Hey, everybody. We've got a great one today, you know, for a change. George Packer is with us.

George is one of my favorite journalist authors. He wrote one of the definitive books on the

Iraq War, The Assassins Gate. His latest, our man,

Richard Holbrook, and the end of the American century, was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

I won five Emmys.

George's piece in the June Atlantic Monthly, we are living in a failed state, talked about the coronavirus, and kind of runs along the same theme, which is that this country's just a goddamn mess.

Basically, it makes a strong case that the pandemic has revealed our country's weaknesses.

It's pretty tough on America, and I hope you can take it.

I spoke with George about six weeks ago, and we're going to air that today,

but I asked him to do a second interview about what has happened since.

And I'll play that first and then the longer conversation, which is a terrific one.

You know, for a change.

Since we spoke last time, of course, a lot of things have happened.

Forty more thousand Americans have died of COVID.

Your piece was about how COVID had laid bare the shortcomings and weaknesses of our country.

In your article, you did talk about that a disproportionate amount of the deaths had been to people of color and to poor people. But you and I did not discuss race in that interview. So I wanted to get

some of your thoughts about what has happened since George Floyd was murdered? My thoughts are dismay and horror at his killing

and at the behavior of police in a lot of cities,

in a lot of instances, who used excessive force on demonstrators that seems to be almost like a reflex

of police departments to escalate rather than deescalate, which black Americans know

better than white Americans because they are policed more heavily and with much more

aggression according to data than white Americans. So the video was a confirmation for some

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