Make Me Smart May 11, 2023 Transcript

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Kimberly Adams 

Hello, everyone. I’m Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to make me smart where we make today make sense.

Kai Ryssdal 

Today is Thursday, the 11th of May. I’m Kai Ryssdal. Thanks, everybody for coming back and join us for one more pod. We’re gonna do the same thing we always do: a little news, then the smile thing. And then all y’all get back to whatever it is that you are doing. So we will do the news first. Why don’t you go first?

Kimberly Adams 

You were right. You were right. You were right. You are right. You know people like to hear that every so often.

Kai Ryssdal 

Keep going please, but what are you talking about?

Kimberly Adams 

Yes. I am talking about all of your predictions about Trump on CNN. Because Kaitlan Collins did her level best and absolutely pushed him and fact checked him. And it did not matter. Didn’t matter. He still did what he did. And what’s disturbingly amazing about this is, I’m reading from the story in The Hill. “The hour long event broadcast in primetime and moderated by anchor Kaitlan Collins netted 3.1 million viewers. That figure represents more than three times the number of viewers CNN has earned during the 8pm hour in recent weeks. But it’s less than the size the audience that watch Trump townhalls on Fox and other networks.” So he is still a ratings magnet. And even if CNN did not necessarily do the most journalistically wise thing there, from a business perspective, they know what draws viewers and it worked. And yeah.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. I’ve I’ve been in a completely cruddy, lousy mood all day. And I realized this morning that it was because I watched whatever the heck that was last night on CNN. I think, I think it was journalistic malpractice. I think it’s deeply irresponsible. I think it was damaging. I think it was completely predictable thank you very much. And I don’t see how Chris Licht can justify it. Period.

Kimberly Adams 

I subscribe to this newsletter from Poynter, which is journalism…. How would you describe Poynter? Sort of journalism ethics

Kai Ryssdal 

Training and ethics and yeah,

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, yeah. And in one of their newsletters, the writer actually pushed back against some of the blowback for having Trump on when it was first announced, and saying that this was the right thing to do journalistically, he’s the GOP frontrunner, there’s a space for this, and as long as CNN does its job, then you know, it’s all fine. And today, in the newsletter, he was like, “No, we all should have known better. We all should have known better, myself included.” And like, I, I was listening to all these arguments, and it’s like, I don’t think this is gonna go well. I get the arguments of why they have them on, I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not going to be out there bashing them, but you know, we… you were right.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, so there were two things CNN than wrong, right? One was putting them on the air live. That’s like, it’s that’s so deeply irresponsible. You want to interview him? Fine. Get an hour on his calendar, sit down with him, have Kaitlan Collins sit there and absolutely do her level best. And then you edit it to make sure that it is the same, you know, kind of journalism that you want to be doing as opposed to giving them unrestricted access. It’s just it’s amazeballs that they did that. And then the other thing was, of course, the hall and, and how that crowd from New Hampshire reacted, which was, you know, as as E Jean Carroll was being defamed again, arguably. I read today, she might sue again. The crowd laughing and you’re like, really? So I don’t, I don’t know what they thought was gonna happen. But jeez, o peezo.

Kimberly Adams 

I mean, I hope this is the last time we have to learn this lesson this cycle.

Kai Ryssdal 

It won’t be.

Kimberly Adams 

Alright, thank you for killing my optimism.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m sorry. I usually let you run with your optimism. I’m not usually as much of a downer but come on! And the next 18 months are gonna be like this right? The next 18 months and then maybe the next four years after that.

Kimberly Adams 

But okay, so let’s, let’s think about this, though. What if Trump ends up being the GOP nominee? Then what? Then what do we do?

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s that, that’s a great question. That’s a great question. I don’t know the answer yet. But there’s a case to be made that you don’t put those freaking debates on live television.

Kimberly Adams 

Oh, I don’t think he’s gonna show up for debates.

Kai Ryssdal 

No, I don’t even, I don’t even, I don’t even mean primary debates. I mean, I mean, assuming Biden wins the nomination which he will unless Joe Manchin…

Kimberly Adams 

I don’t think he’s going to do the presidential debates.

Kai Ryssdal 

You don’t think so?

Kimberly Adams 

No, I don’t. I yeah, I absolutely do not. You can put that one down. I don’t think he’s going to do the president debates. So yeah, but I think it’s gonna be a really tough thing in journalism if he ends up being a GOP nominee, which right now it looks like he very well might be, how we cover him this time around. We did a better job in, you know, 2020 than we did in 2016. But what do we do now that he’s, you know, spawned an insurrection?

Kai Ryssdal 

Right. I would argue that Chris Licht in 1 hour and 15 minutes last night, undid most of the games that journalism has made, reputationally and in practice. Seriously, I think it was that bad.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, one other good quck one from Washington, from your home state of California, that Dianne Feinstein is back here in Washington after a extended absence due to her health during which there were very loud, very public calls for her to resign due to her age and frailty. And some of the arguments being that she was literally holding up, her absence was holding up some really important business of the Senate, namely some judicial nominees, some legislation they wanted to push through. So she came back and first day back, the committee that she’s on, the Judiciary Committee approved six Biden judicial nominees. Three of them went forward on a party line vote. I mean, it matters that she’s here to the Democratic agenda. And especially when you think about all of the very fraught issues we have in our country right now that are landing in the courts, these judicial nominees matter. Trump pushed through, I think, more judicial nominees than anybody else ever during his time in office. And Biden has been trying to catch up. But things like this, hold it up. And there’s a very delicate, sometimes not so delicate conversation happening in Washington, and I’m sure where you are in California about how fit she is for duty, with some people arguing that it sexist and ageist the way that folks are talking about her. But it’s it’s a tough time.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. And and it’s an it’s a substantive discussion. It’s not just “ooh, she’s too old.” Right? It’s it’s actual, you know, agenda setting stuff that’s that’s, you know, at at risk here, I suppose is what you say?

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, for sure.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, so my quickie it’s, it’s also super… well, it’s not really because it’s actually irrelevant because of all the banking problems we have. I would like to share with you, dear listeners of this podcast, that the thing that Jay Powell said the other day about First Republic’s collapse having put a line under the worst of the stress of the banking system, that is perhaps not entirely true. We’ve learned today that Pacific West Bancorp shares down another 23%, after they disclosed that they had lost another 9.5% of their total deposits last week. PacWest was stopped today because of volatile trading several times in New York. Banking crisis ain’t done gang. And the longer this lingers, the worse it gets, because the more jittery we all get. I will say today, actually, sorry, this is just I didn’t even mean to bring this up. But the FDIC put out some new rules today about replenishing its stock of of its Insurance Fund. Yeah, so it’s banks with assets over $50 billion, are gonna have to pay almost all of the extra fees to restock this insurance fund that the FDIC uses to guarantee depositors’ money. Banks with less than $5 billion in total assets are not going to have to pay anything into that fund. So that’s good, because I know a lot of community bankers were really upset. But the idea that the banking situation is done is is not true. There still more coming.

Kimberly Adams 

But with PacWest it you know, it makes me wonder, because I’ve done a couple stories on this at this point, how much of this is because the bank is actually in trouble? And how much it is because people are freaking out? And you know, I talked to the American Bankers Association, I was talking to some community bank groups and various states and they’re all like, “We are fine. We are fine, we are fine, we are fine.” But with everybody sort of rumor mongering and gossiping, and sometimes short sellers, potentially, you know, making stuff up, it’s causing other people to freak out, which is then causing real problems for these banks. So like, was PacWest actually in trouble? Or did the rumors about it cause it to be in trouble because then people went and took all their money out.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s that’s exactly right. That, of course, is also why and how bank runs, you know, start and continue as people get nervous. And it’s not about the underlying solvency or liquidity of the banks. It’s about “I want my money now.” And you know, queue up James Stewart, in It’s a Wonderful Life. Right, exactly. Exactly. Anyway, that was a fairly grim top of the news, shall we?

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. (They both mumble) Those weren’t actually words.

Kai Ryssdal 

No, they weren’t.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, let’s smile. Yours is super fun.

Kai Ryssdal 

There is an absolutely charming story in The New York Times. It’s one of those you know, graphics heavy, where you got to scroll through the thing and that can get a little annoying if you’re on a small screen or something. But it’s a really, really interesting story about mapping hurricanes and superstorms at sea. And when I say at sea, I mean, at sea level in the heart of the storm, which is really hard to do. We, of course, know about all those hurricane hunting airplanes that fly into the storm and get all kinds of data at 10,000 feet, 20,000 feet, whatever. This is about a guy whose passion project was to design an automated craft that could sail into the heart of these storms at sea level, and get data that fundamentally we have not ever been able to get. Number one, it’s super cool. And it’s a really charming little article, and the graphics are neat. But number two, is that as the storms have become bigger because the planet is getting hotter, this data is going to be more important. And that’s the police if you hear the siren, that’s the police coming. Yeah. Anyway, it’s cool. It’s a cool article. It’s not short. But it’s it’s super interesting. Super interesting.

Kimberly Adams 

We, when I was hosting Marketplace Tech, we actually talk to one of the NOAA scientist who works on this, and just the level of details. And I’m trying to see if it’s the same person. No, I think it’s a different person. But the level of detail that these things get, because you can get so much more information. It’s not just, you know, the video, because the videos are amazing that these things pull because they’re getting thrown around. It’s data and video and imagery that we could never get from crude ships, because you know, people would die. And so it’s improving safety. It’s improving the data that we’re getting, it’s allowing people to track things more quickly, therefore, to warn people with better accuracy to get out of the way and things. It’s so cool. But yeah, this is a beautifully illustrated piece. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s fun.

Kai Ryssdal 

What have you got?

Kimberly Adams 

Mine’s not exactly fun, but it still made me smile. There is a story out of the AP that now the Food and Drug Administration has finally finalized their guidelines, yeah, to end the restrictions on gay and bisexual men donating blood in the US. So for a long time, there was a rule that gay and bisexual men, or men who had ever had sex with men could not donate blood. And it was through about fears of HIV when it was considered, or falsely considered to be just a gay person’s disease. And so then they backed it up and they said, in 2015, the lifetime ban was dropped by the FDA. And instead, it was a one year abstinence requirement, which was also not at all scientifically valid. In 2020 the agency shorten that abstinence period to three months because they were desperate for blood donations during COVID, which is its own kind of shady. But now there’s no more abstinence, abstinence requirement. People who still test HIV positive can’t donate blood. And there’s some rules around people on HIV sort of prevention medicines like Prep. But it’s a step in the right direction to end another form of discrimination. And it’s not everything, but it’s one thing and that made me smile. So yeah.

Kai Ryssdal 

It’s good, good, good. All right. That’s it for us today. Economics on tap tomorrow with the YouTube livestream. We’re back around and on that one. We’ll do the news, have some drinks and Drew will be here for half full/half empty. But before we go, you know what’s coming next. Right? It is the first day of our May fundraiser. We have shortened it by about a week this year. So fewer interruptions this month for which both Kimberly and I and you will be grateful. But our goal is not a small one. We’re looking to raise $350,000 to stay on track for this fiscal year. As you know, times are tough. But here’s the deal. Times are tough, not only for us, but for you as well. And we understand that. But we built a little community here of people who, who value the perspectives that that our producers, and Kimberly and I can bring, the conversations that we can have on Fridays and through our Mailbag. And that’s why we need some help. And and here’s a special little treat which I will offer and then Kimberly will pick it up because I don’t do the spiel all by myself. If a gift of $1,000 or more is in your budget, and we realized that steep, starting today, you can select a custom audio message from either Kimberly or me as your thank you gift. You say it and we’ll read it, within certain boundaries of course.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, yeah. Don’t don’t don’t make it, don’t make it’s gonna get us fired. You know, it reminds me of the old like Carl Kasell, things where you know, record voicemail. But since nobody uses voicemail anymore, it can just be an audio message for whatevs. But we do know $1,000 is a lot, but if you’re able, we’d really appreciate it. But no matter the size, if you can help us kick off this May fundraiser strong by making a gift today, we’d be incredibly grateful. Of course, there’s always the swag as well. You can go to Marketplace.org/givesmart, and we’re of course going to have a link in the show notes.

Kai Ryssdal 

Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s episode was engineered by Drew Jostad. Our intern is Antonio Barreras.

Kimberly Adams 

Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. And Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital.  It always says of digital but we say of digital and on demand, do we know which one it actually is?

Kai Ryssdal 

I think technically her title is just Executive Director. But that doesn’t make any sense because let’s say what she’s the executive director of. Shall we?