Lessons from the 1918 Flu Pandemic

The Daily DC

CNN

News

4.4 • 621 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2020

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What's can history teach us about governing during a pandemic? Join CNN political director David Chalian and Senior Political Analyst John Avlon as they explore the lessons that can be learned from the Spanish Flu of 1918.To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone. I'm David Chalien, the CNN political director. This is the Daily D.C.
0:10.6	Every day now for the past week or so, President Trump and his coronavirus task force, they go out to the White House podium to brief reporters and the nation about important information relating to testing or drug
0:24.1	trials or travel restrictions and what have you. But what we are learning more than ever
0:30.6	is how much the truth from our national leadership matters in moments like this. And we aren't always getting
0:40.7	that complete story from President Trump, which obviously has been a story of the Trump presidency
0:46.8	itself. This is not the first time in American history that the federal government has been
0:53.3	in a position like this. And we know President
0:56.3	Trump is not the biggest history buff, but there actually are lessons to be learned, which is
1:01.0	why I am thrilled to be joined by my colleague, John Avalon, CNN senior political analyst. You all
1:06.7	know him from New Day. And he's taking some time to chat with us here. John, I should note,
1:10.9	has kindly pulled over to the side of the road here to have this conversation with us as he
1:16.5	is on a bit of a road trip. John, thanks so much for being here. My great pleasure, my man,
1:22.2	a lot to talk about. So I know you have taken a look at history, specifically around the 1918 Spanish flu and President Woodrow Wilson, who I don't think gets the very highest marks on his handling of that.
1:38.0	But when you look back at that, John, and I know it's a totally different era of medical technology and capabilities.
1:46.6	It's a totally different communications era, obviously. But do you believe there are lessons to be
1:51.5	learned? Absolutely. I mean, very often, especially when we are in what feels like unprecedented
1:58.4	circumstances, you know, history can give us a sense of context
2:02.2	and comfort and courage and perspective. We can learn from history. And, and, you know, I spoke about
2:09.3	this on reality check on New Day Today where I really dug into the history because, you know,
2:13.6	I'm not kind of a nerd. And this... We appreciate it. Well, you know, we're all nerds of some kind or another.
2:20.9	But the Spanish flu epidemic from 1918 really puts what we're dealing with now in perspective.
2:29.5	This was a global pandemic.
	...

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