What A Day - Supply Chain Reaction with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh

Episode Date: December 2, 2021

The Supreme Court heard a case yesterday that could ultimately reverse the constitutional right to an abortion. And it looks like the justices were leaning towards upholding a Mississippi law that bars abortion after 15 weeks.The first confirmed case of the omicron variant has been identified in the U.S. President Biden urged people to not panic and encouraged more vaccinations and boosters. U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh joins us to discuss how the variant could impact the supply chain and what the administration is doing to loosen bottlenecks.And in headlines: a 15-year-old boy was charged with murder and terrorism in Tuesday's school shooting in Michigan, Stacey Abrams announced that she will run for Georgia governor in 2022, and El Salvador will pay damages to a woman who died in prison while serving time for an abortion conviction.For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Thursday, December 2nd. I'm Gideon Resnick. And I'm Travelle Anderson, and this is What A Day, where the top genre on our Spotify rap list was knowledge, wisdom, and information. Yeah, for some people, Spotify is music and relaxation. For us, it is purely a place for self-improvement. Spotify is basically a gem for my mind. I am doing crunches as we speak. On today's show, charges have been filed against the suspect in Tuesday's school shooting in Michigan. Plus, Stacey Abrams says she is running for governor in Georgia again. But first, the

Supreme Court heard a case yesterday which could ultimately reverse the constitutional right to an abortion. And it looks like the justices are leaning towards upholding a Mississippi law that bars abortion after 15 weeks, which is two months earlier than what's allowed under Roe v. Wade. The case in front of the court is Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The law in question, which has no exception for rape or incest, was passed in 2018, but as we discussed on the show yesterday, was immediately blocked by two federal courts. But Mississippi argued that the Supreme Court's previous decisions establishing the right to an abortion were wrongly decided. Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart said this.

Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey haunt our country. They have no basis in the Constitution. They have no home in our history or traditions. Oh, my. Yeah, haunt our country is absolutely insane, dear Lord. Courts have consistently struck down laws like this Mississippi one. And the Supreme Court's three liberal justices were adamant that Roe should stand along with the 1982 decision on Planned Parenthood versus Casey. That ruling says that a state cannot prohibit a person from terminating their pregnancy before, quote, viability, which occurs around 24 weeks. In defending a person's right to an abortion, here is what lawyer Julie

Rickleman said before the Supreme Court. States will rush to ban abortion at virtually any point in pregnancy. Mississippi itself has a six-week ban that it's defending with very similar arguments as it's using to defend the 15-week ban. However, based on what observers saw during yesterday's hearing, a majority of the court's conservative justices suggested they were prepared to reverse

the Planned Parenthood versus Casey decision. The justices heard 90 minutes of oral arguments yesterday, and the court's decision is not expected until late June or early July. Maybe the justices will take that new year, new me thing really serious this go around. I would hope I don't think so. Let's turn now to the coronavirus because the CDC announced yesterday that the first confirmed case of the Omicron variant has been identified in the U.S. The person flew from South Africa into San Francisco on November 22nd. The CDC says they were fully vaccinated, had mild symptoms, and had been quarantining since testing positive.

They also said none of that person's close contacts tested positive so far. Yeah, and yesterday, President Biden addressed the topic of the variant again, once more urging people to not panic as the administration encouraged more vaccinations and boosters. We're learning more every single day and we'll fight this variant with science and speed, not chaos and confusion. So let me repeat what the doctors and scientists have affirmed. The best protection against Omicron is getting a booster shot. Right now, about 135 million Americans are eligible for a booster, but only about 40 million have gotten one thus far. Yeah, and we're expecting to hear more about the administration's plans regarding the variant today,

including a likely extension of some mask mandates for travel, testing requirements for international travelers, and the winter months more broadly. So we'll keep an eye on that and let you know what we find out. But we do know the Omicron variant could potentially affect a lot of other parts of our lives, including the supply chain. That's particularly a huge priority for the Biden administration, and U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh has been part of that effort to look at how to loosen bottlenecks. He's with us in studio today to talk about all of this after spending the day in Los Angeles, at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach earlier this week. Welcome to What A Day. Thank you for having me today. Thanks for coming. So let's get right into it. What we know is that almost, what, 40 percent of all goods that come to us from overseas goes

through the Port of LA and Long Beach. Can you give us a sense of what you saw there and what stood out to you? Yeah, I know. It was a great trip. In my conversation, a couple of things that they said. Number one was that the companies are in good shape for the holiday season. Their shelves are stocked. There's still containers coming in that will be coming in throughout the holiday season. So they're not concerned necessarily about that. I talked to Longshoremen, about 15,000 of them work there. They have been given the authority to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week if they need to. One of the biggest concerns I see is trucking. It is not having enough truck drivers and chassis

to be able to get the supplies off if you run a 24-hour operation. And the supply chain issue is simply more than ships coming in the harbor. When I think about worker shortage, it's thinking about how do we create a pathway for truck drivers? Is there an opportunity for us to create a pre-apprentice program? People are saying people don't want to truck drive anymore. I don't think that's the case. I just think that they don't want to truck drive for low money anymore. I think they're like, we want good wages, better wages, we'll drive. And I think that we have to figure that out. And the second piece is a lot of these independent truck drivers, they have their own trucks. So if you're a truck driver, and you don't have the ability and the means to buy a new truck, then you have a license,

but you don't have a truck. So again, how do you make sure that we get you in a truck that you can pick the goods off the pier? Gotcha. Right. And as you said, Secretary, President Biden confirmed yesterday that the ports are having the capacity to run 24-7. He also said this. We're heading into a holiday season on very strong shape. It's not because of luck. We averted a potential crisis by figuring out what needed to get fixed. And then we brought people together to do the hard work of fixing it.

Yeah, there's still this logjam in that supply chain, though. On Monday, there were 84 container ships off the coast waiting to unload. And as you said, there are just not enough truck drivers. That's part of the problem. Plus, the port's executive director said just a couple of weeks ago that there aren't enough warehouse workers to meet the demand either. So if there are short people here, you talked about some long-term fixes. How do you fix that so they're running 24-7 smoothly beyond what you've already mentioned?

Well, I'm going to throw two more things at you I heard. Number one is that in some warehouses, there's not enough space in warehouses for the goods. Also, a lot of the port is occupied by empties. I wasn't thinking about empties. Where were they going? I wasn't thinking about warehouses being full. I wasn't thinking about this stuff. I'm learning, and that's why I came out to LA and Long Beach to learn about this.

And I'm going to take that back what I heard at the White House. One of the meetings we had was with some truck drivers. One company has 160 drivers. Another company has 120 drivers. So they employed multiple drivers. And they were saying that they're looking for more drivers and they have trucks available. We have some work to do. And I think that you would think it's a simple solution. But you have the ports that are being run by shipping companies. You have the trucking industry run by a separate industry. You have dispatch run by a third industry. You have the chassis who are owned by, I believe, the companies on the piers, but they don't necessarily have them all

fixed. You have so many different pieces here that you really have to continue keeping everyone in the same room and say, okay, who's going to do A, B, C, and D? So we do have to get these goods and services in here. And I think that a lot of it is staying consistent and then also hoping that this new variant, we won't know yet, but doesn't impact us even further. Yeah, gotcha. So yesterday, President Biden also said this. Because of the actions the administration has taken in partnership with business and labor, retailers and grocery stores, freight movers and railroads, those shelves are going to be stocked. So now I and some of our listeners have had experiences where a common item or two is sold out or a lot more expensive than it has been in the past. For me, I've been talking about my oxtail plate at the local Jamaican restaurant.

It's just more expensive than it used to have been. So how do you explain kind of that disconnect between what we're hearing in terms of like stores being stocked and some on-the-ground experiences folks are having? I can't speak to oxtail on that one, but it's a very popular. I have an Irish mother, so oxtail is a popular Irish dish, by the way, oxtail soup particularly. But listen, every holiday season, there's that thing that you go to buy in the store, and it's sold out at Christmastime. If you have size 11 slippers and you want to get a pair of Ugg slippers, 11, they're not there on the shelf at Christmas time. Or if you want to get

the newest iPhone, sometimes they might run out. So there's going to be items that sell out, not because of supply chain issues, just because they're popular. But certainly, we're keeping an eye on, and the president's keeping an eye on the cost. Inflation has been talked a lot about here, and we're looking at making sure the cost of these items don't go too high and seeing what we can do in our control not to have the big cost, number one. Number two, also, even though inflation has gone up, people have more money in their pockets than they have in the past. So that's a good sign. But I think that there's going to be those one or two individual items that aren't going to be on the shelf. And then on the other side of that, the president has a proposal to buy and build American. We are kind of too dependent on imports

from other countries. We have to think about some of this ourselves. How can we create some of these opportunities? Because some of these jobs, we used to be here when I was a kid. I'm 54. So when I was a kid, you know, we did a lot more manufacturing.

Even before that, we did more. So we have work to do to build more here in America. I feel like folks always want to know, like, a deadline of, like, when they can expect to see a return back to what they consider as normal. Is there a sense yet of that time? I don't know. I'm not sure if there's a normal. Do we really want to go back to normal or do we want a new normal? And do we want to create better expectations for ourselves? Do we want it,

whether it's in employment and creating better opportunities in the country for people of color? If we go back to normal, that means the unemployment rate for the black community is going to be twice as high as the unemployment rate for the white community. Latino community is going to be a little lower than that. Women are still going to be underpaid than men. Is that what we want to go back to? Points are being made, sir. Or is this the time and opportunity to really think about changing? We can do better.

Definitely. I want to go back to the pandemic point that he raised the elephant in the room. You know, Omicron is a potential big threat to the supply chain as well. We do not know very much about it at this point. But we do know from the Delta outbreak that some workers remained at home last summer out of nervousness, not wanting to get sick, not wanting to get their families sick. And fewer workers out there means there are different sorts of bottlenecks in all kinds of industries. So what's the plan if there are signs that that might happen again? Well, I think first and foremost, we learned a lot from March of 2021 till today. Over the last 20 months or so, we learned a lot about COVID-19. We learned

a lot about the variants. I think in this particular variant, the president and the CDC, Dr. Fauci and the task force has said, you know, this is kind of still a wait and see approach to see what happens in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, my recommendation to people is, you know, wear your masks, wash your hands. If you can get vaccinated, get vaccinated. If you're eligible for a booster, get a booster. I know that there's a lot of conversation. Somehow vaccines have turned political, which is very unfortunate because, you know, the proof is they do save lives. Hopefully, in three weeks, I can come back on and say, listen, the variant is really not that contagious and that we're in better space and we're going to continue to move forward. I'm hoping I can say that.

I just can't say that in good confidence today because there's not enough information on it. Right. You just mentioned how like the vaccines and the mask mandates have become like political issues and culture war issues. But a lot of folks are just worried about like how they can be safe. So I'm wondering if there are any other things that you and the administration can be doing from your vantage point to ensure that safety or make people feel safe. I don't think it's just administration. I think it's people listening today. I think, yeah, no one wants to wear a mask, but if the mask allows you the opportunity to be safe, then wear the mask when you're around people. If you're not vaccinated, wear the mask around people because they don't know you're not vaccinated and they don't know

the reasons why you're not vaccinated. It could be religious reasons. It could be medical reasons. It could be the fact that you just don't want to get vaccinated. Put the mask on just out of goodwill for someone else. I think that that's an important piece. And also, you know, the one thing I just want to take a point of personal privilege here for a minute. This last year has been hard on a lot of people. I'm in recovery. I've been in recovery for 20 years now, 26 years. And when I was the mayor, I ended my press conferences by telling people, if you're struggling out there, ask for help. Anxiety, depression, concern, fear, whatever it might be, we all have it. You know, just reach out to somebody because I think that

has a lot to do with people not coming back to work right now as well, too, and people's concerns. Don't be afraid to ask for help because sometimes you just need it. And it's a sign of strength, in my opinion, by reaching out to somebody. Definitely. Lastly, on an entirely different topic, we've been talking a lot about Boston. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced that he was not going to seek another term. Are you going to run? You know, listen, I love my job as Secretary of Labor. I take it very seriously. We'll let the governor of Massachusetts, you know, I don't know if he can enjoy the day you announced you're not running for re-election, but we'll let him enjoy the day. Marty Walsh, U.S. Labor Secretary. Thanks for being on What A Day. Thank you. This is awesome.

I want to be on again. Definitively unresolved governor answer there, I suppose. We'll find out more soon. More on everything else we discussed as well, but that is the latest for now. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. shooting in Michigan in which four people were killed. Ethan Crumbly, a sophomore at the school, is being charged as an adult and is accused of firing a semi-automatic handgun in a hallway at Oxford High School, which is in a suburb 30 miles north of Detroit. Prosecutors described the attack as a planned shooting, though it's not believed that any of the victims were

specifically targeted. Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said this. We've charged four counts of first-degree murder, which requires premeditation. And I am absolutely sure after reviewing the evidence that it isn't even a close call. McDonald also said Crumbly's parents may face charges as well because they are accused of allowing him access to the gun that he used in the shooting. His father had purchased that gun just four days earlier. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights said the country of El Salvador must pay damages to a woman who died in prison while serving a 30-year sentence for an abortion conviction. In 2008, the woman, only identified as Manuela, was diagnosed with a rare and potentially fatal

pregnancy complication known as serious postpartum preeclampsia. When Manuela miscarried, police assumed that she got an abortion to hide an affair and charged her with homicide. In El Salvador, it is illegal to get an abortion under any circumstance, and this is the first time an international court has weighed in on the country's restrictive laws. Manuela died in 2010 of lymphatic cancer at 33 years old. The Inter-American Court found that El Salvador violated Manuela's rights by imprisoning her for a medical emergency she could not control. The amount the country owes Manuela's family is unclear, and the Salvadoran government has yet to comment on the verdict. Wow. The voting rights activist who helped paint Georgia blue is getting back in the race. Stacey Abrams announced yesterday that she will

run for governor in 2022 facing off against Governor Brian Kemp for the second time. Abrams lost to Kemp by just 55,000 votes in 2018. And since then, she has played a crucial role in getting Georgia voters registered and fighting voter suppression. In a campaign video that she posted yesterday on Twitter, Abrams pledged to fight for economic equality and expand health care coverage if elected. She said in her post that she's running again because, quote, opportunity in our state shouldn't be determined by zip code, background or access to power. Her campaign announcement comes at a pivotal time after Georgia Republicans proposed a redistricting map that would deepen their majority in the battleground state. If she beats Kemp this time around, Abrams will be the first Black female governor in the country. Yesterday, the country got to indulge its two beloved pastimes of science

and reconstructing crime scenes when excerpts leaked from a new book by Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, indicating that the president tested positive for COVID before the first debate with Joe Biden. Two anonymous former Trump aides confirmed the story to The Washington Post. Three days before the debate on September 26th of last year, Trump allegedly took a test that indicated he had COVID. He followed up with a rapid antigen test, which is generally considered to be a less reliable option. The second test came back negative and Trump didn't investigate further. It wasn't like he was about to take the stage with an important politician with highly antique lungs. He didn't care, obviously. Trump announced he had COVID just days after the debate. Mentions of the tests from Meadows' book

were published by The Guardian. If you want to hear how a man talks when his faith lets him serve the worst president but doesn't let him swear, here's how Meadows described Trump's reaction the first time he got a positive result. His reply rhymed with, oh spit, you've got to be trucking litting me. What the hell? Trump has unsurprisingly called reports of his initial positive test fake news, asked yesterday what he thought about the revelation that Trump may have knowingly put him at risk. Biden said, quote, I don't think about the former president, which we love to see. Yeah, extremely Kiki Palmer energy. I will also say on the topic

of highly antique lungs, Trump had a pair of highly antique lungs that he was not taking care of. So he clearly did not care about other people's. Wow. What a revelation. And those are the headlines. One more thing before we go. We have a quick favor to ask. If you love listening to this podcast, why not leave us a review? Tell us what you like, don't like, or any other thoughts you might have about What A Day.

We can't wait to read what you think. That is all for today. And if you're into reading and not just swears because they aren't scary, actually, like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Travelle Anderson. I'm Gideon Resnick. And avert your eyes from my Spotify wrapped.

Yes, the news on there is too much for you to handle. Mine would just say'm listening to fantasia all the time so do with that what you will exactly you praise it is what you will do What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Bill Lance. Jazzy Marine and Raven Yamamoto are our associate producers. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our executive producers are Leo Duran and me, Gideon Resnick. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.