself, but the American people, goes all the way back to

day one, you know, when he knew what the effects of this virus were, he knew the transmissibility of this virus, he knew the lethality of this virus, he knew that it could affect older folks as well as younger folks. And we found that out through the Bob Woodward tapes, but he was saying, you know, publicly, he was saying something completely opposite. And that was as far back as February. That's right. And I want to be clear about something. you know, Trump ethically and his doctor ethically are under no compunction to share anything. I mean, at the end of the day, he has, you know, patient privileges just like everyone else. The thing about it is that he's the president of the United States.

And the thing he doesn't seem to understand is that when you're the president of the United States, yes, you have an added burden of responsibility to the people that you have sworn to serve. And your health is of very clear consequence to their well-being in the middle of a pandemic and in the middle of a world that you've made a lot less safe. And so, you know, at the end of the day, yes, you know, nobody's required to share anything per per basic physician and patient ethics. But, but like when you're the President of the States, you have added responsibilities. And that's his health. Now, when it comes to what he knew about this pandemic early on, it is very clear that he knew one thing and has said another. And he has

sought almost every step of the way to listen to his medical advisors simply so that he could say the opposite thing and create a setting wherein it looked like there were two sides to every story so that he could buy himself out of doing what was right from a public health perspective to save lives. I mean, that is the classic Trumpian approach to almost every problem, create another narrative, say that other people are saying, right, so that it's not just you. Yeah, yeah, many, in fact. Many people are saying, right? And then, you know, create an echo chamber and then make it look like there are two different approaches, two different sides of the story. And when it comes to science, there aren't really two different sides of the story

about what you do in the middle of a pandemic. And so he has gone to war against the scientific establishment. He's gone to war against his own public health advisors, his own public health agencies. And meanwhile, 210,000 people are casualties of that war. And still, at this point, he still continues to degrade and to deny and to push back against his scientists and in the scientific consensus about this disease, even after he himself had what was a case that, quote-unquote, spooked him, as it should have, because he got quite sick. Right. And it's not just him, by the way. I mean, everybody's surrounding him, his own wife. I mean, you know, Kaylee McAnney, Kelly Ann Conway, Chris Christie's in the hospital. We haven't heard from

Chris Christie in over a week. Nobody knows how he's doing. Beyond that, Herman Kane got sick from coronavirus after Trump's Tulsa rally and died. I mean, you know, I don't know how. I don't know how much more of a scare you need than one of your supposed friends and advisors literally dying after he attended your rally in the middle of a state that was seeing an outbreak, a spike in coronavirus. But you can't get much worse than having him literally die. You know, Brian, we say that because we care about the people around us. And what ought to be clear is that this man doesn't care about the people around him. And honestly, if you're a Trump advisor, you're a member of the Trump White House, if you're one of Trump's family members.

You've got to ask, why am I still doing this? Because he's going to throw me under the bus as soon as it makes political sense in his convoluted mind to do so. And I mean, that's the thing. It's like when you lack basic moral decency to care about the human well-being or the people around you, you will do or say anything so long as it seems to be a good idea for your own well-being in the short term. And I don't have to say that this is an obviously dangerous thing as a precedent,

him, but still, like, to all the folks who aid and abet him, like, I just got to ask why. Like, at some point, like, when you see him systematically just running roughshod over the people who are supposed to matter the most to him, what makes you think that he cares about you? And what makes you think that this is a good idea to continue to do his dirty work for him when every single indication shows he's going to throw you onto the bus or you're going to wind up under the bus because he did the wrong thing anyway? I just can't understand why people continue to engage with this man. is the love of power or the love of access to power

so great to you that you are willing to aid and abet someone who's actively putting people in harm's way who could care less about you? I don't understand it. Yeah, I mean, that's perfectly put. So sticking with Trump's treatment for a moment, if Americans more broadly had the same level of treatment that Trump did, what would the survival rate be in this country?

I mean, we've lost 210,000 Americans, but obviously most Americans don't have access to, you know, the same level of treatment that the President of the United States does. That's right. I mean, look, you know, the crazy thing about this is that this is a man who clearly benefited from government health care, despite having paid $750 in taxes for two years and zero taxes for 10 other 15 years before he became president and is actively trying to strip away health care from 30 million Americans and seems to think that ideas like Medicare for all are

an anathema to the American way, despite the fact that he just took advantage of it. You know, it's impossible to say how many more people would have lived, but here's the thing, right? Imagine we had invested in public health in this country in a way where we recognized that the consequences of hundreds of thousands, millions of sick Americans would cost the system as much as it has in lives and livelihoods. And we were to invest in public health the way that, you know, we invested in militarizing our country and every other country after not 11. Imagine what it would mean for being able to prevent the kind of pandemic that we're seeing right now

and save people who got sick in the first place. We haven't done that in this country because we haven't valued those things. And, you know, and then you've got a president who is just caught in frank hypocrisy around his position relative to government health care. We need more government health care, not less. We need more public health, not less. And this is a man who just benefited from government health care trying to tell us we need less.

Yeah, I mean, there's a fundamental failure by the Republican Party to predict, you know, these catastrophic events that are going to befall us, like events that have to deal with public health, with climate change, and instead take these retroactive approaches to try and save money. But ultimately, I mean, when these public health catastrophe,

like coronavirus befall us, they end up costing leagues more than if we had just taken measures in the first place. That's right. And this is the thing, right? Is that, you know, when you're a Republican lawmaker and you run on this idea of cutting government spending and you don't know anything about how government works and you're just out there with your scissors cutting and cutting and cutting, what you're doing is you're leaving us less safe because of it. And unfortunately, with public health is we're in the situation of trying to demonstrate, right, why we're valuable when bad things don't happen because we exist. And so, you know, we'll, we'll be out there advocating for our budget to keep people healthy. And these same lawmakers are like, well, we don't see

what you're doing. And the point is, well, you don't see it because we're doing it. And if you cut our budget and our ability to do it, then at some point, we won't be able to do it anymore. And at that point, you'll be stuck dealing with the consequences of our inaction because you literally cut us off at the needs. And this is where we are. If you look at the CDC budget over the last 20 years, if you look at local public health funding over the past 40 years, you see these budgets have been devastated. And so we were caught flat-footed dealing with this pandemic. And the crazy thing about it is, you know, there is no greater indictment of this governing hypothesis that the market can do it better than the fact that the richest most powerful

country in the world suffered this pandemic worse than any other country in the world. That to me should be an open and shut case when it comes to this notion that small government really is effective. You heard Mike Pence talk about trusting the American people. I mean, that's bullshit, right? Like, yes, you can trust the American people and protect the American people at the same time, right? I mean, you know, that'd be like saying, well, you know what, we're not going to, we're not going to invest in a military because we trust the American people to deal with armed conflict with other countries on their own. Bullshit, just bullshit.

And we've got to call it out every time we see it. So while Trump was admitted to Walter Reed, he took a moment to drive in a car with some Secret Service agents because, God forbid, he didn't wave to the proud boys and QA non-supporters who were waiting outside. So what kind of risk were these Secret Service agents at? Did they have to quarantine for 14 days afterward? Did they have to avoid family contact?

I mean, absolutely. Like, they were in a hermetically sealed car with an actively hospitalized COVID-19 patient so that the COVID-19 patient could waive to his friends. And yeah, like they need to be fully quarantined and regularly tested because if that's not exposure, I don't know what it is. And sure, they were wearing goggles and they were wearing masks.

But, you know, this is the kind of circumstance that you tell literally everyone to avoid. also that the president could wave to the cameras because he got bored in the hospital. Yeah. Do you agree with Joe Biden's decision not to debate Trump unless it's in a virtual format? I mean, yeah, like, I mean, for the same reason that I think it's ridiculous that he forced a bunch of secret service agents into a car. Like, I mean, this is supposed to be a town hall style debate. And I don't think anyone's showing up to a town hall with a COVID patient.

Sorry, I wouldn't. And so for all these folks who are telling me that, that, that, you know, that Joe Biden really ought to show up, it's his duty to show up. I'd be like, okay, cool. So why don't you go and spend 90 minutes on a stage with a guy who actively has COVID? And then tell me what you think about that. And, you know, we have this, this, this medium that all the rest of us have been forced to work on, you know, whether you like it or not. And it is what has facilitated most of our work, many of our work, those of us who are privileged enough. to do work that sits behind a computer, we've had to use this forum. I actually think it would be a very humanizing moment for the president have to talk over his lack of mute button because that's how the rest of us have had to deal with things. And yet he thinks he's too good for this.

The other problem is that, you know, obviously he's worried that the host will have a mute button because, you know, that means he can't just talk over his opponent every single time his opponent is making a good point about his failure as a president. And by the way, I mean, the person that would stand to benefit the most from a mute button would probably be Donald Trump. I mean, him sitting there as a, you know, frantic lunatic at the first debate, the polls that came out after that debate showed that he fared really poorly. So, I mean, you know, if there's anybody that stands to benefit from being voluntarily or involuntarily quieted down a bit, it's Donald Trump.

You know, the irony of this is that the only person, I think, who could show up to a debate and, get points for not saying anything is Donald Trump. If you just stood there and shook his head, like, honestly, people are like, well, look at him. He's pretty well put together. Thoughtful Donald Trump today. Really brought a new look at who Donald Trump could be. Honestly, if I were him, I just sit there, like turn the mute button on and just let the whole thing happen. I mean, there are some points where all Trump has to do is, you know, when he shows up at a press conference, is not set himself on fire and you have the media coming out to congratulate him because he has a new tone. The bar for Trump to succeed is so low, and yet somehow he manages to trip over it every

single time. And that's the thing is that, you know, I think for a long time, we've allowed the aura of his 2016 win to kid us into thinking that there's some form of genius in this. But demagoguery works in politics. And unfortunately, Donald Trump is a demagogue, and we've been under this demagoguery for the past three years. I think what he showed himself to be in the last debate is an impetuous man with very few ideas and a penchant to bully instead of reason. And that's what's left us with 210,000 of our country women and men dead to a pandemic that really should have been prevented. And look, I get it. Viruses naturally occur. Pandemics don't. Pandemics are manmade. This is a function of failed public policy. There's a reason why almost every other high income country in the world

has figured out how to do this. And we still haven't. And it is because we have this kind of failure of leadership. And, you know, the last thing I'll say is that, you know, he is on a medication right now that we know has a number of psychological and psychiatric side effects. And the crazy thing about it is, and I'm not going to, I'm not going to speculate about what the side effects might be in Donald Trump. Crazy thing is, you don't actually know if it's side effects or just him being himself. Yeah. And like, that you tell us something, right? The fact that we're like, is this just Trump or is it the medicine talking? Like, the fact that that's something you actually have to think through tells you a lot about who this person is and how he works. There is no genius

in saying whatever comes to your mind. There's no genius in just shamelessly picking on people. There's no genius in denying the truth. That is just demagoguery. And it kills people. And we're seeing that. I was reading up about the medicine and some of the side effects were like, were mania and, you know, there comes a point when you're like, I don't know. I couldn't tell the difference. I couldn't tell the difference between him, you know, sweating profusely and screaming like a lunatic yesterday versus a month ago, you know? And like you said, I mean, that should, that should give everybody pause more than anything else. I want to go over to his rally real quick. So as of this recording, Trump is set to host an event on Saturday and a rally in Florida

on Monday. So even if he's on stage, if he's facing the crowd and talking at them for 90 minutes, are his supporters still at risk of contracting this virus from him? I mean, it's certainly plausible, right? I mean, that's the thing is if you're an indoor setting and someone is sort of projecting at the top of their lungs, you can get it from them. We have pretty good evidence from a church setting where a choir member made all kinds of people around them sick

because they were singing, right? And so you can imagine a speaker at the front of the stage, potentially shedding virus and making a lot of people sick. But to me, like, just bigger dynamics. Like, how many people have to be exposed to a COVID-19 positive Donald Trump to make an out-of-state rally happen? Like, think about all of those people. And then think about all of the people that they could come in contact with because, of course, the whole point of the event is to concentrate as many people in one place as possible. Yeah.

So I just don't understand how this is at all something that anyone is allowing to happen. I mean, like, dear good people in Florida, like, whatever our political difference is, please don't go to that rally. Like, I get, you might vote for Donald Trump. I deeply disagree with you. But please, do not put yourself in a situation where you are actively in the same space as a COVID-19, known a COVID-19 positive person. Like, it's just not a good idea. It's just really a bad idea. So, you know, it's very sad to me. It's very frustrating to me when someone unwillingly and knowingly puts people in harm's way to advance his own ego. Because that's what's happening right now. And people have gotten sick because of him and many more could get sick because

of him. And anyone with any basic ethics or morality would do everything they could to make sure they didn't make other people sick. And it's clearly not what this president's doing. And you had mentioned this idea that it's not just Trump supporters who are impacted. And we see this with the right, conflating individual freedoms with public health. And this is something that Mike Pence brought up to at the vice presidential debate. This issue of wearing masks, for example, you know, Republicans frame it as a personal decision, but in reality it affects everyone. Like you may personally choose not to wear a mask, but if you can track the virus and then you go on to spread it to other people, then it's no longer just an individual decision. So no,

these aren't personal steps. These are public health measures. That's right, Brian. I would tell this. Look, if you want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet on, I would deeply advise you not to do that. But if you want to do that, the person who is at risk is you. But if what have I told you, right, this is the equivalent of saying, yep, I'm going to ride a motorcycle without a helmet on. And then my elderly mother could get sick because of it. Because that's what this is. And so, you know, it's one thing to take your own health and your own well-being into your own hands. Everybody has the right to do that. It's another entirely to put your community's health in your hands, to put your kids' health in your hands, to put your elderly parents' health in

your hands, to put a bunch of people you never met before is health in your hands. And then to think that somehow it's just about you. Like, that is a level of toxic individualism that I think we really need to be interrogating a little bit worse. Like, you're okay, right, to make sure that your health is in your hands. But like, you know, you're right to swing your arms ends where my face starts. And right now, we are making decisions that are affecting a lot of other people. Yeah, yeah, really well put. So let's jump over to the situation in Michigan with Governor Whitmer right now. So this is your home state of Michigan. So we just found out about a thwarted plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer. These were instigated by Trump with his tweets to liberate Michigan, for example.

And now, even after this threat against her life, Trump is back to attacking her. So can you speak on this? Yeah. I mean, this is just deeply devastating. First, I know Governor Whitmer well actually ran against her in the primary in 2018, I'm really grateful that she and her family are safe and healthy. The idea that people would threaten her safety because she was willing to stand up to keep us all healthy is to me the example of what the kind of toxicity that we see out of Donald Trump creates. And we got to call these folks what they are. They are terrorists. I mean, I was a junior in high school, 9-11. And for the rest of my life, I have had to live under an America that sees me because of the color of my skin, because of how I pray, because of what

my name is, as a potential threat. And what that does is it leaves us ignoring the real threats out there. And right now, the threat that we're seeing is radical, far-right white supremacy and the terrorists who would undo our society's basic norms and moors. These are terrorists. We have to call them that. We have to recognize that that is what the face of terrorism looks like, now. And so, you know, we've got to step up against it. And the other point is, you know, there was all this term, this verbiage that we heard about radicalization. Like, we've got to ask, why are these people getting radicalized? Well, there must be some radical extremist cleric out there who may be tweeting up a storm about all of the things that they think need to be done, like

liberating Michigan, right? I mean, we've got to recognize that when leaders speak, there are consequences. And we've got to connect the dots on that. So before you go, I do want to mention to those watching and listening. Abdul wrote a fantastic book called Healing Politics. I have it right here. He did not ask me to pitch this, but I promise you, this book is worth it. So Dr. Al-Said, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate you taking the time. Brian, thank you for having me. It was a great conversation. Thanks again to Abdul Al-Said. Quick note here, I'm going to start doing daily or close to daily live chats on Instagram. I'll either answer your questions or I'll bring people on to have a discussion. So follow me on Instagram at

Brian Tyler Cohen. And finally, if you haven't yet registered, registration deadlines are upon us. So please, go to Votesaveamerica.com slash register and make sure that you're all set to vote. There is a reason that Trump has predicated his entire presidency on making it more difficult for you to vote. He knows that turnout means that he loses. So turn out. And bring one person, just one, who didn't vote in 2016 and make sure they vote in 2020.

And I guarantee you that you know one person because 100,000. billion people didn't vote in 2016. So make it your responsibility to get someone involved who wasn't involved already. Do your part. I promise it'll feel so, so much better if you're able to look back and know that you did everything you could to save this country. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next time.

You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and you for you. preferred podcast app, feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.