The Daily Beast Podcast - Nancy Pelosi Brought a Teddy Bear to a Knife Fight w/ Dr. Peter Hotez

Episode Date: October 1, 2021

J.D. Durkin tells talks to Molly Jong-Fast about how Democrats brought a stuffed animal to a knife fight, Dr. Peter Hotez joins to break down why MRNA vaccines won’t say save the world, and what might, and Leonid Volkov, chief of staff to imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, explains why Russia was never a democracy. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast and welcome to The Daily Beast, The New Abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor-at-large at The Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned up to down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Kennan. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails.

Today we have an excellent episode. First we have Dr. Peter Hotes, who's going to talk to us about the latest with the coronavirus and vaccine boosters. Then we'll talk to Lentad Volkiv, Chief of Staff for Alexi Navali's campaign in Russia. And he's going to talk to us about what's happening there. But first, we have host of none of the above weeknights on cheddar news, J.D. Durkin. Welcome to the new abnormal, J.D. Thanks for having me back. Great to be with you, my friends.

I'm very excited to have you. Did you ever see? There's a lot of sausage being made in Washington right now. So much. So much. All of it is pretty boring. So let's make it fun. Let's do it.

You know, for all the years, I've covered Capitol Hill, you have moments where you're like, wow, could things get any more wild than they are right now? And then we've got the end of September 2021, which answers my question. It's a dizzying array of headlines. It's a full-time job just to try and keep up with what's going where. but I'm happy to join you to do my best to break it down. Let's schoolhouse rock this, okay? Is that fair?

Love it. And I would like to point out before we get into the weeds here, one party is pro-fascism, and the other party wants to give you electric cars. So before we get into the horse race scenario of this, I think it is important to realize that these two parties, there is no equivalency between what's going on here. Yes. I think if you look specifically at the priority,

I think this is really front and center with the debt conversation, which is just one of many multiple crises kind of facing Capitol Hill right now. But yeah, especially the priorities, right? I always go back to that 2017 spending bill and who did that tax cuts bill disproportionately benefit the wealthiest in the corporations. And you're right. I think Democrats are out there saying, okay, well, now we've got our turn at power up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. And so we're trying to work on public transit and the electric grid and the climate and racial equity and the priority list between the two parties could not be further apart. I think that's a very fair assessment. So let's talk about what is happening right now.

We have two bills. One can be done through reconciliation and the other is this. So one is this sort of smaller infrastructure and one is larger infrastructure. Yeah. I mean, this so-called hard infrastructure bill is a bit smaller. I mean, it's pretty amazing to me. We're talking about bills regularly that are now like up in the trillions. That's kind of a newer development in Congress, but that's where we are. I think it's important to mention that the defense spending every year is hundreds of trillions.

Yes, like totally out of control and it has been and it will continue to be for sure. Right. So, I mean, it dwarfs what's going on otherwise. So, I mean, I think it's just important to remember that. Yeah. You know, to me that I always try and look at this a little bit through the lens of history. I mean, the reconciliation bill, you are talking about. And I've tried to break this down on my show. Like, you're talking about the biggest expansion of social spending since FDR. And I think I use that comparison as I say, people remember learning about the New Deal and the Civilian Conservation Corps and the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in school because it's that important to American history. And I try and convey to people like, that's kind of what we're facing now. If Democrats have their way

with three and a half trillion in reconciliation, now look, look, if the Bernie Sanders's if the world had their way, Molly and Jesse, right? You'd be up to like $6 to $10 trillion. They say even three and a half is not really what we wanted. Like we continue to fail our most vulnerable citizens and our most vulnerable populations, and it is incumbent on the federal government to spend in a smart, focused way that can help lift people out of poverty and make their lives better. We've not really had that level thinking really since after the Great Depression through,

you know, the 12 years or so that FDR was present to 13 years. So that's like the historical context, but which I view reconciliation. Enter, of course, from stage, I guess he would be stage right, the mansions of the world that are now trying to scale that down. So we'll see what they end up coming out with. It's got to happen tonight, right? Or there's a lot of drama right now. A ton of drama right now. I mean, the latest as I saw it this morning here, you know, Speaker Pelosi spoke with reporters on Thursday morning at the Capitol, and she said, look, we're taking the hard infrastructure vote today. She says, so far, so good. That was the speaker's phrase. She says, we're on a path to not just have the vote on infrastructure. We're going to win

the vote on infrastructure. But then on the same time, like moments later, Steny Hoyer was asked by reporters how confident he is that the bill will pass. And he said, nope. He's like, I'm not confident, even if it does go up for a vote. So not even Democratic leadership is on the same page with regards to the hard infrastructure bill, which of course progressives and your justice Democrats have said, hey, we're not going to back that if you're not working in good faith on this FDR style bill. That's the really important thing. You've got to do better by your most vulnerable populations. And this is the once in a generation opportunity to do so. Infrastructure is great. It's certainly a priority, but the two of them got to be more in tandem. And they have been decoupled the last

couple of weeks here in Washington. Yeah. But Republicans are working really hard to not help in any way, shape, or form discuss? Not at all. Definitely true on reconciliation. I mean, this, this, I call it the FDR style bill, right? Extended child tax credits, paid family medical leave, money for the climate crisis, child care, universal pre-K, I think it's two years of free community college. You're not going to get any Republican support on that. Infrastructure is a bit more bipartisan.

But even then. You love your handful of Republicans. Even then, correct. How do you trust these people? I mean, every day Mitch McConnell comes out and says somebody, like we will not support our democratic colleagues in their Marxist ways. You know, I mean, every day, he says something completely destabilizing. Whether it's Marxist, socialist, communist, I mean, you name it, right?

That is, they throw all those scary standing catchalls and accuse Democrats of them. And so that's true. That's going to be true on infrastructure, even though out of the Senate, it did have a fair bit of Republican support. McConnell did back the original version. And this also kind of gets to, which is a. another kind of crisis they're facing on the hill, which is the debt conversation, which has now kind of been punted to at least a few more weeks. But, you know, the debt conversation, this is money we've already accrued here, right? These are existing obligations.

A lot of which happened under Trump. A $7.8 trillion to the debt between spending and tax cuts when Trump was president. Now, granted, some of that was pandemic spending. I think we'd all agree that need to be bipartisan in nature, stimulus checks, and so on and so forth, but especially that 2017 tax cuts, that tax cuts and jobs act. So now for Republicans to sit there and say, well, you know, we're not going to help with Democrats in any capacity. It is bad faith. But I also think leader Mitch McConnell knows, you know, this reconciliation bill, Molly, the things that are in it are so popular with so many of the American people. Of course, they're going to be popular in practice with voters in Kentucky.

The problem for Mitch McConnell is that he's not the one who would deliver it. So he, right, this is, you can only spin this as a win for Democrats, so he's willing to do whatever he needs to do to stand in the way. But I do think we have seen history that has shown us that Republicans are more than happy to take the credit for Democratic stimuluses. You'll remember last year, Madison Cawthorne, not our brightest, not their brightest. He's not ours at all, thank God. I did sort of take credit for some Democratic money that was flowing into his state. So I do think Republicans are willing to do anything to get a win.

I'm sure that if Democrats can thread this needle, and it's still a big if, it really is, and they can get infrastructure and reconciliation done. I have no doubt more than a few House Republicans, maybe Senate Republicans, will be running for re-election in 2022, touting some component of the reconciliation bill, ironically, and what it meant for their home constituents.

And those of us here in Washington, like, it'll light our hair on fire, and we'll say, are you kidding me? But that doesn't come across in a 30-second ad that airs in rural North Carolina. Yeah, no, I know. I mean, and also the other thing is ultimately, And we talk about this all the time, but I think it's important.

Republicans are incredible at messaging, and Democrats are not. What's your knife fight line again? I always love it. What do they bring? A stuffed animal? It's true, though. I mean, you know, they say, well, if we do great stuff, then people will see it, and they'll know we're good.

And I'm like, oh, come on, people. This is not how any of this works. Yeah. It's like that insurance commercial. Remember, I think it's insurance commercial with the woman. She's like, that's not how this works. not how any of this works. Like exactly, I think Democrats try and really do try and play, hey, we're on the right side of history here, but I think especially for messaging for the midterms,

where already the stack, the deck is kind of stacked against Democrats to hold the majority between redistricting and more restrictive voting laws. Yeah, I mean, I think they're going to have to try and pass these bills and then really come correct as it pertains to messaging the next year. Yeah, it's sort of shocking to me. So what do you two think of the fact, though, that there's now this dichotomy between the two senators who are going this up, Mansion and Cinema, that mansion seems like, okay, let's make a deal. But cinema is running around with donors and basically saying, I'm not into any of this. And kind of, to a lot of people are suspecting like, this seems like just real blatant corruption that she's been paid off because of this. What do you use your analysis on that?

I mean, the cinema thing is fascinating to me because Arizona is a far more purple. I wouldn't call a blue state, but it's a far more purple state than West Virginia. I mean, Trump carried West Virginia by like 68 points or, like, carried like 68% of the vote or something like that. You know, I feel like Senator Cinema would be much more in a position where she would need to play ball. The difficulty about covering Senator Cinema as a reporter on the Hill is that she does not talk to reporters. So at least to Senator Manson's credit, if that's even a phrase I really want to use, he does at least stop and like, he will give you a sound bite, right? As he enters his car, He kind of comes out of the Capitol in the East Steps,

and he won't give you a lot, but he will give you a brief time a day. Senator Cinema walks right by you. He might save you from getting hit by a car, too. Which, yes, which he did do with my friend Arthur, I think earlier this week, which was funny. You know, Senator Cinema right now is in this world where she keeps everything close to the vest.

She's basically going to negotiate with the president and the president alone. No one's going to have any idea what she's thinking. But, you know, the mansion thing is, you know, you talk about special. interest and stuff like that. I mean, Molly, you and I were saying on Twitter this week, right? I mean, this is the labeled kingmaker of the Exxon Mobil lobbying world. And we now know the efforts to which ExxonMobil has tried to lobby lawmakers against the reconciliation package and against these

climate provisions. It is absolutely bonkers. And they've spent gobs of money in Facebook ads, encouraging these members to vote against it, lobbying them directly. And that remarkable reporting from early in the summer about the degree to which there are 11 key senators, but in particularly Joe Manchin, they get lobbied week after week after week by ExxonMobil to turn down bills just like this. And it just so happens here we're in this crucial vote and Mansions nowhere close to where the rest of the Democrats are. Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly. Sure, right. Yeah.

It is sort of amazing that one company is going to ruin our children's futures. But there you have it. American democracy. Democracy in action. Either in action, two words, or really inaction, one word, because there's not a lot of action on it sometimes, right? Exactly. Inaction, we have an off-year election in Virginia. It's become a very hot election for a number of reasons. I'm curious to know what you're seeing in the polling and how you think that's going to go down. I mean, it seems to me to be much more of a toss-up than I think Democrats had originally sort of played it. I had caught little clips and moments of the debate this week. I think to me, this is so indicative, so much has been said, obviously, about Donald Trump's stranglehold over the

GOP, and you look at Yonkin, and sometimes it's been fundamentally different messaging, right? I mean, if you're up in northern Virginia, direct suburb of Washington, D.C., yeah, it's going to be much more popular to distance yourself from Donald Trump and say, you know, I wouldn't back that, I wouldn't back this, but it's a different story when you drive two to three hours into rural parts of the Commonwealth, and you're talking with much more of pro-Trump factions, and I think that becomes a really difficult kneel to thread. But look, McCallov's done the job before. I think that's part of his message. I just know a lot of Democrats around the D.C. area are worried what happens if McCullough falls short and what that could mean in terms of like cascading electoral consequences.

And so much will be made between November 2nd and next year's election as well. Does that really spell trouble for Democrats? It's going to be something really fascinating to watch. Yeah. I mean, I think that if McColliffe loses. there will be an explosion of horrendous punditre a la chris siliza of why democrats are doomed in the midterms. And it'll be very annoying to watch. So I hope just for that reason alone that Yomkin doesn't win. Also, Yonkin is going to get rid of all of the mask mandates and the vaccine mandates. And he's going to turn Virginia into a little Florida.

A little Florida. Yeah, I mean, are there other things working on this? race, I think, and other races are obviously President Biden's approval rating, which has slipped significantly between Afghanistan and other sort of, I guess, recent headlines. I know that is the common refrain I'm hearing in Pundonville. Explain to me why are Biden's polling rates if they are dragging down McColliffe. I think in any capacity that's going to be, you know, if this does become some bit of a gambit of not just McCallough, but sort of Biden's influence more broadly, I think if Biden just closely aligns himself with McCall, which he's already done just a little bit in terms

of fundraising and campaign appearances. Perhaps there's a perception that that kind of works against McCall. I think it's the other side of the coin to what we had for Trump several years ago. Does Trump go out and back certain Republican candidates in vulnerable districts or states when his own approval rating was tanking for this reason or another? So you're right. I think that's a popular refrain in Punditville, where I live in work every day, also known as our fine federal city of Washington, D.C.

But I don't know. We'll definitely see how it goes. It's sort of interesting to have so many Capitol Hill reporters also kind of doing double duty over the border in northern Virginia as well. Yeah. I mean, it feels like I just don't understand. I mean, Biden had a little dip. You know, he's not Trump. I mean, he's just, he's a white, Democratic old guy. You know, he's not like a crazy zealot. I just don't quite understand why his, you know, a few point dip would somehow affect McCallough, who was already governor. or once before. I mean, I'm not saying that it's not true. I'm just saying that it doesn't, I don't quite get it. Yeah, I think the thing to me, and I've spoken with a lot of Republican voters recently up in, you know, places like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, I think between immigration and Afghanistan, the thing that's concerned them is like, these are distinctly visual issues. And so I think it's, it's the fact that everyone saw the images of what's happening in Del Rio. They all saw the images of what's happened at the border. They saw the images.

of the desperate Afghans trying to cling onto the side of the U.S. military plane. And because those stories are perceived to be sort of working against Joe Biden's popularity in those interests, you know, they're very big, they're very visual. And people remember that. I was talked recently. I had a phone call with a two-time Trump voter in New Jersey. And those are the things that she latched on. She's like, oh, but did you see the airplane?

Did you see what's happening down the bridge? And because those big visual images are being broadcast into their living rooms. But they're Trump voters. You know, they are taking horse dewormer. I mean, these people are beyond, right? Like, you know, is she going to the feed store to get Madison? I mean, Invermectin shortage now for the poor horses. They can't get their dewormer now because too many people are taking it.

Yeah, and Amg greatness today was like, why doesn't the medical establishment want you to have ivermectin, which is made by Merck and is very good for treating lice? There you go. just in case you're wondering. If you have lice, go for the ivermectin, but probably don't inject it. I did not know that. It's very good for, it's an antiparacitic. It's very good for parasites.

COVID-19 is not a parasite. It's a virus. But I mean, potato potato. I'm not a doctor. I just play one on TV. Goodbye. Thank you for joining us. This is great.

Thank you for having me. Rest up, drink lots of caffeine for the days and weeks ahead. We're all going to need it to try and figure out how we get through the mess on Capitol Hill, but it was great to join you, my friends. Hey, folks, in case you didn't know, we do a special bonus episode every single week for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program.

This week we have Keith Boykin, the author of Race Against Time, the politics of a darkening America, and he's going to talk to us all about his new book and what he's been seeing there. To hear this along with all of our past bonus episodes and to support the Daily Beast fearless journalism, head to New Abnormal.com.

That's New Abnormal. That the DailyBeast.com. Dr. Peter Hotez is a vaccine scientist. and the author of vaccines didn't cause Rachel's autism. Welcome back to the new abnormal, my favorite, Dr. Peter Hottes. My favorite Molly Jongfest. Great to be with you again. Oh, I'm so thrilled.

So you're, you know, I wanted to get you back on here to talk about boosters and also about the exciting news that kids are going to get vaccinated. But first, I want to talk to you because this is something you are actually working on and is something that is becoming increasingly, I feel like people are finally talking about it, vaccinating the world. Right. You know,

I think too much of the discussion has been about circulating around MRI vaccines, as though that's the only good vaccine. And, you know, when you go to a brand new technology, there's a learning curve before you can make billions of it. You know, Molly, we need nine billion doses of vaccine, right? And it's not going to happen with the mRNA. vaccine. It's not just a matter of hoarding. It's the fact that there's not nine billion doses there to

hoard. So the Biden administration appropriately, and I think that was the right thing to do, is agreed to donate $100 million. Now I think it's going to go up to $500 million over the next year or two. But, you know, so what? I mean, it's something, but it's not, I mean, even if all the G7 countries gave up their entire stockpile of mRNA vaccines, it would only make a modest dent. And then You know, you heard Megan Margle and Prince Harry talk about sharing the recipe for the MRNA vaccines. And I know what they meant. It didn't mean actually mean recipe. They meant the patent, et cetera.

But again, there's a learning curve. I mean, right now, the infrastructure isn't in place for countries to make mRNA vaccine and probably won't have that for a few years away. So I think there's this, you know, this session with mRNA vaccines. And that's where we're coming in. We're saying, look, we can't wait until 2023 or 2024. We need it now. And so our vaccine is a simple, low-cost recombinant protein vaccine that's looking as good or almost as good as the MRNA vaccines may be better than the end of virus vaccines.

There's no limit to the amount you could scale. Simple refrigeration. So now India is producing 100 million doses a month and hopefully for emergency use listing next month. And Indonesia is making a halal version, which is fabulous. listen for the Muslim majority countries of our vaccine. And hopefully that will fill the gap. Yeah, you know, MRNI vaccines, you have so many issues. I mean, the issue is not just the patent.

It really is the supply chain. I mean, these are not drugs that were created for sub-Saharan Africa. Well, it's not so much that. People are looking at the HIV-AIDS anti-retroviral drug model and how SIPLA and India scaled it up. And they said the hell with the patents were making this for the world and everyone applauded it and made a big difference. But it's not the same as for vaccines. Vaccines, the patent or the recipe, as you want to call it, is some ways the least of it because it's learning how to make billions.

They're far more complicated molecules. They're biologics. They have to be carefully regulated. They have to be made in a quality control umbrella with quality assurance and a national regulatory authority. And not many countries have to be. that infrastructure right now. For all practical purposes, no vaccines are made on the African continent right now. I mean, Senegal makes a little bit of yellow fever vaccine and I think Tunisia a little bit of BCG. That's it, South America, Central America, not too much better,

not much better in most Southeast Asia. So, I mean, one of the lessons of this pandemic is, you know, except for India, Indonesia, a few, and maybe Brazil, there are not many low and middle income countries that have the capacity for making quality vaccines. Quality meaning, you know, under a quality umbrella. And we do have to build that capacity. But that's not going to, you know, that's down the line. That's a five to 10 year building project, which, you know, I've been doing my doing my whole life trying to build vaccine development capacity. And I did that in the Obama administration for the Middle East and North Africa's science envoy. But while that's moving, you know, it is too much of a glacial pace, but it is moving. What do we do now? And I think the answer is

now India and Indonesia have the capacity to make our vaccine that we develop the prototype of Texas Children's. We want to do this for other countries. We'd love the Biden administration to take some ownership of this. I mean, they could get Merck or one of the others to start making billions now, but we just haven't been able to incentivize them to do that. Why is the Biden administration not doing that? I don't know. I mean, I've known most of these people. They're all good people, right? But, you know, it's the first, they've got five or six people doing the global COVID response.

You've got, you know, a tool Gawande at USAID, and you have Gail Smith at State Department in Jeff Science, and you have David Kessler. And so it all kinds of circulates. And I just can't quite get him to bite on this. Yeah. It seems important, though. It seems like something that the Biden administration should be paying attention to because, and again, we've talked. And we've talked about this before, there's soft power that comes with vaccinating the world, the kind of global power that you could, that is actually quite good for America in any number of ways.

Absolutely. In fact, I don't even use the term soft power. I said, this is hard as nails. You know, we're going to, we need to vaccinate the world for global security. Right. And it's also in your own interest because otherwise it's going to keep batting around. Yeah. Well, it's the humanitarian thing to do.

We do it because we're the United States and we pursue humanitarian goals. And we do it because it's in our own enlightened self-interest also. Because remember, the alpha variant arose out of an unvaccinated population in the United Kingdom in September last year, a year ago, around this time. And the delta variant arose out of an unvaccinated population in India. Mother Nature is telling us what she's going to do. She's not being coy here. She's saying, you know, the next variance coming out of Africa or coming out of unvaccinated. vaccinated South East Asia.

Or coming out of Florida. There is no country code for that. You know, where unvaccinated people are. So we have to do this. And so it is moving. It's just that it's odd, right? I mean, we're getting calls.

When I say me, I mean, my science partner for the last 20 years, Mary Lena Patazzi and myself are getting calls weekly from ministers of health and ministers of science from, you know, you name it, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Morocco, South Africa, Uganda, because they're desperate for a vaccine. and we're doing it. We're, you know, arranging it. We didn't file patents. We're providing the prototype for anyone who wants it and provided they have the capacity to know how to scale it up. And it's sort of working and it is moving. It's just that it's weird, right? It's it's almost like we're operating like China or Russia doing these one-off things with countries when it should be done under a greater governance with the U.S. government. Right. No, it's true. And I mean, it is so important. And I do hope the Biden administration will get going on this because it does seem really, really, really important. So let's talk about the vaccine for kids. That seems like that's imminent. Yeah, it looks that way. I mean, the Pfizer has submitted a dossier packet. Pfizer Biotech has submitted a dossier packet to the FDA. The FDA is going to review it. The bar is always very high for vaccine.

for kids, just because the consequences of screwing it up are huge, not only for the vaccine safety for the COVID vaccine, but if, you know, the vaccine, we've learned in this aggressive anti-vaccine environment that the vaccine ecosystem is fragile. And, you know, if this doesn't go well, then it jeopardizes the measles vaccination program for the MMR vaccine. It jeopardizes everything, pertusses, tetanus, polio, amophilus, influenza type B. HPV vaccine for cervical cancer. So there's no wiggle room. So the FDA did ask Pfizer-Biontech to enroll some additional kids for the studies.

I don't see any obvious problem. I think the one thing to look at closely is if you remember the frequency of myocarditis and the teenagers was higher than older populations and it went up after the second dose. And it's still a rare event. I mean, we're talking about 12 per million. one in 80,000, which is far lower than the rate of myocarditis or heart disease you actually get from the virus. But I think they'll want to see that it doesn't start shooting up in younger kids, and that's the reason for the belts and suspenders and being more careful. But it looks like

it's going to happen before Halloween. Well, Scott Gottlieb, whose former FDA commissioner and is on the board of Pfizer, made a statement, I think he used the Halloween word, actually. So that's a likely scenario. But again, you know, it's, you know, nothing's ever a fait accompli. They have to review the PAC. And I think this one will be very careful about going through the VerPAC committee of the advisory committee of the FDA and then the ACIP. And so I think everyone is kind of holding their breath, wanting this to work, but also being very cautious. And again, the acceptance of it's going to vary. I think it'll be like it was with the teenagers, you know, where you are up in New York and up in New England.

We're parents were very good about vaccinating their adolescent kids. We're good about vaccinating their adolescents. I think they're all in, but I think down here where we only have, you know, 30% of the adolescents

vaccinated, it'll be the same pushback in resistance, tragically. It's so interesting because it's like I have three teenage kids. They've all been vaccinated. They wear masks in school. Their school's test every week. Like, period paragraph. That's it. And so far, we've been in school for a month. Yeah, and that's what you have to do. When you're in the middle of a raging pandemic,

there's not much margin for error. And as I like to say, you have to sit, you know, in the middle of a raging pandemic, a government only gets to do a couple of things right, right, because if they do too many things, then it starts to fall apart. So if you want to get your kids through the school year, you can do it, but it has to be your top priority. And the problem here, Texas and everywhere from Texas in between and to Florida in between, everyone stamped their feet and said, kids have to have in-person classes, and we both get that. But then they didn't put the policies in place to make it doable.

And that was what was so frustrating. It's like if you want to have in-person classes, you have to wear a mask and you have to be vaccinated. And that's it. And all the teachers need to be vaccinated. I want to get to the boosters because I think that's really important. And I don't think it's confusing, but what happened is pretty. interesting last week with the CDC. And I actually, it was, I think it might have been two weeks ago, I actually felt like I saw this rollout. And so you can tell me if I'm wrong. But we saw on that

Monday, World Health Organization, as some of the scientists from the World Health Organization wrote a piece in stat, which talked about how basically endgame is the boosters prevent infection, but if you don't have a booster, you're still safe from severe infection. Would you say that's right? Sort of, but not entirely. So first of all, when Verpak and everyone was meeting, there were two important studies that came out. The first one was from Israel, of course,

because the U.S. doesn't collect vaccine effectiveness status of the U.S. for Lideon, Israel and the U.K., for all of our vaccine effectiveness. Why don't we do that? That's why you don't know anything about Mederna and J&J because those vaccines aren't used in Israel and the U.K. It's just, well, we can, we'll park that idea for a second. Yes.

Yeah, so the data in Israel showed that a third immunization clearly was doing better at keeping people out of the hospital, out of serious illness, infection, everything. The only issue with it was they were only looking 25 days after the third immunization. So the purists on the science side said, well, how can you make a recommendation after only 25 days of data? what if everything at the bottom falls out again a month after that? So, and then there was some additional data showing from, from the morbidity, mortality, weekly reports, MMWR, the vaccine effectiveness had gone down from over 90% to 77% for hospitalizations. And it was still good, but it was declining.

And so the problem was not all the eyes were dotted in Keys Cross in terms of the full complement of data that you'd like to see. But, you know, when you're in the middle of a raging pandemic, someone's going to make a judgment call. And that's what Rochelle Willinsky did. And it was a tough call, but I supported it. I thought she made the decision I would have made. Because not only is it hospitalizations, and this is the thing that no one really talked about at the Verpack or ACIP meeting. I think Peter Marks kind of alluded to it a little bit that, you know, it's not just about hospitalizations.

It's also long COVID. And we're learning more about long-term neurologic consequences. that study out of Oxford University that I think we spoke about in the past of gray matter brain degeneration cognitive decline you know I don't want to get at that right I mean so it's not only that I want to stay out of the hospital and not die I don't you know I have another book I want to write I don't want to have cognitive decline and and isn't that that I want that as a bumper sticker I mean I've got enough service right so I know and then I say look why did I get my shingles vaccine I got my shingles vaccine

not because I was worried I was going to die of shingles. I got it because I didn't want to get shingles. And so there's a lot of adult vaccines that we use beyond hospitalizations. But I think what you saw play out in both committee meetings was, one, I think, a discomfort around that we didn't have data going months out, and I understand that. And there was this undercurrent thinking that you had to show that hospitalizations were now happening. And then, you know, I thought, you know, with the way the CDC is not on top of the data collection for vaccine effectiveness, you know, you don't want to find out that, yes, there's been tons of breakthrough hospitalizations, but six months later. So I think that that factored into it. So, you know, I think in the end it was a good decision made. And by the way, I think the people that, you know, who felt differently from the way I felt made a good case as well. I don't think that's a matter of anybody who was wrong or right.

I thought it was a very interesting scientific discussion, but I think people aren't used to seeing scientific discussion play out like that. I mean, that goes on all the time at Verpack meetings and ACIP meetings. It's just that it's not under the microscope as it is currently. But we really don't know about vaccinated long COVID. That's right. Well, we know that given how much long COVID we're seeing with the breakthrough, case, not even, I mean, you like the term breakthrough cases with cases that occur. If you're

getting infected, you know, you clearly want, in my opinion, you not only want to prevent hospitalizations, but you want to prevent infection. And if the third immunization restores that function and like it did with alpha, because when they went right after the Pfizer vaccine was released, the Israelis, again, came up with data showing against the alpha variant from the UK that it stopped asymptomatic transmission because you were also stopping virus shedding and virus infection. That was exciting.

We didn't know that was going to happen. And then we kind of lost it as a combination of the waning immunity in Delta. And now hopefully the third immunization will restore that function again. And if that's the case, not only does it prevent long COVID, but it means if you can get enough people accepting it,

then what happens is you stop transmission of the virus and we vaccinate our way out of this epidemic. Here's a question for you. My brother had Moderna, and what does he do now? So it looks as though, and again, it's not based on a lot of data. There was a pretty good paper that's still in pre-print form that came out of the Mayo Clinic, showing that the Moderna vaccine's holding up a little better in terms of length of protection, exactly why there is more MRNA in the Moderna vaccine than the Pfizer vaccine,

and it was spaced out an extra week apart, which may have given it a little heft as well. So there may not be as much urgency to boost with the Moderna. But I think Moderna is applying, going to apply for it. I think it's probably going to happen, but I don't think you have to get too worried about that yet, but we'll see. And again, that's the reason when the Pfizer vaccine, the first two doses were given three weeks apart. And we learned that in December last year. I said, you know what, this is going to be a three-dose vaccine.

Because when you give the first two doses so close together, it's like what we do with the infants, that all acts as a primary immunization. And then we have to wait six months to a year for the next boost. And so it's pretty much going by the same playbook. and then was sort of fun on Twitter. You know, the Twitter's always fun, right? They started attacking me. He said, you never said, you never said that doctor, you never said that doctor, or this kind of stuff.

And I said, so I was able to pull up interviews I did two interviews where I said exactly that back in January, February. Yeah. Dr. Peter Hottes, thank you so much for coming on. I am so glad to have you, and this was so helpful. I'm glad my brother is a listener, so he'll be happy to hear about the Moderna booster or two, so I think he'll be thrilled. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you for having me. Lenned Volkov is the chief of staff for Alexei Navalny's campaign against Vladimir Putin in Russia. Welcome, Lenned, to the new abnormal. Hello. What is the situation with Navalny? Where is he? How is he doing? Well, he's still where he was, so he is imprisoned and,

in the Penal Colony. A few minutes ago, he posted on Instagram, so I mean, he saw his lawyers and he was able to transmit a message through them to be posted on his Instagram, where he addressed the fact that a new criminal charge has been pressed against him, so making the total number of new criminal charges equal four could result in up to 23 years imprisonment in total. Well, but it's news and it's nothing new because we, of course, always deep knows that Putin doesn't want to let him go. And Putin's strategy is to keep Alexei Navalny in prison until one of two men dies. Still, the crackdown against Navalny's team and, well, his political structure has increased after the so-called parliamentary election two weeks ago. they now declared us to be an extremist community,

which means that every member of our political organization and every our supporter, effectively, could be charged of being part of an extremist community, also retrospectively. So they now allege that Navalny created the Anti-Corruption Foundation 10 years ago with an intention to conduct extremist activities, so apparently anti-corruption investigation, and anyone who is part of these activities is, well, technically, liable under existing

Russian laws. So technically, they have opened themselves way to indict and to arrest, like, thousands of people in the country for this extremism charges. I believe they actually will not do this, but the threat itself... Right, is chilling. And the pressure, this is, well, impressive. You are Navalny as chief of staff. How did you to find each other?

We met back in 2010, because both of us were actively involved in opposition politics in Russia back there. I was a member of city council in my hometown of Hachembourg. It was still a time when someone independent could have got elected to city council. And Nalny was actively blogging on Live Journal about corruption. He was yet to launch his anti-corruption foundation, but he was already quite prominent as an anti-corruption blogger. And, well, we liked each other approaches to politics and how it should be exercised in Russia and we started to work together. I feel like Russia is an important cautionary tale of a country that had democracy and lost it. Never.

Okay, so give it sort of. They almost did. They had political competition. Russia used to have political competition. competition and has lost it. But political competition doesn't equal democracy. So in the 90s, we have had competitive elections. But for instance, we never had free and independent courts, which is also very important for a functioning democracy. We never had checks and balances in place. So it was always a super-presidential republic, only that President Yeltsin was weak, was too weak to

make use of the super-presidential power, and President Putin soon learn how to enjoy the absence of checks and balances. Right. It's something that Trump is hoping for. What could happen here that could make Russia free? I mean, it just seems like you're up against so much. There is no silver bullet, one hand. There is nothing like there is no like magic button you could push there and Russia becomes free. Russia has never been free. Unfortunately, our great country has a very thorough history of, like, Tsarism and communism, like obsolete monarchy and then communist dictatorship.

And then a very short period of political competition, which still was not a time of complete freedom and democracy, and also which coincided with an enormous economic setback, which actually makes Putin so successful, because he was able to offer Russian waters some stability and some prosperity, and he was able to tell them, okay, the 90s were such a set and such a bad time, and now we are living better. So we don't need that political competition. We don't need that democracy.

So Russian rate of freedom will be challenging and will take a lot of time. But having said that, I'm remaining quite optimistic and so do all of us here in Navalny. team otherwise we wouldn't be doing what we are doing because all the fundamental factors are actually on our side the clock is actually taking in our favor because well people are very tired of Putin he is there for 22 years and it's very natural that people get tired like everyone under age of 30 has spent all their life under Putin and the economy is doing bad the average household income decreases for eight years in a row now, which also makes people quite upset. And the corruption is enormous, and a majority of Russian voters and citizens can't tolerate it anymore.

So all these are very basic factors in favor of democratic change. And the only factors that prevents this change from happening is Mr. Putin personally, but he's not eternal the belief. We still believe he is a human being. That's a good call, I think. But he has worked really hard to keep himself safe from COVID. Well, yes. He secluded himself in a bunker for a year and a half,

and everyone who wants to meet him has to undergo 14 days self-isolation. I think President Biden was pretty much the only one who enjoyed the privilege of not getting himself self-isolating for 14 days before meeting Putin in person. But still, I mean, Putin is 69. He will be 69 next week. His health is not perfect.

But more than that, I mean, we don't want to sit here and wait for his, like, biological death. We believe that we could create enough stress. We could create enough pressure for either an elite conflict, which would lead to change the political situation like internal coup or something like a, well, Arab Spring, I didn't know, like Black Swan type event. We don't have a whistle to call Black Swans. They arrive suddenly, that's why they are Black Swans. But in general, we have an understanding that if we are able to create challenges for the regime,

if we are able to increase the pressure, to put them under stress. People under stress tend to do mistakes. And those mistakes could lead to some events which will, at the end of the day, effectively, oust Putin. And for instance, our smart voting in this electoral campaign was such an example. When we created enormous stress for the system and caused many mistakes. Do you fear for your life? I mean, Putin seems like a pretty scary guy. I don't let myself think about it too much.

there are definitely risks to continue doing what we are doing. We have to accept them. So we have to accept those risks and continue our work. Otherwise, everything is quite obsolete. And if we allow those risks to become like dominant, then we just can't work efficiently. I believe that's, well, we anticipate those risks. We try to mitigate them, but to stay normal.

We try to mitigate them, but still not to seclude ourselves in a bunker. Yeah, it is a really terrifying situation. Do you think that the people are sick of Putin? Yes, definitely soon. And we do a lot of polling. We have our own in-house survey service. We run a lot of polls, and we know that people are actually very tired of him, and he made everyone very tired.

So he is not anymore enjoying, like, popular support. And this election was very important in this sense that finally, we could clearly tell that this time, Putin wasn't able to get majority of votes. I mean, they did a lot of voter, they did a lot of fraud, a lot of ballot staffing and so on. But if we consider like the actual result of this election, it was the first one when Putin lost. And that's important. I mean, there was a lot of voter fraud also during the presidential election of 2018 and during the Duma election of 2016. This fraud was only used kind of to make the results look better. But even without that fraud, everyone understood that actually Putin and his party are eligible, are legitimate, are eligible for the majority of votes.

Well, they have stolen like 10 millions of votes, but still even without those 10 million of words, they enjoyed a clear maturity. Now the situation has changed dramatically, and it affects, of course, the legitimacy of the regime and Putin knows, and people know that he doesn't anymore represent the maturity. And it's a new political reality for him, and I believe, I hope, a very uncomfortable political real. Wow. He's been in power for such a long time and he's made so many of his peers and I know some of them because they've moved to America and have children in school with my children. I mean, he's made so many people billionaires. I mean, he's really ravaged the country. Do you think

he still understands that he is not a god? I think so. Well, first of all, he didn't make them billionaires. He made himself billionaire. I think among those people, there is a common understanding that they are just placeholders. You could hardly find a bank account somewhere in the world labeled Vladimir Putin. But I think all those people share a common idea that any bank account labeled Ramana Bramevich or Alisharosmanov organized Simchinka actually, frankly, belongs to Vladimir Putin. And if Vladimir Putin wants to make use of these accounts, he is definitely eligible to dissu. That's why, for instance, the Navalny team and Alexei Navalny himself are advocating for personal

sanctions against these oligarchs because not only Putin helped them steal money from Russian taxpayers, but actually Putin did it himself. And it's an efficient weapon against him to go after his money, to go after his assets. This could help the vest in some negotiation power. This could help the West not to look so weak and so on. But if Putin himself thinks he's a god, maybe. Maybe. Sometimes we have such a feeling.

He and his associates, they definitely think about themselves as like the new elite, new nobleman. Like they love their chateau. and lifestyle and they really have a feeling they are hairs of Tsar's noblem. Yeah, it strikes me as they have a certain kind of Marie Antoinette-ish love of luxury, which is not the common people in Russia do not experience that. What is life like in Moscow? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Your question contains a very proper point, because you're asking about life in Moscow, which is so much different from life in Russia. Oh, interesting. Tell me. So, I mean, Moscow is, well, a modern European city, a huge one with a lot of problems, with very poor ecology, with normal traffic jams, because, well, it's a city of 12 million people, with a day population of 18 million people because of so many suburbs. Still, the lifestyle of middle-class Moscovitz is comparable to the lifestyle,

of like middle class people in, I don't know, Berlin somewhere, and many like posh cafes and shopping malls and so on so. But this is so much different from the whole country because, well, the average salary in Moscow, for instance, is, I believe, 250% of the average salary through the country. And so many people all around the country see their only chance to be successful in moving to Moscow. Because in all, in the whole country,

there is like no perspective. The glass sailing is so low for everyone. This is interesting. We once made a study of our supporters. We did a survey among our supporters, and we have learned that our supporters, like people who associate themselves with Naval Movement, are very well-educated.

Their educational level is very far, above the average level in the country. But their income level is slightly above the average. And it tells so much, actually, about modern Russia, because so many people who are brilliantly educated can't achieve anything if they are not within government or oil and gas industry or something like this. So you could be a brilliant, I don't know, software developer. a nice university degree.

And then your salary, if you don't move to Moscow or if you don't start working for the government, would be like, I don't know, 60,000 rubles in every Russian city, which is $800 a month, and, well, it will be still a good salary in those cities. And that's all you can achieve because of the corruption burden, because of the enormous amount of money that Putin and his friends extract from the economy. Speaking of what, they don't only extract hundreds of billions of dollars every year from the economy. Even official statistical data by the Russian Ministry of Finance suggests that the flow of capital from Russia

is 60 billion US dollars every year, only officially, but of course unofficially much more. they not only extract these enormous sums of money and convert them. They're like chateaus in France and condos in Miami and apartments in Mayfair in London and yachts and privileges and so on. But they also fund all the political repression system for people not to let people vote for opposition politicians, not to let people be dissidents, not to let people support the opposition, so on, because they want to keep this opportunity to squeeze billions every year from the country's economy. And this actually brings us to the most important point of what we are doing politically,

what I believe is like the most important thing that Alexei Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation managed to demonstrate during the last 10 years of our activity that fight against corruption is fight to protect human rights. That corruption is actually a human rights issue because everyone who has built an enormous, like country-right system of corruption, will become a human rights violator because he, as President Putin,

will have to protect the assets he has stolen. He will have to control the assets he has stolen. have to create a machinery for like political repressions for those who want to question this corruption. He will have to make all the courts like being like completely dominated by the government in order like not to let them like investigate this corruption cases and so on so and so. So we have demonstrated how corruption leads to major human rights violation. And unfortunately this happened in Russia. This will be, for instance, like the probably the main focus of the Alexei Navalny's speech during the Oslo Freedom Forum that will be delivered by Maria Pfebtsche,

who is the head of our anti-corruption investigation department. He will talk a lot about, like, ties between, like, corruption and human rights violations. Unfortunately, Russia has become probably the largest polygon for this in the world. This was so interesting. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope he'll come back. Thank you so much. What's crazier than QAnon, more outlandish than Pizza Gate, and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz?

The answer is what the American right wing has planned next. Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams, new podcasts from The Daily Beast, tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer checking in on the movement of the Radical Right, Head to the DailyBeast.com

slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's Fever Dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Jesse Cannon. Molly Jong Fast. What a day. We're really killing it today. The two of us. We're so enthusiastic. So many segments to tape, so little time.

So it is an embarrassment of riches today when it comes to fuck that guy. Mm-hmm. We have a, the rare bipartisan, fuck that guy. Not all that often do I take a chance to express my ire towards Democrats, but I think I've got it today. Fucking, she wears sleeveless shirts and colorful wigs. She dresses like the fabulous, groovy liberal aunt and votes like Mitch McConnell. Actually, she doesn't vote like Mitch McConnell,

but she certainly threatens like Mitch McConnell. Not that I want to be a fashion commenter, but that CalPRA dress was really extra as the other day. Listen, she clearly loves attention. Good for her. Why don't you get attention for doing good stuff instead of bad stuff? It's a mighty fuck you to Kirsten Cinema. We had him on the podcast last week.

Ruben Gallego would be a great person to primary her. I know he said he wouldn't, but I think he should. So for that, I say, you don't get to be a Democrat from me. a blue state and act like your mansion. You're not Joe Manchin. I mean, I'm no fan of Joe Manchin, but at least Joe Manchin is irreplaceable in the state he comes from,

whereas Kirsten Cinema is very much not. And for that, I say, fuck you. Jesse, who is your fuck-that-guy? Thousand-per-that-guy. My fuck-that guy is another common one just like Kristen. It is one Matt Gates, because I hate to be the person who's predicting, bad to come, but it's really obvious that patterns in the Republican Party keep showing that once

our elected officials start crossing some lines, usually the herd is leading the elected officials and their base is leading them. But Matt Gates is now talking white replacement theory on Twitter and agreeing with Tucker Carlson on it. And the more white replacement theory, which is a total fucking lie, populates, we're going to see some very, very, very, very bad things happen. Because the dumbest amongst us are going to keep getting angry about things that don't exist and take it out on people. It just is so depressing that this is what they think they need to do to win.

As when Subisang reported for The Daily Beast this week that Republican strategists are telling Republican electeds to fundraise on anti-vax sentiments among their base. And now as well, they're seeing the white replacement theory really goes over well with their base and now it seems like they're grabbing onto that and they think that that's a strategy to win the midterms and that is really, really shitty. Yeah, I'll say. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from

media, culture, politics and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcast as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com

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