Summary
Emily, John and David discuss the unprecedented American Rescue Plan. Author Heather McGhee joins the Gabfest to talk about her new book outlining how racism hurts all Americans and Dr. Michael Mina answers questions about how to improve the nation's pandemic-fighting strategies.
Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:
Pew Research Center: “Broad Public Support for Coronavirus Aid Package; Just a Third Say It Spends Too Much”
The Debrief with Major Garrett: “$2 Trillion For What?”
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Here’s this week’s chatter:
Emily: The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans--And How We Can Fix It by Dorothy A. Brown
John: “‘The Secret Apartment’ Is The Story Of A Vietnam Vet Who Claims To Have Lived In Veterans Stadium For Years”; The Secret Apartment: Vet Stadium, a surreal memoir by Tom Garvey; Jeremy Irons Reads the Psalms
David: The Fourth Child by Jessica Winter
Listener chatter from Seth Milhoan: Sarah Brookbank for the Cincinnati Enquirer: “Del Hall, The Cincinnati Man Who Lives on a Beer-only Diet for Lent, Is Doing It Again and Raising Money”
Slate Plus members get great bonus content from Slate, a special segment on the Gabfest each week, and access to special bonus episodes throughout the year. Sign up now to listen and support our show. For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Emily, David, and John discuss how they decide whether to rescue or abandon a failing project.
Tweet us your questions and chatters @SlateGabfest, or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank.
Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this late political gap fest for March 11th, 2021, the Zero-Sum edition. |
| 0:13.2 | I'm David Plotz of Citicast. |
| 0:16.1 | I'm in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:18.0 | I'm joined by Emily Bazelon, the New York Times Magazine and Yale University Law School from New Haven. Hello, Emily. |
| 0:25.1 | Hey, David. |
| 0:26.2 | And by John Dickerson of CBS's 60 Minutes from New York City and wearing his extremely interesting sweater, which I hope we can post a photo of again. |
| 0:38.5 | And I love talking about, hello, John. |
| 0:41.4 | It's second in your list of favorites behind Justice Stephen Breyer's retirement schedule. |
| 0:48.4 | Non-retirement. |
| 0:49.4 | We'll get to that. |
| 0:50.3 | We will get to that, I assure you. |
| 0:52.1 | You know what John's sweater is? |
| 0:53.3 | It's like if Mondrian created the American flag. |
| 0:56.9 | I said that to John before you. |
| 0:58.1 | Oh, gang, stop fighting over my sweater. |
| 1:01.6 | Sorry, David. |
| 1:02.5 | All right. |
| 1:02.5 | I didn't mean to. |
| 1:03.0 | On today's show, we're going to talk about ARP, the American Rescue Plan, the most |
| 1:08.9 | consequential domestic legislation since the Affordable Care Act, which passed Congress. And we will talk about why it is so consequential. Then we will be joined by Heather McGee to talk about her incredible new book about race and about the American tendency to self-destruction. The book is called The Sum of Us. It's fantastic. And then is the |
| 1:29.8 | vaccine rollout going well or poorly? We will check in with Harvard epidemiologist Michael |
| 1:33.7 | Mina about vaccines and also about our old friend testing, which we seem to have forgotten |
... |
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