What A Day - Don't Slow My Scroll

Episode Date: March 24, 2020

Is America’s internet prepared for all of us to be online all of the time? We interview FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to get her answer. And we discuss how to close digital divide to make sur...e all students can continue their education online through the pandemic.Trump is suggesting that the economic slowdown resulting from social distancing could be “worse” than the pandemic, and more in the latest Covid-19 news. And in headlines: Bloomberg sued, New Jersey releases inmates, and alcohol brands get busy making hand sanitizer.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Tuesday, March 24th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, where we've recently stopped training for beach volleyball in the 2020 Olympics. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I was never going to make the team. So this is actually kind of good news for me. On today's show, a conversation with an FCC commissioner about Internet access, then some headlines. But first, the latest. Hi, everybody. It's Danny DeVito. And I'm asking you from the bottom of my heart, all over the state of New York, stay home.
Starting point is 00:00:40 Yeah, thank you, short King Danny DeVito, for the reminder. But back to the news. All right. So we'll see where things end up. But I think it's important to go back to what some of the sticking points have been here. Democrats say the Senate Republican bill being offered is focused too much on getting money to companies and not nearly enough on workers and healthcare providers. Democrats are also expressing concerns about the lack of transparency in terms of which businesses would receive loans and the way in which the Trump administration would disperse those loans. Again, not a lot of trust there. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that
Starting point is 00:01:34 he is continuing to negotiate with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to get a deal that has worker protections and more guardrails for the giant fund of money that's at the heart of this bill. I should also mention, though, that the overall relief package also would send $1,200 to most American adults and $500 for children, with another chunk of money carved out for small businesses to help with payroll. Got it. All right. But let's talk about that giant fund of money everyone is debating. All right. So it's a $425 billion fund that the Federal Reserve can use to make loans to various companies, plus other money for industry loans. So what's the main concern? Yeah. So some people are referring to it as a slush fund. Obviously, that's not a positive term for it. But the main concern is that Democrats worry that companies that get that money could use it to assist themselves and or lay off workers in
Starting point is 00:02:26 the process, that there's not enough oversight there. And additionally, they don't want to give Mnuchin the ability to decide which companies get the money. He could turn around and say, you know, this goes to the Trump Hotel or it goes towards making 10 more Suicide Squad movies, which we certainly as a society do not need. According to the New York Times, as the bill Oh, God. Broadly speaking, senators were kind of pissed at each other all day about this. And in the meantime, House Democrats introduced their own version with a bigger cash payment for Americans, plus more money for hospitals and small businesses. Great. I'm glad someone's introducing an alternative. By Monday, enough states had mandated stay at home orders that more than 150 million Americans are now being told to stay at home. Also, the country reported more than 100 deaths from the coronavirus in a single day. Yet Trump seems to be suggesting that he wants to start restarting the economy.
Starting point is 00:03:32 Like that's the focus? Yeah, apparently. I mean, the first loud hit that we got was Trump sending this tweet over the weekend where he said in all caps on Sunday night, quote, We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. Okay. But to be clear, the practice of social distancing is being urged by his own health officials and elected officials across the United States. And last week, even the White House put out guidance urging people to avoid large gatherings, social distance and work from home
Starting point is 00:04:00 for at least 15 days until March 30. But even still, yesterday, Trump went further at his daily press conference saying, quote, our country wasn't built to be shut down. Americans will again and soon be open for business. I can't stress this enough. This is not what professionals are saying. And the idea of weighing the, you know, quote unquote, reopening of an economy in this current situation seems just flatly insane. But meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden finally got his home studio set up after WOD, I might add, to criticize the response from the Trump administration so far. Yeah, to be fair, we're really good at this. But also, yeah, I really don't understand. If most people die, how's that going to help the economy? Anyway, that was a look at where things stand domestically.
Starting point is 00:04:52 What else is going on in the world? Well, a lot. We won't get to all of it, but some of the key things. A member of the International Olympic Committee, Dick Pound, yes, that is his name, said that the 2020 Games in Tokyo are going to be postponed. We will update you on a formal announcement if and when it comes. And then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday that the country would be closing non-essential shops, banning meetings of more than two people, and going into lockdown, essentially. And that's kind of akin to what France and Germany have done.
Starting point is 00:05:20 But speaking of Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel tested negative for COVID-19 after being exposed to an infected doctor. A bit of good news for sure. And in India, authorities are grounding all domestic flights and also going into a form of lockdown. So if you want to and you are able to help out with the crisis, Cricket has an easy way for you to do that through our Coronavirus Relief Fund. The money goes to help groups providing critical support to food banks, healthcare workers, restaurant workers, seniors, kids who depend on school lunches, and others during this crisis. So donate at crooked.com slash coronavirus. We've talked a bit about how school closures during this pandemic are challenging for lots of people, like underprivileged children who depend on school lunch every day, parents trying to figure out childcare if they still have to go to work, or parents who are working from home but now have to double as teachers.
Starting point is 00:06:15 Some 50 million kids are at home right now, and they're relying on digital classes to continue their education. But another wrinkle has arisen. It's the expectation that school districts across America have equal Internet access and literacy for students and teachers to end the school year on a high note. Spoiler alert, they don't. There is a very real gap in access. The Federal Communications Commission, or the FCC a longtime advocate for making the Internet more accessible, even when we aren't in an unprecedented public health crisis. We've got a digital divide in this country. We've got a lot of people who don't have Internet access at home. And it's really hard to participate in modern life if you don't. I mean,
Starting point is 00:07:06 how are kids going to have a fair shot at even doing their homework in this environment? I mean, when I was growing up, for homework, I needed a paper, a pencil, and my brother leaving me alone. You know, those days are just gone. Now you need internet access. And the Senate Joint Economic Committee says there are 12 million kids across the country who don't have internet access. And the Senate Joint Economic Committee says there are 12 million kids across the country who don't have internet access and can't do their homework. And now we've got more than 50 million kids who've been sent home from school, and so many of them need to go online for class. So this digital divide, it's real. And there are definitely kids across this country that are hurting right now because of it. For sure. All right. So you mentioned this, but, you know, a bunch of states have ordered all their
Starting point is 00:07:48 schools closed to stop the pandemic and or the spread of it. And, you know, with that, they're expecting students to continue their school year from home by going online. And so I guess what we're wondering is like, what specifically is the FCC doing to make sure every child in America can continue their education? Is there something planned? Is something happening? I know these are such unprecedented days, but I have been making a ruckus and trying to get my colleagues at the FCC to agree to something. And that's this. We should use our power that we have to help schools across the country get connected to the Internet to now help them loan out Wi-Fi hotspots to students who don't have broadband at home. Because they take one of those hotspots home, it could mean the difference between keeping up in class or falling behind. And I think it's something we need to look at, because these are days that
Starting point is 00:08:45 require us to figure out how to use our law creatively, so that we can get more people connected. Because the digital divide, which has always been a hard truth in this country, it's just going to hit more kids in harder ways than ever before. How are your colleagues at the SEC responding to that idea? Is that something that's popular, that's like there's motion on? Well, there's motion on? Well, there's a little bit of motion. I don't think I've convinced a majority of them. But I know on Capitol Hill, they're doing a lot of work on this homework gap issue and trying to see if they can put some money towards it in the next coronavirus stimulus bill. And I really want to
Starting point is 00:09:21 see that happen as soon as possible. I mean, they just announced outside of Washington, DC, that the entire state of Virginia is closing its schools for the rest of the year. Just like pause and what that means. If you're a kid and you don't have internet access and your school is migrated online, how are you going to keep up? How are you going to thrive? How are you going to return in the fall to class and be in the same place as your peers? This is within our power to fix. We can't fix everything now. But this is something we could make a meaningful difference. And we should. To shift gears ever so slightly to another topic that we wanted to talk about with you. In Europe, Netflix and YouTube are reducing streaming quality for the next month to keep the internet from kind of collapsing because of the
Starting point is 00:10:05 increase in usage. Is America's internet prepared for all of us to be online all the time? Those of us who are working from home and, you know, these students that are perhaps going to have to be doing the same? Yeah, such a good question. We are doing a giant stress test on our nation's networks. Normally, we just see this kind of stress regionally if we've got power outages or a major hurricane. But here we are as a nation going online for school, for work, for health care. And I think it's important for the FCC and the government in Washington to produce some data every day about how our networks are faring, because let's figure out where they're under strain so that we can address those issues. Because this is complicated, keeping a nation online, and I think we've got to start taking some data down to do it well. Yeah. And to that end, is it known already, or is there a way to
Starting point is 00:11:03 ascertain if there are bottlenecks that are starting to happen? Our networks are pretty complicated. I mean, if you've got a slowdown, it could be the platform you're using online. It could be your Wi-Fi router. It could be the virtual private network that your employer wants you to use but was never scaled for your whole office to be at home. So there's so many different points of stress in our networks, we got to identify what's working and what's not. So we can build more resilient networks in the future. Because we're all going to be online. And it looks like we're going to be online for a while. So let's know where those points of failure are,
Starting point is 00:11:39 so we can address them. And I wanted to ask quickly on the topic of the data collection that you were mentioning, would there be means by which the FCC can sort of apply standards and practices based on that data collection in the short term while people are continuing to deal with the increased internet usage due to COVID-19? So the FCC often sets up a system. If we've had a major hurricane or a power outage to collect data about cell towers that are down, 911 when it doesn't work, where people can and can't get service.
Starting point is 00:12:20 And it's really useful because it's a tally of what's working, what's not working, what do we have to fix? It just seems to me in this crisis, we should be doing something really similar. And we can customize it for the fact that this isn't about a weather event. But this is about a nation going online in unprecedented ways. And I think that the agency should be reporting on it because otherwise we'll just have some scattershot data from around the country. But wouldn't it be better for our nation's infrastructure if we really knew what was happening all across the country? That's what I'd like to see the FCC do.
Starting point is 00:12:55 Yeah, and that's a really good point. You know, sort of speaking of solutions or ways that businesses can sort of help with that, you know, internet service providers like Comcast, AT&T, T-Mobile, a few others have suspended their data caps, you know, which is something they obviously could have been doing already, but that's a conversation for another day. But they've also signed a pledge to not disconnect anyone for 60 days. They're going to waive late fees. You know, do you think that that's going to be enough to make sure everyone is able to get online and stay online through the crisis? Do you think they should be doing more?
Starting point is 00:13:27 Yeah. First, let's give a round of applause for the broadband providers and wireless companies that have decided they're not going to cut folks off and they're going to expand access to Wi-Fi routers and waive late fees. That's good stuff. And as you mentioned, some of them are also suspending data caps, and that's good and important too. But one thing that's clear to me is that we need a nationwide plan. I don't want to just count on their generosity. We need the justice of figuring out how people everywhere can be connected fairly. And so when we get to the other side of this, let's make sure we have a plan to connect all, because I don't want us to be in a situation where we just rely on their generosity. I think we really need to have the justice of
Starting point is 00:14:15 knowing that there's a plan to connect everyone in this country. All right. So this is sort of just, I think, the biggest question. How do you think that COVID-19 is going to change the way we think about the Internet, the regulation of it, connectivity going forward? I mean, you did mention on the other side of this, we have to maybe do some of that work we didn't do preparing, right? But do you think that there will be this shift towards justice and equality in access? Absolutely. I mean, when we come out from this, tell me the person who's going to say that broadband isn't a necessary good. Like we've treated it like a luxury in this country. We've limited our oversight. We made a mistake, I think, when we rolled back net neutrality. We're going to come out on the other side of this and say that this stuff is as necessary as mail, as water, as so much other essential infrastructure. And we've got to figure out how to make it robust and reach everyone.
Starting point is 00:15:16 I think if there were any doubters to that agenda before, I don't think there'll be any left after this experience. That was FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. Thanks for keeping an eye on the internet when we need it more than ever. It's Tuesday, WOD Squad. Tuesday it is. And we're all checking in and chatting about ways to relax, fun systems we're creating to keep our spirits up inside our houses, and giving recommendations for media to consume in this meantime.
Starting point is 00:15:57 Does it sound chill? Great. So Gideon, what's the weirdest thing you've eaten on this break? Oh, man. I had a lot of gluten-free items unintentionally. When I was at the grocery store last week, I was like, oh, there's loaves of bread. There's all of these nice, frozen, easy dinners. I'm lucking out.
Starting point is 00:16:29 And when I started eating them and, like, looking at the packaging, I was like, gluten-free bread, gluten-free Annie's tofu sesame chicken dish. All right, chill. But, yeah, I mean, you know, I could do a lot worse. But same question. What weird pantry remnants are you eating a normal or recommended amount of? Okay, so first thing, I do think it's wild that like all this gluten stuff was or gluten free stuff was like gone. And now I guess everybody's allergies is gone.
Starting point is 00:16:55 I don't know. But I've been eating just like snacks. I bought this cheese for a party like a couple couple weeks ago and I thought for sure it would have gone bad. But today I looked at it and it was still good. And I had some Triscuits. Not sponsored. It's not necessarily weird
Starting point is 00:17:16 but it is lucky. I don't know. If I found old cheese and it was still good, that's a great day to me. When I'm rummaging in the trash and I find good cheese, it was still good, that's a great day to me. Yeah, when I'm rummaging in the trash and I find good cheese, I feel good about my life. I'll take that W. Yeah, and this was Life During Lockdown.
Starting point is 00:17:33 So thanks for kicking it with us and tweet at us if you have some weird foods and recipes you've been testing. Bonus points if it actually tastes good. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. California's largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, announced its plans to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter following the deadliest fire in the state's history. As a refresher, faulty PG&E equipment sparked the Camp Fire, which burned through towns in Northern California in 2018 and led to the loss of 80 lives. Facing mounting lawsuits at the time, PG&E filed for bankruptcy last year in part to set up a fund for the fire's victims. Just last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom said he was willing to approve PG&E's plan to emerge from bankruptcy, which includes paying out a
Starting point is 00:18:30 total of $13.5 billion. Awesome. All right. New Jersey is set to release over 1,000 inmates from its jails in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19. The state's chief justice authorized the release of people serving time for probation violations and other low-level crimes. Inmates will start being released this morning and are encouraged to remain quarantined for 14 days. Other cities, such as New York, Cleveland, and Tulsa, have plans to release sick or vulnerable detainees. But so far, nothing has been done on this scale. Health and prison officials have been warning the public about the heightened risks of an outbreak spreading behind bars, so it's good to see New Jersey listening to the experts.
Starting point is 00:19:07 Indeed. When former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg hired campaign staff last year, part of the draw was that they get paid through November 2020 to support the Democratic nominee, even if it wasn't Bloomberg. That hasn't panned out, with Bloomberg laying off hundreds of workers after he dropped out in March and more last week. And now, two staff members have filed class action lawsuits. The lawsuits say that Bloomberg hired them under false pretenses and has left them vulnerable in the face of a pandemic. Bloomberg's team says their original plan to form a super PAC to support the nominee would be less effective than just giving money to the DNC,
Starting point is 00:19:40 which is what they're doing now to the tune of $18 million. Funny, because $18 million is what Bloomberg spent to run 25 ads on one episode of The Masked Singer. And look how far that got him. Alcohol brands have begun producing a new kind of cocktail called hand sanitizer in response to shortages. Beer giant Anheuser-Busch will use existing infrastructure to make and donate 1 million bottles of hand sanny, while Tito's V's vodka is producing 6 500 gallons of its own hand cleanser a few weeks after dispelling a social media myth
Starting point is 00:20:09 that their vodka could be used as the main ingredient in home-brewed purell alternatives great to see some alcohol companies stepping up now we just need for loco to start making masks and white claw to make ventilators and we'll have the situation halfway under control. This is what the Defense Production Act is for, alcohol companies making us masks. I hope so. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, discover our podcast in 50,000 years to learn about our species and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just stolen street signs and dorm rooms like me,
Starting point is 00:20:50 What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And give us $10 if you're Mike Bloomberg. You heard us, Mike. Do it. I want that money. What a day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun
Starting point is 00:21:13 is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.

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