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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Thursday, November 5, 2026 at 9 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a town hall-style Forum, we’ll hear from Bay Area members of Congress about their plans, priorities and the possibilities for investigating the Trump administration. The conversation comes in the wake of the midterm elections, where Democrats won majorities in both houses of Congress. We’ll ask these Bay Area officials how they’ll use their power in Washington and what they will prioritize. And they’ll hear from you about what issues you want addressed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener\u003c/strong>, Representative-elect, U.S. House of Representatives, District 11 \u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren\u003c/strong>, U.S. Congresswoman, representing California’s 18th Congressional District\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon\u003c/strong>, U.S. representative for California’s 12th congressional district\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Representative Aisha Wahab\u003c/strong> – U.S. representative for California’s 14th district\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re joined this morning by representatives from the Bay Area congressional delegation, fresh off their individual wins, as well as the overall Democratic mega-tsunami that we saw on Tuesday. We want you to have a chance to ask them some questions in this new era. What do you want your member of Congress and Congress overall to prioritize in the next two years? You can give us a call early: 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786, or you can email forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Up first, we’re joined by Representative Zoe Lofgren from the U.S. House of Representatives, District 18. Welcome, Representative. Good morning. We’ve got Representative Lateefah Simon, District 12 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Welcome, Representative.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Good morning. Good to be on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Representative-elect Scott Wiener. You just heard, just won for San Francisco. That’s District 11. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, thanks again to all of you for joining us. Congratulations on your election or reelection. Of course, you’re part of this incoming wave of Democrats, the size of which we haven’t seen in a very long time. And a lot of these other Democrats are gonna be coming from places that don’t look very much like Santa Clara County or Alameda County or San Francisco. You’re gonna have a Republican president, of course, two years to show some results on the things voters said they care about. So what’s the plan? Representative Lofgren, do you wanna go first?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Sure. You know, I think Hakeem laid out the initial efforts. I mean, people have a variety of concerns about what’s going on in the country, but huge among them is cost. Prices are too high. Salaries haven’t kept up, and people are squeezed, and we need to do our best to do something about that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first and most direct way that the legislative branch can deal with that is to reverse the disastrous effects of the cuts to the Medicaid program, as well as the Affordable Care Act. Health care costs are spiking, and we need to bring that down. That’s not all we need to do, but that will help. We also need to do something about the cuts to the food assistance program, which is hurting not only recipients but also farmers who sell the produce.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We then also need to hold the president and his administration accountable, and people are sick of the corruption that they’ve seen, and we need to be transparent about that. Hakeem mentioned, and I agree, that we will pass a ban on stock trading for Congress, and I likely will add in the president and his family as well. So that’s the first few days. And we’ve got a lot of work to do after that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m eager to hear what your viewers or listeners have to say, but let me just say this: The work of the Congress goes through our committees. I, if all goes well, will chair the Science Committee, and I have already prepared oversight letters. We need to try and rescue the science enterprise from the tremendous damage that has been done to it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for that, for the opening statement, Representative Zoe Lofgren. Representative Simon, let’s come to you. I mean, Democrats really ran on affordability across the country, a kind of populism, I guess you might hear. Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa described it as — what specifically? Just give us one other idea. I heard from Representative Lofgren restoring cuts to Medicaid and trying to help on health care costs, food assistance program. What else?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> And there’s so much, and I think we are gonna come in with a fever that matches what real people in real communities, what they said to us on Tuesday. Folks are suffering.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just a couple of things. You know, you said that this was essentially a blue wave, but we haven’t seen this majority since 2008. But I want to be clear: We have to put the Medicaid cuts and the ACA credits on the desk of the president, and we have to dare him to vote down health care. That’s for the single mother in West Virginia and the young college student here in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every dollar that this government spends will now have to run through the Democrats who are prioritizing affordability and who are prioritizing protecting us. I think what is important to me, my constituency has asked me to vote no on any blank checks for ICE, no more tax dollars for bombs. We must vote for meals over munitions every day, and that’s what I plan to do. Yeah, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative-elect Scott Wiener, you were known in the California State House as just a prolific legislator. Do you plan on trying to bring the same approach to Washington, and what ideas do you have that might be outside of what is initially being talked about in Washington?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> First of all, I’m so grateful to the people of San Francisco for sending me to Congress, and I take this responsibility so seriously because it’s a dangerous time, but also a time of great opportunity to show that government and democracy can actually work to make people’s lives better and more affordable, and that people don’t need to turn to authoritarianism to do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so we need to deliver now, and I fully agree that we need to immediately reverse the Medicaid cuts so we don’t crater our health care system, because that will make people’s lives worse and much less affordable. And I agree with Congresswoman Lofgren that we need to ban congressional stock trading and really take a strong and quick anti-corruption stance and end the war in Iran. And so, so much work to do there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then, in addition to all the immediate needs, we need to send clear signals that we’re focused on lowering people’s cost of housing. We need to build millions of homes in this country, and the federal government needs to be a full partner in doing that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And we need to regulate AI. And I think Congress has to play a huge role there. It’s 2026, and we don’t have a federal data privacy law. We want to make sure that technology, including AI, is benefiting people and not harming people, and that big corporations should not be the decision makers about how AI is going to change people’s lives for better or for worse. We need the federal government to play a role there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative Lofgren, I mean, you’ve been in Congress at different times, with different configurations of parties and congressional chambers and the president. When Democrats have the House and the Senate and pretty commanding majorities in both places, but there is a Republican president named Donald Trump who will probably veto just about everything you send to him, so what is the power that Democrats will have in Congress?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, he’s going to need some things from us, and we’ll have to leverage our authority to get for our people what they need. We’ll see. He did say he didn’t want to spend his entire next two years vetoing bills.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We need to fund the government. When you fund the government, there are negotiations, and we’re laser-focused on what people were telling us in this election. And they need some help. We need to stand up for them, and we intend to do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Certainly, we can’t take responsibility for Donald Trump, but we can put it to him. And certainly, not just him, but his whole party got their head handed to them on Election Day. I wouldn’t rule out the idea that we could even override some vetoes on some key things, because I think the Republicans had a little wake-up call from American voters.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s a really interesting question. Do you expect different behavior out of the Republican Party given what just happened?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, it’s who’s left, of course, are people who weren’t rebuked by their voters. But I think certainly I have a lot of friends who are Republicans. I work across the aisle on the Science Committee all the time, and there are members of the Republican Party who live on Earth, too. But there are plenty of them who — they can see what’s happening. And I think at least we can talk to some of them about the need for them to preserve themselves by serving the American people with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s try and squeeze in a caller here. Randy in San Jose, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Randy:\u003c/strong> Thank you. I have a quick question. You know, there’s a lot of billionaires that live in the Bay Area. Are you guys going to be working for them, or are you going to be working for us? What are you gonna do about the billionaires? They’re totally out of control.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Randy in San Jose, appreciate that. Representative Simon, let’s come to you. I mean, what was the message you got from your voters? Billionaire tax went down in California and also across the country. There was quite a popular surge, a lot of anger specifically about the tech industry and its wealthiest people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> You know, the reality, and I say it time and time again, that a nurse cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in my district. It is very real. And that anger comes from the wealth divide that, for many of us, it’s not new.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The proliferation of wealth is something that has to be legislated in terms of a taxation system on the federal level. You know, I deeply and profoundly believe that we shouldn’t have people sleeping on the concrete and then literally blocks, you know, 10 blocks north or south, someone living in a castle. We’re gonna have to figure that out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’ve been a proponent of a just taxation system before I got into politics, and I think we’re gonna have to lead on this at the federal level. And I’m excited to be one of those voices.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Can I pop in, since this is a caller? We work for the voters who elected us, and that’s not the billionaires. There is a federal bill to do what Prop 40 was trying to do, which is to actually capture the extraordinary wealth that is accumulated in the billionaire class. I am a co-sponsor of that bill, and I’m hoping that we can move something like it at a federal level and start dealing with the issue that you’ve raised. It’s really unconscionable. Yeah. Yep.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, we are having a little town hall-style \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> today. We are lucky enough to have some members of the Bay Area congressional delegation, people will be headed to the 120th Congress. We’ve got Representative Zoe Lofgren. We have Representative Lateefah Simon, and we’ve got Representative-elect Scott Wiener.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We want to hear from you. What do you want your member of Congress to prioritize in the next couple of years, or Congress overall? 866-733-6786. If you can’t get through there, which looks like it might be a little bit tough, try emailing us: forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here’s a few things coming in already. Deanne writes, “My wish is that the next Congress not waste time and energy impeaching the president yet again or relitigating the past. Focus on repairing damage done to working people, small businesses, and those harmed by ICE and wrongful deportation during the president’s term. The more often he uses the veto pen, the more ridiculous he will look.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more, right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re joined by members of the Bay Area congressional delegation. We’ve got Zoe Lofgren, Lateefah Simon, and Representative-elect Scott Wiener here with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So here is maybe the big question on many Democrats’ minds, many people across the country. And I think Zoe Lofgren will start with you on this one. I mean, you’ve been involved in several congressional investigations in recent decades, including the January 6 committee, Trump’s first impeachment. Do you see a pathway opening for another impeachment? Do you think there are other avenues for doing investigations? It seems to me that there’s this real hunger for accountability on one side, and also to, as I think you hear, like, for example, Josh Shapiro say, get stuff done, you know? So what’s the balance there going in?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, I think we need a national conversation about what to do on this subject. Certainly the president has committed a number of impeachable offenses, but does that mean we should impeach? Because unless you get a conviction in the Senate, he will just treat that as an exoneration.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Having been on the Judiciary Committee my entire time in Congress, it’s the Judiciary Committee only that gets so consumed by the impeachment hearings, not the whole body. Plenty of other work can happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there are things that we need to do in the Judiciary Committee. One of which is we need to get a grip on the out-of-control immigration enforcement. And the easiest way to do that is to finally, and I hope very soon, do some common-sense reforms of the legal immigration system so we don’t see husbands and wives of American citizens being ripped out of their families’ arms. I mean, it’s insane.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So that is a major goal of mine. We’ve got ICE is out of control. We need to right-size their budget and get some sanity in the immigration program. So, you know, I think we need to listen to the country. We need to have a discussion, and we need to hold them accountable. But impeachment is certainly not the only way, and perhaps not the best way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Jessica writes, “ICE has been terrorizing and brutalizing people for two years. What are you gonna do to stop them, hold them accountable?” I think you’re starting to address that there, Representative. Let me ask you, Representative-elect Wiener, as someone who’s coming in from the outside, someone who has clashed with the administration already, what do you think your voters want you to do on this score? In terms of ICE? In terms of accountability for the administration?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, people want accountability, and, you know, frankly, if there’s no accountability, then the rule of law truly means nothing. And that accountability can take different forms. I know there’s an ongoing discussion about whether impeaching the president is the best course. I mean, clearly, he’s a walking impeachable offense, and if it were put to a vote, I would absolutely vote for it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the corruption and the lawlessness runs so much deeper than the president. It’s his family, but it’s also members of the Cabinet. It’s Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, Jared Kushner. And we need to make sure that we are focusing not just on the president. We also know that the lawlessness does extend to ICE and Border Patrol, just brazenly violating people’s constitutional rights with a complete sense of impunity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I passed a law this year that the governor signed to authorize people to be able to sue federal agents like ICE and Border Patrol. We need to do that at the federal level and make that very clear, that everyone is accountable and there is no impunity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But with all of this work against the lawlessness, and to have accountability, as critically important as it is, we need to make sure it does not overshadow our work to lower people’s cost of living, to make sure people can afford housing and health care and energy costs, because that’s what people want. And we need to show as Democrats that we can deliver. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, couple of — one quick comment and then one quick call on this. Paul writes, “First, I want to see a deep investigation of all the Trump crime family grifts, as well as releasing the complete Epstein files, which are the original cause of all that grifting to start with. We need to send a strong message to the next wannabe dictators that our country will not stand for it. Then fix health care and the environment, et cetera.” James in Burlingame, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Thank you for making my call one of the plan with the new Democratic wave in Congress to address the, you know, very failing Department of Justice, for example, the 94 district U.S. district attorneys. And, you know, what you’ve got an entire Justice Department and also part of the whole Homeland Security, et cetera, guilty to the president. How is that going to figure into the plans that I’m hearing right now on this program? Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks, James. Thanks, James.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> I’ll jump in. This is Lateefah Simon. In my first two years of Congress, I got the opportunity to serve on the Oversight Committee, and that is the committee. There’s also Judiciary, and we’re going to hold these fools accountable. Having the gavel allows us to subpoena them, hold them in contempt if they don’t show. And I think we need to be extremely aggressive with every secretary that has betrayed the American people. And every single one of them has betrayed the American people. They are lawless. Our president is lawless.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But again, holding the gavel means we hold the room and we hold them accountable. The Oversight Committee under the Republicans, they refused to meet. They stopped having hearings because they knew, they knew that their party and their secretaries appointed by the president and approved by the Senate were lawless. We’re going to hold their feet to the fire. Robert Garcia will be the chair of the Oversight Committee, God willing, and watch him cook.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> I’ll just add in before I have to leave at 9:30, but the Judiciary Committee incoming chairman, Jamie Raskin, has already laid out as well an oversight agenda. The DOJ has gone completely off the rails. And obviously, they’re the executive branch, but we can do oversight.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, you know, many of the lawyers there who engaged in this conduct should lose their licenses. Some should be referred to state prosecution, and really, the rule of law has been heavily eroded.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I’m hopeful that we can get my bill that creates real immigration courts instead of these kangaroo courts passed, because for the most part, with the exception of the Supreme Court, the judiciary has held. They have upheld the rule of law. And so strengthening the judicial branch is part of what we need to do as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, and if folks want to hear more about that, we did an entire show with a former — and, like, fired — immigration judges who described the strangeness of our immigration court system, or so-called immigration court system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Um, Representative Lofgren, I know you’ve got to know and go in just a sec. So let me just throw one more question, too quickly. Ashley writes, “I’d like to ask the representatives what they plan to do in terms of immigration for DACA holders. This is deferred action program started under President Obama. These are individuals who are American in every sense of the word except on paper. DACA must be protected. What can be done in the legislature?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, there is a bill to deal with DACA. I’m on it. There’s a discharge petition that I’ve signed. But I think we have an opportunity to do more than that. We should certainly do that. But if you ask Americans, if you’ve been here a long time, and other than your paperwork on your immigration status, you’ve been a good person, you’ve worked hard, you’ve paid your taxes, you’re a contributing member of your community, and you’ve been here 10, 12 years, should you have a way to get right with the law? And almost everybody says yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So if we were to do — and there’s a provision in current law that allows for that — if we could update it, that would solve a lot of problems, including the DACA recipients.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think people want sensible laws that promote family unity in this country, that support the American economy, elevate the American workforce. They don’t want the crazy stuff that this administration is doing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We do need to have order at the border. We can’t have the kind of chaos that President Biden permitted, much to his discredit. But I don’t think people wanted ICE, masked agents, armed agents running around and randomly kidnapping people. That wasn’t what people wanted.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> You know, so I, I — this is Lateefah. Just a couple of days ago, I took into custody a young woman, a student at UC Berkeley with an active asylum case, and she is detained. She is a child. You think of your college student friends or your children. Can you imagine?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we have a shared — I think every single Democrat has a shared wanting to get this right. A 19-year-old, a 20-year-old college student with an active asylum case should not be in a cage. Yeah. You’re right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Representative Simon. Representative Lofgren, thank you so much for making time. I know it’s very busy right now. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Thank you very much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in another Bay Area congressional representative. We have Representative Aisha Wahab with us. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I want to say your race hasn’t been officially called yet, I think at least by the AP, but you’re up big, and some quarters are calling. So congratulations to you as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let’s talk about — you ran big on affordability. You ran a great — read a great article about you in which one of your constituents said, “She’s like a regular person who cares about regular people.” So when you’re out there in your district talking with regular people, uh, number one thing that they said to you that you might actually be able to do in Congress?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so I actually just came out of a local donut shop, and people were talking and congratulating me. And the honest truth is they want the government to focus on them. They are tired of the finger-pointing, and, you know, I’ll say this: Republicans and Democrats are both guilty of this. They keep pointing the finger, and the rhetoric, and they stand on their soapbox and they preach, um, and they get nothing done for the people, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I will say this: We’ve heard you guys talk about Medicaid and overall health care reform, as well as potentially holding people accountable. I think we can do all of it at the same time. I understand some of the logistics there, but my biggest concern is we do need to tackle the monopolies, the fact that so many organizations are just merging and becoming these massive institutions that are controlling our market, whether it is in the housing scene. And I do believe that we actually need to kind of tackle that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it’s also, you know, from Amazon to Facebook and Meta, and you name it, you know, that is driving up costs, right? There is no true competition, no free market as they like to preach about. And Republicans and Democrats also need to take back congressional powers that they’ve let slip by.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so I think that there’s a number of things that I’d like to work on, and personally, it’s an economic Bill of Rights. This is not a new idea. This is an idea from, you know, even a hundred years ago, that as Americans in the age of AI, we need to do better for the American people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Scott Wiener, Representative-elect, this seems like a perfect place for you to enter the conversation as someone who was early to trying to regulate AI. You mentioned earlier in the show you want these things to work for people and not against them. What would the legislative approach to something like this be like, the planks of an economic Bill of Rights related to AI for you?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, when we started our work on regulating AI back in 2023, 2024, we were told by many that we were sort of crazy. It was all science fiction, we were making it up, we were doomers, and so on and so forth. And it turns out that so many of the things that we were talking about then in terms of the risks that we needed to legislate to protect people from are very real, like all the cyber hacking and the risk of a biological contagion.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we are behind. We’ve done the work in California, with more work to come, but we really need Congress to step up. That means having a strong and nimble federal regulator who can keep up with the industry and act quickly and decisively when something dangerous is happening. We have that with the banking system. We have it with nuclear energy. We’ve done it before.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We need international agreements. This whole notion that we need to have this unlimited race towards superintelligence and autonomous lethal weapons and all of these other really problematic and really dangerous things because China will get there first — no. We need to be working with China because it’s not in anyone’s interest, China or the U.S., to have massive cyberattacks and to have chemical and biological weapons.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We also need strong tax policy, whether you call it a robot tax or when you have corporations that are massively increasing their profits at the expense of workers by eliminating massive numbers of workers to automate everything. There should be a significant tax on that transition so that the benefit of AI is spread to everyone, so that it’s not being cornered by a few corporations and by the wealthiest people. We need AI to benefit everyone, and tax policy, taxing those benefits, is absolutely essential so that people are not thrown into the gutter. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Appreciate that from Representative-elect Scott Wiener, joining us here this morning along with other members of the Bay Area delegation. Also, just want to note, you know, nonproliferation worked under very difficult circumstances, at least to some extent, and seems like a kind of similar call for regulation there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Representative Simon, a couple of questions here. Jane writes, “Many voters would like to see new leadership in both the House and Senate. What’s your opinion on choosing leaders other than Jeffries and Schumer?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Well, I just want to be clear. I don’t know about the Senate, but Hakeem is going to be the speaker. But I was asked this question this morning. Actually, I’ve been asked the question every day, but a flurry of texts came in about the vote. And I want to be clear: The role of the speaker is to hold the floor, okay? There are 435 members of the House. If you look at how the framers wrote what the Congress should be, we all come in duly elected with the opportunity to lead, to introduce legislation, to vote for our district.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I want to say this before I go, because my two colleagues, who I can’t wait to hold my hand with on January 3rd, we will be sworn in together. We’re going to do so much work together. They know, like I do, we are public servants.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But on Tuesday, the people — and I’m going to go directly to your question — the people told the most powerful man in the country, no. And they did it with the ballot. They also said very clearly, like I said earlier, that they are suffering.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I come from the lineage of Ron Dellums and Barbara Lee, and we stood against war in this district when we stood alone, right? And so when we go back to work, the mandate is clear. The people of this country told leaders, “We will fire you if you don’t get it right.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So leadership of the Democratic Party, I know their ears are open. They’re being pushed to be more decisive, to leave the old and tired rhetoric of just being in politics to the side and start working for real people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our job, the folks on this phone right now, our job is to hold them to account. We’ve got to restore health care. We have to, again, promote meals over munitions. They’ve stolen SNAP from the hungriest people in this country. I think we’re going to do some work that the American people can be proud of for once, and I’m excited to be a part of, again, a new vision of folks coming in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m a single mother. I passed five bills through this minority House — I mean, this majority House. And I plan to work with these two senior legislators to tear the House down in the most positive way. Thanks. And Scott and Aisha, I’m so proud of y’all. Let’s do the work. Let’s do the — what?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much, Representative Lateefah Simon, headed out. Thanks so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re still joined by Representative-elect Scott Wiener and Representative Aisha Wahab from the 14th District, that covers parts of the East and the South Bay. We’re gonna get to a bunch more of your calls and your comments with two of our newest members of the Bay Area House delegation. The number is 866-733-6786. The email is forum@kqed.org. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Representative-elect Scott Wiener from San Francisco, Representative Aisha Wahab from the East Bay, District 14. It’s got a little South Bay in it, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You both went up against the Democratic establishment. Representative-elect Wiener, Nancy Pelosi endorsed your competitor, of course, Kaine Chan. Aisha Wahab, I mean, you faced down kind of the whole Democratic establishment. Do you think — and Representative Wahab, we’ll start with you — do you think that gives you some extra room to try and shake things up in Congress? Or does it kind of find you on the outside of the halls of power there?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> You know, at the end of the day, I think that both Scott and I have always been very independent, but also team players. And that’s something that people don’t see until you’re actually in office, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think for me, I’ve told all my colleagues and future colleagues that I am more than happy to work with them, regardless of party even, to get things done for the American people. But I have always been very vocal about what I see does not make sense for regular, everyday people. What I see even Democrats making bad decisions, wrong decisions, doing things that don’t prioritize the American people. And I have always been very vocal about it. I will continue to do so.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And yes, that ruffles feathers and upsets people, especially the old guard that is very top-down. And that’s just not who I have ever been, to just kind of succumb to what others say.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative-elect Wiener, I mean, do the Democrats need top-down leadership, though? Do they need to have a sense of unity going up against this administration?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, I will say that in terms of the past election, elections are always very intense and, frankly, should be intense and spirited contests. And then it’s over, and you move forward.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I’m going to be very eager to work with anyone who will work with me on issues of making people’s lives more affordable, and reinstating democracy and the rule of law, and going to the mat for San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We need to, as Democrats, really focus on the things that unify us: really saving our health care system and expanding access to health care, creating a national housing policy so we’re building the homes that we need, having the rule of law and accountability, regulating AI, which I think has very, very broad support, and ending the war in Iran, and not funding ICE. It’s a paramilitary terror organization.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are so many of these issues that unify us, and we will, of course, have disagreements. And that’s okay. And I’m someone who I’ve always worked closely with my colleagues in the legislature on both sides of the aisle when it’s doable. And there are times when you have to go your own way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And first and foremost, I represent the people of San Francisco, and that will always be my top guiding star. But there are so many issues that unify us as Democrats, and we really, really need to focus on those. And they also have the benefit of being what the American people want us to focus on, like health care, housing, and energy costs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> The, uh, the old “Do popular things” platform.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> And popular things that are also incredibly important to people’s lives.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Rick in Citrus Heights. Welcome, Rick.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Rick Hodgkins:\u003c/strong> First of all, before I ask my question, I want to say to you, Scott Wiener, I met you back in 2017 at the Citizens Hotel, J Street. I’m going to miss you. I was Senator Nielsen’s constituent back then. And Senator Wahab, I’ve always wanted to meet you. Remember my name. It’s Rick, R-I-C-K Hodgkins.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And my question for the both of you is, how do you plan to help people like myself with developmental disabilities in California? Because not only do I have Medi-Cal, which is our Medicaid program, but I also have Medicare. Thank you, and remember my name.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We got it. Thank you. Representative Wahab, let’s start with you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, folks with different abilities has always been a priority. In fact, we’ve passed a number of bills to protect them and enhance their rights in the state of California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m sure Scott and I, as well as Lateefah, who’s been a deep, big proponent of a lot of the work that we’re talking about, we need to not only provide more funding to them, especially in this economic crisis that we are all facing, but also try to ensure that their rights are protected. You know, the fact that Republicans and even our president disparages people with different abilities is incredibly important.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I will extend that even to our senior community. You know, we are seeing that Social Security is expected to run out by 2032. Those are the priorities that I have and I will continue to have for the most vulnerable community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I will also share the fact that when we are talking about these priorities, again, we have to be thinking 10 years down the road, right? 15, 25 years. And that is not something that the Democratic Party or the Republicans tend to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think you saw in the Republican think tank Plan 2025, right, they actually put something out there. And you were talking about some of the issues that are popular. Here’s the facts: Medicare for All has been extremely popular, both Republicans and Democrats. These are populist issues that still the parties will not support just because industry is so deeply invested in policymaking, which is a deficit to the American people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As we think about long-term issues, Carol writes, and this one’s coming to you, Representative-elect. Carol writes, “I am afraid that the Democrats are dropping climate as a focus. Our world is dying around us. Affordability is linked to climate change, as we need to make that case and work to limit the harm done by our unsustainable lifestyles.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let me just tack on to this question, though, Representative-elect, that one thing that clearly made a difference in the election was the price of gas. And many climate policies would actually like fuel prices to go up so that people use less of them. How do you kind of try to find a climate policy that also could work in this era where affordability is such a huge concern?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, I mean, obviously, and for me and I know for my constituents and for many people, climate is incredibly important. This is about saving the planet. But we also need to be clear that climate action is pro-affordability. It lowers the cost of living.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There’s this notion that, frankly, the oil industry has helped fuel, that if you take climate action, you’re inherently making people’s lives more expensive. And that is false. Climate change is absolutely jacking up the cost of living. When we look at what wildfires are doing and sea level rise and what it’s doing to insurance, people are paying way more for insurance because of climate disasters.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People are paying way more to fill up their car because we are still hostage to the global oil markets. When you look at people’s electric bills that are exploding because of wildfires, we need an aggressive clean energy transition.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We passed the Inflation Reduction Act under Joe Biden, the biggest clean energy investment in U.S. history. Donald Trump has tried to blow it up. We need to do that times five to have cheap, abundant, affordable, clean energy, to get off of the global oil markets and to modernize our electric grid so we can electrify everything with cheap, clean energy. And we need to lower insurance costs. And these are all part of climate action. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Here’s another question I heard in particular. You know, education was a big issue down in Texas, kind of an underratedly big issue because of some changes that the Republicans made there in that state. Gina on the Discord writes, “I know education is largely funded and shaped at the local and state level, but I think our early childhood, K-through-12, and higher ed institutions need all the help they can get. What can Congress do to support our schools and fix the mess the administration has caused with student loans for college and grad school?” Representative Wahab.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> First and foremost, I actually think that they should be forgiving all the student loans. I am very fortunate to have paid off mine, but that is literally detrimental to so many people’s lives as they are starting out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The percentage of interest also on all of these student loans is extremely high. And you’re having an 18-year-old, a 19-year-old sign on paperwork that they’re not really well-informed on what’s going on. And we were able to forgive a lot of the business loans post-COVID, but we’re not protecting literally our kids.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not only that, but the federal government needs to invest more heavily in education. These noble professions that people go into, whether it’s nursing and social work and all of these types of professions, there has to be a larger investment also in these particular professions, because people go into it wanting to help, and it’s not necessarily the most lucrative, but it’s incredibly important to society as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I personally think that higher education should be free to anybody that is interested in educating themselves, and it benefits society. The more educated our populace, the better our policies, the better our communities, the safer communities are, and so much more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And we need to stop thinking that education should make a kid, you know, basically go bankrupt and, um, really cut their lives short in a lot of ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s get to one of these, you know, big questions that many people are asking in our comments here, really go to, like, what can be fixed or reversed without Trump’s approval? You know, we heard a lot, and Representative-elect, come to you on this. We heard a lot during the last two years that Congress had given away many of its powers or had neglected to sort of use them, kowtowing to whatever the Trump administration wanted to do and the executive branch wanted to. So what are the things that could just be immediately sort of picked back up as things Congress is owning the power of?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, a few things. I mean, Congress has given away its war powers and allowed the president to pursue this illegal and disastrous war in Iran, and we need to reassert our war powers and put an end to this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congress has given away its powers over immigration by letting ICE and Border Patrol, et cetera, do whatever they want with no oversight whatsoever. We need to take that back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And there are other things that we can do that I think we can get done. For example, to me, the number one emergency priority when we get sworn in is reversing the Medicaid cuts. If those cuts go into effect and stay in effect, hospitals will close, millions will be thrown off health care, everyone’s health care will be worse. It will cause incredible damage and scarring to our health care system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we should be reversing those cuts on day one. With 55, 56 senators, we might be able to get to a much higher threshold, because there are Republicans who have hospitals in their states that they don’t want to close down.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we should be aggressive on these issues that we know have broad support, like saving our health care system. Republicans don’t want hospitals to close. And be aggressive with the president and dare him, because is he really going to veto a bill that saves hospitals, including in red states?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the questions that I had, given how much you have liked legislating, do you think Democrats should take an actual — like, the size of the bills? You know, recently in Congress, there’ve been so few bills passed, and they’ve been these big omnibus things like the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Do you think the route for Democrats is to kind of slim down and make more targeted legislation that can pass?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, obviously Congress is always going to be different than a state legislature, where in the state legislature we have a ton of individual bills, and the governor signs or acts on, like, whatever, 800, 1,000 bills a year. It’s different in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do think it would be good not to do so much in these massive mega-bills. The reason that happens is because sometimes that’s the only way to be able to get a whole bunch of things through, by tying them all together. And so I understand that reality.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I also think that we should strengthen the ability of individual committees to do that policy work, not necessarily tied to a massive mega-bill, but on an individual basis. And we saw that recently with the Road to Housing Act that Elizabeth Warren passed, partnering with Maxine Waters and with Tim Scott. It was a bipartisan bill that passed almost unanimously, with some great housing reforms, the first big housing law that passed Congress in decades. And that was about housing. It was not part of an omnibus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think it can be done, and I hope to see more of that. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, let’s bring in Carl. Welcome, Carl.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Carl:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Uh, congratulations to you all. Uh, I think, uh, now that the election is done, I want my fellow Bay Area people and people across the country to know that, you know, the hard work is just beginning. How do our leaders plan to keep us engaged in helping you get the job done? I don’t think we get to just vote and then call it quits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s start with Representative Wahab on that one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, I host town halls every single month. I want people to know what’s going on. I wanna be very honest about what is happening in D.C.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I also think there’s a disconnect between D.C. and the larger public. And we get so into our silos of thinking and planning and policy drafting and making decisions that sometimes we don’t explain why something sounds great but we didn’t support it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so I’ve kind of shared kind of what I do in my district. I think we need to do more of that. And the larger public — democracy is an active, participatory effort. And if you’re not participating, if you’re not informed, if you’re not voting and making decisions, oftentimes there’s a huge sense of apathy between the voter and people saying, okay, well, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are identical in a lot of ways, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so if you have ideas, please share it with us. We want to engage every single voter in not only our district, but hopefully the nation, to kind of understand what is going on and why.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Last few comments coming in. I’m just going to run through a couple here. Text writes, “I hear people calling for moving forward and not spending time on impeachment or investigation. I think this is the wrong approach. The people who are currently in charge have so blatantly broken laws and abused their power. If we do not address those transgressions and hold people accountable for criminal and immoral behavior, then it leaves wide open for future administrations and politicians to ignore the rule of law.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wayne writes, “Trump as well as Biden lost popular support because they failed to address the personal economics of average Americans, who could care much less about what’s happening on the national economic level. If Dems are to keep this national support, they need to regain the FDR commitment to ordinary people with clear, concrete plans.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Leanne writes, “President Trump has reportedly made billions through his investments and family interactions with foreign leaders. When he is busy creating personal income, he’s not focused on the needs of the nation. Could a special tax be placed upon the president and his family to limit total income to a reasonable amount, with a 100% tax on income that exceeds that reasonable amount? We hire a president to work for the American people, not engorge his personal wealth.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have been talking with Bay Area members of the new Congress. We’ve been hearing about their priorities and your priorities out there among listeners for this new Congress. We’ve been joined by Representative-elect Scott Wiener. Thank you so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve also been joined by Representative Aisha Wahab from the 14th District. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Earlier, we heard from Representative Zoe Lofgren from District 18 in the South Bay and Representative Lateefah Simon, District 12 in the East Bay. Thank you so much to everyone who called or wrote in. I’m so sorry we couldn’t get to everyone throughout the course of the show, but we really appreciate your engagement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In a town hall-style Forum, we’ll hear from Bay Area members of Congress about their plans, priorities and the possibilities for investigating the Trump administration. The conversation comes in the wake of the midterm elections, where Democrats won majorities in both houses of Congress. We’ll ask these Bay Area officials how they’ll use their power in Washington and what they will prioritize. And they’ll hear from you about what issues you want addressed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re joined this morning by representatives from the Bay Area congressional delegation, fresh off their individual wins, as well as the overall Democratic mega-tsunami that we saw on Tuesday. We want you to have a chance to ask them some questions in this new era. What do you want your member of Congress and Congress overall to prioritize in the next two years? You can give us a call early: 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786, or you can email forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re joined this morning by representatives from the Bay Area congressional delegation, fresh off their individual wins, as well as the overall Democratic mega-tsunami that we saw on Tuesday. We want you to have a chance to ask them some questions in this new era. What do you want your member of Congress and Congress overall to prioritize in the next two years? You can give us a call early: 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786, or you can email forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Up first, we’re joined by Representative Zoe Lofgren from the U.S. House of Representatives, District 18. Welcome, Representative. Good morning. We’ve got Representative Lateefah Simon, District 12 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Welcome, Representative.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Up first, we’re joined by Representative Zoe Lofgren from the U.S. House of Representatives, District 18. Welcome, Representative. Good morning. We’ve got Representative Lateefah Simon, District 12 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Welcome, Representative.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Good morning. Good to be on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Good morning. Good to be on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Representative-elect Scott Wiener. You just heard, just won for San Francisco. That’s District 11. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Representative-elect Scott Wiener. You just heard, just won for San Francisco. That’s District 11. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, thanks again to all of you for joining us. Congratulations on your election or reelection. Of course, you’re part of this incoming wave of Democrats, the size of which we haven’t seen in a very long time. And a lot of these other Democrats are gonna be coming from places that don’t look very much like Santa Clara County or Alameda County or San Francisco. You’re gonna have a Republican president, of course, two years to show some results on the things voters said they care about. So what’s the plan? Representative Lofgren, do you wanna go first?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, thanks again to all of you for joining us. Congratulations on your election or reelection. Of course, you’re part of this incoming wave of Democrats, the size of which we haven’t seen in a very long time. And a lot of these other Democrats are gonna be coming from places that don’t look very much like Santa Clara County or Alameda County or San Francisco. You’re gonna have a Republican president, of course, two years to show some results on the things voters said they care about. So what’s the plan? Representative Lofgren, do you wanna go first?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Sure. You know, I think Hakeem laid out the initial efforts. I mean, people have a variety of concerns about what’s going on in the country, but huge among them is cost. Prices are too high. Salaries haven’t kept up, and people are squeezed, and we need to do our best to do something about that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Sure. You know, I think Hakeem laid out the initial efforts. I mean, people have a variety of concerns about what’s going on in the country, but huge among them is cost. Prices are too high. Salaries haven’t kept up, and people are squeezed, and we need to do our best to do something about that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The first and most direct way that the legislative branch can deal with that is to reverse the disastrous effects of the cuts to the Medicaid program, as well as the Affordable Care Act. Health care costs are spiking, and we need to bring that down. That’s not all we need to do, but that will help. We also need to do something about the cuts to the food assistance program, which is hurting not only recipients but also farmers who sell the produce.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The first and most direct way that the legislative branch can deal with that is to reverse the disastrous effects of the cuts to the Medicaid program, as well as the Affordable Care Act. Health care costs are spiking, and we need to bring that down. That’s not all we need to do, but that will help. We also need to do something about the cuts to the food assistance program, which is hurting not only recipients but also farmers who sell the produce.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We then also need to hold the president and his administration accountable, and people are sick of the corruption that they’ve seen, and we need to be transparent about that. Hakeem mentioned, and I agree, that we will pass a ban on stock trading for Congress, and I likely will add in the president and his family as well. So that’s the first few days. And we’ve got a lot of work to do after that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We then also need to hold the president and his administration accountable, and people are sick of the corruption that they’ve seen, and we need to be transparent about that. Hakeem mentioned, and I agree, that we will pass a ban on stock trading for Congress, and I likely will add in the president and his family as well. So that’s the first few days. And we’ve got a lot of work to do after that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m eager to hear what your viewers or listeners have to say, but let me just say this: The work of the Congress goes through our committees. I, if all goes well, will chair the Science Committee, and I have already prepared oversight letters. We need to try and rescue the science enterprise from the tremendous damage that has been done to it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m eager to hear what your viewers or listeners have to say, but let me just say this: The work of the Congress goes through our committees. I, if all goes well, will chair the Science Committee, and I have already prepared oversight letters. We need to try and rescue the science enterprise from the tremendous damage that has been done to it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for that, for the opening statement, Representative Zoe Lofgren. Representative Simon, let’s come to you. I mean, Democrats really ran on affordability across the country, a kind of populism, I guess you might hear. Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa described it as — what specifically? Just give us one other idea. I heard from Representative Lofgren restoring cuts to Medicaid and trying to help on health care costs, food assistance program. What else?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for that, for the opening statement, Representative Zoe Lofgren. Representative Simon, let’s come to you. I mean, Democrats really ran on affordability across the country, a kind of populism, I guess you might hear. Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa described it as — what specifically? Just give us one other idea. I heard from Representative Lofgren restoring cuts to Medicaid and trying to help on health care costs, food assistance program. What else?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> And there’s so much, and I think we are gonna come in with a fever that matches what real people in real communities, what they said to us on Tuesday. Folks are suffering.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> And there’s so much, and I think we are gonna come in with a fever that matches what real people in real communities, what they said to us on Tuesday. Folks are suffering.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Just a couple of things. You know, you said that this was essentially a blue wave, but we haven’t seen this majority since 2008. But I want to be clear: We have to put the Medicaid cuts and the ACA credits on the desk of the president, and we have to dare him to vote down health care. That’s for the single mother in West Virginia and the young college student here in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Just a couple of things. You know, you said that this was essentially a blue wave, but we haven’t seen this majority since 2008. But I want to be clear: We have to put the Medicaid cuts and the ACA credits on the desk of the president, and we have to dare him to vote down health care. That’s for the single mother in West Virginia and the young college student here in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Every dollar that this government spends will now have to run through the Democrats who are prioritizing affordability and who are prioritizing protecting us. I think what is important to me, my constituency has asked me to vote no on any blank checks for ICE, no more tax dollars for bombs. We must vote for meals over munitions every day, and that’s what I plan to do. Yeah, yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Every dollar that this government spends will now have to run through the Democrats who are prioritizing affordability and who are prioritizing protecting us. I think what is important to me, my constituency has asked me to vote no on any blank checks for ICE, no more tax dollars for bombs. We must vote for meals over munitions every day, and that’s what I plan to do. Yeah, yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative-elect Scott Wiener, you were known in the California State House as just a prolific legislator. Do you plan on trying to bring the same approach to Washington, and what ideas do you have that might be outside of what is initially being talked about in Washington?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> First of all, I’m so grateful to the people of San Francisco for sending me to Congress, and I take this responsibility so seriously because it’s a dangerous time, but also a time of great opportunity to show that government and democracy can actually work to make people’s lives better and more affordable, and that people don’t need to turn to authoritarianism to do that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> First of all, I’m so grateful to the people of San Francisco for sending me to Congress, and I take this responsibility so seriously because it’s a dangerous time, but also a time of great opportunity to show that government and democracy can actually work to make people’s lives better and more affordable, and that people don’t need to turn to authoritarianism to do that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so we need to deliver now, and I fully agree that we need to immediately reverse the Medicaid cuts so we don’t crater our health care system, because that will make people’s lives worse and much less affordable. And I agree with Congresswoman Lofgren that we need to ban congressional stock trading and really take a strong and quick anti-corruption stance and end the war in Iran. And so, so much work to do there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so we need to deliver now, and I fully agree that we need to immediately reverse the Medicaid cuts so we don’t crater our health care system, because that will make people’s lives worse and much less affordable. And I agree with Congresswoman Lofgren that we need to ban congressional stock trading and really take a strong and quick anti-corruption stance and end the war in Iran. And so, so much work to do there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then, in addition to all the immediate needs, we need to send clear signals that we’re focused on lowering people’s cost of housing. We need to build millions of homes in this country, and the federal government needs to be a full partner in doing that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then, in addition to all the immediate needs, we need to send clear signals that we’re focused on lowering people’s cost of housing. We need to build millions of homes in this country, and the federal government needs to be a full partner in doing that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And we need to regulate AI. And I think Congress has to play a huge role there. It’s 2026, and we don’t have a federal data privacy law. We want to make sure that technology, including AI, is benefiting people and not harming people, and that big corporations should not be the decision makers about how AI is going to change people’s lives for better or for worse. We need the federal government to play a role there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And we need to regulate AI. And I think Congress has to play a huge role there. It’s 2026, and we don’t have a federal data privacy law. We want to make sure that technology, including AI, is benefiting people and not harming people, and that big corporations should not be the decision makers about how AI is going to change people’s lives for better or for worse. We need the federal government to play a role there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative Lofgren, I mean, you’ve been in Congress at different times, with different configurations of parties and congressional chambers and the president. When Democrats have the House and the Senate and pretty commanding majorities in both places, but there is a Republican president named Donald Trump who will probably veto just about everything you send to him, so what is the power that Democrats will have in Congress?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative Lofgren, I mean, you’ve been in Congress at different times, with different configurations of parties and congressional chambers and the president. When Democrats have the House and the Senate and pretty commanding majorities in both places, but there is a Republican president named Donald Trump who will probably veto just about everything you send to him, so what is the power that Democrats will have in Congress?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, he’s going to need some things from us, and we’ll have to leverage our authority to get for our people what they need. We’ll see. He did say he didn’t want to spend his entire next two years vetoing bills.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, he’s going to need some things from us, and we’ll have to leverage our authority to get for our people what they need. We’ll see. He did say he didn’t want to spend his entire next two years vetoing bills.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We need to fund the government. When you fund the government, there are negotiations, and we’re laser-focused on what people were telling us in this election. And they need some help. We need to stand up for them, and we intend to do that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We need to fund the government. When you fund the government, there are negotiations, and we’re laser-focused on what people were telling us in this election. And they need some help. We need to stand up for them, and we intend to do that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Certainly, we can’t take responsibility for Donald Trump, but we can put it to him. And certainly, not just him, but his whole party got their head handed to them on Election Day. I wouldn’t rule out the idea that we could even override some vetoes on some key things, because I think the Republicans had a little wake-up call from American voters.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Certainly, we can’t take responsibility for Donald Trump, but we can put it to him. And certainly, not just him, but his whole party got their head handed to them on Election Day. I wouldn’t rule out the idea that we could even override some vetoes on some key things, because I think the Republicans had a little wake-up call from American voters.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s a really interesting question. Do you expect different behavior out of the Republican Party given what just happened?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s a really interesting question. Do you expect different behavior out of the Republican Party given what just happened?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, it’s who’s left, of course, are people who weren’t rebuked by their voters. But I think certainly I have a lot of friends who are Republicans. I work across the aisle on the Science Committee all the time, and there are members of the Republican Party who live on Earth, too. But there are plenty of them who — they can see what’s happening. And I think at least we can talk to some of them about the need for them to preserve themselves by serving the American people with us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, it’s who’s left, of course, are people who weren’t rebuked by their voters. But I think certainly I have a lot of friends who are Republicans. I work across the aisle on the Science Committee all the time, and there are members of the Republican Party who live on Earth, too. But there are plenty of them who — they can see what’s happening. And I think at least we can talk to some of them about the need for them to preserve themselves by serving the American people with us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s try and squeeze in a caller here. Randy in San Jose, welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s try and squeeze in a caller here. Randy in San Jose, welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Randy:\u003c/strong> Thank you. I have a quick question. You know, there’s a lot of billionaires that live in the Bay Area. Are you guys going to be working for them, or are you going to be working for us? What are you gonna do about the billionaires? They’re totally out of control.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Randy:\u003c/strong> Thank you. I have a quick question. You know, there’s a lot of billionaires that live in the Bay Area. Are you guys going to be working for them, or are you going to be working for us? What are you gonna do about the billionaires? They’re totally out of control.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Randy in San Jose, appreciate that. Representative Simon, let’s come to you. I mean, what was the message you got from your voters? Billionaire tax went down in California and also across the country. There was quite a popular surge, a lot of anger specifically about the tech industry and its wealthiest people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Randy in San Jose, appreciate that. Representative Simon, let’s come to you. I mean, what was the message you got from your voters? Billionaire tax went down in California and also across the country. There was quite a popular surge, a lot of anger specifically about the tech industry and its wealthiest people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> You know, the reality, and I say it time and time again, that a nurse cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in my district. It is very real. And that anger comes from the wealth divide that, for many of us, it’s not new.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> You know, the reality, and I say it time and time again, that a nurse cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in my district. It is very real. And that anger comes from the wealth divide that, for many of us, it’s not new.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The proliferation of wealth is something that has to be legislated in terms of a taxation system on the federal level. You know, I deeply and profoundly believe that we shouldn’t have people sleeping on the concrete and then literally blocks, you know, 10 blocks north or south, someone living in a castle. We’re gonna have to figure that out.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The proliferation of wealth is something that has to be legislated in terms of a taxation system on the federal level. You know, I deeply and profoundly believe that we shouldn’t have people sleeping on the concrete and then literally blocks, you know, 10 blocks north or south, someone living in a castle. We’re gonna have to figure that out.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’ve been a proponent of a just taxation system before I got into politics, and I think we’re gonna have to lead on this at the federal level. And I’m excited to be one of those voices.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’ve been a proponent of a just taxation system before I got into politics, and I think we’re gonna have to lead on this at the federal level. And I’m excited to be one of those voices.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Can I pop in, since this is a caller? We work for the voters who elected us, and that’s not the billionaires. There is a federal bill to do what Prop 40 was trying to do, which is to actually capture the extraordinary wealth that is accumulated in the billionaire class. I am a co-sponsor of that bill, and I’m hoping that we can move something like it at a federal level and start dealing with the issue that you’ve raised. It’s really unconscionable. Yeah. Yep.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Can I pop in, since this is a caller? We work for the voters who elected us, and that’s not the billionaires. There is a federal bill to do what Prop 40 was trying to do, which is to actually capture the extraordinary wealth that is accumulated in the billionaire class. I am a co-sponsor of that bill, and I’m hoping that we can move something like it at a federal level and start dealing with the issue that you’ve raised. It’s really unconscionable. Yeah. Yep.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, we are having a little town hall-style \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> today. We are lucky enough to have some members of the Bay Area congressional delegation, people will be headed to the 120th Congress. We’ve got Representative Zoe Lofgren. We have Representative Lateefah Simon, and we’ve got Representative-elect Scott Wiener.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, we are having a little town hall-style \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> today. We are lucky enough to have some members of the Bay Area congressional delegation, people will be headed to the 120th Congress. We’ve got Representative Zoe Lofgren. We have Representative Lateefah Simon, and we’ve got Representative-elect Scott Wiener.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We want to hear from you. What do you want your member of Congress to prioritize in the next couple of years, or Congress overall? 866-733-6786. If you can’t get through there, which looks like it might be a little bit tough, try emailing us: forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We want to hear from you. What do you want your member of Congress to prioritize in the next couple of years, or Congress overall? 866-733-6786. If you can’t get through there, which looks like it might be a little bit tough, try emailing us: forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Here’s a few things coming in already. Deanne writes, “My wish is that the next Congress not waste time and energy impeaching the president yet again or relitigating the past. Focus on repairing damage done to working people, small businesses, and those harmed by ICE and wrongful deportation during the president’s term. The more often he uses the veto pen, the more ridiculous he will look.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Here’s a few things coming in already. Deanne writes, “My wish is that the next Congress not waste time and energy impeaching the president yet again or relitigating the past. Focus on repairing damage done to working people, small businesses, and those harmed by ICE and wrongful deportation during the president’s term. The more often he uses the veto pen, the more ridiculous he will look.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more, right after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more, right after the break.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re joined by members of the Bay Area congressional delegation. We’ve got Zoe Lofgren, Lateefah Simon, and Representative-elect Scott Wiener here with us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re joined by members of the Bay Area congressional delegation. We’ve got Zoe Lofgren, Lateefah Simon, and Representative-elect Scott Wiener here with us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So here is maybe the big question on many Democrats’ minds, many people across the country. And I think Zoe Lofgren will start with you on this one. I mean, you’ve been involved in several congressional investigations in recent decades, including the January 6 committee, Trump’s first impeachment. Do you see a pathway opening for another impeachment? Do you think there are other avenues for doing investigations? It seems to me that there’s this real hunger for accountability on one side, and also to, as I think you hear, like, for example, Josh Shapiro say, get stuff done, you know? So what’s the balance there going in?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So here is maybe the big question on many Democrats’ minds, many people across the country. And I think Zoe Lofgren will start with you on this one. I mean, you’ve been involved in several congressional investigations in recent decades, including the January 6 committee, Trump’s first impeachment. Do you see a pathway opening for another impeachment? Do you think there are other avenues for doing investigations? It seems to me that there’s this real hunger for accountability on one side, and also to, as I think you hear, like, for example, Josh Shapiro say, get stuff done, you know? So what’s the balance there going in?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, I think we need a national conversation about what to do on this subject. Certainly the president has committed a number of impeachable offenses, but does that mean we should impeach? Because unless you get a conviction in the Senate, he will just treat that as an exoneration.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, I think we need a national conversation about what to do on this subject. Certainly the president has committed a number of impeachable offenses, but does that mean we should impeach? Because unless you get a conviction in the Senate, he will just treat that as an exoneration.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Having been on the Judiciary Committee my entire time in Congress, it’s the Judiciary Committee only that gets so consumed by the impeachment hearings, not the whole body. Plenty of other work can happen.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Having been on the Judiciary Committee my entire time in Congress, it’s the Judiciary Committee only that gets so consumed by the impeachment hearings, not the whole body. Plenty of other work can happen.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But there are things that we need to do in the Judiciary Committee. One of which is we need to get a grip on the out-of-control immigration enforcement. And the easiest way to do that is to finally, and I hope very soon, do some common-sense reforms of the legal immigration system so we don’t see husbands and wives of American citizens being ripped out of their families’ arms. I mean, it’s insane.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But there are things that we need to do in the Judiciary Committee. One of which is we need to get a grip on the out-of-control immigration enforcement. And the easiest way to do that is to finally, and I hope very soon, do some common-sense reforms of the legal immigration system so we don’t see husbands and wives of American citizens being ripped out of their families’ arms. I mean, it’s insane.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So that is a major goal of mine. We’ve got ICE is out of control. We need to right-size their budget and get some sanity in the immigration program. So, you know, I think we need to listen to the country. We need to have a discussion, and we need to hold them accountable. But impeachment is certainly not the only way, and perhaps not the best way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So that is a major goal of mine. We’ve got ICE is out of control. We need to right-size their budget and get some sanity in the immigration program. So, you know, I think we need to listen to the country. We need to have a discussion, and we need to hold them accountable. But impeachment is certainly not the only way, and perhaps not the best way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Jessica writes, “ICE has been terrorizing and brutalizing people for two years. What are you gonna do to stop them, hold them accountable?” I think you’re starting to address that there, Representative. Let me ask you, Representative-elect Wiener, as someone who’s coming in from the outside, someone who has clashed with the administration already, what do you think your voters want you to do on this score? In terms of ICE? In terms of accountability for the administration?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Jessica writes, “ICE has been terrorizing and brutalizing people for two years. What are you gonna do to stop them, hold them accountable?” I think you’re starting to address that there, Representative. Let me ask you, Representative-elect Wiener, as someone who’s coming in from the outside, someone who has clashed with the administration already, what do you think your voters want you to do on this score? In terms of ICE? In terms of accountability for the administration?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, people want accountability, and, you know, frankly, if there’s no accountability, then the rule of law truly means nothing. And that accountability can take different forms. I know there’s an ongoing discussion about whether impeaching the president is the best course. I mean, clearly, he’s a walking impeachable offense, and if it were put to a vote, I would absolutely vote for it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, people want accountability, and, you know, frankly, if there’s no accountability, then the rule of law truly means nothing. And that accountability can take different forms. I know there’s an ongoing discussion about whether impeaching the president is the best course. I mean, clearly, he’s a walking impeachable offense, and if it were put to a vote, I would absolutely vote for it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But the corruption and the lawlessness runs so much deeper than the president. It’s his family, but it’s also members of the Cabinet. It’s Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, Jared Kushner. And we need to make sure that we are focusing not just on the president. We also know that the lawlessness does extend to ICE and Border Patrol, just brazenly violating people’s constitutional rights with a complete sense of impunity.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But the corruption and the lawlessness runs so much deeper than the president. It’s his family, but it’s also members of the Cabinet. It’s Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, Jared Kushner. And we need to make sure that we are focusing not just on the president. We also know that the lawlessness does extend to ICE and Border Patrol, just brazenly violating people’s constitutional rights with a complete sense of impunity.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I passed a law this year that the governor signed to authorize people to be able to sue federal agents like ICE and Border Patrol. We need to do that at the federal level and make that very clear, that everyone is accountable and there is no impunity.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I passed a law this year that the governor signed to authorize people to be able to sue federal agents like ICE and Border Patrol. We need to do that at the federal level and make that very clear, that everyone is accountable and there is no impunity.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But with all of this work against the lawlessness, and to have accountability, as critically important as it is, we need to make sure it does not overshadow our work to lower people’s cost of living, to make sure people can afford housing and health care and energy costs, because that’s what people want. And we need to show as Democrats that we can deliver. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But with all of this work against the lawlessness, and to have accountability, as critically important as it is, we need to make sure it does not overshadow our work to lower people’s cost of living, to make sure people can afford housing and health care and energy costs, because that’s what people want. And we need to show as Democrats that we can deliver. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, couple of — one quick comment and then one quick call on this. Paul writes, “First, I want to see a deep investigation of all the Trump crime family grifts, as well as releasing the complete Epstein files, which are the original cause of all that grifting to start with. We need to send a strong message to the next wannabe dictators that our country will not stand for it. Then fix health care and the environment, et cetera.” James in Burlingame, welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, couple of — one quick comment and then one quick call on this. Paul writes, “First, I want to see a deep investigation of all the Trump crime family grifts, as well as releasing the complete Epstein files, which are the original cause of all that grifting to start with. We need to send a strong message to the next wannabe dictators that our country will not stand for it. Then fix health care and the environment, et cetera.” James in Burlingame, welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Thank you for making my call one of the plan with the new Democratic wave in Congress to address the, you know, very failing Department of Justice, for example, the 94 district U.S. district attorneys. And, you know, what you’ve got an entire Justice Department and also part of the whole Homeland Security, et cetera, guilty to the president. How is that going to figure into the plans that I’m hearing right now on this program? Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Thank you for making my call one of the plan with the new Democratic wave in Congress to address the, you know, very failing Department of Justice, for example, the 94 district U.S. district attorneys. And, you know, what you’ve got an entire Justice Department and also part of the whole Homeland Security, et cetera, guilty to the president. How is that going to figure into the plans that I’m hearing right now on this program? Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks, James. Thanks, James.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks, James. Thanks, James.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> I’ll jump in. This is Lateefah Simon. In my first two years of Congress, I got the opportunity to serve on the Oversight Committee, and that is the committee. There’s also Judiciary, and we’re going to hold these fools accountable. Having the gavel allows us to subpoena them, hold them in contempt if they don’t show. And I think we need to be extremely aggressive with every secretary that has betrayed the American people. And every single one of them has betrayed the American people. They are lawless. Our president is lawless.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> I’ll jump in. This is Lateefah Simon. In my first two years of Congress, I got the opportunity to serve on the Oversight Committee, and that is the committee. There’s also Judiciary, and we’re going to hold these fools accountable. Having the gavel allows us to subpoena them, hold them in contempt if they don’t show. And I think we need to be extremely aggressive with every secretary that has betrayed the American people. And every single one of them has betrayed the American people. They are lawless. Our president is lawless.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But again, holding the gavel means we hold the room and we hold them accountable. The Oversight Committee under the Republicans, they refused to meet. They stopped having hearings because they knew, they knew that their party and their secretaries appointed by the president and approved by the Senate were lawless. We’re going to hold their feet to the fire. Robert Garcia will be the chair of the Oversight Committee, God willing, and watch him cook.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But again, holding the gavel means we hold the room and we hold them accountable. The Oversight Committee under the Republicans, they refused to meet. They stopped having hearings because they knew, they knew that their party and their secretaries appointed by the president and approved by the Senate were lawless. We’re going to hold their feet to the fire. Robert Garcia will be the chair of the Oversight Committee, God willing, and watch him cook.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> I’ll just add in before I have to leave at 9:30, but the Judiciary Committee incoming chairman, Jamie Raskin, has already laid out as well an oversight agenda. The DOJ has gone completely off the rails. And obviously, they’re the executive branch, but we can do oversight.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> I’ll just add in before I have to leave at 9:30, but the Judiciary Committee incoming chairman, Jamie Raskin, has already laid out as well an oversight agenda. The DOJ has gone completely off the rails. And obviously, they’re the executive branch, but we can do oversight.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, you know, many of the lawyers there who engaged in this conduct should lose their licenses. Some should be referred to state prosecution, and really, the rule of law has been heavily eroded.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And, you know, many of the lawyers there who engaged in this conduct should lose their licenses. Some should be referred to state prosecution, and really, the rule of law has been heavily eroded.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I’m hopeful that we can get my bill that creates real immigration courts instead of these kangaroo courts passed, because for the most part, with the exception of the Supreme Court, the judiciary has held. They have upheld the rule of law. And so strengthening the judicial branch is part of what we need to do as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I’m hopeful that we can get my bill that creates real immigration courts instead of these kangaroo courts passed, because for the most part, with the exception of the Supreme Court, the judiciary has held. They have upheld the rule of law. And so strengthening the judicial branch is part of what we need to do as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, and if folks want to hear more about that, we did an entire show with a former — and, like, fired — immigration judges who described the strangeness of our immigration court system, or so-called immigration court system.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, and if folks want to hear more about that, we did an entire show with a former — and, like, fired — immigration judges who described the strangeness of our immigration court system, or so-called immigration court system.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Um, Representative Lofgren, I know you’ve got to know and go in just a sec. So let me just throw one more question, too quickly. Ashley writes, “I’d like to ask the representatives what they plan to do in terms of immigration for DACA holders. This is deferred action program started under President Obama. These are individuals who are American in every sense of the word except on paper. DACA must be protected. What can be done in the legislature?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Um, Representative Lofgren, I know you’ve got to know and go in just a sec. So let me just throw one more question, too quickly. Ashley writes, “I’d like to ask the representatives what they plan to do in terms of immigration for DACA holders. This is deferred action program started under President Obama. These are individuals who are American in every sense of the word except on paper. DACA must be protected. What can be done in the legislature?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, there is a bill to deal with DACA. I’m on it. There’s a discharge petition that I’ve signed. But I think we have an opportunity to do more than that. We should certainly do that. But if you ask Americans, if you’ve been here a long time, and other than your paperwork on your immigration status, you’ve been a good person, you’ve worked hard, you’ve paid your taxes, you’re a contributing member of your community, and you’ve been here 10, 12 years, should you have a way to get right with the law? And almost everybody says yes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, there is a bill to deal with DACA. I’m on it. There’s a discharge petition that I’ve signed. But I think we have an opportunity to do more than that. We should certainly do that. But if you ask Americans, if you’ve been here a long time, and other than your paperwork on your immigration status, you’ve been a good person, you’ve worked hard, you’ve paid your taxes, you’re a contributing member of your community, and you’ve been here 10, 12 years, should you have a way to get right with the law? And almost everybody says yes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So if we were to do — and there’s a provision in current law that allows for that — if we could update it, that would solve a lot of problems, including the DACA recipients.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So if we were to do — and there’s a provision in current law that allows for that — if we could update it, that would solve a lot of problems, including the DACA recipients.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think people want sensible laws that promote family unity in this country, that support the American economy, elevate the American workforce. They don’t want the crazy stuff that this administration is doing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think people want sensible laws that promote family unity in this country, that support the American economy, elevate the American workforce. They don’t want the crazy stuff that this administration is doing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We do need to have order at the border. We can’t have the kind of chaos that President Biden permitted, much to his discredit. But I don’t think people wanted ICE, masked agents, armed agents running around and randomly kidnapping people. That wasn’t what people wanted.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We do need to have order at the border. We can’t have the kind of chaos that President Biden permitted, much to his discredit. But I don’t think people wanted ICE, masked agents, armed agents running around and randomly kidnapping people. That wasn’t what people wanted.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> You know, so I, I — this is Lateefah. Just a couple of days ago, I took into custody a young woman, a student at UC Berkeley with an active asylum case, and she is detained. She is a child. You think of your college student friends or your children. Can you imagine?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> You know, so I, I — this is Lateefah. Just a couple of days ago, I took into custody a young woman, a student at UC Berkeley with an active asylum case, and she is detained. She is a child. You think of your college student friends or your children. Can you imagine?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we have a shared — I think every single Democrat has a shared wanting to get this right. A 19-year-old, a 20-year-old college student with an active asylum case should not be in a cage. Yeah. You’re right.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we have a shared — I think every single Democrat has a shared wanting to get this right. A 19-year-old, a 20-year-old college student with an active asylum case should not be in a cage. Yeah. You’re right.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Representative Simon. Representative Lofgren, thank you so much for making time. I know it’s very busy right now. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Representative Simon. Representative Lofgren, thank you so much for making time. I know it’s very busy right now. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Thank you very much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Thank you very much.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in another Bay Area congressional representative. We have Representative Aisha Wahab with us. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in another Bay Area congressional representative. We have Representative Aisha Wahab with us. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I want to say your race hasn’t been officially called yet, I think at least by the AP, but you’re up big, and some quarters are calling. So congratulations to you as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I want to say your race hasn’t been officially called yet, I think at least by the AP, but you’re up big, and some quarters are calling. So congratulations to you as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Let’s talk about — you ran big on affordability. You ran a great — read a great article about you in which one of your constituents said, “She’s like a regular person who cares about regular people.” So when you’re out there in your district talking with regular people, uh, number one thing that they said to you that you might actually be able to do in Congress?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Let’s talk about — you ran big on affordability. You ran a great — read a great article about you in which one of your constituents said, “She’s like a regular person who cares about regular people.” So when you’re out there in your district talking with regular people, uh, number one thing that they said to you that you might actually be able to do in Congress?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so I actually just came out of a local donut shop, and people were talking and congratulating me. And the honest truth is they want the government to focus on them. They are tired of the finger-pointing, and, you know, I’ll say this: Republicans and Democrats are both guilty of this. They keep pointing the finger, and the rhetoric, and they stand on their soapbox and they preach, um, and they get nothing done for the people, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so I actually just came out of a local donut shop, and people were talking and congratulating me. And the honest truth is they want the government to focus on them. They are tired of the finger-pointing, and, you know, I’ll say this: Republicans and Democrats are both guilty of this. They keep pointing the finger, and the rhetoric, and they stand on their soapbox and they preach, um, and they get nothing done for the people, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I will say this: We’ve heard you guys talk about Medicaid and overall health care reform, as well as potentially holding people accountable. I think we can do all of it at the same time. I understand some of the logistics there, but my biggest concern is we do need to tackle the monopolies, the fact that so many organizations are just merging and becoming these massive institutions that are controlling our market, whether it is in the housing scene. And I do believe that we actually need to kind of tackle that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I will say this: We’ve heard you guys talk about Medicaid and overall health care reform, as well as potentially holding people accountable. I think we can do all of it at the same time. I understand some of the logistics there, but my biggest concern is we do need to tackle the monopolies, the fact that so many organizations are just merging and becoming these massive institutions that are controlling our market, whether it is in the housing scene. And I do believe that we actually need to kind of tackle that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But it’s also, you know, from Amazon to Facebook and Meta, and you name it, you know, that is driving up costs, right? There is no true competition, no free market as they like to preach about. And Republicans and Democrats also need to take back congressional powers that they’ve let slip by.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But it’s also, you know, from Amazon to Facebook and Meta, and you name it, you know, that is driving up costs, right? There is no true competition, no free market as they like to preach about. And Republicans and Democrats also need to take back congressional powers that they’ve let slip by.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so I think that there’s a number of things that I’d like to work on, and personally, it’s an economic Bill of Rights. This is not a new idea. This is an idea from, you know, even a hundred years ago, that as Americans in the age of AI, we need to do better for the American people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so I think that there’s a number of things that I’d like to work on, and personally, it’s an economic Bill of Rights. This is not a new idea. This is an idea from, you know, even a hundred years ago, that as Americans in the age of AI, we need to do better for the American people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Scott Wiener, Representative-elect, this seems like a perfect place for you to enter the conversation as someone who was early to trying to regulate AI. You mentioned earlier in the show you want these things to work for people and not against them. What would the legislative approach to something like this be like, the planks of an economic Bill of Rights related to AI for you?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Scott Wiener, Representative-elect, this seems like a perfect place for you to enter the conversation as someone who was early to trying to regulate AI. You mentioned earlier in the show you want these things to work for people and not against them. What would the legislative approach to something like this be like, the planks of an economic Bill of Rights related to AI for you?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, when we started our work on regulating AI back in 2023, 2024, we were told by many that we were sort of crazy. It was all science fiction, we were making it up, we were doomers, and so on and so forth. And it turns out that so many of the things that we were talking about then in terms of the risks that we needed to legislate to protect people from are very real, like all the cyber hacking and the risk of a biological contagion.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, when we started our work on regulating AI back in 2023, 2024, we were told by many that we were sort of crazy. It was all science fiction, we were making it up, we were doomers, and so on and so forth. And it turns out that so many of the things that we were talking about then in terms of the risks that we needed to legislate to protect people from are very real, like all the cyber hacking and the risk of a biological contagion.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we are behind. We’ve done the work in California, with more work to come, but we really need Congress to step up. That means having a strong and nimble federal regulator who can keep up with the industry and act quickly and decisively when something dangerous is happening. We have that with the banking system. We have it with nuclear energy. We’ve done it before.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we are behind. We’ve done the work in California, with more work to come, but we really need Congress to step up. That means having a strong and nimble federal regulator who can keep up with the industry and act quickly and decisively when something dangerous is happening. We have that with the banking system. We have it with nuclear energy. We’ve done it before.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We need international agreements. This whole notion that we need to have this unlimited race towards superintelligence and autonomous lethal weapons and all of these other really problematic and really dangerous things because China will get there first — no. We need to be working with China because it’s not in anyone’s interest, China or the U.S., to have massive cyberattacks and to have chemical and biological weapons.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We need international agreements. This whole notion that we need to have this unlimited race towards superintelligence and autonomous lethal weapons and all of these other really problematic and really dangerous things because China will get there first — no. We need to be working with China because it’s not in anyone’s interest, China or the U.S., to have massive cyberattacks and to have chemical and biological weapons.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We also need strong tax policy, whether you call it a robot tax or when you have corporations that are massively increasing their profits at the expense of workers by eliminating massive numbers of workers to automate everything. There should be a significant tax on that transition so that the benefit of AI is spread to everyone, so that it’s not being cornered by a few corporations and by the wealthiest people. We need AI to benefit everyone, and tax policy, taxing those benefits, is absolutely essential so that people are not thrown into the gutter. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We also need strong tax policy, whether you call it a robot tax or when you have corporations that are massively increasing their profits at the expense of workers by eliminating massive numbers of workers to automate everything. There should be a significant tax on that transition so that the benefit of AI is spread to everyone, so that it’s not being cornered by a few corporations and by the wealthiest people. We need AI to benefit everyone, and tax policy, taxing those benefits, is absolutely essential so that people are not thrown into the gutter. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Appreciate that from Representative-elect Scott Wiener, joining us here this morning along with other members of the Bay Area delegation. Also, just want to note, you know, nonproliferation worked under very difficult circumstances, at least to some extent, and seems like a kind of similar call for regulation there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Appreciate that from Representative-elect Scott Wiener, joining us here this morning along with other members of the Bay Area delegation. Also, just want to note, you know, nonproliferation worked under very difficult circumstances, at least to some extent, and seems like a kind of similar call for regulation there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Representative Simon, a couple of questions here. Jane writes, “Many voters would like to see new leadership in both the House and Senate. What’s your opinion on choosing leaders other than Jeffries and Schumer?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Representative Simon, a couple of questions here. Jane writes, “Many voters would like to see new leadership in both the House and Senate. What’s your opinion on choosing leaders other than Jeffries and Schumer?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Well, I just want to be clear. I don’t know about the Senate, but Hakeem is going to be the speaker. But I was asked this question this morning. Actually, I’ve been asked the question every day, but a flurry of texts came in about the vote. And I want to be clear: The role of the speaker is to hold the floor, okay? There are 435 members of the House. If you look at how the framers wrote what the Congress should be, we all come in duly elected with the opportunity to lead, to introduce legislation, to vote for our district.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Well, I just want to be clear. I don’t know about the Senate, but Hakeem is going to be the speaker. But I was asked this question this morning. Actually, I’ve been asked the question every day, but a flurry of texts came in about the vote. And I want to be clear: The role of the speaker is to hold the floor, okay? There are 435 members of the House. If you look at how the framers wrote what the Congress should be, we all come in duly elected with the opportunity to lead, to introduce legislation, to vote for our district.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I want to say this before I go, because my two colleagues, who I can’t wait to hold my hand with on January 3rd, we will be sworn in together. We’re going to do so much work together. They know, like I do, we are public servants.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I want to say this before I go, because my two colleagues, who I can’t wait to hold my hand with on January 3rd, we will be sworn in together. We’re going to do so much work together. They know, like I do, we are public servants.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But on Tuesday, the people — and I’m going to go directly to your question — the people told the most powerful man in the country, no. And they did it with the ballot. They also said very clearly, like I said earlier, that they are suffering.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But on Tuesday, the people — and I’m going to go directly to your question — the people told the most powerful man in the country, no. And they did it with the ballot. They also said very clearly, like I said earlier, that they are suffering.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I come from the lineage of Ron Dellums and Barbara Lee, and we stood against war in this district when we stood alone, right? And so when we go back to work, the mandate is clear. The people of this country told leaders, “We will fire you if you don’t get it right.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I come from the lineage of Ron Dellums and Barbara Lee, and we stood against war in this district when we stood alone, right? And so when we go back to work, the mandate is clear. The people of this country told leaders, “We will fire you if you don’t get it right.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So leadership of the Democratic Party, I know their ears are open. They’re being pushed to be more decisive, to leave the old and tired rhetoric of just being in politics to the side and start working for real people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So leadership of the Democratic Party, I know their ears are open. They’re being pushed to be more decisive, to leave the old and tired rhetoric of just being in politics to the side and start working for real people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Our job, the folks on this phone right now, our job is to hold them to account. We’ve got to restore health care. We have to, again, promote meals over munitions. They’ve stolen SNAP from the hungriest people in this country. I think we’re going to do some work that the American people can be proud of for once, and I’m excited to be a part of, again, a new vision of folks coming in.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Our job, the folks on this phone right now, our job is to hold them to account. We’ve got to restore health care. We have to, again, promote meals over munitions. They’ve stolen SNAP from the hungriest people in this country. I think we’re going to do some work that the American people can be proud of for once, and I’m excited to be a part of, again, a new vision of folks coming in.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m a single mother. I passed five bills through this minority House — I mean, this majority House. And I plan to work with these two senior legislators to tear the House down in the most positive way. Thanks. And Scott and Aisha, I’m so proud of y’all. Let’s do the work. Let’s do the — what?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m a single mother. I passed five bills through this minority House — I mean, this majority House. And I plan to work with these two senior legislators to tear the House down in the most positive way. Thanks. And Scott and Aisha, I’m so proud of y’all. Let’s do the work. Let’s do the — what?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much, Representative Lateefah Simon, headed out. Thanks so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much, Representative Lateefah Simon, headed out. Thanks so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re still joined by Representative-elect Scott Wiener and Representative Aisha Wahab from the 14th District, that covers parts of the East and the South Bay. We’re gonna get to a bunch more of your calls and your comments with two of our newest members of the Bay Area House delegation. The number is 866-733-6786. The email is forum@kqed.org. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re still joined by Representative-elect Scott Wiener and Representative Aisha Wahab from the 14th District, that covers parts of the East and the South Bay. We’re gonna get to a bunch more of your calls and your comments with two of our newest members of the Bay Area House delegation. The number is 866-733-6786. The email is forum@kqed.org. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Representative-elect Scott Wiener from San Francisco, Representative Aisha Wahab from the East Bay, District 14. It’s got a little South Bay in it, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Representative-elect Scott Wiener from San Francisco, Representative Aisha Wahab from the East Bay, District 14. It’s got a little South Bay in it, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You both went up against the Democratic establishment. Representative-elect Wiener, Nancy Pelosi endorsed your competitor, of course, Kaine Chan. Aisha Wahab, I mean, you faced down kind of the whole Democratic establishment. Do you think — and Representative Wahab, we’ll start with you — do you think that gives you some extra room to try and shake things up in Congress? Or does it kind of find you on the outside of the halls of power there?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You both went up against the Democratic establishment. Representative-elect Wiener, Nancy Pelosi endorsed your competitor, of course, Kaine Chan. Aisha Wahab, I mean, you faced down kind of the whole Democratic establishment. Do you think — and Representative Wahab, we’ll start with you — do you think that gives you some extra room to try and shake things up in Congress? Or does it kind of find you on the outside of the halls of power there?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> You know, at the end of the day, I think that both Scott and I have always been very independent, but also team players. And that’s something that people don’t see until you’re actually in office, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> You know, at the end of the day, I think that both Scott and I have always been very independent, but also team players. And that’s something that people don’t see until you’re actually in office, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think for me, I’ve told all my colleagues and future colleagues that I am more than happy to work with them, regardless of party even, to get things done for the American people. But I have always been very vocal about what I see does not make sense for regular, everyday people. What I see even Democrats making bad decisions, wrong decisions, doing things that don’t prioritize the American people. And I have always been very vocal about it. I will continue to do so.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think for me, I’ve told all my colleagues and future colleagues that I am more than happy to work with them, regardless of party even, to get things done for the American people. But I have always been very vocal about what I see does not make sense for regular, everyday people. What I see even Democrats making bad decisions, wrong decisions, doing things that don’t prioritize the American people. And I have always been very vocal about it. I will continue to do so.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And yes, that ruffles feathers and upsets people, especially the old guard that is very top-down. And that’s just not who I have ever been, to just kind of succumb to what others say.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And yes, that ruffles feathers and upsets people, especially the old guard that is very top-down. And that’s just not who I have ever been, to just kind of succumb to what others say.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative-elect Wiener, I mean, do the Democrats need top-down leadership, though? Do they need to have a sense of unity going up against this administration?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative-elect Wiener, I mean, do the Democrats need top-down leadership, though? Do they need to have a sense of unity going up against this administration?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, I will say that in terms of the past election, elections are always very intense and, frankly, should be intense and spirited contests. And then it’s over, and you move forward.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, I will say that in terms of the past election, elections are always very intense and, frankly, should be intense and spirited contests. And then it’s over, and you move forward.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I’m going to be very eager to work with anyone who will work with me on issues of making people’s lives more affordable, and reinstating democracy and the rule of law, and going to the mat for San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I’m going to be very eager to work with anyone who will work with me on issues of making people’s lives more affordable, and reinstating democracy and the rule of law, and going to the mat for San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We need to, as Democrats, really focus on the things that unify us: really saving our health care system and expanding access to health care, creating a national housing policy so we’re building the homes that we need, having the rule of law and accountability, regulating AI, which I think has very, very broad support, and ending the war in Iran, and not funding ICE. It’s a paramilitary terror organization.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We need to, as Democrats, really focus on the things that unify us: really saving our health care system and expanding access to health care, creating a national housing policy so we’re building the homes that we need, having the rule of law and accountability, regulating AI, which I think has very, very broad support, and ending the war in Iran, and not funding ICE. It’s a paramilitary terror organization.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There are so many of these issues that unify us, and we will, of course, have disagreements. And that’s okay. And I’m someone who I’ve always worked closely with my colleagues in the legislature on both sides of the aisle when it’s doable. And there are times when you have to go your own way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There are so many of these issues that unify us, and we will, of course, have disagreements. And that’s okay. And I’m someone who I’ve always worked closely with my colleagues in the legislature on both sides of the aisle when it’s doable. And there are times when you have to go your own way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And first and foremost, I represent the people of San Francisco, and that will always be my top guiding star. But there are so many issues that unify us as Democrats, and we really, really need to focus on those. And they also have the benefit of being what the American people want us to focus on, like health care, housing, and energy costs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And first and foremost, I represent the people of San Francisco, and that will always be my top guiding star. But there are so many issues that unify us as Democrats, and we really, really need to focus on those. And they also have the benefit of being what the American people want us to focus on, like health care, housing, and energy costs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> The, uh, the old “Do popular things” platform.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> The, uh, the old “Do popular things” platform.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> And popular things that are also incredibly important to people’s lives.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> And popular things that are also incredibly important to people’s lives.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Rick in Citrus Heights. Welcome, Rick.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Rick in Citrus Heights. Welcome, Rick.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rick Hodgkins:\u003c/strong> First of all, before I ask my question, I want to say to you, Scott Wiener, I met you back in 2017 at the Citizens Hotel, J Street. I’m going to miss you. I was Senator Nielsen’s constituent back then. And Senator Wahab, I’ve always wanted to meet you. Remember my name. It’s Rick, R-I-C-K Hodgkins.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rick Hodgkins:\u003c/strong> First of all, before I ask my question, I want to say to you, Scott Wiener, I met you back in 2017 at the Citizens Hotel, J Street. I’m going to miss you. I was Senator Nielsen’s constituent back then. And Senator Wahab, I’ve always wanted to meet you. Remember my name. It’s Rick, R-I-C-K Hodgkins.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And my question for the both of you is, how do you plan to help people like myself with developmental disabilities in California? Because not only do I have Medi-Cal, which is our Medicaid program, but I also have Medicare. Thank you, and remember my name.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And my question for the both of you is, how do you plan to help people like myself with developmental disabilities in California? Because not only do I have Medi-Cal, which is our Medicaid program, but I also have Medicare. Thank you, and remember my name.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We got it. Thank you. Representative Wahab, let’s start with you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We got it. Thank you. Representative Wahab, let’s start with you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, folks with different abilities has always been a priority. In fact, we’ve passed a number of bills to protect them and enhance their rights in the state of California.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, folks with different abilities has always been a priority. In fact, we’ve passed a number of bills to protect them and enhance their rights in the state of California.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m sure Scott and I, as well as Lateefah, who’s been a deep, big proponent of a lot of the work that we’re talking about, we need to not only provide more funding to them, especially in this economic crisis that we are all facing, but also try to ensure that their rights are protected. You know, the fact that Republicans and even our president disparages people with different abilities is incredibly important.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m sure Scott and I, as well as Lateefah, who’s been a deep, big proponent of a lot of the work that we’re talking about, we need to not only provide more funding to them, especially in this economic crisis that we are all facing, but also try to ensure that their rights are protected. You know, the fact that Republicans and even our president disparages people with different abilities is incredibly important.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I will extend that even to our senior community. You know, we are seeing that Social Security is expected to run out by 2032. Those are the priorities that I have and I will continue to have for the most vulnerable community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I will extend that even to our senior community. You know, we are seeing that Social Security is expected to run out by 2032. Those are the priorities that I have and I will continue to have for the most vulnerable community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I will also share the fact that when we are talking about these priorities, again, we have to be thinking 10 years down the road, right? 15, 25 years. And that is not something that the Democratic Party or the Republicans tend to do.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I will also share the fact that when we are talking about these priorities, again, we have to be thinking 10 years down the road, right? 15, 25 years. And that is not something that the Democratic Party or the Republicans tend to do.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think you saw in the Republican think tank Plan 2025, right, they actually put something out there. And you were talking about some of the issues that are popular. Here’s the facts: Medicare for All has been extremely popular, both Republicans and Democrats. These are populist issues that still the parties will not support just because industry is so deeply invested in policymaking, which is a deficit to the American people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think you saw in the Republican think tank Plan 2025, right, they actually put something out there. And you were talking about some of the issues that are popular. Here’s the facts: Medicare for All has been extremely popular, both Republicans and Democrats. These are populist issues that still the parties will not support just because industry is so deeply invested in policymaking, which is a deficit to the American people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As we think about long-term issues, Carol writes, and this one’s coming to you, Representative-elect. Carol writes, “I am afraid that the Democrats are dropping climate as a focus. Our world is dying around us. Affordability is linked to climate change, as we need to make that case and work to limit the harm done by our unsustainable lifestyles.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As we think about long-term issues, Carol writes, and this one’s coming to you, Representative-elect. Carol writes, “I am afraid that the Democrats are dropping climate as a focus. Our world is dying around us. Affordability is linked to climate change, as we need to make that case and work to limit the harm done by our unsustainable lifestyles.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Let me just tack on to this question, though, Representative-elect, that one thing that clearly made a difference in the election was the price of gas. And many climate policies would actually like fuel prices to go up so that people use less of them. How do you kind of try to find a climate policy that also could work in this era where affordability is such a huge concern?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Let me just tack on to this question, though, Representative-elect, that one thing that clearly made a difference in the election was the price of gas. And many climate policies would actually like fuel prices to go up so that people use less of them. How do you kind of try to find a climate policy that also could work in this era where affordability is such a huge concern?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, I mean, obviously, and for me and I know for my constituents and for many people, climate is incredibly important. This is about saving the planet. But we also need to be clear that climate action is pro-affordability. It lowers the cost of living.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, I mean, obviously, and for me and I know for my constituents and for many people, climate is incredibly important. This is about saving the planet. But we also need to be clear that climate action is pro-affordability. It lowers the cost of living.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There’s this notion that, frankly, the oil industry has helped fuel, that if you take climate action, you’re inherently making people’s lives more expensive. And that is false. Climate change is absolutely jacking up the cost of living. When we look at what wildfires are doing and sea level rise and what it’s doing to insurance, people are paying way more for insurance because of climate disasters.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There’s this notion that, frankly, the oil industry has helped fuel, that if you take climate action, you’re inherently making people’s lives more expensive. And that is false. Climate change is absolutely jacking up the cost of living. When we look at what wildfires are doing and sea level rise and what it’s doing to insurance, people are paying way more for insurance because of climate disasters.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>People are paying way more to fill up their car because we are still hostage to the global oil markets. When you look at people’s electric bills that are exploding because of wildfires, we need an aggressive clean energy transition.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>People are paying way more to fill up their car because we are still hostage to the global oil markets. When you look at people’s electric bills that are exploding because of wildfires, we need an aggressive clean energy transition.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We passed the Inflation Reduction Act under Joe Biden, the biggest clean energy investment in U.S. history. Donald Trump has tried to blow it up. We need to do that times five to have cheap, abundant, affordable, clean energy, to get off of the global oil markets and to modernize our electric grid so we can electrify everything with cheap, clean energy. And we need to lower insurance costs. And these are all part of climate action. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We passed the Inflation Reduction Act under Joe Biden, the biggest clean energy investment in U.S. history. Donald Trump has tried to blow it up. We need to do that times five to have cheap, abundant, affordable, clean energy, to get off of the global oil markets and to modernize our electric grid so we can electrify everything with cheap, clean energy. And we need to lower insurance costs. And these are all part of climate action. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Here’s another question I heard in particular. You know, education was a big issue down in Texas, kind of an underratedly big issue because of some changes that the Republicans made there in that state. Gina on the Discord writes, “I know education is largely funded and shaped at the local and state level, but I think our early childhood, K-through-12, and higher ed institutions need all the help they can get. What can Congress do to support our schools and fix the mess the administration has caused with student loans for college and grad school?” Representative Wahab.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Here’s another question I heard in particular. You know, education was a big issue down in Texas, kind of an underratedly big issue because of some changes that the Republicans made there in that state. Gina on the Discord writes, “I know education is largely funded and shaped at the local and state level, but I think our early childhood, K-through-12, and higher ed institutions need all the help they can get. What can Congress do to support our schools and fix the mess the administration has caused with student loans for college and grad school?” Representative Wahab.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> First and foremost, I actually think that they should be forgiving all the student loans. I am very fortunate to have paid off mine, but that is literally detrimental to so many people’s lives as they are starting out.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> First and foremost, I actually think that they should be forgiving all the student loans. I am very fortunate to have paid off mine, but that is literally detrimental to so many people’s lives as they are starting out.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The percentage of interest also on all of these student loans is extremely high. And you’re having an 18-year-old, a 19-year-old sign on paperwork that they’re not really well-informed on what’s going on. And we were able to forgive a lot of the business loans post-COVID, but we’re not protecting literally our kids.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The percentage of interest also on all of these student loans is extremely high. And you’re having an 18-year-old, a 19-year-old sign on paperwork that they’re not really well-informed on what’s going on. And we were able to forgive a lot of the business loans post-COVID, but we’re not protecting literally our kids.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Not only that, but the federal government needs to invest more heavily in education. These noble professions that people go into, whether it’s nursing and social work and all of these types of professions, there has to be a larger investment also in these particular professions, because people go into it wanting to help, and it’s not necessarily the most lucrative, but it’s incredibly important to society as a whole.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Not only that, but the federal government needs to invest more heavily in education. These noble professions that people go into, whether it’s nursing and social work and all of these types of professions, there has to be a larger investment also in these particular professions, because people go into it wanting to help, and it’s not necessarily the most lucrative, but it’s incredibly important to society as a whole.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I personally think that higher education should be free to anybody that is interested in educating themselves, and it benefits society. The more educated our populace, the better our policies, the better our communities, the safer communities are, and so much more.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I personally think that higher education should be free to anybody that is interested in educating themselves, and it benefits society. The more educated our populace, the better our policies, the better our communities, the safer communities are, and so much more.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And we need to stop thinking that education should make a kid, you know, basically go bankrupt and, um, really cut their lives short in a lot of ways.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And we need to stop thinking that education should make a kid, you know, basically go bankrupt and, um, really cut their lives short in a lot of ways.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s get to one of these, you know, big questions that many people are asking in our comments here, really go to, like, what can be fixed or reversed without Trump’s approval? You know, we heard a lot, and Representative-elect, come to you on this. We heard a lot during the last two years that Congress had given away many of its powers or had neglected to sort of use them, kowtowing to whatever the Trump administration wanted to do and the executive branch wanted to. So what are the things that could just be immediately sort of picked back up as things Congress is owning the power of?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s get to one of these, you know, big questions that many people are asking in our comments here, really go to, like, what can be fixed or reversed without Trump’s approval? You know, we heard a lot, and Representative-elect, come to you on this. We heard a lot during the last two years that Congress had given away many of its powers or had neglected to sort of use them, kowtowing to whatever the Trump administration wanted to do and the executive branch wanted to. So what are the things that could just be immediately sort of picked back up as things Congress is owning the power of?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, a few things. I mean, Congress has given away its war powers and allowed the president to pursue this illegal and disastrous war in Iran, and we need to reassert our war powers and put an end to this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, a few things. I mean, Congress has given away its war powers and allowed the president to pursue this illegal and disastrous war in Iran, and we need to reassert our war powers and put an end to this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Congress has given away its powers over immigration by letting ICE and Border Patrol, et cetera, do whatever they want with no oversight whatsoever. We need to take that back.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Congress has given away its powers over immigration by letting ICE and Border Patrol, et cetera, do whatever they want with no oversight whatsoever. We need to take that back.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And there are other things that we can do that I think we can get done. For example, to me, the number one emergency priority when we get sworn in is reversing the Medicaid cuts. If those cuts go into effect and stay in effect, hospitals will close, millions will be thrown off health care, everyone’s health care will be worse. It will cause incredible damage and scarring to our health care system.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And there are other things that we can do that I think we can get done. For example, to me, the number one emergency priority when we get sworn in is reversing the Medicaid cuts. If those cuts go into effect and stay in effect, hospitals will close, millions will be thrown off health care, everyone’s health care will be worse. It will cause incredible damage and scarring to our health care system.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we should be reversing those cuts on day one. With 55, 56 senators, we might be able to get to a much higher threshold, because there are Republicans who have hospitals in their states that they don’t want to close down.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we should be reversing those cuts on day one. With 55, 56 senators, we might be able to get to a much higher threshold, because there are Republicans who have hospitals in their states that they don’t want to close down.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we should be aggressive on these issues that we know have broad support, like saving our health care system. Republicans don’t want hospitals to close. And be aggressive with the president and dare him, because is he really going to veto a bill that saves hospitals, including in red states?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we should be aggressive on these issues that we know have broad support, like saving our health care system. Republicans don’t want hospitals to close. And be aggressive with the president and dare him, because is he really going to veto a bill that saves hospitals, including in red states?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the questions that I had, given how much you have liked legislating, do you think Democrats should take an actual — like, the size of the bills? You know, recently in Congress, there’ve been so few bills passed, and they’ve been these big omnibus things like the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Do you think the route for Democrats is to kind of slim down and make more targeted legislation that can pass?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the questions that I had, given how much you have liked legislating, do you think Democrats should take an actual — like, the size of the bills? You know, recently in Congress, there’ve been so few bills passed, and they’ve been these big omnibus things like the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Do you think the route for Democrats is to kind of slim down and make more targeted legislation that can pass?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, obviously Congress is always going to be different than a state legislature, where in the state legislature we have a ton of individual bills, and the governor signs or acts on, like, whatever, 800, 1,000 bills a year. It’s different in Congress.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, obviously Congress is always going to be different than a state legislature, where in the state legislature we have a ton of individual bills, and the governor signs or acts on, like, whatever, 800, 1,000 bills a year. It’s different in Congress.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I do think it would be good not to do so much in these massive mega-bills. The reason that happens is because sometimes that’s the only way to be able to get a whole bunch of things through, by tying them all together. And so I understand that reality.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I do think it would be good not to do so much in these massive mega-bills. The reason that happens is because sometimes that’s the only way to be able to get a whole bunch of things through, by tying them all together. And so I understand that reality.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I also think that we should strengthen the ability of individual committees to do that policy work, not necessarily tied to a massive mega-bill, but on an individual basis. And we saw that recently with the Road to Housing Act that Elizabeth Warren passed, partnering with Maxine Waters and with Tim Scott. It was a bipartisan bill that passed almost unanimously, with some great housing reforms, the first big housing law that passed Congress in decades. And that was about housing. It was not part of an omnibus.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I also think that we should strengthen the ability of individual committees to do that policy work, not necessarily tied to a massive mega-bill, but on an individual basis. And we saw that recently with the Road to Housing Act that Elizabeth Warren passed, partnering with Maxine Waters and with Tim Scott. It was a bipartisan bill that passed almost unanimously, with some great housing reforms, the first big housing law that passed Congress in decades. And that was about housing. It was not part of an omnibus.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think it can be done, and I hope to see more of that. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think it can be done, and I hope to see more of that. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, let’s bring in Carl. Welcome, Carl.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, let’s bring in Carl. Welcome, Carl.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carl:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Uh, congratulations to you all. Uh, I think, uh, now that the election is done, I want my fellow Bay Area people and people across the country to know that, you know, the hard work is just beginning. How do our leaders plan to keep us engaged in helping you get the job done? I don’t think we get to just vote and then call it quits.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carl:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Uh, congratulations to you all. Uh, I think, uh, now that the election is done, I want my fellow Bay Area people and people across the country to know that, you know, the hard work is just beginning. How do our leaders plan to keep us engaged in helping you get the job done? I don’t think we get to just vote and then call it quits.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s start with Representative Wahab on that one.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s start with Representative Wahab on that one.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, I host town halls every single month. I want people to know what’s going on. I wanna be very honest about what is happening in D.C.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, I host town halls every single month. I want people to know what’s going on. I wanna be very honest about what is happening in D.C.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I also think there’s a disconnect between D.C. and the larger public. And we get so into our silos of thinking and planning and policy drafting and making decisions that sometimes we don’t explain why something sounds great but we didn’t support it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I also think there’s a disconnect between D.C. and the larger public. And we get so into our silos of thinking and planning and policy drafting and making decisions that sometimes we don’t explain why something sounds great but we didn’t support it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so I’ve kind of shared kind of what I do in my district. I think we need to do more of that. And the larger public — democracy is an active, participatory effort. And if you’re not participating, if you’re not informed, if you’re not voting and making decisions, oftentimes there’s a huge sense of apathy between the voter and people saying, okay, well, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are identical in a lot of ways, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so I’ve kind of shared kind of what I do in my district. I think we need to do more of that. And the larger public — democracy is an active, participatory effort. And if you’re not participating, if you’re not informed, if you’re not voting and making decisions, oftentimes there’s a huge sense of apathy between the voter and people saying, okay, well, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are identical in a lot of ways, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so if you have ideas, please share it with us. We want to engage every single voter in not only our district, but hopefully the nation, to kind of understand what is going on and why.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so if you have ideas, please share it with us. We want to engage every single voter in not only our district, but hopefully the nation, to kind of understand what is going on and why.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Last few comments coming in. I’m just going to run through a couple here. Text writes, “I hear people calling for moving forward and not spending time on impeachment or investigation. I think this is the wrong approach. The people who are currently in charge have so blatantly broken laws and abused their power. If we do not address those transgressions and hold people accountable for criminal and immoral behavior, then it leaves wide open for future administrations and politicians to ignore the rule of law.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Last few comments coming in. I’m just going to run through a couple here. Text writes, “I hear people calling for moving forward and not spending time on impeachment or investigation. I think this is the wrong approach. The people who are currently in charge have so blatantly broken laws and abused their power. If we do not address those transgressions and hold people accountable for criminal and immoral behavior, then it leaves wide open for future administrations and politicians to ignore the rule of law.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Wayne writes, “Trump as well as Biden lost popular support because they failed to address the personal economics of average Americans, who could care much less about what’s happening on the national economic level. If Dems are to keep this national support, they need to regain the FDR commitment to ordinary people with clear, concrete plans.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Wayne writes, “Trump as well as Biden lost popular support because they failed to address the personal economics of average Americans, who could care much less about what’s happening on the national economic level. If Dems are to keep this national support, they need to regain the FDR commitment to ordinary people with clear, concrete plans.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Leanne writes, “President Trump has reportedly made billions through his investments and family interactions with foreign leaders. When he is busy creating personal income, he’s not focused on the needs of the nation. Could a special tax be placed upon the president and his family to limit total income to a reasonable amount, with a 100% tax on income that exceeds that reasonable amount? We hire a president to work for the American people, not engorge his personal wealth.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Leanne writes, “President Trump has reportedly made billions through his investments and family interactions with foreign leaders. When he is busy creating personal income, he’s not focused on the needs of the nation. Could a special tax be placed upon the president and his family to limit total income to a reasonable amount, with a 100% tax on income that exceeds that reasonable amount? We hire a president to work for the American people, not engorge his personal wealth.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We have been talking with Bay Area members of the new Congress. We’ve been hearing about their priorities and your priorities out there among listeners for this new Congress. We’ve been joined by Representative-elect Scott Wiener. Thank you so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We have been talking with Bay Area members of the new Congress. We’ve been hearing about their priorities and your priorities out there among listeners for this new Congress. We’ve been joined by Representative-elect Scott Wiener. Thank you so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve also been joined by Representative Aisha Wahab from the 14th District. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve also been joined by Representative Aisha Wahab from the 14th District. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Earlier, we heard from Representative Zoe Lofgren from District 18 in the South Bay and Representative Lateefah Simon, District 12 in the East Bay. Thank you so much to everyone who called or wrote in. I’m so sorry we couldn’t get to everyone throughout the course of the show, but we really appreciate your engagement.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Earlier, we heard from Representative Zoe Lofgren from District 18 in the South Bay and Representative Lateefah Simon, District 12 in the East Bay. Thank you so much to everyone who called or wrote in. I’m so sorry we couldn’t get to everyone throughout the course of the show, but we really appreciate your engagement.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Thursday, November 5, 2026 at 9 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a town hall-style Forum, we’ll hear from Bay Area members of Congress about their plans, priorities and the possibilities for investigating the Trump administration. The conversation comes in the wake of the midterm elections, where Democrats won majorities in both houses of Congress. We’ll ask these Bay Area officials how they’ll use their power in Washington and what they will prioritize. And they’ll hear from you about what issues you want addressed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener\u003c/strong>, Representative-elect, U.S. House of Representatives, District 11 \u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren\u003c/strong>, U.S. Congresswoman, representing California’s 18th Congressional District\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon\u003c/strong>, U.S. representative for California’s 12th congressional district\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Representative Aisha Wahab\u003c/strong> – U.S. representative for California’s 14th district\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re joined this morning by representatives from the Bay Area congressional delegation, fresh off their individual wins, as well as the overall Democratic mega-tsunami that we saw on Tuesday. We want you to have a chance to ask them some questions in this new era. What do you want your member of Congress and Congress overall to prioritize in the next two years? You can give us a call early: 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786, or you can email forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Up first, we’re joined by Representative Zoe Lofgren from the U.S. House of Representatives, District 18. Welcome, Representative. Good morning. We’ve got Representative Lateefah Simon, District 12 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Welcome, Representative.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Good morning. Good to be on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Representative-elect Scott Wiener. You just heard, just won for San Francisco. That’s District 11. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, thanks again to all of you for joining us. Congratulations on your election or reelection. Of course, you’re part of this incoming wave of Democrats, the size of which we haven’t seen in a very long time. And a lot of these other Democrats are gonna be coming from places that don’t look very much like Santa Clara County or Alameda County or San Francisco. You’re gonna have a Republican president, of course, two years to show some results on the things voters said they care about. So what’s the plan? Representative Lofgren, do you wanna go first?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Sure. You know, I think Hakeem laid out the initial efforts. I mean, people have a variety of concerns about what’s going on in the country, but huge among them is cost. Prices are too high. Salaries haven’t kept up, and people are squeezed, and we need to do our best to do something about that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first and most direct way that the legislative branch can deal with that is to reverse the disastrous effects of the cuts to the Medicaid program, as well as the Affordable Care Act. Health care costs are spiking, and we need to bring that down. That’s not all we need to do, but that will help. We also need to do something about the cuts to the food assistance program, which is hurting not only recipients but also farmers who sell the produce.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We then also need to hold the president and his administration accountable, and people are sick of the corruption that they’ve seen, and we need to be transparent about that. Hakeem mentioned, and I agree, that we will pass a ban on stock trading for Congress, and I likely will add in the president and his family as well. So that’s the first few days. And we’ve got a lot of work to do after that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m eager to hear what your viewers or listeners have to say, but let me just say this: The work of the Congress goes through our committees. I, if all goes well, will chair the Science Committee, and I have already prepared oversight letters. We need to try and rescue the science enterprise from the tremendous damage that has been done to it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for that, for the opening statement, Representative Zoe Lofgren. Representative Simon, let’s come to you. I mean, Democrats really ran on affordability across the country, a kind of populism, I guess you might hear. Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa described it as — what specifically? Just give us one other idea. I heard from Representative Lofgren restoring cuts to Medicaid and trying to help on health care costs, food assistance program. What else?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> And there’s so much, and I think we are gonna come in with a fever that matches what real people in real communities, what they said to us on Tuesday. Folks are suffering.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just a couple of things. You know, you said that this was essentially a blue wave, but we haven’t seen this majority since 2008. But I want to be clear: We have to put the Medicaid cuts and the ACA credits on the desk of the president, and we have to dare him to vote down health care. That’s for the single mother in West Virginia and the young college student here in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every dollar that this government spends will now have to run through the Democrats who are prioritizing affordability and who are prioritizing protecting us. I think what is important to me, my constituency has asked me to vote no on any blank checks for ICE, no more tax dollars for bombs. We must vote for meals over munitions every day, and that’s what I plan to do. Yeah, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative-elect Scott Wiener, you were known in the California State House as just a prolific legislator. Do you plan on trying to bring the same approach to Washington, and what ideas do you have that might be outside of what is initially being talked about in Washington?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> First of all, I’m so grateful to the people of San Francisco for sending me to Congress, and I take this responsibility so seriously because it’s a dangerous time, but also a time of great opportunity to show that government and democracy can actually work to make people’s lives better and more affordable, and that people don’t need to turn to authoritarianism to do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so we need to deliver now, and I fully agree that we need to immediately reverse the Medicaid cuts so we don’t crater our health care system, because that will make people’s lives worse and much less affordable. And I agree with Congresswoman Lofgren that we need to ban congressional stock trading and really take a strong and quick anti-corruption stance and end the war in Iran. And so, so much work to do there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then, in addition to all the immediate needs, we need to send clear signals that we’re focused on lowering people’s cost of housing. We need to build millions of homes in this country, and the federal government needs to be a full partner in doing that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And we need to regulate AI. And I think Congress has to play a huge role there. It’s 2026, and we don’t have a federal data privacy law. We want to make sure that technology, including AI, is benefiting people and not harming people, and that big corporations should not be the decision makers about how AI is going to change people’s lives for better or for worse. We need the federal government to play a role there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative Lofgren, I mean, you’ve been in Congress at different times, with different configurations of parties and congressional chambers and the president. When Democrats have the House and the Senate and pretty commanding majorities in both places, but there is a Republican president named Donald Trump who will probably veto just about everything you send to him, so what is the power that Democrats will have in Congress?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, he’s going to need some things from us, and we’ll have to leverage our authority to get for our people what they need. We’ll see. He did say he didn’t want to spend his entire next two years vetoing bills.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We need to fund the government. When you fund the government, there are negotiations, and we’re laser-focused on what people were telling us in this election. And they need some help. We need to stand up for them, and we intend to do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Certainly, we can’t take responsibility for Donald Trump, but we can put it to him. And certainly, not just him, but his whole party got their head handed to them on Election Day. I wouldn’t rule out the idea that we could even override some vetoes on some key things, because I think the Republicans had a little wake-up call from American voters.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s a really interesting question. Do you expect different behavior out of the Republican Party given what just happened?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, it’s who’s left, of course, are people who weren’t rebuked by their voters. But I think certainly I have a lot of friends who are Republicans. I work across the aisle on the Science Committee all the time, and there are members of the Republican Party who live on Earth, too. But there are plenty of them who — they can see what’s happening. And I think at least we can talk to some of them about the need for them to preserve themselves by serving the American people with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s try and squeeze in a caller here. Randy in San Jose, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Randy:\u003c/strong> Thank you. I have a quick question. You know, there’s a lot of billionaires that live in the Bay Area. Are you guys going to be working for them, or are you going to be working for us? What are you gonna do about the billionaires? They’re totally out of control.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Randy in San Jose, appreciate that. Representative Simon, let’s come to you. I mean, what was the message you got from your voters? Billionaire tax went down in California and also across the country. There was quite a popular surge, a lot of anger specifically about the tech industry and its wealthiest people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> You know, the reality, and I say it time and time again, that a nurse cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in my district. It is very real. And that anger comes from the wealth divide that, for many of us, it’s not new.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The proliferation of wealth is something that has to be legislated in terms of a taxation system on the federal level. You know, I deeply and profoundly believe that we shouldn’t have people sleeping on the concrete and then literally blocks, you know, 10 blocks north or south, someone living in a castle. We’re gonna have to figure that out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’ve been a proponent of a just taxation system before I got into politics, and I think we’re gonna have to lead on this at the federal level. And I’m excited to be one of those voices.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Can I pop in, since this is a caller? We work for the voters who elected us, and that’s not the billionaires. There is a federal bill to do what Prop 40 was trying to do, which is to actually capture the extraordinary wealth that is accumulated in the billionaire class. I am a co-sponsor of that bill, and I’m hoping that we can move something like it at a federal level and start dealing with the issue that you’ve raised. It’s really unconscionable. Yeah. Yep.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, we are having a little town hall-style \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> today. We are lucky enough to have some members of the Bay Area congressional delegation, people will be headed to the 120th Congress. We’ve got Representative Zoe Lofgren. We have Representative Lateefah Simon, and we’ve got Representative-elect Scott Wiener.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We want to hear from you. What do you want your member of Congress to prioritize in the next couple of years, or Congress overall? 866-733-6786. If you can’t get through there, which looks like it might be a little bit tough, try emailing us: forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here’s a few things coming in already. Deanne writes, “My wish is that the next Congress not waste time and energy impeaching the president yet again or relitigating the past. Focus on repairing damage done to working people, small businesses, and those harmed by ICE and wrongful deportation during the president’s term. The more often he uses the veto pen, the more ridiculous he will look.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more, right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re joined by members of the Bay Area congressional delegation. We’ve got Zoe Lofgren, Lateefah Simon, and Representative-elect Scott Wiener here with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So here is maybe the big question on many Democrats’ minds, many people across the country. And I think Zoe Lofgren will start with you on this one. I mean, you’ve been involved in several congressional investigations in recent decades, including the January 6 committee, Trump’s first impeachment. Do you see a pathway opening for another impeachment? Do you think there are other avenues for doing investigations? It seems to me that there’s this real hunger for accountability on one side, and also to, as I think you hear, like, for example, Josh Shapiro say, get stuff done, you know? So what’s the balance there going in?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, I think we need a national conversation about what to do on this subject. Certainly the president has committed a number of impeachable offenses, but does that mean we should impeach? Because unless you get a conviction in the Senate, he will just treat that as an exoneration.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Having been on the Judiciary Committee my entire time in Congress, it’s the Judiciary Committee only that gets so consumed by the impeachment hearings, not the whole body. Plenty of other work can happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there are things that we need to do in the Judiciary Committee. One of which is we need to get a grip on the out-of-control immigration enforcement. And the easiest way to do that is to finally, and I hope very soon, do some common-sense reforms of the legal immigration system so we don’t see husbands and wives of American citizens being ripped out of their families’ arms. I mean, it’s insane.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So that is a major goal of mine. We’ve got ICE is out of control. We need to right-size their budget and get some sanity in the immigration program. So, you know, I think we need to listen to the country. We need to have a discussion, and we need to hold them accountable. But impeachment is certainly not the only way, and perhaps not the best way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Jessica writes, “ICE has been terrorizing and brutalizing people for two years. What are you gonna do to stop them, hold them accountable?” I think you’re starting to address that there, Representative. Let me ask you, Representative-elect Wiener, as someone who’s coming in from the outside, someone who has clashed with the administration already, what do you think your voters want you to do on this score? In terms of ICE? In terms of accountability for the administration?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, people want accountability, and, you know, frankly, if there’s no accountability, then the rule of law truly means nothing. And that accountability can take different forms. I know there’s an ongoing discussion about whether impeaching the president is the best course. I mean, clearly, he’s a walking impeachable offense, and if it were put to a vote, I would absolutely vote for it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the corruption and the lawlessness runs so much deeper than the president. It’s his family, but it’s also members of the Cabinet. It’s Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, Jared Kushner. And we need to make sure that we are focusing not just on the president. We also know that the lawlessness does extend to ICE and Border Patrol, just brazenly violating people’s constitutional rights with a complete sense of impunity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I passed a law this year that the governor signed to authorize people to be able to sue federal agents like ICE and Border Patrol. We need to do that at the federal level and make that very clear, that everyone is accountable and there is no impunity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But with all of this work against the lawlessness, and to have accountability, as critically important as it is, we need to make sure it does not overshadow our work to lower people’s cost of living, to make sure people can afford housing and health care and energy costs, because that’s what people want. And we need to show as Democrats that we can deliver. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, couple of — one quick comment and then one quick call on this. Paul writes, “First, I want to see a deep investigation of all the Trump crime family grifts, as well as releasing the complete Epstein files, which are the original cause of all that grifting to start with. We need to send a strong message to the next wannabe dictators that our country will not stand for it. Then fix health care and the environment, et cetera.” James in Burlingame, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Thank you for making my call one of the plan with the new Democratic wave in Congress to address the, you know, very failing Department of Justice, for example, the 94 district U.S. district attorneys. And, you know, what you’ve got an entire Justice Department and also part of the whole Homeland Security, et cetera, guilty to the president. How is that going to figure into the plans that I’m hearing right now on this program? Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks, James. Thanks, James.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> I’ll jump in. This is Lateefah Simon. In my first two years of Congress, I got the opportunity to serve on the Oversight Committee, and that is the committee. There’s also Judiciary, and we’re going to hold these fools accountable. Having the gavel allows us to subpoena them, hold them in contempt if they don’t show. And I think we need to be extremely aggressive with every secretary that has betrayed the American people. And every single one of them has betrayed the American people. They are lawless. Our president is lawless.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But again, holding the gavel means we hold the room and we hold them accountable. The Oversight Committee under the Republicans, they refused to meet. They stopped having hearings because they knew, they knew that their party and their secretaries appointed by the president and approved by the Senate were lawless. We’re going to hold their feet to the fire. Robert Garcia will be the chair of the Oversight Committee, God willing, and watch him cook.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> I’ll just add in before I have to leave at 9:30, but the Judiciary Committee incoming chairman, Jamie Raskin, has already laid out as well an oversight agenda. The DOJ has gone completely off the rails. And obviously, they’re the executive branch, but we can do oversight.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, you know, many of the lawyers there who engaged in this conduct should lose their licenses. Some should be referred to state prosecution, and really, the rule of law has been heavily eroded.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I’m hopeful that we can get my bill that creates real immigration courts instead of these kangaroo courts passed, because for the most part, with the exception of the Supreme Court, the judiciary has held. They have upheld the rule of law. And so strengthening the judicial branch is part of what we need to do as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, and if folks want to hear more about that, we did an entire show with a former — and, like, fired — immigration judges who described the strangeness of our immigration court system, or so-called immigration court system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Um, Representative Lofgren, I know you’ve got to know and go in just a sec. So let me just throw one more question, too quickly. Ashley writes, “I’d like to ask the representatives what they plan to do in terms of immigration for DACA holders. This is deferred action program started under President Obama. These are individuals who are American in every sense of the word except on paper. DACA must be protected. What can be done in the legislature?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Well, there is a bill to deal with DACA. I’m on it. There’s a discharge petition that I’ve signed. But I think we have an opportunity to do more than that. We should certainly do that. But if you ask Americans, if you’ve been here a long time, and other than your paperwork on your immigration status, you’ve been a good person, you’ve worked hard, you’ve paid your taxes, you’re a contributing member of your community, and you’ve been here 10, 12 years, should you have a way to get right with the law? And almost everybody says yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So if we were to do — and there’s a provision in current law that allows for that — if we could update it, that would solve a lot of problems, including the DACA recipients.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think people want sensible laws that promote family unity in this country, that support the American economy, elevate the American workforce. They don’t want the crazy stuff that this administration is doing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We do need to have order at the border. We can’t have the kind of chaos that President Biden permitted, much to his discredit. But I don’t think people wanted ICE, masked agents, armed agents running around and randomly kidnapping people. That wasn’t what people wanted.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> You know, so I, I — this is Lateefah. Just a couple of days ago, I took into custody a young woman, a student at UC Berkeley with an active asylum case, and she is detained. She is a child. You think of your college student friends or your children. Can you imagine?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we have a shared — I think every single Democrat has a shared wanting to get this right. A 19-year-old, a 20-year-old college student with an active asylum case should not be in a cage. Yeah. You’re right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Representative Simon. Representative Lofgren, thank you so much for making time. I know it’s very busy right now. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Zoe Lofgren:\u003c/strong> Thank you very much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in another Bay Area congressional representative. We have Representative Aisha Wahab with us. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I want to say your race hasn’t been officially called yet, I think at least by the AP, but you’re up big, and some quarters are calling. So congratulations to you as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let’s talk about — you ran big on affordability. You ran a great — read a great article about you in which one of your constituents said, “She’s like a regular person who cares about regular people.” So when you’re out there in your district talking with regular people, uh, number one thing that they said to you that you might actually be able to do in Congress?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so I actually just came out of a local donut shop, and people were talking and congratulating me. And the honest truth is they want the government to focus on them. They are tired of the finger-pointing, and, you know, I’ll say this: Republicans and Democrats are both guilty of this. They keep pointing the finger, and the rhetoric, and they stand on their soapbox and they preach, um, and they get nothing done for the people, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I will say this: We’ve heard you guys talk about Medicaid and overall health care reform, as well as potentially holding people accountable. I think we can do all of it at the same time. I understand some of the logistics there, but my biggest concern is we do need to tackle the monopolies, the fact that so many organizations are just merging and becoming these massive institutions that are controlling our market, whether it is in the housing scene. And I do believe that we actually need to kind of tackle that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it’s also, you know, from Amazon to Facebook and Meta, and you name it, you know, that is driving up costs, right? There is no true competition, no free market as they like to preach about. And Republicans and Democrats also need to take back congressional powers that they’ve let slip by.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so I think that there’s a number of things that I’d like to work on, and personally, it’s an economic Bill of Rights. This is not a new idea. This is an idea from, you know, even a hundred years ago, that as Americans in the age of AI, we need to do better for the American people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Scott Wiener, Representative-elect, this seems like a perfect place for you to enter the conversation as someone who was early to trying to regulate AI. You mentioned earlier in the show you want these things to work for people and not against them. What would the legislative approach to something like this be like, the planks of an economic Bill of Rights related to AI for you?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, when we started our work on regulating AI back in 2023, 2024, we were told by many that we were sort of crazy. It was all science fiction, we were making it up, we were doomers, and so on and so forth. And it turns out that so many of the things that we were talking about then in terms of the risks that we needed to legislate to protect people from are very real, like all the cyber hacking and the risk of a biological contagion.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we are behind. We’ve done the work in California, with more work to come, but we really need Congress to step up. That means having a strong and nimble federal regulator who can keep up with the industry and act quickly and decisively when something dangerous is happening. We have that with the banking system. We have it with nuclear energy. We’ve done it before.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We need international agreements. This whole notion that we need to have this unlimited race towards superintelligence and autonomous lethal weapons and all of these other really problematic and really dangerous things because China will get there first — no. We need to be working with China because it’s not in anyone’s interest, China or the U.S., to have massive cyberattacks and to have chemical and biological weapons.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We also need strong tax policy, whether you call it a robot tax or when you have corporations that are massively increasing their profits at the expense of workers by eliminating massive numbers of workers to automate everything. There should be a significant tax on that transition so that the benefit of AI is spread to everyone, so that it’s not being cornered by a few corporations and by the wealthiest people. We need AI to benefit everyone, and tax policy, taxing those benefits, is absolutely essential so that people are not thrown into the gutter. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Appreciate that from Representative-elect Scott Wiener, joining us here this morning along with other members of the Bay Area delegation. Also, just want to note, you know, nonproliferation worked under very difficult circumstances, at least to some extent, and seems like a kind of similar call for regulation there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Representative Simon, a couple of questions here. Jane writes, “Many voters would like to see new leadership in both the House and Senate. What’s your opinion on choosing leaders other than Jeffries and Schumer?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Well, I just want to be clear. I don’t know about the Senate, but Hakeem is going to be the speaker. But I was asked this question this morning. Actually, I’ve been asked the question every day, but a flurry of texts came in about the vote. And I want to be clear: The role of the speaker is to hold the floor, okay? There are 435 members of the House. If you look at how the framers wrote what the Congress should be, we all come in duly elected with the opportunity to lead, to introduce legislation, to vote for our district.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I want to say this before I go, because my two colleagues, who I can’t wait to hold my hand with on January 3rd, we will be sworn in together. We’re going to do so much work together. They know, like I do, we are public servants.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But on Tuesday, the people — and I’m going to go directly to your question — the people told the most powerful man in the country, no. And they did it with the ballot. They also said very clearly, like I said earlier, that they are suffering.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I come from the lineage of Ron Dellums and Barbara Lee, and we stood against war in this district when we stood alone, right? And so when we go back to work, the mandate is clear. The people of this country told leaders, “We will fire you if you don’t get it right.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So leadership of the Democratic Party, I know their ears are open. They’re being pushed to be more decisive, to leave the old and tired rhetoric of just being in politics to the side and start working for real people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our job, the folks on this phone right now, our job is to hold them to account. We’ve got to restore health care. We have to, again, promote meals over munitions. They’ve stolen SNAP from the hungriest people in this country. I think we’re going to do some work that the American people can be proud of for once, and I’m excited to be a part of, again, a new vision of folks coming in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m a single mother. I passed five bills through this minority House — I mean, this majority House. And I plan to work with these two senior legislators to tear the House down in the most positive way. Thanks. And Scott and Aisha, I’m so proud of y’all. Let’s do the work. Let’s do the — what?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much, Representative Lateefah Simon, headed out. Thanks so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lateefah Simon:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re still joined by Representative-elect Scott Wiener and Representative Aisha Wahab from the 14th District, that covers parts of the East and the South Bay. We’re gonna get to a bunch more of your calls and your comments with two of our newest members of the Bay Area House delegation. The number is 866-733-6786. The email is forum@kqed.org. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Representative-elect Scott Wiener from San Francisco, Representative Aisha Wahab from the East Bay, District 14. It’s got a little South Bay in it, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You both went up against the Democratic establishment. Representative-elect Wiener, Nancy Pelosi endorsed your competitor, of course, Kaine Chan. Aisha Wahab, I mean, you faced down kind of the whole Democratic establishment. Do you think — and Representative Wahab, we’ll start with you — do you think that gives you some extra room to try and shake things up in Congress? Or does it kind of find you on the outside of the halls of power there?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> You know, at the end of the day, I think that both Scott and I have always been very independent, but also team players. And that’s something that people don’t see until you’re actually in office, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think for me, I’ve told all my colleagues and future colleagues that I am more than happy to work with them, regardless of party even, to get things done for the American people. But I have always been very vocal about what I see does not make sense for regular, everyday people. What I see even Democrats making bad decisions, wrong decisions, doing things that don’t prioritize the American people. And I have always been very vocal about it. I will continue to do so.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And yes, that ruffles feathers and upsets people, especially the old guard that is very top-down. And that’s just not who I have ever been, to just kind of succumb to what others say.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Representative-elect Wiener, I mean, do the Democrats need top-down leadership, though? Do they need to have a sense of unity going up against this administration?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, I will say that in terms of the past election, elections are always very intense and, frankly, should be intense and spirited contests. And then it’s over, and you move forward.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I’m going to be very eager to work with anyone who will work with me on issues of making people’s lives more affordable, and reinstating democracy and the rule of law, and going to the mat for San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We need to, as Democrats, really focus on the things that unify us: really saving our health care system and expanding access to health care, creating a national housing policy so we’re building the homes that we need, having the rule of law and accountability, regulating AI, which I think has very, very broad support, and ending the war in Iran, and not funding ICE. It’s a paramilitary terror organization.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are so many of these issues that unify us, and we will, of course, have disagreements. And that’s okay. And I’m someone who I’ve always worked closely with my colleagues in the legislature on both sides of the aisle when it’s doable. And there are times when you have to go your own way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And first and foremost, I represent the people of San Francisco, and that will always be my top guiding star. But there are so many issues that unify us as Democrats, and we really, really need to focus on those. And they also have the benefit of being what the American people want us to focus on, like health care, housing, and energy costs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> The, uh, the old “Do popular things” platform.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> And popular things that are also incredibly important to people’s lives.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Rick in Citrus Heights. Welcome, Rick.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Rick Hodgkins:\u003c/strong> First of all, before I ask my question, I want to say to you, Scott Wiener, I met you back in 2017 at the Citizens Hotel, J Street. I’m going to miss you. I was Senator Nielsen’s constituent back then. And Senator Wahab, I’ve always wanted to meet you. Remember my name. It’s Rick, R-I-C-K Hodgkins.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And my question for the both of you is, how do you plan to help people like myself with developmental disabilities in California? Because not only do I have Medi-Cal, which is our Medicaid program, but I also have Medicare. Thank you, and remember my name.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We got it. Thank you. Representative Wahab, let’s start with you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, folks with different abilities has always been a priority. In fact, we’ve passed a number of bills to protect them and enhance their rights in the state of California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m sure Scott and I, as well as Lateefah, who’s been a deep, big proponent of a lot of the work that we’re talking about, we need to not only provide more funding to them, especially in this economic crisis that we are all facing, but also try to ensure that their rights are protected. You know, the fact that Republicans and even our president disparages people with different abilities is incredibly important.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I will extend that even to our senior community. You know, we are seeing that Social Security is expected to run out by 2032. Those are the priorities that I have and I will continue to have for the most vulnerable community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I will also share the fact that when we are talking about these priorities, again, we have to be thinking 10 years down the road, right? 15, 25 years. And that is not something that the Democratic Party or the Republicans tend to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think you saw in the Republican think tank Plan 2025, right, they actually put something out there. And you were talking about some of the issues that are popular. Here’s the facts: Medicare for All has been extremely popular, both Republicans and Democrats. These are populist issues that still the parties will not support just because industry is so deeply invested in policymaking, which is a deficit to the American people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As we think about long-term issues, Carol writes, and this one’s coming to you, Representative-elect. Carol writes, “I am afraid that the Democrats are dropping climate as a focus. Our world is dying around us. Affordability is linked to climate change, as we need to make that case and work to limit the harm done by our unsustainable lifestyles.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let me just tack on to this question, though, Representative-elect, that one thing that clearly made a difference in the election was the price of gas. And many climate policies would actually like fuel prices to go up so that people use less of them. How do you kind of try to find a climate policy that also could work in this era where affordability is such a huge concern?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, I mean, obviously, and for me and I know for my constituents and for many people, climate is incredibly important. This is about saving the planet. But we also need to be clear that climate action is pro-affordability. It lowers the cost of living.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There’s this notion that, frankly, the oil industry has helped fuel, that if you take climate action, you’re inherently making people’s lives more expensive. And that is false. Climate change is absolutely jacking up the cost of living. When we look at what wildfires are doing and sea level rise and what it’s doing to insurance, people are paying way more for insurance because of climate disasters.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People are paying way more to fill up their car because we are still hostage to the global oil markets. When you look at people’s electric bills that are exploding because of wildfires, we need an aggressive clean energy transition.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We passed the Inflation Reduction Act under Joe Biden, the biggest clean energy investment in U.S. history. Donald Trump has tried to blow it up. We need to do that times five to have cheap, abundant, affordable, clean energy, to get off of the global oil markets and to modernize our electric grid so we can electrify everything with cheap, clean energy. And we need to lower insurance costs. And these are all part of climate action. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Here’s another question I heard in particular. You know, education was a big issue down in Texas, kind of an underratedly big issue because of some changes that the Republicans made there in that state. Gina on the Discord writes, “I know education is largely funded and shaped at the local and state level, but I think our early childhood, K-through-12, and higher ed institutions need all the help they can get. What can Congress do to support our schools and fix the mess the administration has caused with student loans for college and grad school?” Representative Wahab.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> First and foremost, I actually think that they should be forgiving all the student loans. I am very fortunate to have paid off mine, but that is literally detrimental to so many people’s lives as they are starting out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The percentage of interest also on all of these student loans is extremely high. And you’re having an 18-year-old, a 19-year-old sign on paperwork that they’re not really well-informed on what’s going on. And we were able to forgive a lot of the business loans post-COVID, but we’re not protecting literally our kids.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not only that, but the federal government needs to invest more heavily in education. These noble professions that people go into, whether it’s nursing and social work and all of these types of professions, there has to be a larger investment also in these particular professions, because people go into it wanting to help, and it’s not necessarily the most lucrative, but it’s incredibly important to society as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I personally think that higher education should be free to anybody that is interested in educating themselves, and it benefits society. The more educated our populace, the better our policies, the better our communities, the safer communities are, and so much more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And we need to stop thinking that education should make a kid, you know, basically go bankrupt and, um, really cut their lives short in a lot of ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s get to one of these, you know, big questions that many people are asking in our comments here, really go to, like, what can be fixed or reversed without Trump’s approval? You know, we heard a lot, and Representative-elect, come to you on this. We heard a lot during the last two years that Congress had given away many of its powers or had neglected to sort of use them, kowtowing to whatever the Trump administration wanted to do and the executive branch wanted to. So what are the things that could just be immediately sort of picked back up as things Congress is owning the power of?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, a few things. I mean, Congress has given away its war powers and allowed the president to pursue this illegal and disastrous war in Iran, and we need to reassert our war powers and put an end to this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congress has given away its powers over immigration by letting ICE and Border Patrol, et cetera, do whatever they want with no oversight whatsoever. We need to take that back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And there are other things that we can do that I think we can get done. For example, to me, the number one emergency priority when we get sworn in is reversing the Medicaid cuts. If those cuts go into effect and stay in effect, hospitals will close, millions will be thrown off health care, everyone’s health care will be worse. It will cause incredible damage and scarring to our health care system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we should be reversing those cuts on day one. With 55, 56 senators, we might be able to get to a much higher threshold, because there are Republicans who have hospitals in their states that they don’t want to close down.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we should be aggressive on these issues that we know have broad support, like saving our health care system. Republicans don’t want hospitals to close. And be aggressive with the president and dare him, because is he really going to veto a bill that saves hospitals, including in red states?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the questions that I had, given how much you have liked legislating, do you think Democrats should take an actual — like, the size of the bills? You know, recently in Congress, there’ve been so few bills passed, and they’ve been these big omnibus things like the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Do you think the route for Democrats is to kind of slim down and make more targeted legislation that can pass?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, obviously Congress is always going to be different than a state legislature, where in the state legislature we have a ton of individual bills, and the governor signs or acts on, like, whatever, 800, 1,000 bills a year. It’s different in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do think it would be good not to do so much in these massive mega-bills. The reason that happens is because sometimes that’s the only way to be able to get a whole bunch of things through, by tying them all together. And so I understand that reality.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I also think that we should strengthen the ability of individual committees to do that policy work, not necessarily tied to a massive mega-bill, but on an individual basis. And we saw that recently with the Road to Housing Act that Elizabeth Warren passed, partnering with Maxine Waters and with Tim Scott. It was a bipartisan bill that passed almost unanimously, with some great housing reforms, the first big housing law that passed Congress in decades. And that was about housing. It was not part of an omnibus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think it can be done, and I hope to see more of that. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, let’s bring in Carl. Welcome, Carl.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Carl:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Uh, congratulations to you all. Uh, I think, uh, now that the election is done, I want my fellow Bay Area people and people across the country to know that, you know, the hard work is just beginning. How do our leaders plan to keep us engaged in helping you get the job done? I don’t think we get to just vote and then call it quits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s start with Representative Wahab on that one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, I host town halls every single month. I want people to know what’s going on. I wanna be very honest about what is happening in D.C.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I also think there’s a disconnect between D.C. and the larger public. And we get so into our silos of thinking and planning and policy drafting and making decisions that sometimes we don’t explain why something sounds great but we didn’t support it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so I’ve kind of shared kind of what I do in my district. I think we need to do more of that. And the larger public — democracy is an active, participatory effort. And if you’re not participating, if you’re not informed, if you’re not voting and making decisions, oftentimes there’s a huge sense of apathy between the voter and people saying, okay, well, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are identical in a lot of ways, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so if you have ideas, please share it with us. We want to engage every single voter in not only our district, but hopefully the nation, to kind of understand what is going on and why.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Last few comments coming in. I’m just going to run through a couple here. Text writes, “I hear people calling for moving forward and not spending time on impeachment or investigation. I think this is the wrong approach. The people who are currently in charge have so blatantly broken laws and abused their power. If we do not address those transgressions and hold people accountable for criminal and immoral behavior, then it leaves wide open for future administrations and politicians to ignore the rule of law.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wayne writes, “Trump as well as Biden lost popular support because they failed to address the personal economics of average Americans, who could care much less about what’s happening on the national economic level. If Dems are to keep this national support, they need to regain the FDR commitment to ordinary people with clear, concrete plans.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Leanne writes, “President Trump has reportedly made billions through his investments and family interactions with foreign leaders. When he is busy creating personal income, he’s not focused on the needs of the nation. Could a special tax be placed upon the president and his family to limit total income to a reasonable amount, with a 100% tax on income that exceeds that reasonable amount? We hire a president to work for the American people, not engorge his personal wealth.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have been talking with Bay Area members of the new Congress. We’ve been hearing about their priorities and your priorities out there among listeners for this new Congress. We’ve been joined by Representative-elect Scott Wiener. Thank you so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Scott Wiener:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve also been joined by Representative Aisha Wahab from the 14th District. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Aisha Wahab:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Earlier, we heard from Representative Zoe Lofgren from District 18 in the South Bay and Representative Lateefah Simon, District 12 in the East Bay. Thank you so much to everyone who called or wrote in. I’m so sorry we couldn’t get to everyone throughout the course of the show, but we really appreciate your engagement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "why-is-water-so-expensive-in-california",
"title": "Why Is Water So Expensive in California?",
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"headTitle": "Why Is Water So Expensive in California? | KQED",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Tuesday, November 3, 2026 at 9 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">San Jose has the most expensive water in the country, according to a new report from Food & Water Watch. The report finds that, nationwide, household water bills have increased by an average of 62% over the last decade, and California is home to more than half of the 25 most expensive water systems in the country. So what’s driving up the cost of our household drinking water and is there a better way to pay for this essential service? We’ll hear from water policy experts about the hidden costs behind your water bill, how everything from climate change to agricultural policy is shaping rates, and what it would take to make water more affordable for Californians.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg,\u003c/strong> senior policy advisor on water equity and affordability; formerly Climate and Conservation manager, State Water Resources Control Board\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant,\u003c/strong> water policy director, Food & Water Watch\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth,\u003c/strong> executive director, Association of California Water Agencies\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Many years ago, the first thing I learned about water in California was that we have a fundamental problem. Most of the water falls and flows north of the Bay Area, and most of the people live in it or south of it. So California water tends to move from north to south, and that doesn’t just happen. It requires massive infrastructure, which stores water captured by the Sierra Nevada snowpack and runoff in a series of reservoirs. Then aqueducts and canals bring it over to our coastal cities or further to the cities of Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All that steel and concrete is getting old. Maintenance costs are rising. Climate change is bringing more weather extremes. Groundwater supplies are depleted. We’ve got problems, and that’s showing up on your water bill in the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here to talk about it, we’ve got Mary Grant, water policy director with Food and Water Watch. Welcome, Mary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got Karla Nemeth, who’s executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. Welcome, Karla.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Good morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Max Gomberg, who is policy advisor on water equity and affordability. Welcome, Max.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Good to be here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Mary, let’s start with you. Your organization, Food and Water Watch, recently released a report finding that bills for household drinking water have increased 62% since 2015, outpacing inflation. That’s a national number. And over half of the country’s 25 most expensive water systems are in California. Just talk to us a little bit about what this research is and the kind of precise contours of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Of course. So, 10 years ago, we did a survey looking at the 500 largest community water systems, and we wanted to update that to see how prices have grown over the last decade. So we collected water rate data for the 500 largest community water systems across the country, just to track how much household bills have increased over the past decade.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So this is for a typical household of three using around 60,000 gallons a year, how much prices have grown. And we found that, like you said, household drinking water bills have increased by 62% over the last decade. So that’s faster than inflation. It’s more than twice as fast as grocery prices, and it’s also outpacing growth in household incomes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, here in California, we kind of know that this is not a water-rich state in the places where people live, right? We are, you know, much of our population lives in what’s basically a desert. So maybe expensive water is to be expected. But in other places in the country, maybe that wouldn’t be the case. So what’s kind of underneath these rising prices, even in places that are more water-rich than here?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> The key driver for water bill increases is necessary improvements to infrastructure. Our systems are aging, pipes are breaking, wasting water. Treatment plants need major updates to address new contaminants like PFAS forever chemicals.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So our systems are aging, and they’re facing a lot of pressures, including climate change. We actually found that California has high prices and is definitely overrepresented in the most expensive systems, but it’s only the eighth most expensive state in the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we found is West Virginia has the most expensive water, which was very surprising to us because this is a state with high levels of poverty, too. So there are various factors that are increasing prices across the country, but overall, it’s driven by those capital improvement needs, the need to invest in and update our aging infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Did you find that there’s any particular kinds of water systems? I mean, that’s one of the strange things. This is such a distributed kind of set of utilities. Did you find that there is anything that, on average, makes people’s water bills go up or down in the nature of those water systems?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> There’s a couple factors that we saw at play. One of the strongest ones was corporate ownership of water, at least at the national level. We found that privately owned systems charged, on average, 67% more than local governments, adding several hundred dollars a year onto a household water bill.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We actually found that the typical local government charged less today than a private system charged a decade ago. And in some states, that difference is even greater. In Indiana, in Illinois, these investor-owned, for-profit systems are charging twice as much as local governments.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In California, actually, the difference was less pronounced. So bills are only 8% higher with corporately owned water. So in California, what we saw is location and water source seem to be bigger factors.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nationally, we did see that surface water tends to be more expensive than groundwater. It just requires more expensive treatment since it’s more vulnerable to contamination.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you for that. Karla Nemeth, you previously led California’s Department of Water Resources. Now you work with these water agencies across the state, so you’ve got quite a view of what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When you just zoom in on California’s water system, we’re using less household drinking water than we did 10 years ago. People have gotten the message about trying to conserve water, and yet bills are going up anyway. Why is that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so, um, that’s a great question. So, uh, the Association of California Water Agencies, we represent more than about 470 public water agencies. So we’re less in the corporate space, that part of the Food and Water Watch study.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, you know, one statistic I find pretty telling is, in about 2021, the U.S. EPA estimated California water infrastructure needs about $84 billion over the next 20 years. Now, that was 2021, and that was before we had, or right in the middle, I should say, of a brutal drought, also followed by some really big storm years in California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so $84 billion over 20 years is probably a lowball. And we are starting to really understand the full effects of climate volatility on our system at exactly a moment where we have some generational reinvestment that’s required in our systems, really large and small.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s also true, not just sort of this big infrastructure in California that has the benefit of regional economies of scale, but even in some of our smaller communities in the Sierra Nevada, in the foothills, where you have these systems that are very old, that are increasingly vulnerable to things like wildfire and some legacies around forest management. Those are systems that serve very small populations.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, big reinvestment, vulnerable infrastructure, smaller ratepayer base. Those are also some of the dynamics we’re really seeing that’s challenging our water bills.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Karla, can I ask you this? Why have we built up this infrastructural maintenance debt? Like, why didn’t we take care of it along the way?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Well, I think we have been taking care of it along the way, and I think that some of our systems are decades and decades old. Some of our systems have been challenged by unmanaged groundwater.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So that, to me, is a real game changer for California water. As you may know, California is required to sustainably manage its groundwater resources by 2040, which sounds like a long way away. But when you contemplate the fact that those groundwater aquifers, and they are big, there’s about 10 to 12 times the size of our surface reservoirs in our groundwater basins. They have the capacity to hold a lot of water.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But California never managed them until the really bad drought in 2015, I think, awakened us to real challenges of ever-depleting groundwater resources.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so when we think about the long-term effects of unmanaged groundwater, we have areas in the state where subsidence has fundamentally impacted our larger surface water infrastructure in ways where that bill is now also coming due.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Subsidence, for people, being when the ground sinks as we pump the water out from underneath it and the ground settles.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> That’s correct. That’s correct. And so it’s really a convergence of all of these factors that are creating real pressures on our water bills.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I would be remiss if I didn’t add a couple more dimensions to that, which is really two things. One is the way that we fund water infrastructure in California. About 84% of it is on ratepayers and from local revenues, and contributions from the state and federal government, in particular the federal government, are kind of boom-bust here in California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Would you—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Which makes it hard to plan, really hard to plan for infrastructure projects.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think a compounding factor is we also have a complex regulatory environment. It’s an important regulatory environment, but it’s a complex one. Complex regulatory environments combined with a lack of sustainable funding beyond just ratepayer dollars, these big climate shifts happening, all of that is converging together to create a very challenging picture for our water bills in the state. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Max, I want to squeeze you in here before the break. Do you think we’ve done a good job managing the prices people have to pay for water in the state?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> I would say it’s mixed. One of the things Karla mentioned, right, is the share of the funding that comes from rates, right, from local rates and fees, as opposed to state and federal dollars.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Part of the reason we are where we are now is that 50 years ago, the federal government made massive investments in infrastructure for drinking water treatment, for wastewater treatment. And since then, the federal share has declined to a very small amount.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There was simply a shift to a consensus of, this is now going to be a state and local issue. It is going to be primarily on local systems and on states to maintain this infrastructure. And for various reasons, it hasn’t been maintained adequately. And all of these pressures are forcing the rates up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And in California, we have also a unique challenge arising from a ballot proposition that was passed 30 years ago, which restricts the way that local publicly owned water systems can raise rates and really hinders, I think, the ability to price water fairly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re gonna be back talking more about the rising cost of drinking water in California with Max Gomberg, Karla Nemeth, and Mary Grant. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the rising cost of drinking water in California and what it says about our state’s water system, which is looking increasingly fragile as the years go by.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability. We’ve got Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, previously ran our Department of Water Resources here in the state. And we’ve got Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, we’d love to hear from you, too. Are you struggling to pay your water bill? Have you seen your water rates go up in ways that are surprising to you? Have you had to make different changes? Or what questions do you just have about how our water system works?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The phone number is 866-733-6786. We know affordability is top of mind for a lot of people. So, 866-733-6786. The email is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, Discord. We’re @KQEDForum, of course.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’ve got a few different comments coming in here as well. People want to talk about groundwater and water rights. We’re gonna get to some of those a little bit later in the show.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First, Mary, let’s talk a little about San Jose. San Jose has some of the most expensive drinking water in the country. What have you, how would you compare San Jose to other places in the report?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> So San Jose is actually at the top of our list, our ranking of the most expensive water systems in the country. And both San Jose Water Company and San Jose, the municipal water system, make the top 10. So San Jose Water Company is number one, and then San Jose, the municipal system, is number five.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we’ve seen is that these two systems both rely on about half of their water from Valley Water, which gets its water from the State Water Project. So the costs are often driven by the cost of importing water and purchasing water. That’s really making their costs so high in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s interesting because San Jose is kind of a split. They have three different water utilities in the city. There’s also a third private company called Great Oaks Water Company that did not make our top 25 list of most expensive. In fact, it’s one of the most affordable systems in the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that’s because all of its water is from groundwater supplies, groundwater wells across its service area. So it shows to me that the cost of purchasing water from the State Water Project is really driving a lot of the high costs in the San Jose area and the Bay Area in particular.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it’s very interesting. Three different water systems, they all have their own distribution network, but where they get their water varies across the city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That is very interesting. I mean, for those who are unfamiliar, that sort of great hydraulic machine moving water from north to south, part of it runs through the State Water Project. Karla, can you talk to us a little bit about that situation in San Jose and just what it does or does not say about the overall state of the state’s water system?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah, sure. So I think you have to go back a little farther than that. And when the State Water Project came on in the ’60s, one of the real challenges in the San Jose area was severe depletion of its groundwater system. So it didn’t have enough local water supplies in their groundwater system to manage their needs for their community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the State Water Project itself and its ability to move water reliably into that system is largely credited with rehabilitating groundwater systems, so much so that that area does not have the same problems that we’re seeing in other parts of the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think when we think about how to maintain affordability, I think that one of the key things we need to consider, and I would just generally disagree with Mary’s assertion about the role of the State Water Project. I think we have to really understand the available supplies to replace a State Water Project supply in the area.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, are there cheaper solutions out there? And the answer is not really. The answer really, there’s a lot of things we can be doing to become more efficient. That’s very much part of the puzzle moving into the future, especially dealing with this climate volatility.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the reality is other kinds of water supplies that are necessary, things like recycled water or, you know, the Bay Area itself is a complex set of regional water agencies that sell water supplies to one another and they backstop one another.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the mix of things like recycled water or brackish water desalination, all of those things themselves are also expensive, and particularly with recycled water, it can be more expensive than State Water Project supplies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I just want to understand the nature of the disagreement. The State Water Project water is getting more expensive, though, right? I mean, it is what’s driving up the cost. What you’re saying is if they try to switch off of the State Water Project water, there isn’t a cheaper supply available, with the exception of groundwater, which has its own set of contingent problems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Correct.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, just making sure. Max, what do you think about the nature of the state water system and how the costs of that system end up flowing through? We’ve sort of talked about the federal government pullback. We’ve talked about the role of the states. So what could we be doing differently, minus federal government intervention, which doesn’t seem like it’s coming, at least for a little while?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> One thing we could be doing differently is taking a real look at our water rights system and our allocation of water. About 80% of water that is developed for human use, whether it’s domestic use, commercial, industrial, or agriculture, about 80% of that developed supply is used for agricultural production.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are about 9 million acres of land across California that are irrigated. Um, and that’s part of the reason that the state is such an agricultural powerhouse. However, a lot of the water supply for that production was tied up early on in the state’s history, oftentimes through dispossession of Native peoples, and is now sort of locked in for agricultural production, which means that there’s less water available for our cities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that’s another contributor to the affordability issues. And I think that one of the things we need to do as a state is look really closely at how much of that supply can we transfer to cities?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We simply are at an inflection point where there’s never enough water in shortage times to go around between cities, level of agricultural production, and the environment. And just because the agricultural producers locked up the rights a long time ago doesn’t mean that continuing that system is good public policy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s sort of almonds or 10 million people, you know? It’s kind of the, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let’s bring in Lyndon. And also, I should say, Steve on Discord is happy you wrote about that because he wanted to note that we’ve also got some Byzantine grandfathered-in water rights from Mexican Rancheria-era water rights laws. Let’s bring in Lyndon in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lyndon:\u003c/strong> Hi. Yeah, I used to do water conservation for the city of San Jose, and we had a cost-sharing agreement with Valley Water to, you know, sort of support each other’s water conservation programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I came across a study about 10 years ago from UC Davis that showed that there’s so much embedded energy in water in terms of conveying it, treating it, and so forth, that it’s actually a really cost-effective energy conservation strategy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it seems like water conservation and energy conservation programs could cost-share with each other to do that. And, you know, water conservation is just a really great way to extend supply.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And in San Jose, there’s like 200,000 single-family homes, and, you know, I’m walking my dog right now and I’m looking at all these green lawns. And that’s just, you know, that’s like the biggest use of water in a single-family home.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so, to the extent that we can encourage people to rip out their lawns and put in, like, native landscapes, which then support the pollinators, because grass is just a vast wasteland for pollinators, there’s just a whole lot of synergies that can work together and improve things on the energy side, biodiversity side.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think people maybe don’t quite realize how much of our electricity use actually goes to moving and treating water. I think it’s about 20% overall in California, and just the State Water Project that we’ve been talking about, it’s like a meaningful amount of California electricity. It’s like some percentage.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karla, you probably know this. What percentage of California’s electricity is used to just move water around the state, particularly through the State Water Project?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Oh, it is one of the biggest energy users in the state, no question. I don’t know the exact percentage offhand at the moment, but I do think the caller makes a terrific point that there are real synergies between water conservation and energy conservation that are good and important.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think where things get trickier is most water utilities have, maybe in the highest cases, 73% of their costs are fixed costs. And so when you use less water, it doesn’t obviate the need to support those fixed-cost systems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And of course, as we’ve been talking about, a lot of those systems are aging and need to be rehabilitated, or in some cases — and these are systems, not simply the large ones that move water from north to south, from the Sierra to the coast. We move water a long ways in California, but also our smaller distributed systems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so it’s not as linear. We very much need to continue to conserve. And California also, as a result of drought in 2015, passed something called Conservation as a Way of Life, which is a very important program that water utilities must respond to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that’s to do things like make sure that we are as efficient as we can be indoors, efficient as we can be outdoors. About 50% of our residential water use is used outdoors. Do things to stem some losses from our systems, our distribution systems, and really work with our commercial properties, you know, where we have these business parks that have ornamental grasses and so forth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So those programs are well underway, and there are regulatory deadlines for water agencies to achieve that kind of compliance. Those programs in and of themselves are — we don’t really know the full cost of those programs — but those in and of themselves had about a $5 billion price tag back in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so, again, I think part of our challenge is, given the pressures of climate and not just hydrologic volatility, but the fact that warming temperatures means that the temperature itself becomes a new, quote-unquote, demand on water.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Because it’s causing evaporation out of the reservoir.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Correct. And so these are all the things that have to now fit together into the future, which is, you know, how do we move to conserve water? Because we know that that’s important. How do we move to invest in our aging infrastructure that moves water from point A to point B? How do we continue to invest in things that are even more expensive than how we move big surface water, like recycled water in California, like desalination in California?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And do that in a way that is as affordable as it can be for Californians. And that’s a tall order.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And to me, that really gets us to, there are things that we can do: better forecasting, a better exchange of water supplies from one part of the state to another through things like trades and transfers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But we really need to sort out how we are developing a sustainable financing infrastructure. As Max pointed out early on, our built system was built in a different era of state and federal investment. And now we’ve moved into a place where it is largely on the backs of water ratepayers in California, and we need to get out of that dynamic.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Max, I wanted to put a finer point and bring it to you on something that Karla said there, which is, you know, we’ve got the costs of this system, which are what they are. They’re fixed and maybe even rising. And then we’ve people being encouraged to use less water, which is a good thing. Water conservation. People have gotten the message.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But what that means is we’ve got the fixed costs over here, or rising costs. And then we’ve got people using fewer gallons of water, which would have been the money that was used to pay for that kind of maintenance. And what that means, then, is higher rates for everyone.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What do you think can be done, especially given that this is really the focus of your work now, is affordability and equity?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> So I think there are a couple of things. I would be remiss not to say that I think we absolutely have to have more federal investment, particularly for assistance for families, households that are struggling to pay their bills now. And that’s really critical.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which we do not have now in the way we do with electric bills.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> That’s right, and there have been attempts to introduce legislation to do that. So far, they have not advanced. We’ll see what the results of today’s election bring and where things go.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But beyond that, rate design, how we allocate costs among different types of users, is really important. And for urban systems, right, you’ve got industrial users, commercial users, and then within the residential sector, right, single-family, multifamily, and different factors often that go into setting rates, like do you have to pump the water up the hill? You know, what’s the size of the lot? How much evaporation is there?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Obviously, in hotter climates, it requires more water to keep a given landscape flourishing, whatever that is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so there are some systems that have really leaned into trying to make rate design as equitable as possible. And there are others that haven’t gone as far as they could to try to really put more of the costs on the users who are driving the need for additional investment or supply.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That’s a big part of it, sort of within the urban sector. But again, I think part of the challenge here is that because supplies to many urban agencies are constrained, without a reallocation of supply from some of what is currently used for agriculture, we’re not really going to be able to fully address the affordability challenge through rates alone.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We appreciate all of that. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re talking about the rising cost of drinking water in California. Nationally, rates are up 60% over the last 10 years, and San Jose has the most expensive water in the country. We’re thinking about that price as a kind of signal of distress in the overall water system for the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability. We’ve got Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, formerly director of the Department of Water Resources. We’ve also got Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch, who created the report to show that San Jose has the most expensive water in the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re taking your calls. If you can’t get through on the phone lines, try the email address, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>, with your questions about California water. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re talking about your water rates, the rising cost of drinking water in California, what it says about our state’s water system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability, Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, and Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And let’s bring in some calls. Josh in Berkeley, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Josh:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks. Um, I manage the water bill for my 94-year-old mother in Monterey, which I believe was taken over several years by American Water, which is a New Jersey company. And her bill went from $400 to $1,500 in April, two years ago, and then went right back down the next month to $400.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I fought with them from April through September, eventually winning, because they had claimed that there might have been a leak or something at the house, none of which we ever found. And it was kind of suspect that the water bill dropped after it rose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I’m wondering if you know of any corrupt billing practices, especially specific to that water company. We eventually did win because it also coincided, by the way, with their installing new meters in the neighborhood, and other neighbors experienced a similar spike, not as much as my mother’s, but I’m just wondering if you could comment on that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Mary, maybe you could speak to that, or at least to the general case of having water bills go up by extreme amounts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Of course. So Monterey’s water system is owned by a company called American Water. They were actually in our top 10 list in 2015, but they were bumped off the list of 500 largest systems. So we weren’t able to capture them in our latest survey because they lost population. When bills go up, people might move away. So that’s a worrisome sign for the region.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Monterey is actually in the middle of a major fight to secure public ownership of its water system. They’ve been fighting for like a decade, going through the courts, then winning public ballot measures, trying to seek public ownership.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So this is a really interesting story that we’re hoping to — I think they go to court sometime soon to fight the next step of the battle to secure public ownership of their water system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In terms of billing issues, when meters are replaced, it’s actually really common. We see this a lot when metering systems are replaced. You swap in automatic meter readers. There can be issues.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’ve seen it across the country, public and private systems, that that change in metering system or billing system can lead to irregularities in water bills. There’s a variety of reasons why that happens.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes old meters don’t track water usage as well. They kind of slow down and they don’t really measure the water usage as well. And so when the meter’s replaced, it might bump up the baseline a lot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes there’s issues with, you know, I’ve seen utilities make the mistake of not using cubic feet, but using gallons for their meter billing system when they switch over. Like, just simple little mistakes like that can happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So there’s a variety of reasons why there could be major billing issues after a meter installation project or a billing system upgrade.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For California residents of private companies, you can file complaints with the California Public Utilities Commission, too. If you can’t get your issue resolved with the company directly, there is an alternative way to go about it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because these are private systems and you don’t have that ballot-box accountability over the decision-makers like you do with your local government — you cannot show up at City Hall and make complaints — there’s a process at the California Public Utilities Commission to file a complaint and have them intercede on your behalf and investigate further.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Fantastic answer, Mary. Thank you so much for that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eddie in San Francisco writes, there are something like 3,000 water utilities in California. Most regions have separate water supply and wastewater treatment agencies. Just like our Bay Area transit system, there is opportunity to gain efficiency and improve service by consolidating and connecting utilities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Annalise writes on the Discord, I live in a small public water district with only a couple thousand customers. I can tell our infrastructure is in bad shape. There have been two water main breaks on my block this year. The majority of seats on the water district board were up in this election, but I couldn’t find anything out about the candidates or what their plans for going forward might be. Very frustrating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karla Nemeth, what do you think? You work with California water agencies. It does seem like perhaps there’s a lot of them and there could be efficiencies. What do you think?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah. In fact, the state had embarked on a consolidation program, especially for some of these smaller communities where they really can’t keep pace, either with important drinking water standards or they can’t keep pace with challenges that occur during times of hydrologic drought.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think that is a tool. I think the interconnectedness of our systems needs to be more broadly acknowledged across the board so that there are opportunities to operate a broad system of systems really much more efficiently.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Um, I also think, you know, honestly, everything at these local levels with our local boards in California, it’s such a disservice that we are lacking in local journalism. That was one of the ways in which we were able to really ferret out governance across all spectrums in the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And local governance is critically important for folks like the caller who want to understand what the plan is, who’s living and experiencing things not working in their community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I really do think we miss so much without real local journalism that is getting into those kinds of issues.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, Hank in Sunnyvale has an interesting question here on usage and rates. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Hank:\u003c/strong> Hi. Yes, the discussion just a few moments ago about how there are fixed costs in this business, as well as all, and that when the water is short and people can’t use as much or don’t want to use as much, there isn’t enough income to cover all the costs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the company goes to the ratepayers that govern them and says, hey, we can’t make it here. We need to raise rates, which happens. That’s fine.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that’s only half of the dynamics. The next thing that happens somewhere along the line, we get back into having a lot of water, and nobody says, oh, now we can take the rates back down because there’s lots of water and people will be using more and they don’t have to pay as much per gallon.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though we end up going up every time it’s dry, and then we never go back down. And next time it is dry, the rate that got established is now the new normal, and we go, oh my God, we can’t make it on this one-way ratchet. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Max, what do you think? It’s a good point, Hank. Isn’t that something that could be done? Maybe the rates could be more flexible and float more, so to speak?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I’m a big proponent of additional oversight and accountability of the sector generally. And that’s to deal with issues like the previous caller talked about with the excessively high bill, and also to look at these types of issues of pricing over time and where there could be efficiencies and how to distribute the costs more equitably.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think the sector overall has been resistant to additional regulation and oversight, and that’s a tension point.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But as this caller mentions, right, when we have these varying precipitation regimes, and it’s getting more extreme with climate change between wet and dry, there aren’t a whole lot of changes. And part of that is a function of the fixed costs. Those costs are there regardless.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I think if we had some additional requirements for things like how you spend reserve funds and how you allocate higher and lower costs for things like electricity and treatment, depending on where the highest use is coming from.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, we have a new big class of industrial users, data centers. We don’t really know if they’re being charged enough, given their impact on water use. So there should be more oversight.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you for that. Let’s bring another caller here, Steve in San Jose. Welcome, Steve.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Steve:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to put forward an item of potentially trying to reduce costs. Right now, there’s no incentive for the companies like San Jose Water Company to reduce costs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was explained to me by one of the officers that the more that they put in the fixed cost, each item that they’ve put in to fixed costs that eventually would go to the ratepayers gave an item of profit to the corporation. So they were incentivized to increase the fixed cost as much as possible because that gave them profit. There’s just no incentive to reduce costs, and that was my point.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Steve, what, Karla, what do you think?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Well, that may be the case in the context of a for-profit water company. My perspective is public-sector water agency, so I don’t think that’s in play. I think Mary may have a perspective on that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do want to describe sort of yet another wrinkle in the math around rates and how they respond in the context of a changing hydrology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s also true that when we have real extreme precipitation conditions, people use less water residentially. And they use less water residentially because it’s raining, and so much of our residential water use is on outdoor landscaping.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, again, part of our challenge is we are in a place where we are, as urban water agencies, leveling demand in many places in the state. We have also held demand flat even while California continued to grow.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So demand is leveling. It is going to decrease because the state is regulating conservation. And there has been some funding from the state to help support those conservation programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But when you take that in combination with aging infrastructure and increasingly volatile climate and precipitation patterns, all those pieces fit together in a way that only has upward pressure on water rates.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A fundamental challenge, I think, is how we get back to a place where there is sustained state investment and hopefully federal investment again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I do have to go back to Max’s original point about the role of state and federal governments. When California built a lot of this infrastructure, it was very, very different. And we will not solve the problem unless we solve that kind of financing problem.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then one other perspective on agriculture in California. Agriculture in California is shrinking. There is no question that California agriculture needs to shrink because of overdrafted groundwater basins. So there are continuing pressures on that sector and the way that they need to respond to limits on groundwater pumping.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the picture is a complex one in California, not just our water rights system, but our financing approaches. And that is our challenge as water managers into the future. How do we put those pieces together? How do we do them in a way that protects affordability?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And what’s critically important is affordability for all. And that’s not something California has been entirely successful on. We need to do better on that front. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, you know, Mary, in your Food and Water Watch report, you did argue that declining federal investment is a major reason that customers are shouldering more of the cost of water infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, the EPA estimates drinking water systems will need, I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements over the next 20 years. Are you seeing any movement, Mary? Like, is there any possibility that the federal government will actually get involved on these things?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> So, I think Max mentioned earlier how since federal funding for water infrastructure peaked 50 years ago, so it peaked in 1977, according to Congressional Budget Office data. Since then, it’s fallen 77%.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We actually saw a big bump in funding for water infrastructure with the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021 that provided $50 billion over five years, but it only met 4% of the needs of our water systems. And that money just ran out at the end of September, at the end of the federal fiscal year.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we are facing this funding cliff actually in Congress right now. And the Trump administration has proposed cutting the main source of federal funding for safe and clean water by 90% this year, with the goal of eliminating it outright, eliminating funding for the state revolving loan programs across the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, really, but, you know, at the end of the day, Congress controls the purse strings. And so we really need our elected officials, our members of Congress, to fight for more federal funding.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On December 11, the federal government needs to make a decision and fund the rest of government. Funding for the federal government writ large runs out on December 11. So when Congress gets back after the midterm elections, they need to get to work, and they need to fund water systems and need to fund the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And they have an opportunity to extend and expand support for safe water. And we are calling for them to do so and to pass legislation like the WATER Act, the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability Act in Congress. More than 90 co-sponsors in the House.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it would create a trust fund to address some of the issues that Karla was mentioning about the ebb and flow of federal water funding. This would create a trust fund to provide that dedicated annual federal funding that our communities need to make sure that every person has safe and affordable water.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks so much for all that info, Mary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As well, you know, Sean writes in to say, can you justify why the California Public Utilities Commission continues to allow San Jose Water to raise rates? Like, what would you say back?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> So it’s interesting, right? The Public Utilities Commission exists to regulate all of the investor-owned utilities, whether that’s PG&E or the water utilities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And as part of that, they allow them to earn a rate of return, a return on equity. And as a previous caller mentioned, they get that return based on the physical infrastructure that they put in the ground: tanks, pumps, pipes, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so they have an incentive to build a lot of that. One of the ways to sort of address that is by reducing the amount that their investors earn.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The PUC actually tried to do that several years ago, and they got tripped up on sort of procedure and they lost at the State Supreme Court in trying to do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it’s a big challenge because these are monopoly systems. They need to provide safe drinking water and maintain the infrastructure. The real question is how much should their investors be allowed to earn?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We have been talking about the complex reasons behind the rise in cost of drinking water in California, what we could do about it, what it says about our state’s fragile water system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thank you so much, Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yeah, we’ve also been joined by Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. Thank you, Karla.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Mary Grant, water policy director with Food and Water Watch. Thank you, Mary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me. Great conversation today.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you so much to all of our callers and commenters and listeners. Thanks so much for all the engagement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with me, Nikim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>San Jose has the most expensive water in the country, according to a new report from Food & Water Watch. The report finds that, nationwide, household water bills have increased by an average of 62% over the last decade, and California is home to more than half of the 25 most expensive water systems in the country. So what’s driving up the cost of our household drinking water and is there a better way to pay for this essential service? We’ll hear from water policy experts about the hidden costs behind your water bill, how everything from climate change to agricultural policy is shaping rates, and what it would take to make water more affordable for Californians.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>San Jose has the most expensive water in the country, according to a new report from Food & Water Watch. The report finds that, nationwide, household water bills have increased by an average of 62% over the last decade, and California is home to more than half of the 25 most expensive water systems in the country. So what’s driving up the cost of our household drinking water and is there a better way to pay for this essential service? We’ll hear from water policy experts about the hidden costs behind your water bill, how everything from climate change to agricultural policy is shaping rates, and what it would take to make water more affordable for Californians.\u003c/p>\n"
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"Max Gomberg, senior policy advisor on water equity and affordability; formerly Climate and Conservation manager, State Water Resources Control Board",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg,\u003c/strong> senior policy advisor on water equity and affordability; formerly Climate and Conservation manager, State Water Resources Control Board\u003c/li>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant,\u003c/strong> water policy director, Food & Water Watch\u003c/li>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth,\u003c/strong> executive director, Association of California Water Agencies\u003c/li>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Many years ago, the first thing I learned about water in California was that we have a fundamental problem. Most of the water falls and flows north of the Bay Area, and most of the people live in it or south of it. So California water tends to move from north to south, and that doesn’t just happen. It requires massive infrastructure, which stores water captured by the Sierra Nevada snowpack and runoff in a series of reservoirs. Then aqueducts and canals bring it over to our coastal cities or further to the cities of Southern California.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Many years ago, the first thing I learned about water in California was that we have a fundamental problem. Most of the water falls and flows north of the Bay Area, and most of the people live in it or south of it. So California water tends to move from north to south, and that doesn’t just happen. It requires massive infrastructure, which stores water captured by the Sierra Nevada snowpack and runoff in a series of reservoirs. Then aqueducts and canals bring it over to our coastal cities or further to the cities of Southern California.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>All that steel and concrete is getting old. Maintenance costs are rising. Climate change is bringing more weather extremes. Groundwater supplies are depleted. We’ve got problems, and that’s showing up on your water bill in the state.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>All that steel and concrete is getting old. Maintenance costs are rising. Climate change is bringing more weather extremes. Groundwater supplies are depleted. We’ve got problems, and that’s showing up on your water bill in the state.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Here to talk about it, we’ve got Mary Grant, water policy director with Food and Water Watch. Welcome, Mary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Here to talk about it, we’ve got Mary Grant, water policy director with Food and Water Watch. Welcome, Mary.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got Karla Nemeth, who’s executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. Welcome, Karla.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got Karla Nemeth, who’s executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. Welcome, Karla.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Good morning.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Good morning.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Max Gomberg, who is policy advisor on water equity and affordability. Welcome, Max.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Max Gomberg, who is policy advisor on water equity and affordability. Welcome, Max.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Good to be here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Mary, let’s start with you. Your organization, Food and Water Watch, recently released a report finding that bills for household drinking water have increased 62% since 2015, outpacing inflation. That’s a national number. And over half of the country’s 25 most expensive water systems are in California. Just talk to us a little bit about what this research is and the kind of precise contours of it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Mary, let’s start with you. Your organization, Food and Water Watch, recently released a report finding that bills for household drinking water have increased 62% since 2015, outpacing inflation. That’s a national number. And over half of the country’s 25 most expensive water systems are in California. Just talk to us a little bit about what this research is and the kind of precise contours of it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Of course. So, 10 years ago, we did a survey looking at the 500 largest community water systems, and we wanted to update that to see how prices have grown over the last decade. So we collected water rate data for the 500 largest community water systems across the country, just to track how much household bills have increased over the past decade.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Of course. So, 10 years ago, we did a survey looking at the 500 largest community water systems, and we wanted to update that to see how prices have grown over the last decade. So we collected water rate data for the 500 largest community water systems across the country, just to track how much household bills have increased over the past decade.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So this is for a typical household of three using around 60,000 gallons a year, how much prices have grown. And we found that, like you said, household drinking water bills have increased by 62% over the last decade. So that’s faster than inflation. It’s more than twice as fast as grocery prices, and it’s also outpacing growth in household incomes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So this is for a typical household of three using around 60,000 gallons a year, how much prices have grown. And we found that, like you said, household drinking water bills have increased by 62% over the last decade. So that’s faster than inflation. It’s more than twice as fast as grocery prices, and it’s also outpacing growth in household incomes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, here in California, we kind of know that this is not a water-rich state in the places where people live, right? We are, you know, much of our population lives in what’s basically a desert. So maybe expensive water is to be expected. But in other places in the country, maybe that wouldn’t be the case. So what’s kind of underneath these rising prices, even in places that are more water-rich than here?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, here in California, we kind of know that this is not a water-rich state in the places where people live, right? We are, you know, much of our population lives in what’s basically a desert. So maybe expensive water is to be expected. But in other places in the country, maybe that wouldn’t be the case. So what’s kind of underneath these rising prices, even in places that are more water-rich than here?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> The key driver for water bill increases is necessary improvements to infrastructure. Our systems are aging, pipes are breaking, wasting water. Treatment plants need major updates to address new contaminants like PFAS forever chemicals.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> The key driver for water bill increases is necessary improvements to infrastructure. Our systems are aging, pipes are breaking, wasting water. Treatment plants need major updates to address new contaminants like PFAS forever chemicals.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So our systems are aging, and they’re facing a lot of pressures, including climate change. We actually found that California has high prices and is definitely overrepresented in the most expensive systems, but it’s only the eighth most expensive state in the country.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So our systems are aging, and they’re facing a lot of pressures, including climate change. We actually found that California has high prices and is definitely overrepresented in the most expensive systems, but it’s only the eighth most expensive state in the country.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What we found is West Virginia has the most expensive water, which was very surprising to us because this is a state with high levels of poverty, too. So there are various factors that are increasing prices across the country, but overall, it’s driven by those capital improvement needs, the need to invest in and update our aging infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What we found is West Virginia has the most expensive water, which was very surprising to us because this is a state with high levels of poverty, too. So there are various factors that are increasing prices across the country, but overall, it’s driven by those capital improvement needs, the need to invest in and update our aging infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Did you find that there’s any particular kinds of water systems? I mean, that’s one of the strange things. This is such a distributed kind of set of utilities. Did you find that there is anything that, on average, makes people’s water bills go up or down in the nature of those water systems?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Did you find that there’s any particular kinds of water systems? I mean, that’s one of the strange things. This is such a distributed kind of set of utilities. Did you find that there is anything that, on average, makes people’s water bills go up or down in the nature of those water systems?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> There’s a couple factors that we saw at play. One of the strongest ones was corporate ownership of water, at least at the national level. We found that privately owned systems charged, on average, 67% more than local governments, adding several hundred dollars a year onto a household water bill.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> There’s a couple factors that we saw at play. One of the strongest ones was corporate ownership of water, at least at the national level. We found that privately owned systems charged, on average, 67% more than local governments, adding several hundred dollars a year onto a household water bill.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We actually found that the typical local government charged less today than a private system charged a decade ago. And in some states, that difference is even greater. In Indiana, in Illinois, these investor-owned, for-profit systems are charging twice as much as local governments.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We actually found that the typical local government charged less today than a private system charged a decade ago. And in some states, that difference is even greater. In Indiana, in Illinois, these investor-owned, for-profit systems are charging twice as much as local governments.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In California, actually, the difference was less pronounced. So bills are only 8% higher with corporately owned water. So in California, what we saw is location and water source seem to be bigger factors.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In California, actually, the difference was less pronounced. So bills are only 8% higher with corporately owned water. So in California, what we saw is location and water source seem to be bigger factors.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Nationally, we did see that surface water tends to be more expensive than groundwater. It just requires more expensive treatment since it’s more vulnerable to contamination.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Nationally, we did see that surface water tends to be more expensive than groundwater. It just requires more expensive treatment since it’s more vulnerable to contamination.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you for that. Karla Nemeth, you previously led California’s Department of Water Resources. Now you work with these water agencies across the state, so you’ve got quite a view of what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you for that. Karla Nemeth, you previously led California’s Department of Water Resources. Now you work with these water agencies across the state, so you’ve got quite a view of what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When you just zoom in on California’s water system, we’re using less household drinking water than we did 10 years ago. People have gotten the message about trying to conserve water, and yet bills are going up anyway. Why is that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When you just zoom in on California’s water system, we’re using less household drinking water than we did 10 years ago. People have gotten the message about trying to conserve water, and yet bills are going up anyway. Why is that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so, um, that’s a great question. So, uh, the Association of California Water Agencies, we represent more than about 470 public water agencies. So we’re less in the corporate space, that part of the Food and Water Watch study.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so, um, that’s a great question. So, uh, the Association of California Water Agencies, we represent more than about 470 public water agencies. So we’re less in the corporate space, that part of the Food and Water Watch study.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, you know, one statistic I find pretty telling is, in about 2021, the U.S. EPA estimated California water infrastructure needs about $84 billion over the next 20 years. Now, that was 2021, and that was before we had, or right in the middle, I should say, of a brutal drought, also followed by some really big storm years in California.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But, you know, one statistic I find pretty telling is, in about 2021, the U.S. EPA estimated California water infrastructure needs about $84 billion over the next 20 years. Now, that was 2021, and that was before we had, or right in the middle, I should say, of a brutal drought, also followed by some really big storm years in California.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so $84 billion over 20 years is probably a lowball. And we are starting to really understand the full effects of climate volatility on our system at exactly a moment where we have some generational reinvestment that’s required in our systems, really large and small.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so $84 billion over 20 years is probably a lowball. And we are starting to really understand the full effects of climate volatility on our system at exactly a moment where we have some generational reinvestment that’s required in our systems, really large and small.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s also true, not just sort of this big infrastructure in California that has the benefit of regional economies of scale, but even in some of our smaller communities in the Sierra Nevada, in the foothills, where you have these systems that are very old, that are increasingly vulnerable to things like wildfire and some legacies around forest management. Those are systems that serve very small populations.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s also true, not just sort of this big infrastructure in California that has the benefit of regional economies of scale, but even in some of our smaller communities in the Sierra Nevada, in the foothills, where you have these systems that are very old, that are increasingly vulnerable to things like wildfire and some legacies around forest management. Those are systems that serve very small populations.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, big reinvestment, vulnerable infrastructure, smaller ratepayer base. Those are also some of the dynamics we’re really seeing that’s challenging our water bills.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, big reinvestment, vulnerable infrastructure, smaller ratepayer base. Those are also some of the dynamics we’re really seeing that’s challenging our water bills.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Karla, can I ask you this? Why have we built up this infrastructural maintenance debt? Like, why didn’t we take care of it along the way?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Karla, can I ask you this? Why have we built up this infrastructural maintenance debt? Like, why didn’t we take care of it along the way?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Well, I think we have been taking care of it along the way, and I think that some of our systems are decades and decades old. Some of our systems have been challenged by unmanaged groundwater.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Well, I think we have been taking care of it along the way, and I think that some of our systems are decades and decades old. Some of our systems have been challenged by unmanaged groundwater.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So that, to me, is a real game changer for California water. As you may know, California is required to sustainably manage its groundwater resources by 2040, which sounds like a long way away. But when you contemplate the fact that those groundwater aquifers, and they are big, there’s about 10 to 12 times the size of our surface reservoirs in our groundwater basins. They have the capacity to hold a lot of water.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So that, to me, is a real game changer for California water. As you may know, California is required to sustainably manage its groundwater resources by 2040, which sounds like a long way away. But when you contemplate the fact that those groundwater aquifers, and they are big, there’s about 10 to 12 times the size of our surface reservoirs in our groundwater basins. They have the capacity to hold a lot of water.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But California never managed them until the really bad drought in 2015, I think, awakened us to real challenges of ever-depleting groundwater resources.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But California never managed them until the really bad drought in 2015, I think, awakened us to real challenges of ever-depleting groundwater resources.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so when we think about the long-term effects of unmanaged groundwater, we have areas in the state where subsidence has fundamentally impacted our larger surface water infrastructure in ways where that bill is now also coming due.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so when we think about the long-term effects of unmanaged groundwater, we have areas in the state where subsidence has fundamentally impacted our larger surface water infrastructure in ways where that bill is now also coming due.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Subsidence, for people, being when the ground sinks as we pump the water out from underneath it and the ground settles.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Subsidence, for people, being when the ground sinks as we pump the water out from underneath it and the ground settles.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> That’s correct. That’s correct. And so it’s really a convergence of all of these factors that are creating real pressures on our water bills.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> That’s correct. That’s correct. And so it’s really a convergence of all of these factors that are creating real pressures on our water bills.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I would be remiss if I didn’t add a couple more dimensions to that, which is really two things. One is the way that we fund water infrastructure in California. About 84% of it is on ratepayers and from local revenues, and contributions from the state and federal government, in particular the federal government, are kind of boom-bust here in California.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I would be remiss if I didn’t add a couple more dimensions to that, which is really two things. One is the way that we fund water infrastructure in California. About 84% of it is on ratepayers and from local revenues, and contributions from the state and federal government, in particular the federal government, are kind of boom-bust here in California.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Would you—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Would you—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Which makes it hard to plan, really hard to plan for infrastructure projects.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Which makes it hard to plan, really hard to plan for infrastructure projects.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think a compounding factor is we also have a complex regulatory environment. It’s an important regulatory environment, but it’s a complex one. Complex regulatory environments combined with a lack of sustainable funding beyond just ratepayer dollars, these big climate shifts happening, all of that is converging together to create a very challenging picture for our water bills in the state. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think a compounding factor is we also have a complex regulatory environment. It’s an important regulatory environment, but it’s a complex one. Complex regulatory environments combined with a lack of sustainable funding beyond just ratepayer dollars, these big climate shifts happening, all of that is converging together to create a very challenging picture for our water bills in the state. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Max, I want to squeeze you in here before the break. Do you think we’ve done a good job managing the prices people have to pay for water in the state?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Max, I want to squeeze you in here before the break. Do you think we’ve done a good job managing the prices people have to pay for water in the state?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> I would say it’s mixed. One of the things Karla mentioned, right, is the share of the funding that comes from rates, right, from local rates and fees, as opposed to state and federal dollars.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> I would say it’s mixed. One of the things Karla mentioned, right, is the share of the funding that comes from rates, right, from local rates and fees, as opposed to state and federal dollars.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Part of the reason we are where we are now is that 50 years ago, the federal government made massive investments in infrastructure for drinking water treatment, for wastewater treatment. And since then, the federal share has declined to a very small amount.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Part of the reason we are where we are now is that 50 years ago, the federal government made massive investments in infrastructure for drinking water treatment, for wastewater treatment. And since then, the federal share has declined to a very small amount.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There was simply a shift to a consensus of, this is now going to be a state and local issue. It is going to be primarily on local systems and on states to maintain this infrastructure. And for various reasons, it hasn’t been maintained adequately. And all of these pressures are forcing the rates up.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There was simply a shift to a consensus of, this is now going to be a state and local issue. It is going to be primarily on local systems and on states to maintain this infrastructure. And for various reasons, it hasn’t been maintained adequately. And all of these pressures are forcing the rates up.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And in California, we have also a unique challenge arising from a ballot proposition that was passed 30 years ago, which restricts the way that local publicly owned water systems can raise rates and really hinders, I think, the ability to price water fairly.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And in California, we have also a unique challenge arising from a ballot proposition that was passed 30 years ago, which restricts the way that local publicly owned water systems can raise rates and really hinders, I think, the ability to price water fairly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re gonna be back talking more about the rising cost of drinking water in California with Max Gomberg, Karla Nemeth, and Mary Grant. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re gonna be back talking more about the rising cost of drinking water in California with Max Gomberg, Karla Nemeth, and Mary Grant. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the rising cost of drinking water in California and what it says about our state’s water system, which is looking increasingly fragile as the years go by.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the rising cost of drinking water in California and what it says about our state’s water system, which is looking increasingly fragile as the years go by.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability. We’ve got Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, previously ran our Department of Water Resources here in the state. And we’ve got Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’re joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability. We’ve got Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, previously ran our Department of Water Resources here in the state. And we’ve got Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, we’d love to hear from you, too. Are you struggling to pay your water bill? Have you seen your water rates go up in ways that are surprising to you? Have you had to make different changes? Or what questions do you just have about how our water system works?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>You know, we’d love to hear from you, too. Are you struggling to pay your water bill? Have you seen your water rates go up in ways that are surprising to you? Have you had to make different changes? Or what questions do you just have about how our water system works?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The phone number is 866-733-6786. We know affordability is top of mind for a lot of people. So, 866-733-6786. The email is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, Discord. We’re @KQEDForum, of course.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The phone number is 866-733-6786. We know affordability is top of mind for a lot of people. So, 866-733-6786. The email is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, Discord. We’re @KQEDForum, of course.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’ve got a few different comments coming in here as well. People want to talk about groundwater and water rights. We’re gonna get to some of those a little bit later in the show.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We’ve got a few different comments coming in here as well. People want to talk about groundwater and water rights. We’re gonna get to some of those a little bit later in the show.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>First, Mary, let’s talk a little about San Jose. San Jose has some of the most expensive drinking water in the country. What have you, how would you compare San Jose to other places in the report?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>First, Mary, let’s talk a little about San Jose. San Jose has some of the most expensive drinking water in the country. What have you, how would you compare San Jose to other places in the report?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> So San Jose is actually at the top of our list, our ranking of the most expensive water systems in the country. And both San Jose Water Company and San Jose, the municipal water system, make the top 10. So San Jose Water Company is number one, and then San Jose, the municipal system, is number five.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> So San Jose is actually at the top of our list, our ranking of the most expensive water systems in the country. And both San Jose Water Company and San Jose, the municipal water system, make the top 10. So San Jose Water Company is number one, and then San Jose, the municipal system, is number five.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What we’ve seen is that these two systems both rely on about half of their water from Valley Water, which gets its water from the State Water Project. So the costs are often driven by the cost of importing water and purchasing water. That’s really making their costs so high in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What we’ve seen is that these two systems both rely on about half of their water from Valley Water, which gets its water from the State Water Project. So the costs are often driven by the cost of importing water and purchasing water. That’s really making their costs so high in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s interesting because San Jose is kind of a split. They have three different water utilities in the city. There’s also a third private company called Great Oaks Water Company that did not make our top 25 list of most expensive. In fact, it’s one of the most affordable systems in the state.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s interesting because San Jose is kind of a split. They have three different water utilities in the city. There’s also a third private company called Great Oaks Water Company that did not make our top 25 list of most expensive. In fact, it’s one of the most affordable systems in the state.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And that’s because all of its water is from groundwater supplies, groundwater wells across its service area. So it shows to me that the cost of purchasing water from the State Water Project is really driving a lot of the high costs in the San Jose area and the Bay Area in particular.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And that’s because all of its water is from groundwater supplies, groundwater wells across its service area. So it shows to me that the cost of purchasing water from the State Water Project is really driving a lot of the high costs in the San Jose area and the Bay Area in particular.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So it’s very interesting. Three different water systems, they all have their own distribution network, but where they get their water varies across the city.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So it’s very interesting. Three different water systems, they all have their own distribution network, but where they get their water varies across the city.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That is very interesting. I mean, for those who are unfamiliar, that sort of great hydraulic machine moving water from north to south, part of it runs through the State Water Project. Karla, can you talk to us a little bit about that situation in San Jose and just what it does or does not say about the overall state of the state’s water system?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That is very interesting. I mean, for those who are unfamiliar, that sort of great hydraulic machine moving water from north to south, part of it runs through the State Water Project. Karla, can you talk to us a little bit about that situation in San Jose and just what it does or does not say about the overall state of the state’s water system?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah, sure. So I think you have to go back a little farther than that. And when the State Water Project came on in the ’60s, one of the real challenges in the San Jose area was severe depletion of its groundwater system. So it didn’t have enough local water supplies in their groundwater system to manage their needs for their community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah, sure. So I think you have to go back a little farther than that. And when the State Water Project came on in the ’60s, one of the real challenges in the San Jose area was severe depletion of its groundwater system. So it didn’t have enough local water supplies in their groundwater system to manage their needs for their community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the State Water Project itself and its ability to move water reliably into that system is largely credited with rehabilitating groundwater systems, so much so that that area does not have the same problems that we’re seeing in other parts of the state.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And the State Water Project itself and its ability to move water reliably into that system is largely credited with rehabilitating groundwater systems, so much so that that area does not have the same problems that we’re seeing in other parts of the state.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think when we think about how to maintain affordability, I think that one of the key things we need to consider, and I would just generally disagree with Mary’s assertion about the role of the State Water Project. I think we have to really understand the available supplies to replace a State Water Project supply in the area.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think when we think about how to maintain affordability, I think that one of the key things we need to consider, and I would just generally disagree with Mary’s assertion about the role of the State Water Project. I think we have to really understand the available supplies to replace a State Water Project supply in the area.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, are there cheaper solutions out there? And the answer is not really. The answer really, there’s a lot of things we can be doing to become more efficient. That’s very much part of the puzzle moving into the future, especially dealing with this climate volatility.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, are there cheaper solutions out there? And the answer is not really. The answer really, there’s a lot of things we can be doing to become more efficient. That’s very much part of the puzzle moving into the future, especially dealing with this climate volatility.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But the reality is other kinds of water supplies that are necessary, things like recycled water or, you know, the Bay Area itself is a complex set of regional water agencies that sell water supplies to one another and they backstop one another.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But the reality is other kinds of water supplies that are necessary, things like recycled water or, you know, the Bay Area itself is a complex set of regional water agencies that sell water supplies to one another and they backstop one another.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So the mix of things like recycled water or brackish water desalination, all of those things themselves are also expensive, and particularly with recycled water, it can be more expensive than State Water Project supplies.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So the mix of things like recycled water or brackish water desalination, all of those things themselves are also expensive, and particularly with recycled water, it can be more expensive than State Water Project supplies.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I just want to understand the nature of the disagreement. The State Water Project water is getting more expensive, though, right? I mean, it is what’s driving up the cost. What you’re saying is if they try to switch off of the State Water Project water, there isn’t a cheaper supply available, with the exception of groundwater, which has its own set of contingent problems.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I just want to understand the nature of the disagreement. The State Water Project water is getting more expensive, though, right? I mean, it is what’s driving up the cost. What you’re saying is if they try to switch off of the State Water Project water, there isn’t a cheaper supply available, with the exception of groundwater, which has its own set of contingent problems.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Correct.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Correct.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, just making sure. Max, what do you think about the nature of the state water system and how the costs of that system end up flowing through? We’ve sort of talked about the federal government pullback. We’ve talked about the role of the states. So what could we be doing differently, minus federal government intervention, which doesn’t seem like it’s coming, at least for a little while?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, just making sure. Max, what do you think about the nature of the state water system and how the costs of that system end up flowing through? We’ve sort of talked about the federal government pullback. We’ve talked about the role of the states. So what could we be doing differently, minus federal government intervention, which doesn’t seem like it’s coming, at least for a little while?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> One thing we could be doing differently is taking a real look at our water rights system and our allocation of water. About 80% of water that is developed for human use, whether it’s domestic use, commercial, industrial, or agriculture, about 80% of that developed supply is used for agricultural production.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> One thing we could be doing differently is taking a real look at our water rights system and our allocation of water. About 80% of water that is developed for human use, whether it’s domestic use, commercial, industrial, or agriculture, about 80% of that developed supply is used for agricultural production.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There are about 9 million acres of land across California that are irrigated. Um, and that’s part of the reason that the state is such an agricultural powerhouse. However, a lot of the water supply for that production was tied up early on in the state’s history, oftentimes through dispossession of Native peoples, and is now sort of locked in for agricultural production, which means that there’s less water available for our cities.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>There are about 9 million acres of land across California that are irrigated. Um, and that’s part of the reason that the state is such an agricultural powerhouse. However, a lot of the water supply for that production was tied up early on in the state’s history, oftentimes through dispossession of Native peoples, and is now sort of locked in for agricultural production, which means that there’s less water available for our cities.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And that’s another contributor to the affordability issues. And I think that one of the things we need to do as a state is look really closely at how much of that supply can we transfer to cities?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And that’s another contributor to the affordability issues. And I think that one of the things we need to do as a state is look really closely at how much of that supply can we transfer to cities?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We simply are at an inflection point where there’s never enough water in shortage times to go around between cities, level of agricultural production, and the environment. And just because the agricultural producers locked up the rights a long time ago doesn’t mean that continuing that system is good public policy.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We simply are at an inflection point where there’s never enough water in shortage times to go around between cities, level of agricultural production, and the environment. And just because the agricultural producers locked up the rights a long time ago doesn’t mean that continuing that system is good public policy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s sort of almonds or 10 million people, you know? It’s kind of the, yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s sort of almonds or 10 million people, you know? It’s kind of the, yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Let’s bring in Lyndon. And also, I should say, Steve on Discord is happy you wrote about that because he wanted to note that we’ve also got some Byzantine grandfathered-in water rights from Mexican Rancheria-era water rights laws. Let’s bring in Lyndon in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Let’s bring in Lyndon. And also, I should say, Steve on Discord is happy you wrote about that because he wanted to note that we’ve also got some Byzantine grandfathered-in water rights from Mexican Rancheria-era water rights laws. Let’s bring in Lyndon in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lyndon:\u003c/strong> Hi. Yeah, I used to do water conservation for the city of San Jose, and we had a cost-sharing agreement with Valley Water to, you know, sort of support each other’s water conservation programs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lyndon:\u003c/strong> Hi. Yeah, I used to do water conservation for the city of San Jose, and we had a cost-sharing agreement with Valley Water to, you know, sort of support each other’s water conservation programs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I came across a study about 10 years ago from UC Davis that showed that there’s so much embedded energy in water in terms of conveying it, treating it, and so forth, that it’s actually a really cost-effective energy conservation strategy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I came across a study about 10 years ago from UC Davis that showed that there’s so much embedded energy in water in terms of conveying it, treating it, and so forth, that it’s actually a really cost-effective energy conservation strategy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it seems like water conservation and energy conservation programs could cost-share with each other to do that. And, you know, water conservation is just a really great way to extend supply.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And it seems like water conservation and energy conservation programs could cost-share with each other to do that. And, you know, water conservation is just a really great way to extend supply.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And in San Jose, there’s like 200,000 single-family homes, and, you know, I’m walking my dog right now and I’m looking at all these green lawns. And that’s just, you know, that’s like the biggest use of water in a single-family home.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And in San Jose, there’s like 200,000 single-family homes, and, you know, I’m walking my dog right now and I’m looking at all these green lawns. And that’s just, you know, that’s like the biggest use of water in a single-family home.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, to the extent that we can encourage people to rip out their lawns and put in, like, native landscapes, which then support the pollinators, because grass is just a vast wasteland for pollinators, there’s just a whole lot of synergies that can work together and improve things on the energy side, biodiversity side.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, to the extent that we can encourage people to rip out their lawns and put in, like, native landscapes, which then support the pollinators, because grass is just a vast wasteland for pollinators, there’s just a whole lot of synergies that can work together and improve things on the energy side, biodiversity side.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think people maybe don’t quite realize how much of our electricity use actually goes to moving and treating water. I think it’s about 20% overall in California, and just the State Water Project that we’ve been talking about, it’s like a meaningful amount of California electricity. It’s like some percentage.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think people maybe don’t quite realize how much of our electricity use actually goes to moving and treating water. I think it’s about 20% overall in California, and just the State Water Project that we’ve been talking about, it’s like a meaningful amount of California electricity. It’s like some percentage.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Karla, you probably know this. What percentage of California’s electricity is used to just move water around the state, particularly through the State Water Project?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Karla, you probably know this. What percentage of California’s electricity is used to just move water around the state, particularly through the State Water Project?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Oh, it is one of the biggest energy users in the state, no question. I don’t know the exact percentage offhand at the moment, but I do think the caller makes a terrific point that there are real synergies between water conservation and energy conservation that are good and important.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Oh, it is one of the biggest energy users in the state, no question. I don’t know the exact percentage offhand at the moment, but I do think the caller makes a terrific point that there are real synergies between water conservation and energy conservation that are good and important.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think where things get trickier is most water utilities have, maybe in the highest cases, 73% of their costs are fixed costs. And so when you use less water, it doesn’t obviate the need to support those fixed-cost systems.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think where things get trickier is most water utilities have, maybe in the highest cases, 73% of their costs are fixed costs. And so when you use less water, it doesn’t obviate the need to support those fixed-cost systems.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And of course, as we’ve been talking about, a lot of those systems are aging and need to be rehabilitated, or in some cases — and these are systems, not simply the large ones that move water from north to south, from the Sierra to the coast. We move water a long ways in California, but also our smaller distributed systems.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And of course, as we’ve been talking about, a lot of those systems are aging and need to be rehabilitated, or in some cases — and these are systems, not simply the large ones that move water from north to south, from the Sierra to the coast. We move water a long ways in California, but also our smaller distributed systems.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so it’s not as linear. We very much need to continue to conserve. And California also, as a result of drought in 2015, passed something called Conservation as a Way of Life, which is a very important program that water utilities must respond to.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so it’s not as linear. We very much need to continue to conserve. And California also, as a result of drought in 2015, passed something called Conservation as a Way of Life, which is a very important program that water utilities must respond to.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And that’s to do things like make sure that we are as efficient as we can be indoors, efficient as we can be outdoors. About 50% of our residential water use is used outdoors. Do things to stem some losses from our systems, our distribution systems, and really work with our commercial properties, you know, where we have these business parks that have ornamental grasses and so forth.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And that’s to do things like make sure that we are as efficient as we can be indoors, efficient as we can be outdoors. About 50% of our residential water use is used outdoors. Do things to stem some losses from our systems, our distribution systems, and really work with our commercial properties, you know, where we have these business parks that have ornamental grasses and so forth.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So those programs are well underway, and there are regulatory deadlines for water agencies to achieve that kind of compliance. Those programs in and of themselves are — we don’t really know the full cost of those programs — but those in and of themselves had about a $5 billion price tag back in 2024.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So those programs are well underway, and there are regulatory deadlines for water agencies to achieve that kind of compliance. Those programs in and of themselves are — we don’t really know the full cost of those programs — but those in and of themselves had about a $5 billion price tag back in 2024.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, again, I think part of our challenge is, given the pressures of climate and not just hydrologic volatility, but the fact that warming temperatures means that the temperature itself becomes a new, quote-unquote, demand on water.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, again, I think part of our challenge is, given the pressures of climate and not just hydrologic volatility, but the fact that warming temperatures means that the temperature itself becomes a new, quote-unquote, demand on water.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Because it’s causing evaporation out of the reservoir.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Because it’s causing evaporation out of the reservoir.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Correct. And so these are all the things that have to now fit together into the future, which is, you know, how do we move to conserve water? Because we know that that’s important. How do we move to invest in our aging infrastructure that moves water from point A to point B? How do we continue to invest in things that are even more expensive than how we move big surface water, like recycled water in California, like desalination in California?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Correct. And so these are all the things that have to now fit together into the future, which is, you know, how do we move to conserve water? Because we know that that’s important. How do we move to invest in our aging infrastructure that moves water from point A to point B? How do we continue to invest in things that are even more expensive than how we move big surface water, like recycled water in California, like desalination in California?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And do that in a way that is as affordable as it can be for Californians. And that’s a tall order.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And do that in a way that is as affordable as it can be for Californians. And that’s a tall order.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And to me, that really gets us to, there are things that we can do: better forecasting, a better exchange of water supplies from one part of the state to another through things like trades and transfers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And to me, that really gets us to, there are things that we can do: better forecasting, a better exchange of water supplies from one part of the state to another through things like trades and transfers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But we really need to sort out how we are developing a sustainable financing infrastructure. As Max pointed out early on, our built system was built in a different era of state and federal investment. And now we’ve moved into a place where it is largely on the backs of water ratepayers in California, and we need to get out of that dynamic.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But we really need to sort out how we are developing a sustainable financing infrastructure. As Max pointed out early on, our built system was built in a different era of state and federal investment. And now we’ve moved into a place where it is largely on the backs of water ratepayers in California, and we need to get out of that dynamic.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Max, I wanted to put a finer point and bring it to you on something that Karla said there, which is, you know, we’ve got the costs of this system, which are what they are. They’re fixed and maybe even rising. And then we’ve people being encouraged to use less water, which is a good thing. Water conservation. People have gotten the message.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Max, I wanted to put a finer point and bring it to you on something that Karla said there, which is, you know, we’ve got the costs of this system, which are what they are. They’re fixed and maybe even rising. And then we’ve people being encouraged to use less water, which is a good thing. Water conservation. People have gotten the message.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But what that means is we’ve got the fixed costs over here, or rising costs. And then we’ve got people using fewer gallons of water, which would have been the money that was used to pay for that kind of maintenance. And what that means, then, is higher rates for everyone.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But what that means is we’ve got the fixed costs over here, or rising costs. And then we’ve got people using fewer gallons of water, which would have been the money that was used to pay for that kind of maintenance. And what that means, then, is higher rates for everyone.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What do you think can be done, especially given that this is really the focus of your work now, is affordability and equity?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What do you think can be done, especially given that this is really the focus of your work now, is affordability and equity?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> So I think there are a couple of things. I would be remiss not to say that I think we absolutely have to have more federal investment, particularly for assistance for families, households that are struggling to pay their bills now. And that’s really critical.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> So I think there are a couple of things. I would be remiss not to say that I think we absolutely have to have more federal investment, particularly for assistance for families, households that are struggling to pay their bills now. And that’s really critical.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which we do not have now in the way we do with electric bills.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which we do not have now in the way we do with electric bills.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> That’s right, and there have been attempts to introduce legislation to do that. So far, they have not advanced. We’ll see what the results of today’s election bring and where things go.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> That’s right, and there have been attempts to introduce legislation to do that. So far, they have not advanced. We’ll see what the results of today’s election bring and where things go.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But beyond that, rate design, how we allocate costs among different types of users, is really important. And for urban systems, right, you’ve got industrial users, commercial users, and then within the residential sector, right, single-family, multifamily, and different factors often that go into setting rates, like do you have to pump the water up the hill? You know, what’s the size of the lot? How much evaporation is there?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But beyond that, rate design, how we allocate costs among different types of users, is really important. And for urban systems, right, you’ve got industrial users, commercial users, and then within the residential sector, right, single-family, multifamily, and different factors often that go into setting rates, like do you have to pump the water up the hill? You know, what’s the size of the lot? How much evaporation is there?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Obviously, in hotter climates, it requires more water to keep a given landscape flourishing, whatever that is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Obviously, in hotter climates, it requires more water to keep a given landscape flourishing, whatever that is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so there are some systems that have really leaned into trying to make rate design as equitable as possible. And there are others that haven’t gone as far as they could to try to really put more of the costs on the users who are driving the need for additional investment or supply.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so there are some systems that have really leaned into trying to make rate design as equitable as possible. And there are others that haven’t gone as far as they could to try to really put more of the costs on the users who are driving the need for additional investment or supply.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s a big part of it, sort of within the urban sector. But again, I think part of the challenge here is that because supplies to many urban agencies are constrained, without a reallocation of supply from some of what is currently used for agriculture, we’re not really going to be able to fully address the affordability challenge through rates alone.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s a big part of it, sort of within the urban sector. But again, I think part of the challenge here is that because supplies to many urban agencies are constrained, without a reallocation of supply from some of what is currently used for agriculture, we’re not really going to be able to fully address the affordability challenge through rates alone.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We appreciate all of that. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We appreciate all of that. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re talking about the rising cost of drinking water in California. Nationally, rates are up 60% over the last 10 years, and San Jose has the most expensive water in the country. We’re thinking about that price as a kind of signal of distress in the overall water system for the state.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We’re talking about the rising cost of drinking water in California. Nationally, rates are up 60% over the last 10 years, and San Jose has the most expensive water in the country. We’re thinking about that price as a kind of signal of distress in the overall water system for the state.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability. We’ve got Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, formerly director of the Department of Water Resources. We’ve also got Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch, who created the report to show that San Jose has the most expensive water in the country.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’re joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability. We’ve got Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, formerly director of the Department of Water Resources. We’ve also got Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch, who created the report to show that San Jose has the most expensive water in the country.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re taking your calls. If you can’t get through on the phone lines, try the email address, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>, with your questions about California water. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We’re taking your calls. If you can’t get through on the phone lines, try the email address, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>, with your questions about California water. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re talking about your water rates, the rising cost of drinking water in California, what it says about our state’s water system.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re talking about your water rates, the rising cost of drinking water in California, what it says about our state’s water system.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability, Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, and Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability, Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, and Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And let’s bring in some calls. Josh in Berkeley, welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And let’s bring in some calls. Josh in Berkeley, welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks. Um, I manage the water bill for my 94-year-old mother in Monterey, which I believe was taken over several years by American Water, which is a New Jersey company. And her bill went from $400 to $1,500 in April, two years ago, and then went right back down the next month to $400.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks. Um, I manage the water bill for my 94-year-old mother in Monterey, which I believe was taken over several years by American Water, which is a New Jersey company. And her bill went from $400 to $1,500 in April, two years ago, and then went right back down the next month to $400.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I fought with them from April through September, eventually winning, because they had claimed that there might have been a leak or something at the house, none of which we ever found. And it was kind of suspect that the water bill dropped after it rose.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I fought with them from April through September, eventually winning, because they had claimed that there might have been a leak or something at the house, none of which we ever found. And it was kind of suspect that the water bill dropped after it rose.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I’m wondering if you know of any corrupt billing practices, especially specific to that water company. We eventually did win because it also coincided, by the way, with their installing new meters in the neighborhood, and other neighbors experienced a similar spike, not as much as my mother’s, but I’m just wondering if you could comment on that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I’m wondering if you know of any corrupt billing practices, especially specific to that water company. We eventually did win because it also coincided, by the way, with their installing new meters in the neighborhood, and other neighbors experienced a similar spike, not as much as my mother’s, but I’m just wondering if you could comment on that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Mary, maybe you could speak to that, or at least to the general case of having water bills go up by extreme amounts.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Mary, maybe you could speak to that, or at least to the general case of having water bills go up by extreme amounts.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Of course. So Monterey’s water system is owned by a company called American Water. They were actually in our top 10 list in 2015, but they were bumped off the list of 500 largest systems. So we weren’t able to capture them in our latest survey because they lost population. When bills go up, people might move away. So that’s a worrisome sign for the region.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Of course. So Monterey’s water system is owned by a company called American Water. They were actually in our top 10 list in 2015, but they were bumped off the list of 500 largest systems. So we weren’t able to capture them in our latest survey because they lost population. When bills go up, people might move away. So that’s a worrisome sign for the region.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Monterey is actually in the middle of a major fight to secure public ownership of its water system. They’ve been fighting for like a decade, going through the courts, then winning public ballot measures, trying to seek public ownership.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Monterey is actually in the middle of a major fight to secure public ownership of its water system. They’ve been fighting for like a decade, going through the courts, then winning public ballot measures, trying to seek public ownership.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So this is a really interesting story that we’re hoping to — I think they go to court sometime soon to fight the next step of the battle to secure public ownership of their water system.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So this is a really interesting story that we’re hoping to — I think they go to court sometime soon to fight the next step of the battle to secure public ownership of their water system.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In terms of billing issues, when meters are replaced, it’s actually really common. We see this a lot when metering systems are replaced. You swap in automatic meter readers. There can be issues.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In terms of billing issues, when meters are replaced, it’s actually really common. We see this a lot when metering systems are replaced. You swap in automatic meter readers. There can be issues.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’ve seen it across the country, public and private systems, that that change in metering system or billing system can lead to irregularities in water bills. There’s a variety of reasons why that happens.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We’ve seen it across the country, public and private systems, that that change in metering system or billing system can lead to irregularities in water bills. There’s a variety of reasons why that happens.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sometimes old meters don’t track water usage as well. They kind of slow down and they don’t really measure the water usage as well. And so when the meter’s replaced, it might bump up the baseline a lot.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Sometimes old meters don’t track water usage as well. They kind of slow down and they don’t really measure the water usage as well. And so when the meter’s replaced, it might bump up the baseline a lot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sometimes there’s issues with, you know, I’ve seen utilities make the mistake of not using cubic feet, but using gallons for their meter billing system when they switch over. Like, just simple little mistakes like that can happen.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Sometimes there’s issues with, you know, I’ve seen utilities make the mistake of not using cubic feet, but using gallons for their meter billing system when they switch over. Like, just simple little mistakes like that can happen.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So there’s a variety of reasons why there could be major billing issues after a meter installation project or a billing system upgrade.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So there’s a variety of reasons why there could be major billing issues after a meter installation project or a billing system upgrade.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>For California residents of private companies, you can file complaints with the California Public Utilities Commission, too. If you can’t get your issue resolved with the company directly, there is an alternative way to go about it.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>For California residents of private companies, you can file complaints with the California Public Utilities Commission, too. If you can’t get your issue resolved with the company directly, there is an alternative way to go about it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Because these are private systems and you don’t have that ballot-box accountability over the decision-makers like you do with your local government — you cannot show up at City Hall and make complaints — there’s a process at the California Public Utilities Commission to file a complaint and have them intercede on your behalf and investigate further.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Because these are private systems and you don’t have that ballot-box accountability over the decision-makers like you do with your local government — you cannot show up at City Hall and make complaints — there’s a process at the California Public Utilities Commission to file a complaint and have them intercede on your behalf and investigate further.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Fantastic answer, Mary. Thank you so much for that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Fantastic answer, Mary. Thank you so much for that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Eddie in San Francisco writes, there are something like 3,000 water utilities in California. Most regions have separate water supply and wastewater treatment agencies. Just like our Bay Area transit system, there is opportunity to gain efficiency and improve service by consolidating and connecting utilities.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Eddie in San Francisco writes, there are something like 3,000 water utilities in California. Most regions have separate water supply and wastewater treatment agencies. Just like our Bay Area transit system, there is opportunity to gain efficiency and improve service by consolidating and connecting utilities.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Annalise writes on the Discord, I live in a small public water district with only a couple thousand customers. I can tell our infrastructure is in bad shape. There have been two water main breaks on my block this year. The majority of seats on the water district board were up in this election, but I couldn’t find anything out about the candidates or what their plans for going forward might be. Very frustrating.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Annalise writes on the Discord, I live in a small public water district with only a couple thousand customers. I can tell our infrastructure is in bad shape. There have been two water main breaks on my block this year. The majority of seats on the water district board were up in this election, but I couldn’t find anything out about the candidates or what their plans for going forward might be. Very frustrating.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Karla Nemeth, what do you think? You work with California water agencies. It does seem like perhaps there’s a lot of them and there could be efficiencies. What do you think?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Karla Nemeth, what do you think? You work with California water agencies. It does seem like perhaps there’s a lot of them and there could be efficiencies. What do you think?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah. In fact, the state had embarked on a consolidation program, especially for some of these smaller communities where they really can’t keep pace, either with important drinking water standards or they can’t keep pace with challenges that occur during times of hydrologic drought.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah. In fact, the state had embarked on a consolidation program, especially for some of these smaller communities where they really can’t keep pace, either with important drinking water standards or they can’t keep pace with challenges that occur during times of hydrologic drought.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think that is a tool. I think the interconnectedness of our systems needs to be more broadly acknowledged across the board so that there are opportunities to operate a broad system of systems really much more efficiently.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So I think that is a tool. I think the interconnectedness of our systems needs to be more broadly acknowledged across the board so that there are opportunities to operate a broad system of systems really much more efficiently.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Um, I also think, you know, honestly, everything at these local levels with our local boards in California, it’s such a disservice that we are lacking in local journalism. That was one of the ways in which we were able to really ferret out governance across all spectrums in the state.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Um, I also think, you know, honestly, everything at these local levels with our local boards in California, it’s such a disservice that we are lacking in local journalism. That was one of the ways in which we were able to really ferret out governance across all spectrums in the state.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And local governance is critically important for folks like the caller who want to understand what the plan is, who’s living and experiencing things not working in their community.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And local governance is critically important for folks like the caller who want to understand what the plan is, who’s living and experiencing things not working in their community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I really do think we miss so much without real local journalism that is getting into those kinds of issues.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And I really do think we miss so much without real local journalism that is getting into those kinds of issues.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, Hank in Sunnyvale has an interesting question here on usage and rates. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, Hank in Sunnyvale has an interesting question here on usage and rates. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hank:\u003c/strong> Hi. Yes, the discussion just a few moments ago about how there are fixed costs in this business, as well as all, and that when the water is short and people can’t use as much or don’t want to use as much, there isn’t enough income to cover all the costs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hank:\u003c/strong> Hi. Yes, the discussion just a few moments ago about how there are fixed costs in this business, as well as all, and that when the water is short and people can’t use as much or don’t want to use as much, there isn’t enough income to cover all the costs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So the company goes to the ratepayers that govern them and says, hey, we can’t make it here. We need to raise rates, which happens. That’s fine.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So the company goes to the ratepayers that govern them and says, hey, we can’t make it here. We need to raise rates, which happens. That’s fine.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But that’s only half of the dynamics. The next thing that happens somewhere along the line, we get back into having a lot of water, and nobody says, oh, now we can take the rates back down because there’s lots of water and people will be using more and they don’t have to pay as much per gallon.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But that’s only half of the dynamics. The next thing that happens somewhere along the line, we get back into having a lot of water, and nobody says, oh, now we can take the rates back down because there’s lots of water and people will be using more and they don’t have to pay as much per gallon.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Though we end up going up every time it’s dry, and then we never go back down. And next time it is dry, the rate that got established is now the new normal, and we go, oh my God, we can’t make it on this one-way ratchet. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Though we end up going up every time it’s dry, and then we never go back down. And next time it is dry, the rate that got established is now the new normal, and we go, oh my God, we can’t make it on this one-way ratchet. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Max, what do you think? It’s a good point, Hank. Isn’t that something that could be done? Maybe the rates could be more flexible and float more, so to speak?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Max, what do you think? It’s a good point, Hank. Isn’t that something that could be done? Maybe the rates could be more flexible and float more, so to speak?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I’m a big proponent of additional oversight and accountability of the sector generally. And that’s to deal with issues like the previous caller talked about with the excessively high bill, and also to look at these types of issues of pricing over time and where there could be efficiencies and how to distribute the costs more equitably.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I’m a big proponent of additional oversight and accountability of the sector generally. And that’s to deal with issues like the previous caller talked about with the excessively high bill, and also to look at these types of issues of pricing over time and where there could be efficiencies and how to distribute the costs more equitably.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think the sector overall has been resistant to additional regulation and oversight, and that’s a tension point.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think the sector overall has been resistant to additional regulation and oversight, and that’s a tension point.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But as this caller mentions, right, when we have these varying precipitation regimes, and it’s getting more extreme with climate change between wet and dry, there aren’t a whole lot of changes. And part of that is a function of the fixed costs. Those costs are there regardless.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But as this caller mentions, right, when we have these varying precipitation regimes, and it’s getting more extreme with climate change between wet and dry, there aren’t a whole lot of changes. And part of that is a function of the fixed costs. Those costs are there regardless.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I think if we had some additional requirements for things like how you spend reserve funds and how you allocate higher and lower costs for things like electricity and treatment, depending on where the highest use is coming from.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But I think if we had some additional requirements for things like how you spend reserve funds and how you allocate higher and lower costs for things like electricity and treatment, depending on where the highest use is coming from.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>For example, we have a new big class of industrial users, data centers. We don’t really know if they’re being charged enough, given their impact on water use. So there should be more oversight.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>For example, we have a new big class of industrial users, data centers. We don’t really know if they’re being charged enough, given their impact on water use. So there should be more oversight.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you for that. Let’s bring another caller here, Steve in San Jose. Welcome, Steve.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you for that. Let’s bring another caller here, Steve in San Jose. Welcome, Steve.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to put forward an item of potentially trying to reduce costs. Right now, there’s no incentive for the companies like San Jose Water Company to reduce costs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to put forward an item of potentially trying to reduce costs. Right now, there’s no incentive for the companies like San Jose Water Company to reduce costs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It was explained to me by one of the officers that the more that they put in the fixed cost, each item that they’ve put in to fixed costs that eventually would go to the ratepayers gave an item of profit to the corporation. So they were incentivized to increase the fixed cost as much as possible because that gave them profit. There’s just no incentive to reduce costs, and that was my point.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It was explained to me by one of the officers that the more that they put in the fixed cost, each item that they’ve put in to fixed costs that eventually would go to the ratepayers gave an item of profit to the corporation. So they were incentivized to increase the fixed cost as much as possible because that gave them profit. There’s just no incentive to reduce costs, and that was my point.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Steve, what, Karla, what do you think?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Steve, what, Karla, what do you think?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Well, that may be the case in the context of a for-profit water company. My perspective is public-sector water agency, so I don’t think that’s in play. I think Mary may have a perspective on that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Well, that may be the case in the context of a for-profit water company. My perspective is public-sector water agency, so I don’t think that’s in play. I think Mary may have a perspective on that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I do want to describe sort of yet another wrinkle in the math around rates and how they respond in the context of a changing hydrology.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I do want to describe sort of yet another wrinkle in the math around rates and how they respond in the context of a changing hydrology.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s also true that when we have real extreme precipitation conditions, people use less water residentially. And they use less water residentially because it’s raining, and so much of our residential water use is on outdoor landscaping.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>It’s also true that when we have real extreme precipitation conditions, people use less water residentially. And they use less water residentially because it’s raining, and so much of our residential water use is on outdoor landscaping.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, again, part of our challenge is we are in a place where we are, as urban water agencies, leveling demand in many places in the state. We have also held demand flat even while California continued to grow.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So, again, part of our challenge is we are in a place where we are, as urban water agencies, leveling demand in many places in the state. We have also held demand flat even while California continued to grow.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So demand is leveling. It is going to decrease because the state is regulating conservation. And there has been some funding from the state to help support those conservation programs.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So demand is leveling. It is going to decrease because the state is regulating conservation. And there has been some funding from the state to help support those conservation programs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But when you take that in combination with aging infrastructure and increasingly volatile climate and precipitation patterns, all those pieces fit together in a way that only has upward pressure on water rates.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But when you take that in combination with aging infrastructure and increasingly volatile climate and precipitation patterns, all those pieces fit together in a way that only has upward pressure on water rates.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A fundamental challenge, I think, is how we get back to a place where there is sustained state investment and hopefully federal investment again.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>A fundamental challenge, I think, is how we get back to a place where there is sustained state investment and hopefully federal investment again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I do have to go back to Max’s original point about the role of state and federal governments. When California built a lot of this infrastructure, it was very, very different. And we will not solve the problem unless we solve that kind of financing problem.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But I do have to go back to Max’s original point about the role of state and federal governments. When California built a lot of this infrastructure, it was very, very different. And we will not solve the problem unless we solve that kind of financing problem.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then one other perspective on agriculture in California. Agriculture in California is shrinking. There is no question that California agriculture needs to shrink because of overdrafted groundwater basins. So there are continuing pressures on that sector and the way that they need to respond to limits on groundwater pumping.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And then one other perspective on agriculture in California. Agriculture in California is shrinking. There is no question that California agriculture needs to shrink because of overdrafted groundwater basins. So there are continuing pressures on that sector and the way that they need to respond to limits on groundwater pumping.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So the picture is a complex one in California, not just our water rights system, but our financing approaches. And that is our challenge as water managers into the future. How do we put those pieces together? How do we do them in a way that protects affordability?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So the picture is a complex one in California, not just our water rights system, but our financing approaches. And that is our challenge as water managers into the future. How do we put those pieces together? How do we do them in a way that protects affordability?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And what’s critically important is affordability for all. And that’s not something California has been entirely successful on. We need to do better on that front. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And what’s critically important is affordability for all. And that’s not something California has been entirely successful on. We need to do better on that front. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, you know, Mary, in your Food and Water Watch report, you did argue that declining federal investment is a major reason that customers are shouldering more of the cost of water infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, you know, Mary, in your Food and Water Watch report, you did argue that declining federal investment is a major reason that customers are shouldering more of the cost of water infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, the EPA estimates drinking water systems will need, I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements over the next 20 years. Are you seeing any movement, Mary? Like, is there any possibility that the federal government will actually get involved on these things?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, the EPA estimates drinking water systems will need, I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements over the next 20 years. Are you seeing any movement, Mary? Like, is there any possibility that the federal government will actually get involved on these things?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> So, I think Max mentioned earlier how since federal funding for water infrastructure peaked 50 years ago, so it peaked in 1977, according to Congressional Budget Office data. Since then, it’s fallen 77%.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> So, I think Max mentioned earlier how since federal funding for water infrastructure peaked 50 years ago, so it peaked in 1977, according to Congressional Budget Office data. Since then, it’s fallen 77%.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We actually saw a big bump in funding for water infrastructure with the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021 that provided $50 billion over five years, but it only met 4% of the needs of our water systems. And that money just ran out at the end of September, at the end of the federal fiscal year.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We actually saw a big bump in funding for water infrastructure with the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021 that provided $50 billion over five years, but it only met 4% of the needs of our water systems. And that money just ran out at the end of September, at the end of the federal fiscal year.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we are facing this funding cliff actually in Congress right now. And the Trump administration has proposed cutting the main source of federal funding for safe and clean water by 90% this year, with the goal of eliminating it outright, eliminating funding for the state revolving loan programs across the country.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we are facing this funding cliff actually in Congress right now. And the Trump administration has proposed cutting the main source of federal funding for safe and clean water by 90% this year, with the goal of eliminating it outright, eliminating funding for the state revolving loan programs across the country.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, really, but, you know, at the end of the day, Congress controls the purse strings. And so we really need our elected officials, our members of Congress, to fight for more federal funding.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, really, but, you know, at the end of the day, Congress controls the purse strings. And so we really need our elected officials, our members of Congress, to fight for more federal funding.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>On December 11, the federal government needs to make a decision and fund the rest of government. Funding for the federal government writ large runs out on December 11. So when Congress gets back after the midterm elections, they need to get to work, and they need to fund water systems and need to fund the federal government.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>On December 11, the federal government needs to make a decision and fund the rest of government. Funding for the federal government writ large runs out on December 11. So when Congress gets back after the midterm elections, they need to get to work, and they need to fund water systems and need to fund the federal government.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And they have an opportunity to extend and expand support for safe water. And we are calling for them to do so and to pass legislation like the WATER Act, the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability Act in Congress. More than 90 co-sponsors in the House.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And they have an opportunity to extend and expand support for safe water. And we are calling for them to do so and to pass legislation like the WATER Act, the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability Act in Congress. More than 90 co-sponsors in the House.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it would create a trust fund to address some of the issues that Karla was mentioning about the ebb and flow of federal water funding. This would create a trust fund to provide that dedicated annual federal funding that our communities need to make sure that every person has safe and affordable water.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it would create a trust fund to address some of the issues that Karla was mentioning about the ebb and flow of federal water funding. This would create a trust fund to provide that dedicated annual federal funding that our communities need to make sure that every person has safe and affordable water.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks so much for all that info, Mary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks so much for all that info, Mary.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As well, you know, Sean writes in to say, can you justify why the California Public Utilities Commission continues to allow San Jose Water to raise rates? Like, what would you say back?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>As well, you know, Sean writes in to say, can you justify why the California Public Utilities Commission continues to allow San Jose Water to raise rates? Like, what would you say back?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> So it’s interesting, right? The Public Utilities Commission exists to regulate all of the investor-owned utilities, whether that’s PG&E or the water utilities.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> So it’s interesting, right? The Public Utilities Commission exists to regulate all of the investor-owned utilities, whether that’s PG&E or the water utilities.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And as part of that, they allow them to earn a rate of return, a return on equity. And as a previous caller mentioned, they get that return based on the physical infrastructure that they put in the ground: tanks, pumps, pipes, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And as part of that, they allow them to earn a rate of return, a return on equity. And as a previous caller mentioned, they get that return based on the physical infrastructure that they put in the ground: tanks, pumps, pipes, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so they have an incentive to build a lot of that. One of the ways to sort of address that is by reducing the amount that their investors earn.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And so they have an incentive to build a lot of that. One of the ways to sort of address that is by reducing the amount that their investors earn.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The PUC actually tried to do that several years ago, and they got tripped up on sort of procedure and they lost at the State Supreme Court in trying to do that.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The PUC actually tried to do that several years ago, and they got tripped up on sort of procedure and they lost at the State Supreme Court in trying to do that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But it’s a big challenge because these are monopoly systems. They need to provide safe drinking water and maintain the infrastructure. The real question is how much should their investors be allowed to earn?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But it’s a big challenge because these are monopoly systems. They need to provide safe drinking water and maintain the infrastructure. The real question is how much should their investors be allowed to earn?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We have been talking about the complex reasons behind the rise in cost of drinking water in California, what we could do about it, what it says about our state’s fragile water system.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We have been talking about the complex reasons behind the rise in cost of drinking water in California, what we could do about it, what it says about our state’s fragile water system.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Thank you so much, Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Thank you so much, Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Yeah, we’ve also been joined by Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. Thank you, Karla.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Yeah, we’ve also been joined by Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. Thank you, Karla.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And Mary Grant, water policy director with Food and Water Watch. Thank you, Mary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And Mary Grant, water policy director with Food and Water Watch. Thank you, Mary.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me. Great conversation today.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me. Great conversation today.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you so much to all of our callers and commenters and listeners. Thanks so much for all the engagement.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you so much to all of our callers and commenters and listeners. Thanks so much for all the engagement.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with me, Nikim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with me, Nikim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Tuesday, November 3, 2026 at 9 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">San Jose has the most expensive water in the country, according to a new report from Food & Water Watch. The report finds that, nationwide, household water bills have increased by an average of 62% over the last decade, and California is home to more than half of the 25 most expensive water systems in the country. So what’s driving up the cost of our household drinking water and is there a better way to pay for this essential service? We’ll hear from water policy experts about the hidden costs behind your water bill, how everything from climate change to agricultural policy is shaping rates, and what it would take to make water more affordable for Californians.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg,\u003c/strong> senior policy advisor on water equity and affordability; formerly Climate and Conservation manager, State Water Resources Control Board\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Mary Grant,\u003c/strong> water policy director, Food & Water Watch\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth,\u003c/strong> executive director, Association of California Water Agencies\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Many years ago, the first thing I learned about water in California was that we have a fundamental problem. Most of the water falls and flows north of the Bay Area, and most of the people live in it or south of it. So California water tends to move from north to south, and that doesn’t just happen. It requires massive infrastructure, which stores water captured by the Sierra Nevada snowpack and runoff in a series of reservoirs. Then aqueducts and canals bring it over to our coastal cities or further to the cities of Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All that steel and concrete is getting old. Maintenance costs are rising. Climate change is bringing more weather extremes. Groundwater supplies are depleted. We’ve got problems, and that’s showing up on your water bill in the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here to talk about it, we’ve got Mary Grant, water policy director with Food and Water Watch. Welcome, Mary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got Karla Nemeth, who’s executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. Welcome, Karla.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Good morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Max Gomberg, who is policy advisor on water equity and affordability. Welcome, Max.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Good to be here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Mary, let’s start with you. Your organization, Food and Water Watch, recently released a report finding that bills for household drinking water have increased 62% since 2015, outpacing inflation. That’s a national number. And over half of the country’s 25 most expensive water systems are in California. Just talk to us a little bit about what this research is and the kind of precise contours of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Of course. So, 10 years ago, we did a survey looking at the 500 largest community water systems, and we wanted to update that to see how prices have grown over the last decade. So we collected water rate data for the 500 largest community water systems across the country, just to track how much household bills have increased over the past decade.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So this is for a typical household of three using around 60,000 gallons a year, how much prices have grown. And we found that, like you said, household drinking water bills have increased by 62% over the last decade. So that’s faster than inflation. It’s more than twice as fast as grocery prices, and it’s also outpacing growth in household incomes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, here in California, we kind of know that this is not a water-rich state in the places where people live, right? We are, you know, much of our population lives in what’s basically a desert. So maybe expensive water is to be expected. But in other places in the country, maybe that wouldn’t be the case. So what’s kind of underneath these rising prices, even in places that are more water-rich than here?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> The key driver for water bill increases is necessary improvements to infrastructure. Our systems are aging, pipes are breaking, wasting water. Treatment plants need major updates to address new contaminants like PFAS forever chemicals.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So our systems are aging, and they’re facing a lot of pressures, including climate change. We actually found that California has high prices and is definitely overrepresented in the most expensive systems, but it’s only the eighth most expensive state in the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we found is West Virginia has the most expensive water, which was very surprising to us because this is a state with high levels of poverty, too. So there are various factors that are increasing prices across the country, but overall, it’s driven by those capital improvement needs, the need to invest in and update our aging infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Did you find that there’s any particular kinds of water systems? I mean, that’s one of the strange things. This is such a distributed kind of set of utilities. Did you find that there is anything that, on average, makes people’s water bills go up or down in the nature of those water systems?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> There’s a couple factors that we saw at play. One of the strongest ones was corporate ownership of water, at least at the national level. We found that privately owned systems charged, on average, 67% more than local governments, adding several hundred dollars a year onto a household water bill.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We actually found that the typical local government charged less today than a private system charged a decade ago. And in some states, that difference is even greater. In Indiana, in Illinois, these investor-owned, for-profit systems are charging twice as much as local governments.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In California, actually, the difference was less pronounced. So bills are only 8% higher with corporately owned water. So in California, what we saw is location and water source seem to be bigger factors.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nationally, we did see that surface water tends to be more expensive than groundwater. It just requires more expensive treatment since it’s more vulnerable to contamination.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you for that. Karla Nemeth, you previously led California’s Department of Water Resources. Now you work with these water agencies across the state, so you’ve got quite a view of what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When you just zoom in on California’s water system, we’re using less household drinking water than we did 10 years ago. People have gotten the message about trying to conserve water, and yet bills are going up anyway. Why is that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so, um, that’s a great question. So, uh, the Association of California Water Agencies, we represent more than about 470 public water agencies. So we’re less in the corporate space, that part of the Food and Water Watch study.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, you know, one statistic I find pretty telling is, in about 2021, the U.S. EPA estimated California water infrastructure needs about $84 billion over the next 20 years. Now, that was 2021, and that was before we had, or right in the middle, I should say, of a brutal drought, also followed by some really big storm years in California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so $84 billion over 20 years is probably a lowball. And we are starting to really understand the full effects of climate volatility on our system at exactly a moment where we have some generational reinvestment that’s required in our systems, really large and small.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s also true, not just sort of this big infrastructure in California that has the benefit of regional economies of scale, but even in some of our smaller communities in the Sierra Nevada, in the foothills, where you have these systems that are very old, that are increasingly vulnerable to things like wildfire and some legacies around forest management. Those are systems that serve very small populations.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, big reinvestment, vulnerable infrastructure, smaller ratepayer base. Those are also some of the dynamics we’re really seeing that’s challenging our water bills.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Karla, can I ask you this? Why have we built up this infrastructural maintenance debt? Like, why didn’t we take care of it along the way?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Well, I think we have been taking care of it along the way, and I think that some of our systems are decades and decades old. Some of our systems have been challenged by unmanaged groundwater.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So that, to me, is a real game changer for California water. As you may know, California is required to sustainably manage its groundwater resources by 2040, which sounds like a long way away. But when you contemplate the fact that those groundwater aquifers, and they are big, there’s about 10 to 12 times the size of our surface reservoirs in our groundwater basins. They have the capacity to hold a lot of water.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But California never managed them until the really bad drought in 2015, I think, awakened us to real challenges of ever-depleting groundwater resources.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so when we think about the long-term effects of unmanaged groundwater, we have areas in the state where subsidence has fundamentally impacted our larger surface water infrastructure in ways where that bill is now also coming due.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Subsidence, for people, being when the ground sinks as we pump the water out from underneath it and the ground settles.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> That’s correct. That’s correct. And so it’s really a convergence of all of these factors that are creating real pressures on our water bills.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I would be remiss if I didn’t add a couple more dimensions to that, which is really two things. One is the way that we fund water infrastructure in California. About 84% of it is on ratepayers and from local revenues, and contributions from the state and federal government, in particular the federal government, are kind of boom-bust here in California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Would you—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Which makes it hard to plan, really hard to plan for infrastructure projects.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think a compounding factor is we also have a complex regulatory environment. It’s an important regulatory environment, but it’s a complex one. Complex regulatory environments combined with a lack of sustainable funding beyond just ratepayer dollars, these big climate shifts happening, all of that is converging together to create a very challenging picture for our water bills in the state. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Max, I want to squeeze you in here before the break. Do you think we’ve done a good job managing the prices people have to pay for water in the state?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> I would say it’s mixed. One of the things Karla mentioned, right, is the share of the funding that comes from rates, right, from local rates and fees, as opposed to state and federal dollars.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Part of the reason we are where we are now is that 50 years ago, the federal government made massive investments in infrastructure for drinking water treatment, for wastewater treatment. And since then, the federal share has declined to a very small amount.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There was simply a shift to a consensus of, this is now going to be a state and local issue. It is going to be primarily on local systems and on states to maintain this infrastructure. And for various reasons, it hasn’t been maintained adequately. And all of these pressures are forcing the rates up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And in California, we have also a unique challenge arising from a ballot proposition that was passed 30 years ago, which restricts the way that local publicly owned water systems can raise rates and really hinders, I think, the ability to price water fairly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re gonna be back talking more about the rising cost of drinking water in California with Max Gomberg, Karla Nemeth, and Mary Grant. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the rising cost of drinking water in California and what it says about our state’s water system, which is looking increasingly fragile as the years go by.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability. We’ve got Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, previously ran our Department of Water Resources here in the state. And we’ve got Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, we’d love to hear from you, too. Are you struggling to pay your water bill? Have you seen your water rates go up in ways that are surprising to you? Have you had to make different changes? Or what questions do you just have about how our water system works?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The phone number is 866-733-6786. We know affordability is top of mind for a lot of people. So, 866-733-6786. The email is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, Discord. We’re @KQEDForum, of course.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’ve got a few different comments coming in here as well. People want to talk about groundwater and water rights. We’re gonna get to some of those a little bit later in the show.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First, Mary, let’s talk a little about San Jose. San Jose has some of the most expensive drinking water in the country. What have you, how would you compare San Jose to other places in the report?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> So San Jose is actually at the top of our list, our ranking of the most expensive water systems in the country. And both San Jose Water Company and San Jose, the municipal water system, make the top 10. So San Jose Water Company is number one, and then San Jose, the municipal system, is number five.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we’ve seen is that these two systems both rely on about half of their water from Valley Water, which gets its water from the State Water Project. So the costs are often driven by the cost of importing water and purchasing water. That’s really making their costs so high in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s interesting because San Jose is kind of a split. They have three different water utilities in the city. There’s also a third private company called Great Oaks Water Company that did not make our top 25 list of most expensive. In fact, it’s one of the most affordable systems in the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that’s because all of its water is from groundwater supplies, groundwater wells across its service area. So it shows to me that the cost of purchasing water from the State Water Project is really driving a lot of the high costs in the San Jose area and the Bay Area in particular.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it’s very interesting. Three different water systems, they all have their own distribution network, but where they get their water varies across the city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That is very interesting. I mean, for those who are unfamiliar, that sort of great hydraulic machine moving water from north to south, part of it runs through the State Water Project. Karla, can you talk to us a little bit about that situation in San Jose and just what it does or does not say about the overall state of the state’s water system?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah, sure. So I think you have to go back a little farther than that. And when the State Water Project came on in the ’60s, one of the real challenges in the San Jose area was severe depletion of its groundwater system. So it didn’t have enough local water supplies in their groundwater system to manage their needs for their community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the State Water Project itself and its ability to move water reliably into that system is largely credited with rehabilitating groundwater systems, so much so that that area does not have the same problems that we’re seeing in other parts of the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think when we think about how to maintain affordability, I think that one of the key things we need to consider, and I would just generally disagree with Mary’s assertion about the role of the State Water Project. I think we have to really understand the available supplies to replace a State Water Project supply in the area.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, are there cheaper solutions out there? And the answer is not really. The answer really, there’s a lot of things we can be doing to become more efficient. That’s very much part of the puzzle moving into the future, especially dealing with this climate volatility.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the reality is other kinds of water supplies that are necessary, things like recycled water or, you know, the Bay Area itself is a complex set of regional water agencies that sell water supplies to one another and they backstop one another.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the mix of things like recycled water or brackish water desalination, all of those things themselves are also expensive, and particularly with recycled water, it can be more expensive than State Water Project supplies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I just want to understand the nature of the disagreement. The State Water Project water is getting more expensive, though, right? I mean, it is what’s driving up the cost. What you’re saying is if they try to switch off of the State Water Project water, there isn’t a cheaper supply available, with the exception of groundwater, which has its own set of contingent problems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Correct.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, just making sure. Max, what do you think about the nature of the state water system and how the costs of that system end up flowing through? We’ve sort of talked about the federal government pullback. We’ve talked about the role of the states. So what could we be doing differently, minus federal government intervention, which doesn’t seem like it’s coming, at least for a little while?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> One thing we could be doing differently is taking a real look at our water rights system and our allocation of water. About 80% of water that is developed for human use, whether it’s domestic use, commercial, industrial, or agriculture, about 80% of that developed supply is used for agricultural production.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are about 9 million acres of land across California that are irrigated. Um, and that’s part of the reason that the state is such an agricultural powerhouse. However, a lot of the water supply for that production was tied up early on in the state’s history, oftentimes through dispossession of Native peoples, and is now sort of locked in for agricultural production, which means that there’s less water available for our cities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that’s another contributor to the affordability issues. And I think that one of the things we need to do as a state is look really closely at how much of that supply can we transfer to cities?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We simply are at an inflection point where there’s never enough water in shortage times to go around between cities, level of agricultural production, and the environment. And just because the agricultural producers locked up the rights a long time ago doesn’t mean that continuing that system is good public policy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s sort of almonds or 10 million people, you know? It’s kind of the, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let’s bring in Lyndon. And also, I should say, Steve on Discord is happy you wrote about that because he wanted to note that we’ve also got some Byzantine grandfathered-in water rights from Mexican Rancheria-era water rights laws. Let’s bring in Lyndon in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lyndon:\u003c/strong> Hi. Yeah, I used to do water conservation for the city of San Jose, and we had a cost-sharing agreement with Valley Water to, you know, sort of support each other’s water conservation programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I came across a study about 10 years ago from UC Davis that showed that there’s so much embedded energy in water in terms of conveying it, treating it, and so forth, that it’s actually a really cost-effective energy conservation strategy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it seems like water conservation and energy conservation programs could cost-share with each other to do that. And, you know, water conservation is just a really great way to extend supply.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And in San Jose, there’s like 200,000 single-family homes, and, you know, I’m walking my dog right now and I’m looking at all these green lawns. And that’s just, you know, that’s like the biggest use of water in a single-family home.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so, to the extent that we can encourage people to rip out their lawns and put in, like, native landscapes, which then support the pollinators, because grass is just a vast wasteland for pollinators, there’s just a whole lot of synergies that can work together and improve things on the energy side, biodiversity side.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think people maybe don’t quite realize how much of our electricity use actually goes to moving and treating water. I think it’s about 20% overall in California, and just the State Water Project that we’ve been talking about, it’s like a meaningful amount of California electricity. It’s like some percentage.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karla, you probably know this. What percentage of California’s electricity is used to just move water around the state, particularly through the State Water Project?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Oh, it is one of the biggest energy users in the state, no question. I don’t know the exact percentage offhand at the moment, but I do think the caller makes a terrific point that there are real synergies between water conservation and energy conservation that are good and important.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think where things get trickier is most water utilities have, maybe in the highest cases, 73% of their costs are fixed costs. And so when you use less water, it doesn’t obviate the need to support those fixed-cost systems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And of course, as we’ve been talking about, a lot of those systems are aging and need to be rehabilitated, or in some cases — and these are systems, not simply the large ones that move water from north to south, from the Sierra to the coast. We move water a long ways in California, but also our smaller distributed systems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so it’s not as linear. We very much need to continue to conserve. And California also, as a result of drought in 2015, passed something called Conservation as a Way of Life, which is a very important program that water utilities must respond to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that’s to do things like make sure that we are as efficient as we can be indoors, efficient as we can be outdoors. About 50% of our residential water use is used outdoors. Do things to stem some losses from our systems, our distribution systems, and really work with our commercial properties, you know, where we have these business parks that have ornamental grasses and so forth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So those programs are well underway, and there are regulatory deadlines for water agencies to achieve that kind of compliance. Those programs in and of themselves are — we don’t really know the full cost of those programs — but those in and of themselves had about a $5 billion price tag back in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so, again, I think part of our challenge is, given the pressures of climate and not just hydrologic volatility, but the fact that warming temperatures means that the temperature itself becomes a new, quote-unquote, demand on water.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Because it’s causing evaporation out of the reservoir.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Correct. And so these are all the things that have to now fit together into the future, which is, you know, how do we move to conserve water? Because we know that that’s important. How do we move to invest in our aging infrastructure that moves water from point A to point B? How do we continue to invest in things that are even more expensive than how we move big surface water, like recycled water in California, like desalination in California?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And do that in a way that is as affordable as it can be for Californians. And that’s a tall order.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And to me, that really gets us to, there are things that we can do: better forecasting, a better exchange of water supplies from one part of the state to another through things like trades and transfers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But we really need to sort out how we are developing a sustainable financing infrastructure. As Max pointed out early on, our built system was built in a different era of state and federal investment. And now we’ve moved into a place where it is largely on the backs of water ratepayers in California, and we need to get out of that dynamic.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Max, I wanted to put a finer point and bring it to you on something that Karla said there, which is, you know, we’ve got the costs of this system, which are what they are. They’re fixed and maybe even rising. And then we’ve people being encouraged to use less water, which is a good thing. Water conservation. People have gotten the message.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But what that means is we’ve got the fixed costs over here, or rising costs. And then we’ve got people using fewer gallons of water, which would have been the money that was used to pay for that kind of maintenance. And what that means, then, is higher rates for everyone.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What do you think can be done, especially given that this is really the focus of your work now, is affordability and equity?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> So I think there are a couple of things. I would be remiss not to say that I think we absolutely have to have more federal investment, particularly for assistance for families, households that are struggling to pay their bills now. And that’s really critical.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which we do not have now in the way we do with electric bills.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> That’s right, and there have been attempts to introduce legislation to do that. So far, they have not advanced. We’ll see what the results of today’s election bring and where things go.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But beyond that, rate design, how we allocate costs among different types of users, is really important. And for urban systems, right, you’ve got industrial users, commercial users, and then within the residential sector, right, single-family, multifamily, and different factors often that go into setting rates, like do you have to pump the water up the hill? You know, what’s the size of the lot? How much evaporation is there?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Obviously, in hotter climates, it requires more water to keep a given landscape flourishing, whatever that is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so there are some systems that have really leaned into trying to make rate design as equitable as possible. And there are others that haven’t gone as far as they could to try to really put more of the costs on the users who are driving the need for additional investment or supply.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That’s a big part of it, sort of within the urban sector. But again, I think part of the challenge here is that because supplies to many urban agencies are constrained, without a reallocation of supply from some of what is currently used for agriculture, we’re not really going to be able to fully address the affordability challenge through rates alone.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We appreciate all of that. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re talking about the rising cost of drinking water in California. Nationally, rates are up 60% over the last 10 years, and San Jose has the most expensive water in the country. We’re thinking about that price as a kind of signal of distress in the overall water system for the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability. We’ve got Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, formerly director of the Department of Water Resources. We’ve also got Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch, who created the report to show that San Jose has the most expensive water in the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re taking your calls. If you can’t get through on the phone lines, try the email address, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>, with your questions about California water. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re talking about your water rates, the rising cost of drinking water in California, what it says about our state’s water system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joined by Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability, Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, and Mary Grant, water policy director at Food and Water Watch.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And let’s bring in some calls. Josh in Berkeley, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Josh:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks. Um, I manage the water bill for my 94-year-old mother in Monterey, which I believe was taken over several years by American Water, which is a New Jersey company. And her bill went from $400 to $1,500 in April, two years ago, and then went right back down the next month to $400.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I fought with them from April through September, eventually winning, because they had claimed that there might have been a leak or something at the house, none of which we ever found. And it was kind of suspect that the water bill dropped after it rose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I’m wondering if you know of any corrupt billing practices, especially specific to that water company. We eventually did win because it also coincided, by the way, with their installing new meters in the neighborhood, and other neighbors experienced a similar spike, not as much as my mother’s, but I’m just wondering if you could comment on that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Mary, maybe you could speak to that, or at least to the general case of having water bills go up by extreme amounts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Of course. So Monterey’s water system is owned by a company called American Water. They were actually in our top 10 list in 2015, but they were bumped off the list of 500 largest systems. So we weren’t able to capture them in our latest survey because they lost population. When bills go up, people might move away. So that’s a worrisome sign for the region.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Monterey is actually in the middle of a major fight to secure public ownership of its water system. They’ve been fighting for like a decade, going through the courts, then winning public ballot measures, trying to seek public ownership.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So this is a really interesting story that we’re hoping to — I think they go to court sometime soon to fight the next step of the battle to secure public ownership of their water system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In terms of billing issues, when meters are replaced, it’s actually really common. We see this a lot when metering systems are replaced. You swap in automatic meter readers. There can be issues.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’ve seen it across the country, public and private systems, that that change in metering system or billing system can lead to irregularities in water bills. There’s a variety of reasons why that happens.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes old meters don’t track water usage as well. They kind of slow down and they don’t really measure the water usage as well. And so when the meter’s replaced, it might bump up the baseline a lot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes there’s issues with, you know, I’ve seen utilities make the mistake of not using cubic feet, but using gallons for their meter billing system when they switch over. Like, just simple little mistakes like that can happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So there’s a variety of reasons why there could be major billing issues after a meter installation project or a billing system upgrade.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For California residents of private companies, you can file complaints with the California Public Utilities Commission, too. If you can’t get your issue resolved with the company directly, there is an alternative way to go about it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because these are private systems and you don’t have that ballot-box accountability over the decision-makers like you do with your local government — you cannot show up at City Hall and make complaints — there’s a process at the California Public Utilities Commission to file a complaint and have them intercede on your behalf and investigate further.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Fantastic answer, Mary. Thank you so much for that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eddie in San Francisco writes, there are something like 3,000 water utilities in California. Most regions have separate water supply and wastewater treatment agencies. Just like our Bay Area transit system, there is opportunity to gain efficiency and improve service by consolidating and connecting utilities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Annalise writes on the Discord, I live in a small public water district with only a couple thousand customers. I can tell our infrastructure is in bad shape. There have been two water main breaks on my block this year. The majority of seats on the water district board were up in this election, but I couldn’t find anything out about the candidates or what their plans for going forward might be. Very frustrating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karla Nemeth, what do you think? You work with California water agencies. It does seem like perhaps there’s a lot of them and there could be efficiencies. What do you think?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Yeah. In fact, the state had embarked on a consolidation program, especially for some of these smaller communities where they really can’t keep pace, either with important drinking water standards or they can’t keep pace with challenges that occur during times of hydrologic drought.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think that is a tool. I think the interconnectedness of our systems needs to be more broadly acknowledged across the board so that there are opportunities to operate a broad system of systems really much more efficiently.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Um, I also think, you know, honestly, everything at these local levels with our local boards in California, it’s such a disservice that we are lacking in local journalism. That was one of the ways in which we were able to really ferret out governance across all spectrums in the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And local governance is critically important for folks like the caller who want to understand what the plan is, who’s living and experiencing things not working in their community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I really do think we miss so much without real local journalism that is getting into those kinds of issues.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you know, Hank in Sunnyvale has an interesting question here on usage and rates. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Hank:\u003c/strong> Hi. Yes, the discussion just a few moments ago about how there are fixed costs in this business, as well as all, and that when the water is short and people can’t use as much or don’t want to use as much, there isn’t enough income to cover all the costs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the company goes to the ratepayers that govern them and says, hey, we can’t make it here. We need to raise rates, which happens. That’s fine.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that’s only half of the dynamics. The next thing that happens somewhere along the line, we get back into having a lot of water, and nobody says, oh, now we can take the rates back down because there’s lots of water and people will be using more and they don’t have to pay as much per gallon.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though we end up going up every time it’s dry, and then we never go back down. And next time it is dry, the rate that got established is now the new normal, and we go, oh my God, we can’t make it on this one-way ratchet. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Max, what do you think? It’s a good point, Hank. Isn’t that something that could be done? Maybe the rates could be more flexible and float more, so to speak?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I’m a big proponent of additional oversight and accountability of the sector generally. And that’s to deal with issues like the previous caller talked about with the excessively high bill, and also to look at these types of issues of pricing over time and where there could be efficiencies and how to distribute the costs more equitably.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think the sector overall has been resistant to additional regulation and oversight, and that’s a tension point.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But as this caller mentions, right, when we have these varying precipitation regimes, and it’s getting more extreme with climate change between wet and dry, there aren’t a whole lot of changes. And part of that is a function of the fixed costs. Those costs are there regardless.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I think if we had some additional requirements for things like how you spend reserve funds and how you allocate higher and lower costs for things like electricity and treatment, depending on where the highest use is coming from.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, we have a new big class of industrial users, data centers. We don’t really know if they’re being charged enough, given their impact on water use. So there should be more oversight.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thank you for that. Let’s bring another caller here, Steve in San Jose. Welcome, Steve.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Steve:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to put forward an item of potentially trying to reduce costs. Right now, there’s no incentive for the companies like San Jose Water Company to reduce costs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was explained to me by one of the officers that the more that they put in the fixed cost, each item that they’ve put in to fixed costs that eventually would go to the ratepayers gave an item of profit to the corporation. So they were incentivized to increase the fixed cost as much as possible because that gave them profit. There’s just no incentive to reduce costs, and that was my point.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Steve, what, Karla, what do you think?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karla Nemeth:\u003c/strong> Well, that may be the case in the context of a for-profit water company. My perspective is public-sector water agency, so I don’t think that’s in play. I think Mary may have a perspective on that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do want to describe sort of yet another wrinkle in the math around rates and how they respond in the context of a changing hydrology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s also true that when we have real extreme precipitation conditions, people use less water residentially. And they use less water residentially because it’s raining, and so much of our residential water use is on outdoor landscaping.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, again, part of our challenge is we are in a place where we are, as urban water agencies, leveling demand in many places in the state. We have also held demand flat even while California continued to grow.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So demand is leveling. It is going to decrease because the state is regulating conservation. And there has been some funding from the state to help support those conservation programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But when you take that in combination with aging infrastructure and increasingly volatile climate and precipitation patterns, all those pieces fit together in a way that only has upward pressure on water rates.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A fundamental challenge, I think, is how we get back to a place where there is sustained state investment and hopefully federal investment again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I do have to go back to Max’s original point about the role of state and federal governments. When California built a lot of this infrastructure, it was very, very different. And we will not solve the problem unless we solve that kind of financing problem.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then one other perspective on agriculture in California. Agriculture in California is shrinking. There is no question that California agriculture needs to shrink because of overdrafted groundwater basins. So there are continuing pressures on that sector and the way that they need to respond to limits on groundwater pumping.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the picture is a complex one in California, not just our water rights system, but our financing approaches. And that is our challenge as water managers into the future. How do we put those pieces together? How do we do them in a way that protects affordability?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And what’s critically important is affordability for all. And that’s not something California has been entirely successful on. We need to do better on that front. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh, you know, Mary, in your Food and Water Watch report, you did argue that declining federal investment is a major reason that customers are shouldering more of the cost of water infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, the EPA estimates drinking water systems will need, I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements over the next 20 years. Are you seeing any movement, Mary? Like, is there any possibility that the federal government will actually get involved on these things?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> So, I think Max mentioned earlier how since federal funding for water infrastructure peaked 50 years ago, so it peaked in 1977, according to Congressional Budget Office data. Since then, it’s fallen 77%.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We actually saw a big bump in funding for water infrastructure with the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021 that provided $50 billion over five years, but it only met 4% of the needs of our water systems. And that money just ran out at the end of September, at the end of the federal fiscal year.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we are facing this funding cliff actually in Congress right now. And the Trump administration has proposed cutting the main source of federal funding for safe and clean water by 90% this year, with the goal of eliminating it outright, eliminating funding for the state revolving loan programs across the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, really, but, you know, at the end of the day, Congress controls the purse strings. And so we really need our elected officials, our members of Congress, to fight for more federal funding.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On December 11, the federal government needs to make a decision and fund the rest of government. Funding for the federal government writ large runs out on December 11. So when Congress gets back after the midterm elections, they need to get to work, and they need to fund water systems and need to fund the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And they have an opportunity to extend and expand support for safe water. And we are calling for them to do so and to pass legislation like the WATER Act, the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability Act in Congress. More than 90 co-sponsors in the House.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it would create a trust fund to address some of the issues that Karla was mentioning about the ebb and flow of federal water funding. This would create a trust fund to provide that dedicated annual federal funding that our communities need to make sure that every person has safe and affordable water.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks so much for all that info, Mary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As well, you know, Sean writes in to say, can you justify why the California Public Utilities Commission continues to allow San Jose Water to raise rates? Like, what would you say back?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> So it’s interesting, right? The Public Utilities Commission exists to regulate all of the investor-owned utilities, whether that’s PG&E or the water utilities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And as part of that, they allow them to earn a rate of return, a return on equity. And as a previous caller mentioned, they get that return based on the physical infrastructure that they put in the ground: tanks, pumps, pipes, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so they have an incentive to build a lot of that. One of the ways to sort of address that is by reducing the amount that their investors earn.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The PUC actually tried to do that several years ago, and they got tripped up on sort of procedure and they lost at the State Supreme Court in trying to do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it’s a big challenge because these are monopoly systems. They need to provide safe drinking water and maintain the infrastructure. The real question is how much should their investors be allowed to earn?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We have been talking about the complex reasons behind the rise in cost of drinking water in California, what we could do about it, what it says about our state’s fragile water system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thank you so much, Max Gomberg, policy advisor on water equity and affordability.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Max Gomberg:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yeah, we’ve also been joined by Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. Thank you, Karla.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Mary Grant, water policy director with Food and Water Watch. Thank you, Mary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mary Grant:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me. Great conversation today.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you so much to all of our callers and commenters and listeners. Thanks so much for all the engagement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with me, Nikim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, October 28, 2026 at 9 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anthropic has filed to go public in what could become the largest IPO in history. The San Francisco-based AI company’s 335-page filing offers the first detailed look at its finances, growth ambitions and stated risk factors, including the possibility of catastrophic incidents. We’ll talk with San Francisco-based tech and business reporters about what Anthropic’s filing can tell us about the future of the AI economy and what the expected huge influx of money could mean for the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin,\u003c/strong> AI enterprise reporter, The Wall Street Journal\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi,\u003c/strong> business and technology reporter, New York Times and DealBook\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan,\u003c/strong> editor in chief, MIT Technology Review\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Anthropic is one of those San Francisco stories that’s hard to believe. A group of researchers, including two siblings, a former journalist, and a handful of others, broke off from OpenAI to found their own AI company in 2021. Five years later, the company has grown its revenue faster than any company ever. To take one example, in the second quarter of last year, the company brought in $787 million — not bad for a startup. But in the second quarter of this year, Anthropic brought in $11.6 billion. That’s nearly 15 times year-over-year growth. To put that in perspective, Google, which was the hottest tech company on Earth from 2002 to 2005, grew revenue from $400 million in 2002 to $6 billion in 2005. Sure, there’s been inflation, et cetera, but Anthropic’s growth has been absolutely absurd, unprecedented, and, for many people, unexpected.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oh, and they made almost a billion dollars in the second quarter, their first profitable quarter. So here we are now: this company, which believes itself to be building toward artificial general intelligence, has money pouring in and revenue from corporations that use its tools. But because it needs to keep competing at the frontier of AI, it needs even more money to keep growing, and hence the IPO, which could raise $100 billion — the most ever.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here to break down what the IPO tells us about Anthropic, the state of AI, and the tidal wave of wealth cresting over our fair city, we’re joined by Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re joined by Sri Muppidi, who’s business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Welcome, Sri.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Welcome, Mat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thanks, Alexis.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Was Casey Newton busy?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Kevin Roose and Kate Snow are building something new. So, Mat, you’ve been in the tech journalism game here in San Francisco a long time, and you’re looking at this Anthropic document. What are you thinking?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, first of all, I’m thinking this is the longest S-1 I’ve ever seen. You know, you see a lot of these things over the years, and they’re always dense, but there’s often really entertaining stuff in there. This one was so long that I didn’t — I, at best, could skim it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> He’s got a summary from Claude.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I actually — I was about to say, I used Claude to get a summary of some of the high points there. But it was, you know, it’s a staggering document, and what it means, I think, is kind of unprecedented for San Francisco. I think we’re going to sit here and talk today about what’s going to happen in San Francisco, but one of my takeaways from that 335-page document is that nobody knows what’s going to happen in San Francisco or anywhere else because of just the scale of it. The scale of it is, you know, like when we talk about the Uber IPO or Slack or Facebook or anything else that’s come before, they’re all so much smaller.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri, can you just walk us through some of the numbers here? You know, how much is Anthropic hoping to raise? What could the company be worth, that kind of stuff?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the company is aiming to raise, or is expected to raise, about $100 billion as part of its IPO. And the valuation that’s been touted around is between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. That really comes down to what investors expect the company to be worth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I love it. It’s just like, it’s so much money, and yet that’s a $500 billion difference. If you were like 1.5, 2, you know, it’s like a house in San Francisco. You’re like, “You know…”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. What’s the over-asking price in terms of how much the company can actually go raise in the public offering? And so I think that’s really striking, just because Anthropic already has $130 billion-plus in cash and other investments that it can turn into cash. And so the fact that the company could raise, or is hoping to raise, $100 billion more really shows the size and scale, as we were just chatting about. And I think that really comes down to this figure of more than $807 billion in commitments that the company has in terms of being able to build out data centers, as well as have more computing power to actually run and build its AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like, yeah, if you looked at a table of all the people they owe money to and you added it up, it’s like $800 billion.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And I love, in the S-1, they say at some point, it may seem crazy that we’re spending all this money, but it’s because we really believe that there’s exponential growth necessary in what we spend so that we also can get exponential growth in what we make. There’s also this interesting figure, and maybe, Berber, I don’t know if you want to take this one. The company says they lost $80 billion in the first half of the year, but a lot of people have — some people have quoted that number. But it’s this really kind of odd convertible-debt thing where, essentially, Amazon invested. Can you talk a little bit about that? They didn’t really lose $80 billion, did they?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> No, they didn’t. Actually, Sri might know the specifics of this better than me. But my understanding is that that $80 billion net loss isn’t part of the core business. So it’s not like they’re losing $80 billion from their core operations, building and selling Claude. That would be very bad and would make the company much less attractive as a business to invest in. So I think it’s a little bit technical. They raised a lot of money through convertible notes, which eventually convert into equity but haven’t yet. And so, for some tricky, complicated, wonky accounting reasons, that shows up as a net loss. And the reason why that number is so inflated is because, actually, as Anthropic’s valuation has gone up, I guess the liabilities or the losses tied to those convertible notes have also gone up. So I think a lot of investors are also kind of not really looking at that. There are a lot of debates about profitability — how do AI companies calculate profitability? Is Anthropic kind of taking shortcuts to claim this profitability number from Q2? Because it is very impressive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Um, but I think — I think I feel like it’s safe to say that that $80 billion—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Well, and even they say at the same time, right, that they have something like — they were saying 85% gross margins for serving up Claude and Claude Code specifically, right? They’re able to make that much money there. But there are some questions about that, too, right? Sri, do you want to talk about how — what does this business look like?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the questions about gross margins — that basically means revenue minus the direct cost to produce that revenue. And so Anthropic accounts for that as what’s called inference cost, so essentially running its AI models to actually serve customers. So 85% gross margins is actually great for an AI lab, particularly because the company had, I think, negative margins even just two years ago, and very, very low margins even just last year. And so the fact that it’s been able to really improve its efficiency shows that they’ve been focused on this. And just for context, to put it alongside other software companies, that’s in line with software-as-a-service companies, anyway. So I think that’s quite impressive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think what folks are really indexing on now, in terms of where the company can go in the future, is that Q2 was really impressive. But the company actually shared some of its unaudited Q3 financials at an investor day a few weeks ago. And revenue growth increased, I believe, 45% between Q2 and Q3. But it shows that it actually decelerated compared with earlier this year. And so that kind of raises questions for some investors about whether Anthropic can actually continue sustaining that growth, particularly as you think about the threat of Chinese open-weight models.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What I’m hearing anecdotally is that businesses, especially large enterprise companies, are starting to adopt more open-weight models or turn to OpenAI for its Astra model, just because it’s gotten more competitive. OpenAI is also noting that this is an opportune moment to maybe cut prices, and so they’re gaining competitive share that way. I think there are a lot of questions around whether Anthropic can continue growing, just because the scale, as Mat was alluding to, is so large.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Law of large numbers, as I feel like they like to say. Mat, what do you think about the big question here? People have been trying to ask, “Is AI for real? Is this a boom that’s going to bust?” What do you think this document says about that larger question — where the whole industry is likely to land and its overall importance?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think you can answer the “Is AI for real?” question in two ways. One is: Is the technology real? Clearly, it is. There’s no question. If you’re doubting that AI technology is real at this point—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s a question from—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> —a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I don’t know what to tell you. Is the stock market overinflated? Is there a bubble? Is that the question about whether AI is for real? Is AI really going to be able to generate these returns? You know, I mean, I hate to be cautious in this way, the way that I was at the top of the show, but I don’t think anybody knows. I mean, I think anybody who’s really projecting what you’re going to do with the — to use the SpaceX term — largest addressable market on Earth—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which is all human labor, apparently.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> It’s a great unknown, and I guess I personally, just because I’ve been reporting for however many years now, tend not to like to put my chips on the table about that kind of stuff. But if I had to guess, it seems like a not-bad business.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it certainly seems more real than a year ago. If we were having the same conversation and had somehow gotten access to these numbers last summer, we’d be like, “Hmm, they seem to be losing a ton of money.” They’re growing fast, but of course it’s not that much money against the idea of this massive — you know, even back then they were talking about a valuation that was hundreds of billions of dollars. What do you think, Berber, about the larger question?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would tend to agree with what Mat said. I think, based on this document, Anthropic is an extraordinarily good business. And I think the fact that they were able to turn an operating profit in Q2 defies a lot of the narrative that people have had about just how AI businesses work. The narrative around the labs in particular is that they are money pits, that they’ll never achieve profitability. They spend all this money training the models, but it’s very unclear whether they’ll ever get an ROI from it. So I think the fact that Anthropic’s business is so good is something that, a year or two ago, you’d be very surprised by. I think everyone would be surprised to see the numbers coming out of the company.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another statistic that really popped out to me in the S-1 was that they’ve raised $141 billion, and they still have around $120 billion on their balance sheet. Those are extraordinary numbers. Normally, we would expect them to be burning through the money they raised.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> And that’s what OpenAI is doing, by the way. We can talk about how much of a better business Anthropic is than OpenAI right now. But I do think there are a lot of weird things about the business that should give some people pause. For example, I think they said 5% to 7% of their revenue comes from users who violate their terms of service. They’re alluding to Chinese companies that are just distilling their models, trying to hack into the models to train their own models. A lot of their revenue comes from one or two big customers, so there are still a lot of question marks that should make us cautious about putting all our chips into Anthropic.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO with Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>; Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook; and Mat Honan, editor-in-chief at \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Are you more scared of a bust or a boom? 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got a little roundtable of technology reporters here from \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, Berber Jin, and, from \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>, Mat Honan. And we want to hear from you. You know, you’re a Bay Area person listening to this. Are you more scared of the tech boom here, or the tech bust that could come at some point in AI? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum. So, Mat, do you think we’re going to feel this IPO?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think we’re already feeling it a little bit in real estate. There’s been a bunch of great reporting about the ways it’s — something, including in the Journal. Maybe, Berber, this is one of your stories. Forgive me if it was. But there was a story recently about how there are 600 or so employees who’ve already been able to pull money out, and they’ve been investing it heavily in real estate. If you look at some of the home prices, look at how much they’ve gone up year over year, you’re definitely already seeing it. They’re definitely really feeling it. Like, what’s that going to mean for the corner stores and the small businesses in the city? I don’t know, but it’s showing up in real estate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, normally, when I’ve talked about IPOs in the past, there are all these lockups on the options and all this stuff that’s happening. But it seems to me like Anthropic has made it unusually easy for their employees to trade, basically from the very beginning, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Yes, exactly. So typically there’s like a 180-day lockup where companies’ early employees or others in the company have to wait. You might see an adjustment in the IPO price after, for example, that first pop. What’s unusual about Anthropic is that some shares can actually be traded right away, and then it’s staggered across a set of 37- or 60-second periods, I believe, in terms of when others can also start trading. And so that makes it possible for employees and other shareholders to start trading immediately. You’re going to see the impact of that right away.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s expected is that the company would actually start trading in the week of November 16, I believe, so right before Thanksgiving. Maybe if you’re making any big purchases — if you’re trying to buy a house, maybe do it right now. But you’re already seeing that impact, as Mat was saying, because there were these share sales that employees had already participated in, and they were able to sell some of their existing shares — for example, to buy a house. So I think you’re starting to see a trickle of it already, and it will continue to get worse.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, when we’ve done real estate shows, it seemed like the major impact was at the ultra-luxury level. You know, it’s hard to feel bad for people who might be getting priced out of Pacific Heights mansions. But I suppose in this case it’s going to spread to some — what do we think, 1,500 or 2,000 people or something like that around here? Do we know the exact number of employees in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> I think it’s about 3,000, but you’d have to fact-check me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And most of them are here, though, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Most of them are here. It’s San Francisco headquarters. The other note I’d add to that is that rent prices have also gotten so crazy because Anthropic and other AI companies are all in San Francisco now. So when, for example, a young 20-something is moving to San Francisco and sees that rents are like $6,000 for a two-bedroom, they might as well just buy an apartment if the mortgage costs about the same as rent. What I’m hearing, even anecdotally, is that people are willing to buy not just those uber-rich mansions, but also a two-bedroom apartment or condo, because rents are so crazy as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Alexis, I live in it. This is totally anecdotal. I live in the Outer Sunset, though. These neighborhoods are full of these things called doldrums, which are, you know, like this guy — Doldrum built, like, four guys on the first floor. They’re all pretty much the same floor plan, you know, two bedrooms with the garage downstairs. When I moved in there, they were selling for under a million dollars. There have been several in my immediate neighborhood that have sold recently for $900,000 over asking. And you can’t say, “Oh, well, is that because of Anthropic?” But it certainly seems like it. I mean, these are not high-end homes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What’s wild is, you and I, in years past, were talking about the doom loop. I don’t think either of us were believers in this so-called doom loop, that San Francisco was going down in flames. And here we are, just a few years later, and this has happened now. Do you think this is a net good for the city, to get this massive injection of money into what is a tiny percentage of the city’s population?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not going to show up in our list — the city’s not going to get a whole lot of tax revenue from it, right? There’s no income tax, and it’s questionable to me how much of that is actually going to go to the city. They are going to have this huge philanthropic division — LLC, what is it? Is it separate?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Long-term trust.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> That’s going to be giving away all this money to philanthropic causes, but that’s probably not going to be local stuff, right? That’s going to be national, international, global health.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, right. More Gates Foundation-y level and scope, yeah. So how’s it going to benefit the city? I don’t know. Yeah. All right, let’s ask Jay in Palo Alto. What do you think, Jay?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jay:\u003c/strong> Hey, good, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I love that you guys talked about the housing issue a little bit, but I think that one thing — there have been several news articles about this recently — that’s united the whole country is that everybody hates data centers, right? And that’s exactly what this is. When we try to have this objective conversation about how cool it is, the ins and outs, and talk about it in a very matter-of-fact tone, I think there’s a tremendous disconnect between these facts you’re talking about and the fact that this represents something that almost everybody hates. I think we’re doing a real disservice when we neglect that. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for that, Jay. I mean, if you look at the polling on data centers, it’s sort of the inverse of support for marriage equality. It is just a fast, hard move against data centers. This actually does — I mean, they address it in the risks in the S-1, but I think maybe it’s a little underplayed, right? Because, at least from my read on the data center industry, they’re already having a lot of problems. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Berber?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think it’s been really interesting to see, in the last few months, how data center build-outs have become a real political hot-button issue. It’s really turned into a liability for candidates who have supported data center build-outs in the midterms. It’s a great point to raise because they’re not building data centers in San Francisco. They’re building them in the rest of the country, oftentimes in communities that don’t really see the benefits of AI up front.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think there’s this weird thing where it is a huge risk, right? Because if Anthropic can’t get the political goodwill to build data centers, they don’t have the compute needed to build and serve their models. But they’ve also been behind this very weird messaging around AI. I feel like they’ve marketed it as scary technology that already is having all these cyber risks and could potentially cause extinction. They have a lot of employees who are doomers. So there’s this weird cultural disconnect where they have a vested business and financial interest in trying to get the country to come around to this vision of building hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars’ worth of data centers. But they have this weird ideology around—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> They’re like, “Don’t worry, we hate AI so much that we must build it and become trillionaires from it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And it might kill you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> And in case anyone else builds it—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, they do try to explain this in the S-1, right? They call it — and this has been, I do think, fairly consistent about this idea. It’s just a question of whether this idea makes any sense at all — what they call the “race to the top.” Okay, we have to build it first because then we will have built it the right way, with the right safeguards, and it won’t be Chinese tyranny running things, and it won’t be Sam Altman — whatever, even San Franciscan Sam Altman. What do you think? Does the “race to the top” idea make sense, Mat? How have you evaluated that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think the “race to the top” idea is sort of a self-serving idea. I really do. And I think there are people at OpenAI who would tell you that they’re racing to the top as well. I think there are people at Google who would say they’re racing to the top — DeepMind, for sure. And I don’t know. To go back to that caller’s point about data centers, do you remember, probably around 2010 to 2012, there were all those protests against the Google buses?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> The Google bus is a physical thing that you can stand in front of, right? And I feel like the data center thing is much the same. You don’t want it in your neighborhood because it’s going to make your rates go up. It’s going to be loud. All that kind of stuff is true. But it’s also something that you could stop. And I think a lot of people right now feel sort of powerless and uneasy about the advent of the age of AI. You can stand in front of a data center and make it not be there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you can go to the permitting hearing and slow it down. You can do all these things. It has been truly, truly amazing to look at that. One of our listeners, RJ Wrights, asks — and Berber, maybe we’ll come to you on this — can you talk about Anthropic’s commitment to social causes, specifically around income disparity? Of course, in the AI and automation conversations of 10 years ago, people were talking about this stuff all the time: universal basic income and all these kinds of things. Where does AI — where does Anthropic — stand on these things?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s an interesting question, because a lot of the business proposition behind Claude is, “We will have Claude be able to save companies a lot of money by automating your workforce.” Anthropic Works has this big project with a bunch of private equity firms to implement Claude in legacy industries, like accounting, to cut head counts and improve efficiency.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, to start off, I think it’s important to be clear that the financial interest of this company is to herald an economic revolution that will result — they will not contest this — in massive transformations to the labor force. I think Anthropic has also been intentional in trying to find ways to offset that. They produce a lot of papers about how economic transformation will come, and they also have a lot of money earmarked for philanthropic causes. I think — I forget the name — but there’s a vehicle that exists where some of the money they have is specifically directed toward reducing the impact they will have on society.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a normal denizen of the world, it’s a little bit uncomfortable, right? Because you’re handing this company so much power to say, “We are automating away your jobs, but we will also find ways to try to smooth it over.” And I think that goes to that sense of powerlessness Mat was talking about, where they just have so much power and control. I feel like a lot of people feel like it’s kind of out of their hands, the concentration of influence this company has. Yeah, it’s really quite extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the reasons I think people have come to believe in Anthropic as a business, if not in all these other things, is basically Claude Code, right? So, Sri, I want to come to you on this. This is Claude Code, and then the sort of harness they’ve put around their product so that you can ask Claude to do all kinds of things and build all kinds of things. Anything a computer can do, it could do it for you, basically. And this has turned out to be kind of the magic of the business, right, Sri? Because they’ve rolled this out to companies, and it has not only transformed Anthropic itself — where I think they say 90% of the lines of code committed to their code base are made by Claude Code — but also all these developers and business software makers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. Claude Code has been pivotal to Anthropic’s growth. They released it last year at some point. While OpenAI, the bigger rival at the time, was focused on consumer AI with its ChatGPT product, Anthropic really bet big on serving businesses. By focusing on Claude Code, they were able to automate software engineering work, which allows enterprises to do more with AI but also cut labor and save on costs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think Anthropic was smart about focusing on that. Over time, OpenAI has tried to follow by focusing more on Codex, for example, its competing coding product. But I don’t think Anthropic expected Claude Code to be so popular. At the start of this year, it was a little flat-footed in terms of how much computing power it needed to serve Claude Code. A lot of folks were complaining about their usage limits being affected if they were using the chatbot, and developers were scrambling to get more tokens to use Claude Code.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eventually, Anthropic went on a deal spree to strike so many deals. That goes back to the $807 billion commitment they have for more computing power, chips, and data center work. Claude Code really was — and is — a huge driver for Anthropic’s business.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But now, as part of their S-1 and what they’ve been pitching to potential investors, they’re saying, “Hey, we’re going to save the world not just through software engineering, but we’re going to focus on life sciences and help you discover new drugs and cure cancer.” I think that’s also part of what Berber was saying earlier: the rejiggering of its mission to be maybe more of a safety-conscious company, because they’re countering the doomerism that their founders and employees feel. But also, “Hey, we actually have an IPO and need to raise $100 billion. How are we going to do that?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s also interesting, when I was reading the S-1, is that there was a phrase where the risk of humanity ending was written in the passive voice, versus, “There have been claims…” I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was very much like people, or it’s like—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’d be like, “See if all of our executives…” Yes, exactly. Say that we’re going to have a lot of—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> It’s like, not Dario saying it, but it’s like, “Claims have been made.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. I mean, the strange thing — and I think it’s a real question for the business in an interesting way — is that Claude Code reached ubiquity among software developers. It seemed like more or less overnight, from the end of 2025 into 2026.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, you know, my wife and I have a small business. I used Claude Code to automate the back end of this thing, and it works really well. I did it one time, used some tokens, and sort of that was it. I think one of my questions is whether they’ve had to start talking about biology and some of these really data-intensive realms because you could automate most white-collar work with a free plan, practically. These tools have gotten so good that you don’t actually need to pay Anthropic all that much money to do most of the white-collar information work that people do in normal jobs that aren’t coding.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think there’s a real question. You’ve seen this incredible wave of adoption inside companies by the coders, but do the rest of us, Mat, even need as many tokens as it would take? They could totally wipe out white-collar work, and it still might not be a good business if you have to pay $800 billion for data centers and chips.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the question is just, do you think there are going to be enough people who need to use these tools the way coders have?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I will say, just on a personal level, I’ve now started paying for Fable upgrades, which is their most capable model, which was surprising to me — that I actually hit the point where I wanted to do that. And, like you, I’ve done a ton of personal projects and things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think, again, a lot of what I’m talking about today is anecdotal, but our development team — our team of devs — has become so much more productive because of Claude Code. I do think businesses are going to be willing to pay for that. It’s clear that all kinds of businesses, such as your small business, are going to be able to use these tools in the same way that a larger customer is. And Anthropic clearly has some really large enterprise customers, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, and that’s where, like—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Most of the revenues are right now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are talking about Anthropic as a business, and we’re also talking about what the Anthropic IPO could mean for the Bay Area and what it says about the state of the AI industry. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em> Editor-in-Chief Mat Honan. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook, and Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re going to get to more of your calls. I promise, in the next segment. What about you? Are you planning to invest in Anthropic? Why or why not? You can give us a call, 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. How do you feel about this economy that’s solidifying here in the Bay Area? You can find us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum, all those places. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Here we are talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>’s Mat Honan, the New York Times and DealBook’s Sri Muppidi, and Berber Jin from \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Let’s bring in — oh, we just lost the caller I was going to go to. All right, here we go. Let’s bring in Michael on data centers. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Michael:\u003c/strong> Hello, thanks for taking my call. What I wanted to bring up is this notion that data centers are evil, data centers are awful, and we should rise against the data centers. That’s really an inaccurate view. Data centers are no worse than any of the other things that we seem to be okay with: pollution from cars, pollution from nuclear power, pollution, pollution, pollution. What people don’t seem to realize is that many states bent the rules to get data centers into their states because they needed the revenue, right? So I think this is basically a straw man. It really is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And if you think about what you’re getting from these data centers, you’re giving power to people who normally wouldn’t have it. Here’s what I mean: take medical technology and medical information. It used to be, “Okay, I’ve just got to listen to this doctor and hope that they’re right, because I have no other resource to validate what they’re saying.” You can actually use Claude to do that. “Hey, here are my test results.” You can feed them into Claude. Claude will give you plain-English explanations of what this means and the kinds of questions you need to be asking your doctor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to take the data center question, though, because I think it’s an interesting point. I think part of it is, in exchange for the data centers, you also get to lose your job. That seems to be sort of the rhetoric, you know? People previously didn’t have a lot of opposition to data centers. Santa Clara County, for example, has tons of data centers, and there was virtually no opposition to them. Mat, do you think that’s because — essentially, people are using the tools of, say, environmental justice to raise questions about pollution or other things, but what people are really objecting to is, as you put it, this is a physical manifestation of the AI-driven economy?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s definitely my opinion. A lot of it is about the physical manifestation. I do think people have legitimate concerns about their rates. They have legitimate concerns about power plants being built. To power these data centers, a lot of the energy sources they’ll have to use may even include natural gas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One is natural gas, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> And I think people have legitimate concerns about that. The data center pushback is older than the AI boom if you think about it from a purely power or energy perspective. Texas did a lot to bring in data centers during the crypto boom, right? Then they had a bunch of brownouts, and they started peeling back the rules they’d put in place to make it easier to bring in data centers. And they’re back because there are concerns about energy usage that are—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at Virginia, where a huge chunk of data centers are, and you look at their power prices, I also think people are responding to the other idea of power — the other definition of power. In a lot of these Virginia places, so much of their property tax revenue is now dependent on these data centers, which makes you wonder, what are they going to do politically in that circumstance? Let’s bring in Todd in San Francisco. Welcome, Todd.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Todd:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Since Anthropic and these IPOs are going to generate a lot of money, and there’s already been a lot of money generated in the Bay Area by investments, I’d like the cognoscenti of the AI world on your show right now to speculate about why these millionaires and billionaires are so much different from San Francisco’s previous set of millionaires and billionaires — like the gold miners who struck it rich. Famously, cultured gold miners would build opera houses and import famous authors to read out loud. But living in the Bay Area, one would have to say they’re rather hermetic. What’s up?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> This is really — I mean, Berber, why don’t we go to you? Anthropic specifically was deeply aligned with a movement. I don’t know if I want to call it a philosophical movement, but I suppose it is: effective altruism. In fact, one of their earliest backers, Sam Bankman-Fried, was one of their largest investors at the point when he went down. So what do we think? This seems to deeply inform the culture of Anthropic. Can you give us a little summary of effective altruism and its application to Anthropic?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so effective altruism is deeply ingrained, particularly among the co-founders and the very early set of employees, who also happen to be the richest in the IPO. EAs care a lot about how to maximize the amount of good in the world, which leads to a lot of conclusions that most normal people would consider esoteric. For example, if we want to minimize suffering in the world, we should all be vegans. And you take that argument to the extreme — a lot of anti-EA people like to make this argument to make fun of EAs — and you get shrimp farming, because billions of shrimp are farmed every year and they can experience pain.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So apply that to AI. A lot of the early employees, a lot of people who became very interested in AI, became interested in AI because they felt like here’s a technology that could cause extinction, and extinction would be the worst kind of outcome. It would maximize the amount of suffering in the world, so we have to prevent it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, to apply that to the question, which I think is really interesting, about what values will animate this new billionaire class: I think an interesting litmus test will be to see how much of their money goes toward funding cultural and artistic institutions in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and toward funding civic institutions that I think a lot of normal people could really get on board with.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The early employees at Anthropic — a lot of them have pledged sometimes half of their wealth to philanthropic causes. But because effective altruism is so deeply ingrained in their worldviews, the chatter right now among employees is, “We should donate this money to fund AI safety nonprofits that are focused on how to use AI to prevent human extinction. We should use it to back animal welfare nonprofits.” Berkeley’s going to get rich.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is this interesting countercultural element where a lot of these people are in Berkeley. One dig against EAs is that they famously don’t care about art and culture. A lot of people who are anti-EA will make that argument. But I think it will be interesting to see how they spend this money. Will it just go to these kind of wacky causes? How much of it will go toward institutions like SFMOMA or supporting the opera? That will be a way to see the relationship between this new billionaire class and the rest of San Francisco. What that looks like will depend in large part on how these employees and founders choose to spend the philanthropic wealth they’ll gain from the IPO.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, having followed some EA stuff — not closely, but sort of a little bit from the outside — it feels like a real kind of hothouse-flower thing. This started out as a very small group of people all talking to each other about this stuff, and now, of course, it’s become a global, massive discussion about whether the kinds of ideas they had about the world and AI make any sense at all. But, of course, they will have massive wealth, and they also have the proof of this company they’ve built on their side of the ledger, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mat, what about you? We’ve seen plenty of weird ideologies flow through San Francisco. I would not have bet, 12 years ago, that effective altruism would be associated with one of the fastest-growing capitalist companies ever. Think about the philosophical underpinnings of this place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, you want to talk about the rationalists a little bit when you talk about effective altruism, a lot of which is headquartered out in the East Bay. I do think it’s had a profound effect on the way a lot of people, especially those working in tech, think about the world and about what’s the most effective way to make the world a better place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think Berber’s exactly right, though. It’s really unclear whether the people who have come up in that scene or movement — whatever you want to call it, philosophy — are going to donate to the opera versus places that are more globally oriented, or AI safety organizations. I don’t know how much we’re going to see of this in the Bay Area. And I think if they wanted to generate an enormous amount of goodwill, they could effectively solve the housing problem in San Francisco instead of making it worse. There are all kinds of ways to put that money to use locally.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a couple of comments here. Eric writes in to say, “As with the microchip boom of the ’90s and the dot-com boom, it’s real. We might see a bit — a lot — of volatility as profitability catches up with valuation, but the smart money has already spoken.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then Steve on Discord has this question. News came out recently about China’s AI companies really suffering, with half a trillion dollars of valuation gone. Steve notes that — what do you think is going on there? It’s seemed like two different worlds to me that kind of come together, I suppose, in the American market. But, Berber, do you think the fact that these Chinese AI companies are struggling in their stock market says anything about Anthropic or what’s happening here?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> That’s a really good question. The whole Chinese AI ecosystem really puzzles me. I mean, I think — maybe this isn’t a direct answer to your question — a lot of the Chinese companies, it’s unclear to me what their modus operandi is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we do kind of know is that they somehow don’t have enough — they can’t raise as much money as Anthropic and OpenAI. I’ve always been confused about why the government doesn’t just subsidize and pour tens of billions of dollars into these companies. They’re famous for distilling Anthropic’s models. They’ll use the outputs from Claude to train a cheaper, hacked-in version of Fable or Opus or the Anthropic-class models, which Anthropic hates. But then they also give away a lot of their technology for free. They make it open source, so none of the companies really have a business model, which is why I think there’s been all this volatility in the Chinese stock market with those names.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s all kind of perplexing to me, how the Chinese AI ecosystem works. I don’t think American policymakers or lab leaders have a great sense of it either. So that’s how I would answer the question. It’s all very confusing to me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I don’t disagree. And I think it has confused American AI leaders a lot. When you started to see these Chinese models come out with training numbers that were teensy-tiny on the cost side, it made it seem like, well, why are Anthropic and OpenAI spending $800 billion over the next five or 10 years when these Chinese model makers seem to be able to do more with less? Which I think remains an open question. It feels like there are some variables missing there. James in Larkspur, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Yeah, hi. Good morning. I wanted to shift the conversation just a little bit to the control of information that’s coming out of Anthropic, for instance. Traditionally, on the internet, we were shown sites that we could go to and ultimately make our own decision about whether the information was good or bad.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s happening now with AI is that they’re synthesizing all of that information, writing it, and feeding it to you. We have to remember that this is really based on algorithms that are originally being written and controlled by a certain entity. To release information, to control it and manipulate it, leads to what’s happening, for instance, right now with a pump-and-dump scheme on one hand, where they’re saying only we can control this information. It’s rogue computers that only we know how to tame the monster. So they’re generating a great deal of scare tactics and technological advancement to raise money through these IPOs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> But at the same time, what we have to be careful of is that, ultimately, at the end of the day, they will be decreasing — as they are now — the sites that you can see on the internet, and increasing their interpretation of that information and controlling it. Lastly—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wait, James, I want to take this, though, because we only have a couple of minutes, so I want to throw this to Sri. This is really interesting. It’s basically changing the shape of the internet, and I think that’s really true. Now, instead, Google would have presented some set of options for most people, and you could have moved freely through that, although most people didn’t. Now you’re filtering all that information through Claude or through — what do you think, not just as a business proposition but as a cultural proposition, Sri? Is that a good idea or not?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. You’re already seeing it, as we just discussed, where businesses and advertisers are trying to cater to being surfaced through these chatbots. I’ve heard anecdotes about people trying to add so much slop to Reddit because chatbots index Reddit answers really quickly to surface suggestions or whatever it is. So there’s now a whole set of startups trying to do AI-like SEO so that their companies will be recommended.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These labs, Anthropic and OpenAI, are striking partnerships with Walmart or whoever so that those businesses are recommended first. I totally agree that it will shape how information continues to be shared. Businesses are recognizing that and trying to invest money so they aren’t left behind.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think it will be an issue from a societal standpoint as well, just because AI is now being shared with students on their Chrome laptops or whatever. It’s really educating our next generation of students and workers. So I think it will be quite interesting to see. I don’t have, like, a—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Something about the way we get information and things that was really interesting to me: there was a study from MIT last year, or in the past year, on financial literacy. A lot of people are now going to a chatbot and saying, “Where do I put my $1,000?” or “How should I invest my money?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What this study found was that people who have a higher degree of financial sophistication, and can ask a more financially sophisticated question — a more financially sophisticated prompt — get much better advice. If you just go in and say, “Where do I invest?” you’re going to get some really basic advice, and you’ll get advice that will yield you lower returns.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They also found that it was very gender-specific. Women were getting basically worse financial advice — or worse long-term financial advice, I should say — being told to put more money into savings accounts than men were. I think that’s one of the real things we haven’t really started to think about or address yet: your ability to interact with the chatbot is going to become increasingly important. You’re going to have to develop a literacy about how you interact with these things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I have a somewhat heterodox position on this, only in the sense that if I look up rose quartz or some mineral, you just can’t find the facts about a mineral on the internet anymore because so many people want to sell you rose quartz for ritualistic purposes. I just think the baseline level of what you were finding on the internet has gotten so bad that I feel like Claude’s synthesis of it is better than what most people would do for themselves. Sorry, unpopular opinion from the room.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nancy writes in to say, “Looking forward to the burst of this AI bubble. I’m so sick of hearing about thousands of people losing their jobs because of software forced upon us that hallucinates. Going into the city makes me depressed because every billboard is about someone’s new AI tool. It’s so dystopian.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There it is — counterarguments to the whole show. We’ve been talking about what an Anthropic IPO would mean for the Bay Area. We’ve had Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Thank you, Mat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Thank you, Sri.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Anthropic has filed to go public in what could become the largest IPO in history. The San Francisco-based AI company’s 335-page filing offers the first detailed look at its finances, growth ambitions and stated risk factors, including the possibility of catastrophic incidents. We’ll talk with San Francisco-based tech and business reporters about what Anthropic’s filing can tell us about the future of the AI economy and what the expected huge influx of money could mean for the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Anthropic is one of those San Francisco stories that’s hard to believe. A group of researchers, including two siblings, a former journalist, and a handful of others, broke off from OpenAI to found their own AI company in 2021. Five years later, the company has grown its revenue faster than any company ever. To take one example, in the second quarter of last year, the company brought in $787 million — not bad for a startup. But in the second quarter of this year, Anthropic brought in $11.6 billion. That’s nearly 15 times year-over-year growth. To put that in perspective, Google, which was the hottest tech company on Earth from 2002 to 2005, grew revenue from $400 million in 2002 to $6 billion in 2005. Sure, there’s been inflation, et cetera, but Anthropic’s growth has been absolutely absurd, unprecedented, and, for many people, unexpected.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Anthropic is one of those San Francisco stories that’s hard to believe. A group of researchers, including two siblings, a former journalist, and a handful of others, broke off from OpenAI to found their own AI company in 2021. Five years later, the company has grown its revenue faster than any company ever. To take one example, in the second quarter of last year, the company brought in $787 million — not bad for a startup. But in the second quarter of this year, Anthropic brought in $11.6 billion. That’s nearly 15 times year-over-year growth. To put that in perspective, Google, which was the hottest tech company on Earth from 2002 to 2005, grew revenue from $400 million in 2002 to $6 billion in 2005. Sure, there’s been inflation, et cetera, but Anthropic’s growth has been absolutely absurd, unprecedented, and, for many people, unexpected.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Oh, and they made almost a billion dollars in the second quarter, their first profitable quarter. So here we are now: this company, which believes itself to be building toward artificial general intelligence, has money pouring in and revenue from corporations that use its tools. But because it needs to keep competing at the frontier of AI, it needs even more money to keep growing, and hence the IPO, which could raise $100 billion — the most ever.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Oh, and they made almost a billion dollars in the second quarter, their first profitable quarter. So here we are now: this company, which believes itself to be building toward artificial general intelligence, has money pouring in and revenue from corporations that use its tools. But because it needs to keep competing at the frontier of AI, it needs even more money to keep growing, and hence the IPO, which could raise $100 billion — the most ever.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Here to break down what the IPO tells us about Anthropic, the state of AI, and the tidal wave of wealth cresting over our fair city, we’re joined by Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Here to break down what the IPO tells us about Anthropic, the state of AI, and the tidal wave of wealth cresting over our fair city, we’re joined by Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re joined by Sri Muppidi, who’s business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Welcome, Sri.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Welcome, Mat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Kevin Roose and Kate Snow are building something new. So, Mat, you’ve been in the tech journalism game here in San Francisco a long time, and you’re looking at this Anthropic document. What are you thinking?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, first of all, I’m thinking this is the longest S-1 I’ve ever seen. You know, you see a lot of these things over the years, and they’re always dense, but there’s often really entertaining stuff in there. This one was so long that I didn’t — I, at best, could skim it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I actually — I was about to say, I used Claude to get a summary of some of the high points there. But it was, you know, it’s a staggering document, and what it means, I think, is kind of unprecedented for San Francisco. I think we’re going to sit here and talk today about what’s going to happen in San Francisco, but one of my takeaways from that 335-page document is that nobody knows what’s going to happen in San Francisco or anywhere else because of just the scale of it. The scale of it is, you know, like when we talk about the Uber IPO or Slack or Facebook or anything else that’s come before, they’re all so much smaller.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I actually — I was about to say, I used Claude to get a summary of some of the high points there. But it was, you know, it’s a staggering document, and what it means, I think, is kind of unprecedented for San Francisco. I think we’re going to sit here and talk today about what’s going to happen in San Francisco, but one of my takeaways from that 335-page document is that nobody knows what’s going to happen in San Francisco or anywhere else because of just the scale of it. The scale of it is, you know, like when we talk about the Uber IPO or Slack or Facebook or anything else that’s come before, they’re all so much smaller.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri, can you just walk us through some of the numbers here? You know, how much is Anthropic hoping to raise? What could the company be worth, that kind of stuff?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the company is aiming to raise, or is expected to raise, about $100 billion as part of its IPO. And the valuation that’s been touted around is between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. That really comes down to what investors expect the company to be worth.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the company is aiming to raise, or is expected to raise, about $100 billion as part of its IPO. And the valuation that’s been touted around is between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. That really comes down to what investors expect the company to be worth.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I love it. It’s just like, it’s so much money, and yet that’s a $500 billion difference. If you were like 1.5, 2, you know, it’s like a house in San Francisco. You’re like, “You know…”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I love it. It’s just like, it’s so much money, and yet that’s a $500 billion difference. If you were like 1.5, 2, you know, it’s like a house in San Francisco. You’re like, “You know…”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. What’s the over-asking price in terms of how much the company can actually go raise in the public offering? And so I think that’s really striking, just because Anthropic already has $130 billion-plus in cash and other investments that it can turn into cash. And so the fact that the company could raise, or is hoping to raise, $100 billion more really shows the size and scale, as we were just chatting about. And I think that really comes down to this figure of more than $807 billion in commitments that the company has in terms of being able to build out data centers, as well as have more computing power to actually run and build its AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. What’s the over-asking price in terms of how much the company can actually go raise in the public offering? And so I think that’s really striking, just because Anthropic already has $130 billion-plus in cash and other investments that it can turn into cash. And so the fact that the company could raise, or is hoping to raise, $100 billion more really shows the size and scale, as we were just chatting about. And I think that really comes down to this figure of more than $807 billion in commitments that the company has in terms of being able to build out data centers, as well as have more computing power to actually run and build its AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like, yeah, if you looked at a table of all the people they owe money to and you added it up, it’s like $800 billion.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like, yeah, if you looked at a table of all the people they owe money to and you added it up, it’s like $800 billion.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And I love, in the S-1, they say at some point, it may seem crazy that we’re spending all this money, but it’s because we really believe that there’s exponential growth necessary in what we spend so that we also can get exponential growth in what we make. There’s also this interesting figure, and maybe, Berber, I don’t know if you want to take this one. The company says they lost $80 billion in the first half of the year, but a lot of people have — some people have quoted that number. But it’s this really kind of odd convertible-debt thing where, essentially, Amazon invested. Can you talk a little bit about that? They didn’t really lose $80 billion, did they?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And I love, in the S-1, they say at some point, it may seem crazy that we’re spending all this money, but it’s because we really believe that there’s exponential growth necessary in what we spend so that we also can get exponential growth in what we make. There’s also this interesting figure, and maybe, Berber, I don’t know if you want to take this one. The company says they lost $80 billion in the first half of the year, but a lot of people have — some people have quoted that number. But it’s this really kind of odd convertible-debt thing where, essentially, Amazon invested. Can you talk a little bit about that? They didn’t really lose $80 billion, did they?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> No, they didn’t. Actually, Sri might know the specifics of this better than me. But my understanding is that that $80 billion net loss isn’t part of the core business. So it’s not like they’re losing $80 billion from their core operations, building and selling Claude. That would be very bad and would make the company much less attractive as a business to invest in. So I think it’s a little bit technical. They raised a lot of money through convertible notes, which eventually convert into equity but haven’t yet. And so, for some tricky, complicated, wonky accounting reasons, that shows up as a net loss. And the reason why that number is so inflated is because, actually, as Anthropic’s valuation has gone up, I guess the liabilities or the losses tied to those convertible notes have also gone up. So I think a lot of investors are also kind of not really looking at that. There are a lot of debates about profitability — how do AI companies calculate profitability? Is Anthropic kind of taking shortcuts to claim this profitability number from Q2? Because it is very impressive.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> No, they didn’t. Actually, Sri might know the specifics of this better than me. But my understanding is that that $80 billion net loss isn’t part of the core business. So it’s not like they’re losing $80 billion from their core operations, building and selling Claude. That would be very bad and would make the company much less attractive as a business to invest in. So I think it’s a little bit technical. They raised a lot of money through convertible notes, which eventually convert into equity but haven’t yet. And so, for some tricky, complicated, wonky accounting reasons, that shows up as a net loss. And the reason why that number is so inflated is because, actually, as Anthropic’s valuation has gone up, I guess the liabilities or the losses tied to those convertible notes have also gone up. So I think a lot of investors are also kind of not really looking at that. There are a lot of debates about profitability — how do AI companies calculate profitability? Is Anthropic kind of taking shortcuts to claim this profitability number from Q2? Because it is very impressive.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Um, but I think — I think I feel like it’s safe to say that that $80 billion—\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Well, and even they say at the same time, right, that they have something like — they were saying 85% gross margins for serving up Claude and Claude Code specifically, right? They’re able to make that much money there. But there are some questions about that, too, right? Sri, do you want to talk about how — what does this business look like?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the questions about gross margins — that basically means revenue minus the direct cost to produce that revenue. And so Anthropic accounts for that as what’s called inference cost, so essentially running its AI models to actually serve customers. So 85% gross margins is actually great for an AI lab, particularly because the company had, I think, negative margins even just two years ago, and very, very low margins even just last year. And so the fact that it’s been able to really improve its efficiency shows that they’ve been focused on this. And just for context, to put it alongside other software companies, that’s in line with software-as-a-service companies, anyway. So I think that’s quite impressive.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the questions about gross margins — that basically means revenue minus the direct cost to produce that revenue. And so Anthropic accounts for that as what’s called inference cost, so essentially running its AI models to actually serve customers. So 85% gross margins is actually great for an AI lab, particularly because the company had, I think, negative margins even just two years ago, and very, very low margins even just last year. And so the fact that it’s been able to really improve its efficiency shows that they’ve been focused on this. And just for context, to put it alongside other software companies, that’s in line with software-as-a-service companies, anyway. So I think that’s quite impressive.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think what folks are really indexing on now, in terms of where the company can go in the future, is that Q2 was really impressive. But the company actually shared some of its unaudited Q3 financials at an investor day a few weeks ago. And revenue growth increased, I believe, 45% between Q2 and Q3. But it shows that it actually decelerated compared with earlier this year. And so that kind of raises questions for some investors about whether Anthropic can actually continue sustaining that growth, particularly as you think about the threat of Chinese open-weight models.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What I’m hearing anecdotally is that businesses, especially large enterprise companies, are starting to adopt more open-weight models or turn to OpenAI for its Astra model, just because it’s gotten more competitive. OpenAI is also noting that this is an opportune moment to maybe cut prices, and so they’re gaining competitive share that way. I think there are a lot of questions around whether Anthropic can continue growing, just because the scale, as Mat was alluding to, is so large.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What I’m hearing anecdotally is that businesses, especially large enterprise companies, are starting to adopt more open-weight models or turn to OpenAI for its Astra model, just because it’s gotten more competitive. OpenAI is also noting that this is an opportune moment to maybe cut prices, and so they’re gaining competitive share that way. I think there are a lot of questions around whether Anthropic can continue growing, just because the scale, as Mat was alluding to, is so large.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Law of large numbers, as I feel like they like to say. Mat, what do you think about the big question here? People have been trying to ask, “Is AI for real? Is this a boom that’s going to bust?” What do you think this document says about that larger question — where the whole industry is likely to land and its overall importance?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Law of large numbers, as I feel like they like to say. Mat, what do you think about the big question here? People have been trying to ask, “Is AI for real? Is this a boom that’s going to bust?” What do you think this document says about that larger question — where the whole industry is likely to land and its overall importance?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think you can answer the “Is AI for real?” question in two ways. One is: Is the technology real? Clearly, it is. There’s no question. If you’re doubting that AI technology is real at this point—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think you can answer the “Is AI for real?” question in two ways. One is: Is the technology real? Clearly, it is. There’s no question. If you’re doubting that AI technology is real at this point—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s a question from—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s a question from—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> —a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> —a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I don’t know what to tell you. Is the stock market overinflated? Is there a bubble? Is that the question about whether AI is for real? Is AI really going to be able to generate these returns? You know, I mean, I hate to be cautious in this way, the way that I was at the top of the show, but I don’t think anybody knows. I mean, I think anybody who’s really projecting what you’re going to do with the — to use the SpaceX term — largest addressable market on Earth—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I don’t know what to tell you. Is the stock market overinflated? Is there a bubble? Is that the question about whether AI is for real? Is AI really going to be able to generate these returns? You know, I mean, I hate to be cautious in this way, the way that I was at the top of the show, but I don’t think anybody knows. I mean, I think anybody who’s really projecting what you’re going to do with the — to use the SpaceX term — largest addressable market on Earth—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which is all human labor, apparently.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which is all human labor, apparently.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> It’s a great unknown, and I guess I personally, just because I’ve been reporting for however many years now, tend not to like to put my chips on the table about that kind of stuff. But if I had to guess, it seems like a not-bad business.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> It’s a great unknown, and I guess I personally, just because I’ve been reporting for however many years now, tend not to like to put my chips on the table about that kind of stuff. But if I had to guess, it seems like a not-bad business.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it certainly seems more real than a year ago. If we were having the same conversation and had somehow gotten access to these numbers last summer, we’d be like, “Hmm, they seem to be losing a ton of money.” They’re growing fast, but of course it’s not that much money against the idea of this massive — you know, even back then they were talking about a valuation that was hundreds of billions of dollars. What do you think, Berber, about the larger question?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it certainly seems more real than a year ago. If we were having the same conversation and had somehow gotten access to these numbers last summer, we’d be like, “Hmm, they seem to be losing a ton of money.” They’re growing fast, but of course it’s not that much money against the idea of this massive — you know, even back then they were talking about a valuation that was hundreds of billions of dollars. What do you think, Berber, about the larger question?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would tend to agree with what Mat said. I think, based on this document, Anthropic is an extraordinarily good business. And I think the fact that they were able to turn an operating profit in Q2 defies a lot of the narrative that people have had about just how AI businesses work. The narrative around the labs in particular is that they are money pits, that they’ll never achieve profitability. They spend all this money training the models, but it’s very unclear whether they’ll ever get an ROI from it. So I think the fact that Anthropic’s business is so good is something that, a year or two ago, you’d be very surprised by. I think everyone would be surprised to see the numbers coming out of the company.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would tend to agree with what Mat said. I think, based on this document, Anthropic is an extraordinarily good business. And I think the fact that they were able to turn an operating profit in Q2 defies a lot of the narrative that people have had about just how AI businesses work. The narrative around the labs in particular is that they are money pits, that they’ll never achieve profitability. They spend all this money training the models, but it’s very unclear whether they’ll ever get an ROI from it. So I think the fact that Anthropic’s business is so good is something that, a year or two ago, you’d be very surprised by. I think everyone would be surprised to see the numbers coming out of the company.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Another statistic that really popped out to me in the S-1 was that they’ve raised $141 billion, and they still have around $120 billion on their balance sheet. Those are extraordinary numbers. Normally, we would expect them to be burning through the money they raised.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Another statistic that really popped out to me in the S-1 was that they’ve raised $141 billion, and they still have around $120 billion on their balance sheet. Those are extraordinary numbers. Normally, we would expect them to be burning through the money they raised.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> And that’s what OpenAI is doing, by the way. We can talk about how much of a better business Anthropic is than OpenAI right now. But I do think there are a lot of weird things about the business that should give some people pause. For example, I think they said 5% to 7% of their revenue comes from users who violate their terms of service. They’re alluding to Chinese companies that are just distilling their models, trying to hack into the models to train their own models. A lot of their revenue comes from one or two big customers, so there are still a lot of question marks that should make us cautious about putting all our chips into Anthropic.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> And that’s what OpenAI is doing, by the way. We can talk about how much of a better business Anthropic is than OpenAI right now. But I do think there are a lot of weird things about the business that should give some people pause. For example, I think they said 5% to 7% of their revenue comes from users who violate their terms of service. They’re alluding to Chinese companies that are just distilling their models, trying to hack into the models to train their own models. A lot of their revenue comes from one or two big customers, so there are still a lot of question marks that should make us cautious about putting all our chips into Anthropic.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO with Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>; Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook; and Mat Honan, editor-in-chief at \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Are you more scared of a bust or a boom? 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO with Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>; Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook; and Mat Honan, editor-in-chief at \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Are you more scared of a bust or a boom? 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got a little roundtable of technology reporters here from \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, Berber Jin, and, from \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>, Mat Honan. And we want to hear from you. You know, you’re a Bay Area person listening to this. Are you more scared of the tech boom here, or the tech bust that could come at some point in AI? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum. So, Mat, do you think we’re going to feel this IPO?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got a little roundtable of technology reporters here from \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, Berber Jin, and, from \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>, Mat Honan. And we want to hear from you. You know, you’re a Bay Area person listening to this. Are you more scared of the tech boom here, or the tech bust that could come at some point in AI? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum. So, Mat, do you think we’re going to feel this IPO?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think we’re already feeling it a little bit in real estate. There’s been a bunch of great reporting about the ways it’s — something, including in the Journal. Maybe, Berber, this is one of your stories. Forgive me if it was. But there was a story recently about how there are 600 or so employees who’ve already been able to pull money out, and they’ve been investing it heavily in real estate. If you look at some of the home prices, look at how much they’ve gone up year over year, you’re definitely already seeing it. They’re definitely really feeling it. Like, what’s that going to mean for the corner stores and the small businesses in the city? I don’t know, but it’s showing up in real estate.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think we’re already feeling it a little bit in real estate. There’s been a bunch of great reporting about the ways it’s — something, including in the Journal. Maybe, Berber, this is one of your stories. Forgive me if it was. But there was a story recently about how there are 600 or so employees who’ve already been able to pull money out, and they’ve been investing it heavily in real estate. If you look at some of the home prices, look at how much they’ve gone up year over year, you’re definitely already seeing it. They’re definitely really feeling it. Like, what’s that going to mean for the corner stores and the small businesses in the city? I don’t know, but it’s showing up in real estate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, normally, when I’ve talked about IPOs in the past, there are all these lockups on the options and all this stuff that’s happening. But it seems to me like Anthropic has made it unusually easy for their employees to trade, basically from the very beginning, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, normally, when I’ve talked about IPOs in the past, there are all these lockups on the options and all this stuff that’s happening. But it seems to me like Anthropic has made it unusually easy for their employees to trade, basically from the very beginning, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Yes, exactly. So typically there’s like a 180-day lockup where companies’ early employees or others in the company have to wait. You might see an adjustment in the IPO price after, for example, that first pop. What’s unusual about Anthropic is that some shares can actually be traded right away, and then it’s staggered across a set of 37- or 60-second periods, I believe, in terms of when others can also start trading. And so that makes it possible for employees and other shareholders to start trading immediately. You’re going to see the impact of that right away.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Yes, exactly. So typically there’s like a 180-day lockup where companies’ early employees or others in the company have to wait. You might see an adjustment in the IPO price after, for example, that first pop. What’s unusual about Anthropic is that some shares can actually be traded right away, and then it’s staggered across a set of 37- or 60-second periods, I believe, in terms of when others can also start trading. And so that makes it possible for employees and other shareholders to start trading immediately. You’re going to see the impact of that right away.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What’s expected is that the company would actually start trading in the week of November 16, I believe, so right before Thanksgiving. Maybe if you’re making any big purchases — if you’re trying to buy a house, maybe do it right now. But you’re already seeing that impact, as Mat was saying, because there were these share sales that employees had already participated in, and they were able to sell some of their existing shares — for example, to buy a house. So I think you’re starting to see a trickle of it already, and it will continue to get worse.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What’s expected is that the company would actually start trading in the week of November 16, I believe, so right before Thanksgiving. Maybe if you’re making any big purchases — if you’re trying to buy a house, maybe do it right now. But you’re already seeing that impact, as Mat was saying, because there were these share sales that employees had already participated in, and they were able to sell some of their existing shares — for example, to buy a house. So I think you’re starting to see a trickle of it already, and it will continue to get worse.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, when we’ve done real estate shows, it seemed like the major impact was at the ultra-luxury level. You know, it’s hard to feel bad for people who might be getting priced out of Pacific Heights mansions. But I suppose in this case it’s going to spread to some — what do we think, 1,500 or 2,000 people or something like that around here? Do we know the exact number of employees in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, when we’ve done real estate shows, it seemed like the major impact was at the ultra-luxury level. You know, it’s hard to feel bad for people who might be getting priced out of Pacific Heights mansions. But I suppose in this case it’s going to spread to some — what do we think, 1,500 or 2,000 people or something like that around here? Do we know the exact number of employees in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> I think it’s about 3,000, but you’d have to fact-check me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> I think it’s about 3,000, but you’d have to fact-check me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And most of them are here, though, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And most of them are here, though, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Most of them are here. It’s San Francisco headquarters. The other note I’d add to that is that rent prices have also gotten so crazy because Anthropic and other AI companies are all in San Francisco now. So when, for example, a young 20-something is moving to San Francisco and sees that rents are like $6,000 for a two-bedroom, they might as well just buy an apartment if the mortgage costs about the same as rent. What I’m hearing, even anecdotally, is that people are willing to buy not just those uber-rich mansions, but also a two-bedroom apartment or condo, because rents are so crazy as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Most of them are here. It’s San Francisco headquarters. The other note I’d add to that is that rent prices have also gotten so crazy because Anthropic and other AI companies are all in San Francisco now. So when, for example, a young 20-something is moving to San Francisco and sees that rents are like $6,000 for a two-bedroom, they might as well just buy an apartment if the mortgage costs about the same as rent. What I’m hearing, even anecdotally, is that people are willing to buy not just those uber-rich mansions, but also a two-bedroom apartment or condo, because rents are so crazy as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Alexis, I live in it. This is totally anecdotal. I live in the Outer Sunset, though. These neighborhoods are full of these things called doldrums, which are, you know, like this guy — Doldrum built, like, four guys on the first floor. They’re all pretty much the same floor plan, you know, two bedrooms with the garage downstairs. When I moved in there, they were selling for under a million dollars. There have been several in my immediate neighborhood that have sold recently for $900,000 over asking. And you can’t say, “Oh, well, is that because of Anthropic?” But it certainly seems like it. I mean, these are not high-end homes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Alexis, I live in it. This is totally anecdotal. I live in the Outer Sunset, though. These neighborhoods are full of these things called doldrums, which are, you know, like this guy — Doldrum built, like, four guys on the first floor. They’re all pretty much the same floor plan, you know, two bedrooms with the garage downstairs. When I moved in there, they were selling for under a million dollars. There have been several in my immediate neighborhood that have sold recently for $900,000 over asking. And you can’t say, “Oh, well, is that because of Anthropic?” But it certainly seems like it. I mean, these are not high-end homes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What’s wild is, you and I, in years past, were talking about the doom loop. I don’t think either of us were believers in this so-called doom loop, that San Francisco was going down in flames. And here we are, just a few years later, and this has happened now. Do you think this is a net good for the city, to get this massive injection of money into what is a tiny percentage of the city’s population?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What’s wild is, you and I, in years past, were talking about the doom loop. I don’t think either of us were believers in this so-called doom loop, that San Francisco was going down in flames. And here we are, just a few years later, and this has happened now. Do you think this is a net good for the city, to get this massive injection of money into what is a tiny percentage of the city’s population?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not going to show up in our list — the city’s not going to get a whole lot of tax revenue from it, right? There’s no income tax, and it’s questionable to me how much of that is actually going to go to the city. They are going to have this huge philanthropic division — LLC, what is it? Is it separate?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not going to show up in our list — the city’s not going to get a whole lot of tax revenue from it, right? There’s no income tax, and it’s questionable to me how much of that is actually going to go to the city. They are going to have this huge philanthropic division — LLC, what is it? Is it separate?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Long-term trust.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Long-term trust.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> That’s going to be giving away all this money to philanthropic causes, but that’s probably not going to be local stuff, right? That’s going to be national, international, global health.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> That’s going to be giving away all this money to philanthropic causes, but that’s probably not going to be local stuff, right? That’s going to be national, international, global health.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, right. More Gates Foundation-y level and scope, yeah. So how’s it going to benefit the city? I don’t know. Yeah. All right, let’s ask Jay in Palo Alto. What do you think, Jay?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, right. More Gates Foundation-y level and scope, yeah. So how’s it going to benefit the city? I don’t know. Yeah. All right, let’s ask Jay in Palo Alto. What do you think, Jay?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jay:\u003c/strong> Hey, good, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I love that you guys talked about the housing issue a little bit, but I think that one thing — there have been several news articles about this recently — that’s united the whole country is that everybody hates data centers, right? And that’s exactly what this is. When we try to have this objective conversation about how cool it is, the ins and outs, and talk about it in a very matter-of-fact tone, I think there’s a tremendous disconnect between these facts you’re talking about and the fact that this represents something that almost everybody hates. I think we’re doing a real disservice when we neglect that. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jay:\u003c/strong> Hey, good, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I love that you guys talked about the housing issue a little bit, but I think that one thing — there have been several news articles about this recently — that’s united the whole country is that everybody hates data centers, right? And that’s exactly what this is. When we try to have this objective conversation about how cool it is, the ins and outs, and talk about it in a very matter-of-fact tone, I think there’s a tremendous disconnect between these facts you’re talking about and the fact that this represents something that almost everybody hates. I think we’re doing a real disservice when we neglect that. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for that, Jay. I mean, if you look at the polling on data centers, it’s sort of the inverse of support for marriage equality. It is just a fast, hard move against data centers. This actually does — I mean, they address it in the risks in the S-1, but I think maybe it’s a little underplayed, right? Because, at least from my read on the data center industry, they’re already having a lot of problems. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Berber?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for that, Jay. I mean, if you look at the polling on data centers, it’s sort of the inverse of support for marriage equality. It is just a fast, hard move against data centers. This actually does — I mean, they address it in the risks in the S-1, but I think maybe it’s a little underplayed, right? Because, at least from my read on the data center industry, they’re already having a lot of problems. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Berber?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think it’s been really interesting to see, in the last few months, how data center build-outs have become a real political hot-button issue. It’s really turned into a liability for candidates who have supported data center build-outs in the midterms. It’s a great point to raise because they’re not building data centers in San Francisco. They’re building them in the rest of the country, oftentimes in communities that don’t really see the benefits of AI up front.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think it’s been really interesting to see, in the last few months, how data center build-outs have become a real political hot-button issue. It’s really turned into a liability for candidates who have supported data center build-outs in the midterms. It’s a great point to raise because they’re not building data centers in San Francisco. They’re building them in the rest of the country, oftentimes in communities that don’t really see the benefits of AI up front.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think there’s this weird thing where it is a huge risk, right? Because if Anthropic can’t get the political goodwill to build data centers, they don’t have the compute needed to build and serve their models. But they’ve also been behind this very weird messaging around AI. I feel like they’ve marketed it as scary technology that already is having all these cyber risks and could potentially cause extinction. They have a lot of employees who are doomers. So there’s this weird cultural disconnect where they have a vested business and financial interest in trying to get the country to come around to this vision of building hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars’ worth of data centers. But they have this weird ideology around—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think there’s this weird thing where it is a huge risk, right? Because if Anthropic can’t get the political goodwill to build data centers, they don’t have the compute needed to build and serve their models. But they’ve also been behind this very weird messaging around AI. I feel like they’ve marketed it as scary technology that already is having all these cyber risks and could potentially cause extinction. They have a lot of employees who are doomers. So there’s this weird cultural disconnect where they have a vested business and financial interest in trying to get the country to come around to this vision of building hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars’ worth of data centers. But they have this weird ideology around—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> They’re like, “Don’t worry, we hate AI so much that we must build it and become trillionaires from it.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> They’re like, “Don’t worry, we hate AI so much that we must build it and become trillionaires from it.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And it might kill you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And it might kill you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> And in case anyone else builds it—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> And in case anyone else builds it—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, they do try to explain this in the S-1, right? They call it — and this has been, I do think, fairly consistent about this idea. It’s just a question of whether this idea makes any sense at all — what they call the “race to the top.” Okay, we have to build it first because then we will have built it the right way, with the right safeguards, and it won’t be Chinese tyranny running things, and it won’t be Sam Altman — whatever, even San Franciscan Sam Altman. What do you think? Does the “race to the top” idea make sense, Mat? How have you evaluated that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, they do try to explain this in the S-1, right? They call it — and this has been, I do think, fairly consistent about this idea. It’s just a question of whether this idea makes any sense at all — what they call the “race to the top.” Okay, we have to build it first because then we will have built it the right way, with the right safeguards, and it won’t be Chinese tyranny running things, and it won’t be Sam Altman — whatever, even San Franciscan Sam Altman. What do you think? Does the “race to the top” idea make sense, Mat? How have you evaluated that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think the “race to the top” idea is sort of a self-serving idea. I really do. And I think there are people at OpenAI who would tell you that they’re racing to the top as well. I think there are people at Google who would say they’re racing to the top — DeepMind, for sure. And I don’t know. To go back to that caller’s point about data centers, do you remember, probably around 2010 to 2012, there were all those protests against the Google buses?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think the “race to the top” idea is sort of a self-serving idea. I really do. And I think there are people at OpenAI who would tell you that they’re racing to the top as well. I think there are people at Google who would say they’re racing to the top — DeepMind, for sure. And I don’t know. To go back to that caller’s point about data centers, do you remember, probably around 2010 to 2012, there were all those protests against the Google buses?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> The Google bus is a physical thing that you can stand in front of, right? And I feel like the data center thing is much the same. You don’t want it in your neighborhood because it’s going to make your rates go up. It’s going to be loud. All that kind of stuff is true. But it’s also something that you could stop. And I think a lot of people right now feel sort of powerless and uneasy about the advent of the age of AI. You can stand in front of a data center and make it not be there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> The Google bus is a physical thing that you can stand in front of, right? And I feel like the data center thing is much the same. You don’t want it in your neighborhood because it’s going to make your rates go up. It’s going to be loud. All that kind of stuff is true. But it’s also something that you could stop. And I think a lot of people right now feel sort of powerless and uneasy about the advent of the age of AI. You can stand in front of a data center and make it not be there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you can go to the permitting hearing and slow it down. You can do all these things. It has been truly, truly amazing to look at that. One of our listeners, RJ Wrights, asks — and Berber, maybe we’ll come to you on this — can you talk about Anthropic’s commitment to social causes, specifically around income disparity? Of course, in the AI and automation conversations of 10 years ago, people were talking about this stuff all the time: universal basic income and all these kinds of things. Where does AI — where does Anthropic — stand on these things?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you can go to the permitting hearing and slow it down. You can do all these things. It has been truly, truly amazing to look at that. One of our listeners, RJ Wrights, asks — and Berber, maybe we’ll come to you on this — can you talk about Anthropic’s commitment to social causes, specifically around income disparity? Of course, in the AI and automation conversations of 10 years ago, people were talking about this stuff all the time: universal basic income and all these kinds of things. Where does AI — where does Anthropic — stand on these things?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s an interesting question, because a lot of the business proposition behind Claude is, “We will have Claude be able to save companies a lot of money by automating your workforce.” Anthropic Works has this big project with a bunch of private equity firms to implement Claude in legacy industries, like accounting, to cut head counts and improve efficiency.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s an interesting question, because a lot of the business proposition behind Claude is, “We will have Claude be able to save companies a lot of money by automating your workforce.” Anthropic Works has this big project with a bunch of private equity firms to implement Claude in legacy industries, like accounting, to cut head counts and improve efficiency.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, to start off, I think it’s important to be clear that the financial interest of this company is to herald an economic revolution that will result — they will not contest this — in massive transformations to the labor force. I think Anthropic has also been intentional in trying to find ways to offset that. They produce a lot of papers about how economic transformation will come, and they also have a lot of money earmarked for philanthropic causes. I think — I forget the name — but there’s a vehicle that exists where some of the money they have is specifically directed toward reducing the impact they will have on society.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, to start off, I think it’s important to be clear that the financial interest of this company is to herald an economic revolution that will result — they will not contest this — in massive transformations to the labor force. I think Anthropic has also been intentional in trying to find ways to offset that. They produce a lot of papers about how economic transformation will come, and they also have a lot of money earmarked for philanthropic causes. I think — I forget the name — but there’s a vehicle that exists where some of the money they have is specifically directed toward reducing the impact they will have on society.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As a normal denizen of the world, it’s a little bit uncomfortable, right? Because you’re handing this company so much power to say, “We are automating away your jobs, but we will also find ways to try to smooth it over.” And I think that goes to that sense of powerlessness Mat was talking about, where they just have so much power and control. I feel like a lot of people feel like it’s kind of out of their hands, the concentration of influence this company has. Yeah, it’s really quite extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>As a normal denizen of the world, it’s a little bit uncomfortable, right? Because you’re handing this company so much power to say, “We are automating away your jobs, but we will also find ways to try to smooth it over.” And I think that goes to that sense of powerlessness Mat was talking about, where they just have so much power and control. I feel like a lot of people feel like it’s kind of out of their hands, the concentration of influence this company has. Yeah, it’s really quite extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the reasons I think people have come to believe in Anthropic as a business, if not in all these other things, is basically Claude Code, right? So, Sri, I want to come to you on this. This is Claude Code, and then the sort of harness they’ve put around their product so that you can ask Claude to do all kinds of things and build all kinds of things. Anything a computer can do, it could do it for you, basically. And this has turned out to be kind of the magic of the business, right, Sri? Because they’ve rolled this out to companies, and it has not only transformed Anthropic itself — where I think they say 90% of the lines of code committed to their code base are made by Claude Code — but also all these developers and business software makers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the reasons I think people have come to believe in Anthropic as a business, if not in all these other things, is basically Claude Code, right? So, Sri, I want to come to you on this. This is Claude Code, and then the sort of harness they’ve put around their product so that you can ask Claude to do all kinds of things and build all kinds of things. Anything a computer can do, it could do it for you, basically. And this has turned out to be kind of the magic of the business, right, Sri? Because they’ve rolled this out to companies, and it has not only transformed Anthropic itself — where I think they say 90% of the lines of code committed to their code base are made by Claude Code — but also all these developers and business software makers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. Claude Code has been pivotal to Anthropic’s growth. They released it last year at some point. While OpenAI, the bigger rival at the time, was focused on consumer AI with its ChatGPT product, Anthropic really bet big on serving businesses. By focusing on Claude Code, they were able to automate software engineering work, which allows enterprises to do more with AI but also cut labor and save on costs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. Claude Code has been pivotal to Anthropic’s growth. They released it last year at some point. While OpenAI, the bigger rival at the time, was focused on consumer AI with its ChatGPT product, Anthropic really bet big on serving businesses. By focusing on Claude Code, they were able to automate software engineering work, which allows enterprises to do more with AI but also cut labor and save on costs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think Anthropic was smart about focusing on that. Over time, OpenAI has tried to follow by focusing more on Codex, for example, its competing coding product. But I don’t think Anthropic expected Claude Code to be so popular. At the start of this year, it was a little flat-footed in terms of how much computing power it needed to serve Claude Code. A lot of folks were complaining about their usage limits being affected if they were using the chatbot, and developers were scrambling to get more tokens to use Claude Code.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think Anthropic was smart about focusing on that. Over time, OpenAI has tried to follow by focusing more on Codex, for example, its competing coding product. But I don’t think Anthropic expected Claude Code to be so popular. At the start of this year, it was a little flat-footed in terms of how much computing power it needed to serve Claude Code. A lot of folks were complaining about their usage limits being affected if they were using the chatbot, and developers were scrambling to get more tokens to use Claude Code.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Eventually, Anthropic went on a deal spree to strike so many deals. That goes back to the $807 billion commitment they have for more computing power, chips, and data center work. Claude Code really was — and is — a huge driver for Anthropic’s business.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Eventually, Anthropic went on a deal spree to strike so many deals. That goes back to the $807 billion commitment they have for more computing power, chips, and data center work. Claude Code really was — and is — a huge driver for Anthropic’s business.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But now, as part of their S-1 and what they’ve been pitching to potential investors, they’re saying, “Hey, we’re going to save the world not just through software engineering, but we’re going to focus on life sciences and help you discover new drugs and cure cancer.” I think that’s also part of what Berber was saying earlier: the rejiggering of its mission to be maybe more of a safety-conscious company, because they’re countering the doomerism that their founders and employees feel. But also, “Hey, we actually have an IPO and need to raise $100 billion. How are we going to do that?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But now, as part of their S-1 and what they’ve been pitching to potential investors, they’re saying, “Hey, we’re going to save the world not just through software engineering, but we’re going to focus on life sciences and help you discover new drugs and cure cancer.” I think that’s also part of what Berber was saying earlier: the rejiggering of its mission to be maybe more of a safety-conscious company, because they’re countering the doomerism that their founders and employees feel. But also, “Hey, we actually have an IPO and need to raise $100 billion. How are we going to do that?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What’s also interesting, when I was reading the S-1, is that there was a phrase where the risk of humanity ending was written in the passive voice, versus, “There have been claims…” I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was very much like people, or it’s like—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What’s also interesting, when I was reading the S-1, is that there was a phrase where the risk of humanity ending was written in the passive voice, versus, “There have been claims…” I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was very much like people, or it’s like—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’d be like, “See if all of our executives…” Yes, exactly. Say that we’re going to have a lot of—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’d be like, “See if all of our executives…” Yes, exactly. Say that we’re going to have a lot of—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> It’s like, not Dario saying it, but it’s like, “Claims have been made.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> It’s like, not Dario saying it, but it’s like, “Claims have been made.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. I mean, the strange thing — and I think it’s a real question for the business in an interesting way — is that Claude Code reached ubiquity among software developers. It seemed like more or less overnight, from the end of 2025 into 2026.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. I mean, the strange thing — and I think it’s a real question for the business in an interesting way — is that Claude Code reached ubiquity among software developers. It seemed like more or less overnight, from the end of 2025 into 2026.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, you know, my wife and I have a small business. I used Claude Code to automate the back end of this thing, and it works really well. I did it one time, used some tokens, and sort of that was it. I think one of my questions is whether they’ve had to start talking about biology and some of these really data-intensive realms because you could automate most white-collar work with a free plan, practically. These tools have gotten so good that you don’t actually need to pay Anthropic all that much money to do most of the white-collar information work that people do in normal jobs that aren’t coding.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But, you know, my wife and I have a small business. I used Claude Code to automate the back end of this thing, and it works really well. I did it one time, used some tokens, and sort of that was it. I think one of my questions is whether they’ve had to start talking about biology and some of these really data-intensive realms because you could automate most white-collar work with a free plan, practically. These tools have gotten so good that you don’t actually need to pay Anthropic all that much money to do most of the white-collar information work that people do in normal jobs that aren’t coding.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think there’s a real question. You’ve seen this incredible wave of adoption inside companies by the coders, but do the rest of us, Mat, even need as many tokens as it would take? They could totally wipe out white-collar work, and it still might not be a good business if you have to pay $800 billion for data centers and chips.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think there’s a real question. You’ve seen this incredible wave of adoption inside companies by the coders, but do the rest of us, Mat, even need as many tokens as it would take? They could totally wipe out white-collar work, and it still might not be a good business if you have to pay $800 billion for data centers and chips.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the question is just, do you think there are going to be enough people who need to use these tools the way coders have?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the question is just, do you think there are going to be enough people who need to use these tools the way coders have?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I will say, just on a personal level, I’ve now started paying for Fable upgrades, which is their most capable model, which was surprising to me — that I actually hit the point where I wanted to do that. And, like you, I’ve done a ton of personal projects and things like that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I will say, just on a personal level, I’ve now started paying for Fable upgrades, which is their most capable model, which was surprising to me — that I actually hit the point where I wanted to do that. And, like you, I’ve done a ton of personal projects and things like that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think, again, a lot of what I’m talking about today is anecdotal, but our development team — our team of devs — has become so much more productive because of Claude Code. I do think businesses are going to be willing to pay for that. It’s clear that all kinds of businesses, such as your small business, are going to be able to use these tools in the same way that a larger customer is. And Anthropic clearly has some really large enterprise customers, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think, again, a lot of what I’m talking about today is anecdotal, but our development team — our team of devs — has become so much more productive because of Claude Code. I do think businesses are going to be willing to pay for that. It’s clear that all kinds of businesses, such as your small business, are going to be able to use these tools in the same way that a larger customer is. And Anthropic clearly has some really large enterprise customers, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, and that’s where, like—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, and that’s where, like—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Most of the revenues are right now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Most of the revenues are right now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are talking about Anthropic as a business, and we’re also talking about what the Anthropic IPO could mean for the Bay Area and what it says about the state of the AI industry. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em> Editor-in-Chief Mat Honan. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook, and Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are talking about Anthropic as a business, and we’re also talking about what the Anthropic IPO could mean for the Bay Area and what it says about the state of the AI industry. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em> Editor-in-Chief Mat Honan. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook, and Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re going to get to more of your calls. I promise, in the next segment. What about you? Are you planning to invest in Anthropic? Why or why not? You can give us a call, 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. How do you feel about this economy that’s solidifying here in the Bay Area? You can find us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum, all those places. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’re going to get to more of your calls. I promise, in the next segment. What about you? Are you planning to invest in Anthropic? Why or why not? You can give us a call, 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. How do you feel about this economy that’s solidifying here in the Bay Area? You can find us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum, all those places. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Here we are talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>’s Mat Honan, the New York Times and DealBook’s Sri Muppidi, and Berber Jin from \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Let’s bring in — oh, we just lost the caller I was going to go to. All right, here we go. Let’s bring in Michael on data centers. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Here we are talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>’s Mat Honan, the New York Times and DealBook’s Sri Muppidi, and Berber Jin from \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Let’s bring in — oh, we just lost the caller I was going to go to. All right, here we go. Let’s bring in Michael on data centers. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael:\u003c/strong> Hello, thanks for taking my call. What I wanted to bring up is this notion that data centers are evil, data centers are awful, and we should rise against the data centers. That’s really an inaccurate view. Data centers are no worse than any of the other things that we seem to be okay with: pollution from cars, pollution from nuclear power, pollution, pollution, pollution. What people don’t seem to realize is that many states bent the rules to get data centers into their states because they needed the revenue, right? So I think this is basically a straw man. It really is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael:\u003c/strong> Hello, thanks for taking my call. What I wanted to bring up is this notion that data centers are evil, data centers are awful, and we should rise against the data centers. That’s really an inaccurate view. Data centers are no worse than any of the other things that we seem to be okay with: pollution from cars, pollution from nuclear power, pollution, pollution, pollution. What people don’t seem to realize is that many states bent the rules to get data centers into their states because they needed the revenue, right? So I think this is basically a straw man. It really is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And if you think about what you’re getting from these data centers, you’re giving power to people who normally wouldn’t have it. Here’s what I mean: take medical technology and medical information. It used to be, “Okay, I’ve just got to listen to this doctor and hope that they’re right, because I have no other resource to validate what they’re saying.” You can actually use Claude to do that. “Hey, here are my test results.” You can feed them into Claude. Claude will give you plain-English explanations of what this means and the kinds of questions you need to be asking your doctor.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And if you think about what you’re getting from these data centers, you’re giving power to people who normally wouldn’t have it. Here’s what I mean: take medical technology and medical information. It used to be, “Okay, I’ve just got to listen to this doctor and hope that they’re right, because I have no other resource to validate what they’re saying.” You can actually use Claude to do that. “Hey, here are my test results.” You can feed them into Claude. Claude will give you plain-English explanations of what this means and the kinds of questions you need to be asking your doctor.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to take the data center question, though, because I think it’s an interesting point. I think part of it is, in exchange for the data centers, you also get to lose your job. That seems to be sort of the rhetoric, you know? People previously didn’t have a lot of opposition to data centers. Santa Clara County, for example, has tons of data centers, and there was virtually no opposition to them. Mat, do you think that’s because — essentially, people are using the tools of, say, environmental justice to raise questions about pollution or other things, but what people are really objecting to is, as you put it, this is a physical manifestation of the AI-driven economy?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to take the data center question, though, because I think it’s an interesting point. I think part of it is, in exchange for the data centers, you also get to lose your job. That seems to be sort of the rhetoric, you know? People previously didn’t have a lot of opposition to data centers. Santa Clara County, for example, has tons of data centers, and there was virtually no opposition to them. Mat, do you think that’s because — essentially, people are using the tools of, say, environmental justice to raise questions about pollution or other things, but what people are really objecting to is, as you put it, this is a physical manifestation of the AI-driven economy?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s definitely my opinion. A lot of it is about the physical manifestation. I do think people have legitimate concerns about their rates. They have legitimate concerns about power plants being built. To power these data centers, a lot of the energy sources they’ll have to use may even include natural gas.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s definitely my opinion. A lot of it is about the physical manifestation. I do think people have legitimate concerns about their rates. They have legitimate concerns about power plants being built. To power these data centers, a lot of the energy sources they’ll have to use may even include natural gas.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One is natural gas, yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One is natural gas, yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> And I think people have legitimate concerns about that. The data center pushback is older than the AI boom if you think about it from a purely power or energy perspective. Texas did a lot to bring in data centers during the crypto boom, right? Then they had a bunch of brownouts, and they started peeling back the rules they’d put in place to make it easier to bring in data centers. And they’re back because there are concerns about energy usage that are—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> And I think people have legitimate concerns about that. The data center pushback is older than the AI boom if you think about it from a purely power or energy perspective. Texas did a lot to bring in data centers during the crypto boom, right? Then they had a bunch of brownouts, and they started peeling back the rules they’d put in place to make it easier to bring in data centers. And they’re back because there are concerns about energy usage that are—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at Virginia, where a huge chunk of data centers are, and you look at their power prices, I also think people are responding to the other idea of power — the other definition of power. In a lot of these Virginia places, so much of their property tax revenue is now dependent on these data centers, which makes you wonder, what are they going to do politically in that circumstance? Let’s bring in Todd in San Francisco. Welcome, Todd.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at Virginia, where a huge chunk of data centers are, and you look at their power prices, I also think people are responding to the other idea of power — the other definition of power. In a lot of these Virginia places, so much of their property tax revenue is now dependent on these data centers, which makes you wonder, what are they going to do politically in that circumstance? Let’s bring in Todd in San Francisco. Welcome, Todd.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Todd:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Since Anthropic and these IPOs are going to generate a lot of money, and there’s already been a lot of money generated in the Bay Area by investments, I’d like the cognoscenti of the AI world on your show right now to speculate about why these millionaires and billionaires are so much different from San Francisco’s previous set of millionaires and billionaires — like the gold miners who struck it rich. Famously, cultured gold miners would build opera houses and import famous authors to read out loud. But living in the Bay Area, one would have to say they’re rather hermetic. What’s up?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Todd:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Since Anthropic and these IPOs are going to generate a lot of money, and there’s already been a lot of money generated in the Bay Area by investments, I’d like the cognoscenti of the AI world on your show right now to speculate about why these millionaires and billionaires are so much different from San Francisco’s previous set of millionaires and billionaires — like the gold miners who struck it rich. Famously, cultured gold miners would build opera houses and import famous authors to read out loud. But living in the Bay Area, one would have to say they’re rather hermetic. What’s up?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> This is really — I mean, Berber, why don’t we go to you? Anthropic specifically was deeply aligned with a movement. I don’t know if I want to call it a philosophical movement, but I suppose it is: effective altruism. In fact, one of their earliest backers, Sam Bankman-Fried, was one of their largest investors at the point when he went down. So what do we think? This seems to deeply inform the culture of Anthropic. Can you give us a little summary of effective altruism and its application to Anthropic?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> This is really — I mean, Berber, why don’t we go to you? Anthropic specifically was deeply aligned with a movement. I don’t know if I want to call it a philosophical movement, but I suppose it is: effective altruism. In fact, one of their earliest backers, Sam Bankman-Fried, was one of their largest investors at the point when he went down. So what do we think? This seems to deeply inform the culture of Anthropic. Can you give us a little summary of effective altruism and its application to Anthropic?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so effective altruism is deeply ingrained, particularly among the co-founders and the very early set of employees, who also happen to be the richest in the IPO. EAs care a lot about how to maximize the amount of good in the world, which leads to a lot of conclusions that most normal people would consider esoteric. For example, if we want to minimize suffering in the world, we should all be vegans. And you take that argument to the extreme — a lot of anti-EA people like to make this argument to make fun of EAs — and you get shrimp farming, because billions of shrimp are farmed every year and they can experience pain.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so effective altruism is deeply ingrained, particularly among the co-founders and the very early set of employees, who also happen to be the richest in the IPO. EAs care a lot about how to maximize the amount of good in the world, which leads to a lot of conclusions that most normal people would consider esoteric. For example, if we want to minimize suffering in the world, we should all be vegans. And you take that argument to the extreme — a lot of anti-EA people like to make this argument to make fun of EAs — and you get shrimp farming, because billions of shrimp are farmed every year and they can experience pain.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So apply that to AI. A lot of the early employees, a lot of people who became very interested in AI, became interested in AI because they felt like here’s a technology that could cause extinction, and extinction would be the worst kind of outcome. It would maximize the amount of suffering in the world, so we have to prevent it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So apply that to AI. A lot of the early employees, a lot of people who became very interested in AI, became interested in AI because they felt like here’s a technology that could cause extinction, and extinction would be the worst kind of outcome. It would maximize the amount of suffering in the world, so we have to prevent it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Anyway, to apply that to the question, which I think is really interesting, about what values will animate this new billionaire class: I think an interesting litmus test will be to see how much of their money goes toward funding cultural and artistic institutions in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and toward funding civic institutions that I think a lot of normal people could really get on board with.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Anyway, to apply that to the question, which I think is really interesting, about what values will animate this new billionaire class: I think an interesting litmus test will be to see how much of their money goes toward funding cultural and artistic institutions in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and toward funding civic institutions that I think a lot of normal people could really get on board with.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The early employees at Anthropic — a lot of them have pledged sometimes half of their wealth to philanthropic causes. But because effective altruism is so deeply ingrained in their worldviews, the chatter right now among employees is, “We should donate this money to fund AI safety nonprofits that are focused on how to use AI to prevent human extinction. We should use it to back animal welfare nonprofits.” Berkeley’s going to get rich.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The early employees at Anthropic — a lot of them have pledged sometimes half of their wealth to philanthropic causes. But because effective altruism is so deeply ingrained in their worldviews, the chatter right now among employees is, “We should donate this money to fund AI safety nonprofits that are focused on how to use AI to prevent human extinction. We should use it to back animal welfare nonprofits.” Berkeley’s going to get rich.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There is this interesting countercultural element where a lot of these people are in Berkeley. One dig against EAs is that they famously don’t care about art and culture. A lot of people who are anti-EA will make that argument. But I think it will be interesting to see how they spend this money. Will it just go to these kind of wacky causes? How much of it will go toward institutions like SFMOMA or supporting the opera? That will be a way to see the relationship between this new billionaire class and the rest of San Francisco. What that looks like will depend in large part on how these employees and founders choose to spend the philanthropic wealth they’ll gain from the IPO.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There is this interesting countercultural element where a lot of these people are in Berkeley. One dig against EAs is that they famously don’t care about art and culture. A lot of people who are anti-EA will make that argument. But I think it will be interesting to see how they spend this money. Will it just go to these kind of wacky causes? How much of it will go toward institutions like SFMOMA or supporting the opera? That will be a way to see the relationship between this new billionaire class and the rest of San Francisco. What that looks like will depend in large part on how these employees and founders choose to spend the philanthropic wealth they’ll gain from the IPO.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, having followed some EA stuff — not closely, but sort of a little bit from the outside — it feels like a real kind of hothouse-flower thing. This started out as a very small group of people all talking to each other about this stuff, and now, of course, it’s become a global, massive discussion about whether the kinds of ideas they had about the world and AI make any sense at all. But, of course, they will have massive wealth, and they also have the proof of this company they’ve built on their side of the ledger, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, having followed some EA stuff — not closely, but sort of a little bit from the outside — it feels like a real kind of hothouse-flower thing. This started out as a very small group of people all talking to each other about this stuff, and now, of course, it’s become a global, massive discussion about whether the kinds of ideas they had about the world and AI make any sense at all. But, of course, they will have massive wealth, and they also have the proof of this company they’ve built on their side of the ledger, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Mat, what about you? We’ve seen plenty of weird ideologies flow through San Francisco. I would not have bet, 12 years ago, that effective altruism would be associated with one of the fastest-growing capitalist companies ever. Think about the philosophical underpinnings of this place.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Mat, what about you? We’ve seen plenty of weird ideologies flow through San Francisco. I would not have bet, 12 years ago, that effective altruism would be associated with one of the fastest-growing capitalist companies ever. Think about the philosophical underpinnings of this place.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, you want to talk about the rationalists a little bit when you talk about effective altruism, a lot of which is headquartered out in the East Bay. I do think it’s had a profound effect on the way a lot of people, especially those working in tech, think about the world and about what’s the most effective way to make the world a better place.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, you want to talk about the rationalists a little bit when you talk about effective altruism, a lot of which is headquartered out in the East Bay. I do think it’s had a profound effect on the way a lot of people, especially those working in tech, think about the world and about what’s the most effective way to make the world a better place.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think Berber’s exactly right, though. It’s really unclear whether the people who have come up in that scene or movement — whatever you want to call it, philosophy — are going to donate to the opera versus places that are more globally oriented, or AI safety organizations. I don’t know how much we’re going to see of this in the Bay Area. And I think if they wanted to generate an enormous amount of goodwill, they could effectively solve the housing problem in San Francisco instead of making it worse. There are all kinds of ways to put that money to use locally.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think Berber’s exactly right, though. It’s really unclear whether the people who have come up in that scene or movement — whatever you want to call it, philosophy — are going to donate to the opera versus places that are more globally oriented, or AI safety organizations. I don’t know how much we’re going to see of this in the Bay Area. And I think if they wanted to generate an enormous amount of goodwill, they could effectively solve the housing problem in San Francisco instead of making it worse. There are all kinds of ways to put that money to use locally.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a couple of comments here. Eric writes in to say, “As with the microchip boom of the ’90s and the dot-com boom, it’s real. We might see a bit — a lot — of volatility as profitability catches up with valuation, but the smart money has already spoken.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a couple of comments here. Eric writes in to say, “As with the microchip boom of the ’90s and the dot-com boom, it’s real. We might see a bit — a lot — of volatility as profitability catches up with valuation, but the smart money has already spoken.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Then Steve on Discord has this question. News came out recently about China’s AI companies really suffering, with half a trillion dollars of valuation gone. Steve notes that — what do you think is going on there? It’s seemed like two different worlds to me that kind of come together, I suppose, in the American market. But, Berber, do you think the fact that these Chinese AI companies are struggling in their stock market says anything about Anthropic or what’s happening here?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Then Steve on Discord has this question. News came out recently about China’s AI companies really suffering, with half a trillion dollars of valuation gone. Steve notes that — what do you think is going on there? It’s seemed like two different worlds to me that kind of come together, I suppose, in the American market. But, Berber, do you think the fact that these Chinese AI companies are struggling in their stock market says anything about Anthropic or what’s happening here?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> That’s a really good question. The whole Chinese AI ecosystem really puzzles me. I mean, I think — maybe this isn’t a direct answer to your question — a lot of the Chinese companies, it’s unclear to me what their modus operandi is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> That’s a really good question. The whole Chinese AI ecosystem really puzzles me. I mean, I think — maybe this isn’t a direct answer to your question — a lot of the Chinese companies, it’s unclear to me what their modus operandi is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What we do kind of know is that they somehow don’t have enough — they can’t raise as much money as Anthropic and OpenAI. I’ve always been confused about why the government doesn’t just subsidize and pour tens of billions of dollars into these companies. They’re famous for distilling Anthropic’s models. They’ll use the outputs from Claude to train a cheaper, hacked-in version of Fable or Opus or the Anthropic-class models, which Anthropic hates. But then they also give away a lot of their technology for free. They make it open source, so none of the companies really have a business model, which is why I think there’s been all this volatility in the Chinese stock market with those names.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What we do kind of know is that they somehow don’t have enough — they can’t raise as much money as Anthropic and OpenAI. I’ve always been confused about why the government doesn’t just subsidize and pour tens of billions of dollars into these companies. They’re famous for distilling Anthropic’s models. They’ll use the outputs from Claude to train a cheaper, hacked-in version of Fable or Opus or the Anthropic-class models, which Anthropic hates. But then they also give away a lot of their technology for free. They make it open source, so none of the companies really have a business model, which is why I think there’s been all this volatility in the Chinese stock market with those names.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s all kind of perplexing to me, how the Chinese AI ecosystem works. I don’t think American policymakers or lab leaders have a great sense of it either. So that’s how I would answer the question. It’s all very confusing to me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s all kind of perplexing to me, how the Chinese AI ecosystem works. I don’t think American policymakers or lab leaders have a great sense of it either. So that’s how I would answer the question. It’s all very confusing to me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I don’t disagree. And I think it has confused American AI leaders a lot. When you started to see these Chinese models come out with training numbers that were teensy-tiny on the cost side, it made it seem like, well, why are Anthropic and OpenAI spending $800 billion over the next five or 10 years when these Chinese model makers seem to be able to do more with less? Which I think remains an open question. It feels like there are some variables missing there. James in Larkspur, welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I don’t disagree. And I think it has confused American AI leaders a lot. When you started to see these Chinese models come out with training numbers that were teensy-tiny on the cost side, it made it seem like, well, why are Anthropic and OpenAI spending $800 billion over the next five or 10 years when these Chinese model makers seem to be able to do more with less? Which I think remains an open question. It feels like there are some variables missing there. James in Larkspur, welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Yeah, hi. Good morning. I wanted to shift the conversation just a little bit to the control of information that’s coming out of Anthropic, for instance. Traditionally, on the internet, we were shown sites that we could go to and ultimately make our own decision about whether the information was good or bad.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Yeah, hi. Good morning. I wanted to shift the conversation just a little bit to the control of information that’s coming out of Anthropic, for instance. Traditionally, on the internet, we were shown sites that we could go to and ultimately make our own decision about whether the information was good or bad.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What’s happening now with AI is that they’re synthesizing all of that information, writing it, and feeding it to you. We have to remember that this is really based on algorithms that are originally being written and controlled by a certain entity. To release information, to control it and manipulate it, leads to what’s happening, for instance, right now with a pump-and-dump scheme on one hand, where they’re saying only we can control this information. It’s rogue computers that only we know how to tame the monster. So they’re generating a great deal of scare tactics and technological advancement to raise money through these IPOs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What’s happening now with AI is that they’re synthesizing all of that information, writing it, and feeding it to you. We have to remember that this is really based on algorithms that are originally being written and controlled by a certain entity. To release information, to control it and manipulate it, leads to what’s happening, for instance, right now with a pump-and-dump scheme on one hand, where they’re saying only we can control this information. It’s rogue computers that only we know how to tame the monster. So they’re generating a great deal of scare tactics and technological advancement to raise money through these IPOs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> But at the same time, what we have to be careful of is that, ultimately, at the end of the day, they will be decreasing — as they are now — the sites that you can see on the internet, and increasing their interpretation of that information and controlling it. Lastly—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> But at the same time, what we have to be careful of is that, ultimately, at the end of the day, they will be decreasing — as they are now — the sites that you can see on the internet, and increasing their interpretation of that information and controlling it. Lastly—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wait, James, I want to take this, though, because we only have a couple of minutes, so I want to throw this to Sri. This is really interesting. It’s basically changing the shape of the internet, and I think that’s really true. Now, instead, Google would have presented some set of options for most people, and you could have moved freely through that, although most people didn’t. Now you’re filtering all that information through Claude or through — what do you think, not just as a business proposition but as a cultural proposition, Sri? Is that a good idea or not?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wait, James, I want to take this, though, because we only have a couple of minutes, so I want to throw this to Sri. This is really interesting. It’s basically changing the shape of the internet, and I think that’s really true. Now, instead, Google would have presented some set of options for most people, and you could have moved freely through that, although most people didn’t. Now you’re filtering all that information through Claude or through — what do you think, not just as a business proposition but as a cultural proposition, Sri? Is that a good idea or not?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. You’re already seeing it, as we just discussed, where businesses and advertisers are trying to cater to being surfaced through these chatbots. I’ve heard anecdotes about people trying to add so much slop to Reddit because chatbots index Reddit answers really quickly to surface suggestions or whatever it is. So there’s now a whole set of startups trying to do AI-like SEO so that their companies will be recommended.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. You’re already seeing it, as we just discussed, where businesses and advertisers are trying to cater to being surfaced through these chatbots. I’ve heard anecdotes about people trying to add so much slop to Reddit because chatbots index Reddit answers really quickly to surface suggestions or whatever it is. So there’s now a whole set of startups trying to do AI-like SEO so that their companies will be recommended.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>These labs, Anthropic and OpenAI, are striking partnerships with Walmart or whoever so that those businesses are recommended first. I totally agree that it will shape how information continues to be shared. Businesses are recognizing that and trying to invest money so they aren’t left behind.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>These labs, Anthropic and OpenAI, are striking partnerships with Walmart or whoever so that those businesses are recommended first. I totally agree that it will shape how information continues to be shared. Businesses are recognizing that and trying to invest money so they aren’t left behind.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think it will be an issue from a societal standpoint as well, just because AI is now being shared with students on their Chrome laptops or whatever. It’s really educating our next generation of students and workers. So I think it will be quite interesting to see. I don’t have, like, a—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think it will be an issue from a societal standpoint as well, just because AI is now being shared with students on their Chrome laptops or whatever. It’s really educating our next generation of students and workers. So I think it will be quite interesting to see. I don’t have, like, a—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Something about the way we get information and things that was really interesting to me: there was a study from MIT last year, or in the past year, on financial literacy. A lot of people are now going to a chatbot and saying, “Where do I put my $1,000?” or “How should I invest my money?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Something about the way we get information and things that was really interesting to me: there was a study from MIT last year, or in the past year, on financial literacy. A lot of people are now going to a chatbot and saying, “Where do I put my $1,000?” or “How should I invest my money?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What this study found was that people who have a higher degree of financial sophistication, and can ask a more financially sophisticated question — a more financially sophisticated prompt — get much better advice. If you just go in and say, “Where do I invest?” you’re going to get some really basic advice, and you’ll get advice that will yield you lower returns.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What this study found was that people who have a higher degree of financial sophistication, and can ask a more financially sophisticated question — a more financially sophisticated prompt — get much better advice. If you just go in and say, “Where do I invest?” you’re going to get some really basic advice, and you’ll get advice that will yield you lower returns.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They also found that it was very gender-specific. Women were getting basically worse financial advice — or worse long-term financial advice, I should say — being told to put more money into savings accounts than men were. I think that’s one of the real things we haven’t really started to think about or address yet: your ability to interact with the chatbot is going to become increasingly important. You’re going to have to develop a literacy about how you interact with these things.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They also found that it was very gender-specific. Women were getting basically worse financial advice — or worse long-term financial advice, I should say — being told to put more money into savings accounts than men were. I think that’s one of the real things we haven’t really started to think about or address yet: your ability to interact with the chatbot is going to become increasingly important. You’re going to have to develop a literacy about how you interact with these things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I have a somewhat heterodox position on this, only in the sense that if I look up rose quartz or some mineral, you just can’t find the facts about a mineral on the internet anymore because so many people want to sell you rose quartz for ritualistic purposes. I just think the baseline level of what you were finding on the internet has gotten so bad that I feel like Claude’s synthesis of it is better than what most people would do for themselves. Sorry, unpopular opinion from the room.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I have a somewhat heterodox position on this, only in the sense that if I look up rose quartz or some mineral, you just can’t find the facts about a mineral on the internet anymore because so many people want to sell you rose quartz for ritualistic purposes. I just think the baseline level of what you were finding on the internet has gotten so bad that I feel like Claude’s synthesis of it is better than what most people would do for themselves. Sorry, unpopular opinion from the room.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Nancy writes in to say, “Looking forward to the burst of this AI bubble. I’m so sick of hearing about thousands of people losing their jobs because of software forced upon us that hallucinates. Going into the city makes me depressed because every billboard is about someone’s new AI tool. It’s so dystopian.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Nancy writes in to say, “Looking forward to the burst of this AI bubble. I’m so sick of hearing about thousands of people losing their jobs because of software forced upon us that hallucinates. Going into the city makes me depressed because every billboard is about someone’s new AI tool. It’s so dystopian.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There it is — counterarguments to the whole show. We’ve been talking about what an Anthropic IPO would mean for the Bay Area. We’ve had Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Thank you, Mat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There it is — counterarguments to the whole show. We’ve been talking about what an Anthropic IPO would mean for the Bay Area. We’ve had Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Thank you, Mat.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Thank you, Sri.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Thank you, Sri.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, October 28, 2026 at 9 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anthropic has filed to go public in what could become the largest IPO in history. The San Francisco-based AI company’s 335-page filing offers the first detailed look at its finances, growth ambitions and stated risk factors, including the possibility of catastrophic incidents. We’ll talk with San Francisco-based tech and business reporters about what Anthropic’s filing can tell us about the future of the AI economy and what the expected huge influx of money could mean for the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin,\u003c/strong> AI enterprise reporter, The Wall Street Journal\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi,\u003c/strong> business and technology reporter, New York Times and DealBook\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan,\u003c/strong> editor in chief, MIT Technology Review\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Anthropic is one of those San Francisco stories that’s hard to believe. A group of researchers, including two siblings, a former journalist, and a handful of others, broke off from OpenAI to found their own AI company in 2021. Five years later, the company has grown its revenue faster than any company ever. To take one example, in the second quarter of last year, the company brought in $787 million — not bad for a startup. But in the second quarter of this year, Anthropic brought in $11.6 billion. That’s nearly 15 times year-over-year growth. To put that in perspective, Google, which was the hottest tech company on Earth from 2002 to 2005, grew revenue from $400 million in 2002 to $6 billion in 2005. Sure, there’s been inflation, et cetera, but Anthropic’s growth has been absolutely absurd, unprecedented, and, for many people, unexpected.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oh, and they made almost a billion dollars in the second quarter, their first profitable quarter. So here we are now: this company, which believes itself to be building toward artificial general intelligence, has money pouring in and revenue from corporations that use its tools. But because it needs to keep competing at the frontier of AI, it needs even more money to keep growing, and hence the IPO, which could raise $100 billion — the most ever.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here to break down what the IPO tells us about Anthropic, the state of AI, and the tidal wave of wealth cresting over our fair city, we’re joined by Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re joined by Sri Muppidi, who’s business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Welcome, Sri.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Welcome, Mat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thanks, Alexis.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Was Casey Newton busy?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Kevin Roose and Kate Snow are building something new. So, Mat, you’ve been in the tech journalism game here in San Francisco a long time, and you’re looking at this Anthropic document. What are you thinking?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, first of all, I’m thinking this is the longest S-1 I’ve ever seen. You know, you see a lot of these things over the years, and they’re always dense, but there’s often really entertaining stuff in there. This one was so long that I didn’t — I, at best, could skim it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> He’s got a summary from Claude.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I actually — I was about to say, I used Claude to get a summary of some of the high points there. But it was, you know, it’s a staggering document, and what it means, I think, is kind of unprecedented for San Francisco. I think we’re going to sit here and talk today about what’s going to happen in San Francisco, but one of my takeaways from that 335-page document is that nobody knows what’s going to happen in San Francisco or anywhere else because of just the scale of it. The scale of it is, you know, like when we talk about the Uber IPO or Slack or Facebook or anything else that’s come before, they’re all so much smaller.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri, can you just walk us through some of the numbers here? You know, how much is Anthropic hoping to raise? What could the company be worth, that kind of stuff?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the company is aiming to raise, or is expected to raise, about $100 billion as part of its IPO. And the valuation that’s been touted around is between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. That really comes down to what investors expect the company to be worth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I love it. It’s just like, it’s so much money, and yet that’s a $500 billion difference. If you were like 1.5, 2, you know, it’s like a house in San Francisco. You’re like, “You know…”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. What’s the over-asking price in terms of how much the company can actually go raise in the public offering? And so I think that’s really striking, just because Anthropic already has $130 billion-plus in cash and other investments that it can turn into cash. And so the fact that the company could raise, or is hoping to raise, $100 billion more really shows the size and scale, as we were just chatting about. And I think that really comes down to this figure of more than $807 billion in commitments that the company has in terms of being able to build out data centers, as well as have more computing power to actually run and build its AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like, yeah, if you looked at a table of all the people they owe money to and you added it up, it’s like $800 billion.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And I love, in the S-1, they say at some point, it may seem crazy that we’re spending all this money, but it’s because we really believe that there’s exponential growth necessary in what we spend so that we also can get exponential growth in what we make. There’s also this interesting figure, and maybe, Berber, I don’t know if you want to take this one. The company says they lost $80 billion in the first half of the year, but a lot of people have — some people have quoted that number. But it’s this really kind of odd convertible-debt thing where, essentially, Amazon invested. Can you talk a little bit about that? They didn’t really lose $80 billion, did they?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> No, they didn’t. Actually, Sri might know the specifics of this better than me. But my understanding is that that $80 billion net loss isn’t part of the core business. So it’s not like they’re losing $80 billion from their core operations, building and selling Claude. That would be very bad and would make the company much less attractive as a business to invest in. So I think it’s a little bit technical. They raised a lot of money through convertible notes, which eventually convert into equity but haven’t yet. And so, for some tricky, complicated, wonky accounting reasons, that shows up as a net loss. And the reason why that number is so inflated is because, actually, as Anthropic’s valuation has gone up, I guess the liabilities or the losses tied to those convertible notes have also gone up. So I think a lot of investors are also kind of not really looking at that. There are a lot of debates about profitability — how do AI companies calculate profitability? Is Anthropic kind of taking shortcuts to claim this profitability number from Q2? Because it is very impressive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Um, but I think — I think I feel like it’s safe to say that that $80 billion—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Well, and even they say at the same time, right, that they have something like — they were saying 85% gross margins for serving up Claude and Claude Code specifically, right? They’re able to make that much money there. But there are some questions about that, too, right? Sri, do you want to talk about how — what does this business look like?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the questions about gross margins — that basically means revenue minus the direct cost to produce that revenue. And so Anthropic accounts for that as what’s called inference cost, so essentially running its AI models to actually serve customers. So 85% gross margins is actually great for an AI lab, particularly because the company had, I think, negative margins even just two years ago, and very, very low margins even just last year. And so the fact that it’s been able to really improve its efficiency shows that they’ve been focused on this. And just for context, to put it alongside other software companies, that’s in line with software-as-a-service companies, anyway. So I think that’s quite impressive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think what folks are really indexing on now, in terms of where the company can go in the future, is that Q2 was really impressive. But the company actually shared some of its unaudited Q3 financials at an investor day a few weeks ago. And revenue growth increased, I believe, 45% between Q2 and Q3. But it shows that it actually decelerated compared with earlier this year. And so that kind of raises questions for some investors about whether Anthropic can actually continue sustaining that growth, particularly as you think about the threat of Chinese open-weight models.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What I’m hearing anecdotally is that businesses, especially large enterprise companies, are starting to adopt more open-weight models or turn to OpenAI for its Astra model, just because it’s gotten more competitive. OpenAI is also noting that this is an opportune moment to maybe cut prices, and so they’re gaining competitive share that way. I think there are a lot of questions around whether Anthropic can continue growing, just because the scale, as Mat was alluding to, is so large.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Law of large numbers, as I feel like they like to say. Mat, what do you think about the big question here? People have been trying to ask, “Is AI for real? Is this a boom that’s going to bust?” What do you think this document says about that larger question — where the whole industry is likely to land and its overall importance?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think you can answer the “Is AI for real?” question in two ways. One is: Is the technology real? Clearly, it is. There’s no question. If you’re doubting that AI technology is real at this point—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s a question from—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> —a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I don’t know what to tell you. Is the stock market overinflated? Is there a bubble? Is that the question about whether AI is for real? Is AI really going to be able to generate these returns? You know, I mean, I hate to be cautious in this way, the way that I was at the top of the show, but I don’t think anybody knows. I mean, I think anybody who’s really projecting what you’re going to do with the — to use the SpaceX term — largest addressable market on Earth—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which is all human labor, apparently.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> It’s a great unknown, and I guess I personally, just because I’ve been reporting for however many years now, tend not to like to put my chips on the table about that kind of stuff. But if I had to guess, it seems like a not-bad business.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it certainly seems more real than a year ago. If we were having the same conversation and had somehow gotten access to these numbers last summer, we’d be like, “Hmm, they seem to be losing a ton of money.” They’re growing fast, but of course it’s not that much money against the idea of this massive — you know, even back then they were talking about a valuation that was hundreds of billions of dollars. What do you think, Berber, about the larger question?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would tend to agree with what Mat said. I think, based on this document, Anthropic is an extraordinarily good business. And I think the fact that they were able to turn an operating profit in Q2 defies a lot of the narrative that people have had about just how AI businesses work. The narrative around the labs in particular is that they are money pits, that they’ll never achieve profitability. They spend all this money training the models, but it’s very unclear whether they’ll ever get an ROI from it. So I think the fact that Anthropic’s business is so good is something that, a year or two ago, you’d be very surprised by. I think everyone would be surprised to see the numbers coming out of the company.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another statistic that really popped out to me in the S-1 was that they’ve raised $141 billion, and they still have around $120 billion on their balance sheet. Those are extraordinary numbers. Normally, we would expect them to be burning through the money they raised.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> And that’s what OpenAI is doing, by the way. We can talk about how much of a better business Anthropic is than OpenAI right now. But I do think there are a lot of weird things about the business that should give some people pause. For example, I think they said 5% to 7% of their revenue comes from users who violate their terms of service. They’re alluding to Chinese companies that are just distilling their models, trying to hack into the models to train their own models. A lot of their revenue comes from one or two big customers, so there are still a lot of question marks that should make us cautious about putting all our chips into Anthropic.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO with Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>; Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook; and Mat Honan, editor-in-chief at \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Are you more scared of a bust or a boom? 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got a little roundtable of technology reporters here from \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, Berber Jin, and, from \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>, Mat Honan. And we want to hear from you. You know, you’re a Bay Area person listening to this. Are you more scared of the tech boom here, or the tech bust that could come at some point in AI? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum. So, Mat, do you think we’re going to feel this IPO?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think we’re already feeling it a little bit in real estate. There’s been a bunch of great reporting about the ways it’s — something, including in the Journal. Maybe, Berber, this is one of your stories. Forgive me if it was. But there was a story recently about how there are 600 or so employees who’ve already been able to pull money out, and they’ve been investing it heavily in real estate. If you look at some of the home prices, look at how much they’ve gone up year over year, you’re definitely already seeing it. They’re definitely really feeling it. Like, what’s that going to mean for the corner stores and the small businesses in the city? I don’t know, but it’s showing up in real estate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, normally, when I’ve talked about IPOs in the past, there are all these lockups on the options and all this stuff that’s happening. But it seems to me like Anthropic has made it unusually easy for their employees to trade, basically from the very beginning, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Yes, exactly. So typically there’s like a 180-day lockup where companies’ early employees or others in the company have to wait. You might see an adjustment in the IPO price after, for example, that first pop. What’s unusual about Anthropic is that some shares can actually be traded right away, and then it’s staggered across a set of 37- or 60-second periods, I believe, in terms of when others can also start trading. And so that makes it possible for employees and other shareholders to start trading immediately. You’re going to see the impact of that right away.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s expected is that the company would actually start trading in the week of November 16, I believe, so right before Thanksgiving. Maybe if you’re making any big purchases — if you’re trying to buy a house, maybe do it right now. But you’re already seeing that impact, as Mat was saying, because there were these share sales that employees had already participated in, and they were able to sell some of their existing shares — for example, to buy a house. So I think you’re starting to see a trickle of it already, and it will continue to get worse.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, when we’ve done real estate shows, it seemed like the major impact was at the ultra-luxury level. You know, it’s hard to feel bad for people who might be getting priced out of Pacific Heights mansions. But I suppose in this case it’s going to spread to some — what do we think, 1,500 or 2,000 people or something like that around here? Do we know the exact number of employees in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> I think it’s about 3,000, but you’d have to fact-check me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And most of them are here, though, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Most of them are here. It’s San Francisco headquarters. The other note I’d add to that is that rent prices have also gotten so crazy because Anthropic and other AI companies are all in San Francisco now. So when, for example, a young 20-something is moving to San Francisco and sees that rents are like $6,000 for a two-bedroom, they might as well just buy an apartment if the mortgage costs about the same as rent. What I’m hearing, even anecdotally, is that people are willing to buy not just those uber-rich mansions, but also a two-bedroom apartment or condo, because rents are so crazy as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Alexis, I live in it. This is totally anecdotal. I live in the Outer Sunset, though. These neighborhoods are full of these things called doldrums, which are, you know, like this guy — Doldrum built, like, four guys on the first floor. They’re all pretty much the same floor plan, you know, two bedrooms with the garage downstairs. When I moved in there, they were selling for under a million dollars. There have been several in my immediate neighborhood that have sold recently for $900,000 over asking. And you can’t say, “Oh, well, is that because of Anthropic?” But it certainly seems like it. I mean, these are not high-end homes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What’s wild is, you and I, in years past, were talking about the doom loop. I don’t think either of us were believers in this so-called doom loop, that San Francisco was going down in flames. And here we are, just a few years later, and this has happened now. Do you think this is a net good for the city, to get this massive injection of money into what is a tiny percentage of the city’s population?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not going to show up in our list — the city’s not going to get a whole lot of tax revenue from it, right? There’s no income tax, and it’s questionable to me how much of that is actually going to go to the city. They are going to have this huge philanthropic division — LLC, what is it? Is it separate?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Long-term trust.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> That’s going to be giving away all this money to philanthropic causes, but that’s probably not going to be local stuff, right? That’s going to be national, international, global health.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, right. More Gates Foundation-y level and scope, yeah. So how’s it going to benefit the city? I don’t know. Yeah. All right, let’s ask Jay in Palo Alto. What do you think, Jay?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jay:\u003c/strong> Hey, good, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I love that you guys talked about the housing issue a little bit, but I think that one thing — there have been several news articles about this recently — that’s united the whole country is that everybody hates data centers, right? And that’s exactly what this is. When we try to have this objective conversation about how cool it is, the ins and outs, and talk about it in a very matter-of-fact tone, I think there’s a tremendous disconnect between these facts you’re talking about and the fact that this represents something that almost everybody hates. I think we’re doing a real disservice when we neglect that. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for that, Jay. I mean, if you look at the polling on data centers, it’s sort of the inverse of support for marriage equality. It is just a fast, hard move against data centers. This actually does — I mean, they address it in the risks in the S-1, but I think maybe it’s a little underplayed, right? Because, at least from my read on the data center industry, they’re already having a lot of problems. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Berber?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think it’s been really interesting to see, in the last few months, how data center build-outs have become a real political hot-button issue. It’s really turned into a liability for candidates who have supported data center build-outs in the midterms. It’s a great point to raise because they’re not building data centers in San Francisco. They’re building them in the rest of the country, oftentimes in communities that don’t really see the benefits of AI up front.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think there’s this weird thing where it is a huge risk, right? Because if Anthropic can’t get the political goodwill to build data centers, they don’t have the compute needed to build and serve their models. But they’ve also been behind this very weird messaging around AI. I feel like they’ve marketed it as scary technology that already is having all these cyber risks and could potentially cause extinction. They have a lot of employees who are doomers. So there’s this weird cultural disconnect where they have a vested business and financial interest in trying to get the country to come around to this vision of building hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars’ worth of data centers. But they have this weird ideology around—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> They’re like, “Don’t worry, we hate AI so much that we must build it and become trillionaires from it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And it might kill you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> And in case anyone else builds it—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, they do try to explain this in the S-1, right? They call it — and this has been, I do think, fairly consistent about this idea. It’s just a question of whether this idea makes any sense at all — what they call the “race to the top.” Okay, we have to build it first because then we will have built it the right way, with the right safeguards, and it won’t be Chinese tyranny running things, and it won’t be Sam Altman — whatever, even San Franciscan Sam Altman. What do you think? Does the “race to the top” idea make sense, Mat? How have you evaluated that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think the “race to the top” idea is sort of a self-serving idea. I really do. And I think there are people at OpenAI who would tell you that they’re racing to the top as well. I think there are people at Google who would say they’re racing to the top — DeepMind, for sure. And I don’t know. To go back to that caller’s point about data centers, do you remember, probably around 2010 to 2012, there were all those protests against the Google buses?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> The Google bus is a physical thing that you can stand in front of, right? And I feel like the data center thing is much the same. You don’t want it in your neighborhood because it’s going to make your rates go up. It’s going to be loud. All that kind of stuff is true. But it’s also something that you could stop. And I think a lot of people right now feel sort of powerless and uneasy about the advent of the age of AI. You can stand in front of a data center and make it not be there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you can go to the permitting hearing and slow it down. You can do all these things. It has been truly, truly amazing to look at that. One of our listeners, RJ Wrights, asks — and Berber, maybe we’ll come to you on this — can you talk about Anthropic’s commitment to social causes, specifically around income disparity? Of course, in the AI and automation conversations of 10 years ago, people were talking about this stuff all the time: universal basic income and all these kinds of things. Where does AI — where does Anthropic — stand on these things?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s an interesting question, because a lot of the business proposition behind Claude is, “We will have Claude be able to save companies a lot of money by automating your workforce.” Anthropic Works has this big project with a bunch of private equity firms to implement Claude in legacy industries, like accounting, to cut head counts and improve efficiency.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, to start off, I think it’s important to be clear that the financial interest of this company is to herald an economic revolution that will result — they will not contest this — in massive transformations to the labor force. I think Anthropic has also been intentional in trying to find ways to offset that. They produce a lot of papers about how economic transformation will come, and they also have a lot of money earmarked for philanthropic causes. I think — I forget the name — but there’s a vehicle that exists where some of the money they have is specifically directed toward reducing the impact they will have on society.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a normal denizen of the world, it’s a little bit uncomfortable, right? Because you’re handing this company so much power to say, “We are automating away your jobs, but we will also find ways to try to smooth it over.” And I think that goes to that sense of powerlessness Mat was talking about, where they just have so much power and control. I feel like a lot of people feel like it’s kind of out of their hands, the concentration of influence this company has. Yeah, it’s really quite extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the reasons I think people have come to believe in Anthropic as a business, if not in all these other things, is basically Claude Code, right? So, Sri, I want to come to you on this. This is Claude Code, and then the sort of harness they’ve put around their product so that you can ask Claude to do all kinds of things and build all kinds of things. Anything a computer can do, it could do it for you, basically. And this has turned out to be kind of the magic of the business, right, Sri? Because they’ve rolled this out to companies, and it has not only transformed Anthropic itself — where I think they say 90% of the lines of code committed to their code base are made by Claude Code — but also all these developers and business software makers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. Claude Code has been pivotal to Anthropic’s growth. They released it last year at some point. While OpenAI, the bigger rival at the time, was focused on consumer AI with its ChatGPT product, Anthropic really bet big on serving businesses. By focusing on Claude Code, they were able to automate software engineering work, which allows enterprises to do more with AI but also cut labor and save on costs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think Anthropic was smart about focusing on that. Over time, OpenAI has tried to follow by focusing more on Codex, for example, its competing coding product. But I don’t think Anthropic expected Claude Code to be so popular. At the start of this year, it was a little flat-footed in terms of how much computing power it needed to serve Claude Code. A lot of folks were complaining about their usage limits being affected if they were using the chatbot, and developers were scrambling to get more tokens to use Claude Code.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eventually, Anthropic went on a deal spree to strike so many deals. That goes back to the $807 billion commitment they have for more computing power, chips, and data center work. Claude Code really was — and is — a huge driver for Anthropic’s business.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But now, as part of their S-1 and what they’ve been pitching to potential investors, they’re saying, “Hey, we’re going to save the world not just through software engineering, but we’re going to focus on life sciences and help you discover new drugs and cure cancer.” I think that’s also part of what Berber was saying earlier: the rejiggering of its mission to be maybe more of a safety-conscious company, because they’re countering the doomerism that their founders and employees feel. But also, “Hey, we actually have an IPO and need to raise $100 billion. How are we going to do that?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s also interesting, when I was reading the S-1, is that there was a phrase where the risk of humanity ending was written in the passive voice, versus, “There have been claims…” I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was very much like people, or it’s like—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’d be like, “See if all of our executives…” Yes, exactly. Say that we’re going to have a lot of—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> It’s like, not Dario saying it, but it’s like, “Claims have been made.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. I mean, the strange thing — and I think it’s a real question for the business in an interesting way — is that Claude Code reached ubiquity among software developers. It seemed like more or less overnight, from the end of 2025 into 2026.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, you know, my wife and I have a small business. I used Claude Code to automate the back end of this thing, and it works really well. I did it one time, used some tokens, and sort of that was it. I think one of my questions is whether they’ve had to start talking about biology and some of these really data-intensive realms because you could automate most white-collar work with a free plan, practically. These tools have gotten so good that you don’t actually need to pay Anthropic all that much money to do most of the white-collar information work that people do in normal jobs that aren’t coding.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think there’s a real question. You’ve seen this incredible wave of adoption inside companies by the coders, but do the rest of us, Mat, even need as many tokens as it would take? They could totally wipe out white-collar work, and it still might not be a good business if you have to pay $800 billion for data centers and chips.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the question is just, do you think there are going to be enough people who need to use these tools the way coders have?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I will say, just on a personal level, I’ve now started paying for Fable upgrades, which is their most capable model, which was surprising to me — that I actually hit the point where I wanted to do that. And, like you, I’ve done a ton of personal projects and things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think, again, a lot of what I’m talking about today is anecdotal, but our development team — our team of devs — has become so much more productive because of Claude Code. I do think businesses are going to be willing to pay for that. It’s clear that all kinds of businesses, such as your small business, are going to be able to use these tools in the same way that a larger customer is. And Anthropic clearly has some really large enterprise customers, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, and that’s where, like—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Most of the revenues are right now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are talking about Anthropic as a business, and we’re also talking about what the Anthropic IPO could mean for the Bay Area and what it says about the state of the AI industry. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em> Editor-in-Chief Mat Honan. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook, and Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re going to get to more of your calls. I promise, in the next segment. What about you? Are you planning to invest in Anthropic? Why or why not? You can give us a call, 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. How do you feel about this economy that’s solidifying here in the Bay Area? You can find us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum, all those places. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Here we are talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>’s Mat Honan, the New York Times and DealBook’s Sri Muppidi, and Berber Jin from \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Let’s bring in — oh, we just lost the caller I was going to go to. All right, here we go. Let’s bring in Michael on data centers. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Michael:\u003c/strong> Hello, thanks for taking my call. What I wanted to bring up is this notion that data centers are evil, data centers are awful, and we should rise against the data centers. That’s really an inaccurate view. Data centers are no worse than any of the other things that we seem to be okay with: pollution from cars, pollution from nuclear power, pollution, pollution, pollution. What people don’t seem to realize is that many states bent the rules to get data centers into their states because they needed the revenue, right? So I think this is basically a straw man. It really is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And if you think about what you’re getting from these data centers, you’re giving power to people who normally wouldn’t have it. Here’s what I mean: take medical technology and medical information. It used to be, “Okay, I’ve just got to listen to this doctor and hope that they’re right, because I have no other resource to validate what they’re saying.” You can actually use Claude to do that. “Hey, here are my test results.” You can feed them into Claude. Claude will give you plain-English explanations of what this means and the kinds of questions you need to be asking your doctor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to take the data center question, though, because I think it’s an interesting point. I think part of it is, in exchange for the data centers, you also get to lose your job. That seems to be sort of the rhetoric, you know? People previously didn’t have a lot of opposition to data centers. Santa Clara County, for example, has tons of data centers, and there was virtually no opposition to them. Mat, do you think that’s because — essentially, people are using the tools of, say, environmental justice to raise questions about pollution or other things, but what people are really objecting to is, as you put it, this is a physical manifestation of the AI-driven economy?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s definitely my opinion. A lot of it is about the physical manifestation. I do think people have legitimate concerns about their rates. They have legitimate concerns about power plants being built. To power these data centers, a lot of the energy sources they’ll have to use may even include natural gas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One is natural gas, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> And I think people have legitimate concerns about that. The data center pushback is older than the AI boom if you think about it from a purely power or energy perspective. Texas did a lot to bring in data centers during the crypto boom, right? Then they had a bunch of brownouts, and they started peeling back the rules they’d put in place to make it easier to bring in data centers. And they’re back because there are concerns about energy usage that are—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at Virginia, where a huge chunk of data centers are, and you look at their power prices, I also think people are responding to the other idea of power — the other definition of power. In a lot of these Virginia places, so much of their property tax revenue is now dependent on these data centers, which makes you wonder, what are they going to do politically in that circumstance? Let’s bring in Todd in San Francisco. Welcome, Todd.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Todd:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Since Anthropic and these IPOs are going to generate a lot of money, and there’s already been a lot of money generated in the Bay Area by investments, I’d like the cognoscenti of the AI world on your show right now to speculate about why these millionaires and billionaires are so much different from San Francisco’s previous set of millionaires and billionaires — like the gold miners who struck it rich. Famously, cultured gold miners would build opera houses and import famous authors to read out loud. But living in the Bay Area, one would have to say they’re rather hermetic. What’s up?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> This is really — I mean, Berber, why don’t we go to you? Anthropic specifically was deeply aligned with a movement. I don’t know if I want to call it a philosophical movement, but I suppose it is: effective altruism. In fact, one of their earliest backers, Sam Bankman-Fried, was one of their largest investors at the point when he went down. So what do we think? This seems to deeply inform the culture of Anthropic. Can you give us a little summary of effective altruism and its application to Anthropic?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so effective altruism is deeply ingrained, particularly among the co-founders and the very early set of employees, who also happen to be the richest in the IPO. EAs care a lot about how to maximize the amount of good in the world, which leads to a lot of conclusions that most normal people would consider esoteric. For example, if we want to minimize suffering in the world, we should all be vegans. And you take that argument to the extreme — a lot of anti-EA people like to make this argument to make fun of EAs — and you get shrimp farming, because billions of shrimp are farmed every year and they can experience pain.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So apply that to AI. A lot of the early employees, a lot of people who became very interested in AI, became interested in AI because they felt like here’s a technology that could cause extinction, and extinction would be the worst kind of outcome. It would maximize the amount of suffering in the world, so we have to prevent it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, to apply that to the question, which I think is really interesting, about what values will animate this new billionaire class: I think an interesting litmus test will be to see how much of their money goes toward funding cultural and artistic institutions in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and toward funding civic institutions that I think a lot of normal people could really get on board with.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The early employees at Anthropic — a lot of them have pledged sometimes half of their wealth to philanthropic causes. But because effective altruism is so deeply ingrained in their worldviews, the chatter right now among employees is, “We should donate this money to fund AI safety nonprofits that are focused on how to use AI to prevent human extinction. We should use it to back animal welfare nonprofits.” Berkeley’s going to get rich.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is this interesting countercultural element where a lot of these people are in Berkeley. One dig against EAs is that they famously don’t care about art and culture. A lot of people who are anti-EA will make that argument. But I think it will be interesting to see how they spend this money. Will it just go to these kind of wacky causes? How much of it will go toward institutions like SFMOMA or supporting the opera? That will be a way to see the relationship between this new billionaire class and the rest of San Francisco. What that looks like will depend in large part on how these employees and founders choose to spend the philanthropic wealth they’ll gain from the IPO.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, having followed some EA stuff — not closely, but sort of a little bit from the outside — it feels like a real kind of hothouse-flower thing. This started out as a very small group of people all talking to each other about this stuff, and now, of course, it’s become a global, massive discussion about whether the kinds of ideas they had about the world and AI make any sense at all. But, of course, they will have massive wealth, and they also have the proof of this company they’ve built on their side of the ledger, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mat, what about you? We’ve seen plenty of weird ideologies flow through San Francisco. I would not have bet, 12 years ago, that effective altruism would be associated with one of the fastest-growing capitalist companies ever. Think about the philosophical underpinnings of this place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, you want to talk about the rationalists a little bit when you talk about effective altruism, a lot of which is headquartered out in the East Bay. I do think it’s had a profound effect on the way a lot of people, especially those working in tech, think about the world and about what’s the most effective way to make the world a better place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think Berber’s exactly right, though. It’s really unclear whether the people who have come up in that scene or movement — whatever you want to call it, philosophy — are going to donate to the opera versus places that are more globally oriented, or AI safety organizations. I don’t know how much we’re going to see of this in the Bay Area. And I think if they wanted to generate an enormous amount of goodwill, they could effectively solve the housing problem in San Francisco instead of making it worse. There are all kinds of ways to put that money to use locally.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a couple of comments here. Eric writes in to say, “As with the microchip boom of the ’90s and the dot-com boom, it’s real. We might see a bit — a lot — of volatility as profitability catches up with valuation, but the smart money has already spoken.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then Steve on Discord has this question. News came out recently about China’s AI companies really suffering, with half a trillion dollars of valuation gone. Steve notes that — what do you think is going on there? It’s seemed like two different worlds to me that kind of come together, I suppose, in the American market. But, Berber, do you think the fact that these Chinese AI companies are struggling in their stock market says anything about Anthropic or what’s happening here?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> That’s a really good question. The whole Chinese AI ecosystem really puzzles me. I mean, I think — maybe this isn’t a direct answer to your question — a lot of the Chinese companies, it’s unclear to me what their modus operandi is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we do kind of know is that they somehow don’t have enough — they can’t raise as much money as Anthropic and OpenAI. I’ve always been confused about why the government doesn’t just subsidize and pour tens of billions of dollars into these companies. They’re famous for distilling Anthropic’s models. They’ll use the outputs from Claude to train a cheaper, hacked-in version of Fable or Opus or the Anthropic-class models, which Anthropic hates. But then they also give away a lot of their technology for free. They make it open source, so none of the companies really have a business model, which is why I think there’s been all this volatility in the Chinese stock market with those names.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s all kind of perplexing to me, how the Chinese AI ecosystem works. I don’t think American policymakers or lab leaders have a great sense of it either. So that’s how I would answer the question. It’s all very confusing to me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I don’t disagree. And I think it has confused American AI leaders a lot. When you started to see these Chinese models come out with training numbers that were teensy-tiny on the cost side, it made it seem like, well, why are Anthropic and OpenAI spending $800 billion over the next five or 10 years when these Chinese model makers seem to be able to do more with less? Which I think remains an open question. It feels like there are some variables missing there. James in Larkspur, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Yeah, hi. Good morning. I wanted to shift the conversation just a little bit to the control of information that’s coming out of Anthropic, for instance. Traditionally, on the internet, we were shown sites that we could go to and ultimately make our own decision about whether the information was good or bad.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s happening now with AI is that they’re synthesizing all of that information, writing it, and feeding it to you. We have to remember that this is really based on algorithms that are originally being written and controlled by a certain entity. To release information, to control it and manipulate it, leads to what’s happening, for instance, right now with a pump-and-dump scheme on one hand, where they’re saying only we can control this information. It’s rogue computers that only we know how to tame the monster. So they’re generating a great deal of scare tactics and technological advancement to raise money through these IPOs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> But at the same time, what we have to be careful of is that, ultimately, at the end of the day, they will be decreasing — as they are now — the sites that you can see on the internet, and increasing their interpretation of that information and controlling it. Lastly—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wait, James, I want to take this, though, because we only have a couple of minutes, so I want to throw this to Sri. This is really interesting. It’s basically changing the shape of the internet, and I think that’s really true. Now, instead, Google would have presented some set of options for most people, and you could have moved freely through that, although most people didn’t. Now you’re filtering all that information through Claude or through — what do you think, not just as a business proposition but as a cultural proposition, Sri? Is that a good idea or not?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. You’re already seeing it, as we just discussed, where businesses and advertisers are trying to cater to being surfaced through these chatbots. I’ve heard anecdotes about people trying to add so much slop to Reddit because chatbots index Reddit answers really quickly to surface suggestions or whatever it is. So there’s now a whole set of startups trying to do AI-like SEO so that their companies will be recommended.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These labs, Anthropic and OpenAI, are striking partnerships with Walmart or whoever so that those businesses are recommended first. I totally agree that it will shape how information continues to be shared. Businesses are recognizing that and trying to invest money so they aren’t left behind.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think it will be an issue from a societal standpoint as well, just because AI is now being shared with students on their Chrome laptops or whatever. It’s really educating our next generation of students and workers. So I think it will be quite interesting to see. I don’t have, like, a—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Something about the way we get information and things that was really interesting to me: there was a study from MIT last year, or in the past year, on financial literacy. A lot of people are now going to a chatbot and saying, “Where do I put my $1,000?” or “How should I invest my money?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What this study found was that people who have a higher degree of financial sophistication, and can ask a more financially sophisticated question — a more financially sophisticated prompt — get much better advice. If you just go in and say, “Where do I invest?” you’re going to get some really basic advice, and you’ll get advice that will yield you lower returns.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They also found that it was very gender-specific. Women were getting basically worse financial advice — or worse long-term financial advice, I should say — being told to put more money into savings accounts than men were. I think that’s one of the real things we haven’t really started to think about or address yet: your ability to interact with the chatbot is going to become increasingly important. You’re going to have to develop a literacy about how you interact with these things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I have a somewhat heterodox position on this, only in the sense that if I look up rose quartz or some mineral, you just can’t find the facts about a mineral on the internet anymore because so many people want to sell you rose quartz for ritualistic purposes. I just think the baseline level of what you were finding on the internet has gotten so bad that I feel like Claude’s synthesis of it is better than what most people would do for themselves. Sorry, unpopular opinion from the room.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nancy writes in to say, “Looking forward to the burst of this AI bubble. I’m so sick of hearing about thousands of people losing their jobs because of software forced upon us that hallucinates. Going into the city makes me depressed because every billboard is about someone’s new AI tool. It’s so dystopian.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There it is — counterarguments to the whole show. We’ve been talking about what an Anthropic IPO would mean for the Bay Area. We’ve had Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Thank you, Mat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Thank you, Sri.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Monday, October 26, 2026 at 9 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Artificial intelligence has long entered the classroom and is rapidly changing how students learn and teachers teach. Some schools are embracing AI and personalized learning tools, while others are pulling back on technology in the classroom. Meanwhile, students are increasingly turning to chatbots to help with assignments, raising concerns about what happens to critical thinking, reading, and writing skills when AI does the work for them. Can schools harness the benefits of AI without compromising students’ learning? We’ll talk with educators and researchers about how AI is reshaping the classroom, what it means for students’ development, and how schools and parents are navigating this new era of education.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman,\u003c/strong> humanities teacher, Maybeck High School; wrote about teaching English in the age of ChatGPT for \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/openai-chatgpt-writing-high-school-english-essay/672412/\">The Atlantic\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle, \u003c/strong>executive director of learning sciences research, Digital Promise\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer,\u003c/strong> principal, Mountain View High School\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price,\u003c/strong> co-founder, Alpha Schools\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook,\u003c/strong> director of technology, Prospect Sierra School\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Current-day generative AI models can write just about everything, and we really haven’t wrapped our heads around having machines that can write. Some of us are ignoring this new reality or finding ways to minimize the power of these models. Others are enthusiastic or overenthusiastic adopters, happy to be done with one of life’s chores or delighted not to have to write in a second or third language.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For professional writers, there’s a lot of well-founded fear and anger, and maybe in some people, a dark tingle of excitement. But what about the educators who are supposed to teach our children? Children who, after all, are often tested via writing assignments that any model could ace in 10 seconds. How is the task of teaching different in this new world? And how should school administrators respond?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re joined first by two educators, a teacher and a principal. Daniel Herman is a humanities teacher at Maybeck High School in Berkeley and a faculty associate at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking, who has written a couple of great essays about teaching English in the age of ChatGPT for The Atlantic. Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, Daniel. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And we’ve got Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School, author of \u003cem>Ready to Lead with AI: A Practical Guide for School Leaders\u003c/em>. Welcome. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, Daniel, I went back to the essay you wrote shortly after the launch of ChatGPT. You wrote this essay, “The End of High School English,” and it raised a lot of questions about the future of teaching writing in high school classrooms. So, four years later, how has AI actually changed things in your classroom, and what are you seeing from students?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> In many ways, very little has changed. My classroom remains pretty much the way that it’s always been. I remain committed to the idea that the classroom is a sacred space. bell hooks, I think, referred to it as a location of possibility. It’s a place where people come together to figure out a problem, explore an idea, hear different perspectives, and make meaning together, and where there’s a teacher who can model the behaviors, intellectual and otherwise, that they want their students to emulate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s when we turn to assessments that things can get a little dicey. So I’ve definitely had to go back and recalibrate or reassess all the things that I ask my students to do, not to make them AI-proof in the sense of preventing them from cheating, but really making sure that the things I’m asking them to do are in line with this new reality, where there is this computer that can do so many of the things that we used to assume students had to know how to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I’ve definitely encouraged my students’ writing to be way weirder than I ever did before, but overall —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> My emails have gotten that way, too. Sorry for everyone out there. You’ve got to prove you really did it, you know?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Overall, I’d say that it’s a question of emphasizing process over product. So instead of writing a research paper, maybe we’re doing research presentations where we’re sharing our learning together, or an interview project, but showing that we’re thinking on the page and really grappling with a problem.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It also really feels like, for you, the introduction of these models has been a catalyst for thinking about the differences between what it is to think, what it is to learn, and what it is to assess that someone has learned. That seems to be how you’ve taken it as a prompt.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Totally. My rule of thumb, and this is maybe a little bit controversial, is that AI is actually pretty useful for learning, but terrible for thinking. I think the thing that took me a while to really figure out is that, for a 16-year-old, thinking for themselves does not go without saying. It really, in many ways, can come to the teacher to inspire that inquisitive impulse and persuade them that that sort of thing teachers sometimes talk about as productive struggle is actually worth their time, rather than just getting the lowest-common-denominator response to a problem.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Kip, you’ve got a different set of challenges. You’re principal of Mountain View High School, in the heart of Silicon Valley. What does this look like at your school, with your educators and your students?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. I think, as a school leader, we want the student outcome to be what we desire it to be. And the environment sometimes doesn’t allow educators or school leaders to do what we know to be correct, because there’s so much noise around what is the right way to teach or what is the right outcome as a result of learning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our students are grappling with that. Some students actually say, “I don’t want to be defined as a cheater, so I’m going to never use this tool.” And that all-or-nothing thinking is, I think, really troubling for me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dan and I were talking about it a little bit. We need to really think about how, as adults, to sit in the middle of the messiness, as much as we want our students to do that. And how do we model that? It’s really a challenge when we ourselves don’t really know how to interact with this new reality.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s an interesting point. Daniel was talking about modeling the intellectual and other behaviors he wants to see in his students. So what is the right thing for teachers, then, to model in their use of AI? Or for administrators to model?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think about the identity threat, and I think that educators —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What do you mean by that? Spin that out a little bit for listeners.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. For the longest time, I think educators have felt this sense of responsibility to be the most educated and learned person who can guide the way for our students, who are trusting us to follow and go, “Where is that intellectual pursuit?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when there is a tool that can actually mimic that behavior, sometimes more sophisticatedly or more refined than we can, there has to be a way of feeling threatened in terms of how we’re supposed to show up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think some teachers’ way of dealing with it is to ban it all and say that we’re protecting ourselves in our insecurities or our struggles. Other teachers I see are able to share that they don’t know it all, and it’s OK for us to discover it together.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I see responses to that sort of honesty and vulnerability in two ways. Some students are actually embracing that, but other students are like, “When you don’t feel secure in what you know, how am I supposed to feel secure in how I’m supposed to follow?” Yeah, I’m supposed to follow. And I think there is a lot more work to be done in terms of how we emotionally support this transformation in our classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, Daniel, I have an East Bay 13-year-old who despises AI and is just like, “We’re destroying the world for this stupid technology.” What do you find with your East Bay teenage students about their relationship to this technology?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s funny. I mean, I don’t feel like there’s much curiosity about the technology. You know, this is just the world that they’ve inherited. They’re the ones who coined “AI slop.” This stuff has flooded their TikToks. This is their reality. This is the world they’re swimming in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I totally agree with everything that Kip says. We really have to make sure that this is a dialogue, and I really appreciate you mentioning vulnerability. I ask my students for honesty and transparency. I think we really need to take seriously that this technology is arriving in a world where our students, like all of us, are stretched thin in so many ways: busy and overwhelmed, mental health crises, the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And now there’s this magical tool that can do their homework for them, and we can’t blame them if some of them are tempted to use it. So I really ask my students to be open with me if they’re thinking about using it, because depending on the class, there are definitely ways that it can be useful to their thinking and their learning, and other ways that it entirely gets in the way of their thinking and learning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whether all my students have abided by that request, I can’t say, but it definitely has to be a conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Kip, what do you say to students who you find out are, in fact, using chatbots to do their homework? Or even, at this point, we’re not just talking about chatbots. They could be using agents to — I mean, you were talking before the show about a student who wrote an agent to go download the homework from Canva, do the homework in their own hand, their own handwriting, and then upload the assignment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At one level, you’re impressed, but in that kind of \u003cem>Ferris Bueller\u003c/em> way, where you’re like, “Oh, God, I can’t believe you did that.” Although, kind of impressive, but gah, I can’t believe you did it. So what do you do with a student like that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and that’s why I think what we’re defining as learning and how we’re assessing it has to be at the forefront of every conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think the AI slop, or accelerating assessment, happens because the current platform invites that, right? When you have these worksheets that are being mass-produced, students know that. And one of the things that I hear from my students is, “How come teachers can replicate or not even grade my work and use AI tools, but I’m not supposed to use it?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when you’re working with teenagers, it’s beautiful to hear. They can spot hypocrisy a mile away, and some of them, politely or not so politely, call that out. I think we have to be honest in terms of how we’re allowing our work to be accelerated and what that means for our students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the dangers of these tools is that we’re not invited or allowed to be present anymore. We’re always trying to accelerate. Faster and more is always better — to what end?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m getting emails from seventh graders wanting to know what they have to do now so that they can be successful in high school. Two years ahead, they’re really trying to plan ahead. On the one hand, I’m impressed, but on the other hand, this is the situation we’re creating. Acceleration to what end?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think that is actually also really dangerous because when you deeply learn something, you need to take the time and be patient with yourself, as much as the world, and we’re not allowing our students to have that moment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it just seems like a lot of kids take the task to be good at school, not to sort of learn, right? And I understand that. I remember being a kid and thinking that, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re talking about artificial intelligence in the classroom. We’re joined by Daniel Herman, humanities teacher at Maybeck High School. We also have Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School, and, of course, we want to invite you into the conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To parents: How is AI showing up in your kid’s classroom, or maybe just on your kid’s phone? What are your questions or concerns about this era of learning?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, you know, we know maybe there’s some teachers out there with a prep period. How is AI changing the way you teach, or how your students are approaching their learning?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Give us a call at 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Or email us at forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re talking about AI in the classroom, trying to move this conversation forward a little bit. I’m joined by Maybeck High School’s Daniel Herman and the principal at Mountain View High School, Kip Glazer.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re going to add a few other guests into the conversation here. We’ve got Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise and co-host of the \u003cem>Future Fluent\u003c/em> podcast. Welcome, Jeremy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Great to be here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for joining us. And we’ve got Tom Wadbrook, who’s director of technology at Prospect Sierra, a school in El Cerrito. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Thank you very much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Jeremy, your perspective as a learning scientist: What needs to happen for students to actually learn something? What do we know about that? And do you think that AI actually disrupts that ability for students to learn?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, great place to start. And I just love the focus on learning and not just on this technology. The antidote to too much technology is to talk more about learning. What do we want learning to be?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Daniel painted a great portrait of his classroom. The students are active. They’ve got something constructive that they’re working on together. They’re building knowledge as a group, and they’re social. Those are three absolutely critical ingredients to any successful learning environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Why is it, then, that I’m hearing that if students use AI, their brain function falls off? This seems to be a really serious concern of many educators and parents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, let’s go back to those three words. Look at what the students are doing. Are they active, for example, in solving the math problem? Or is it copy and paste, and it’s doing it for them? If their brain is not active, they’re not learning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Are they misdirecting time away from conversations with their peers and teachers to just be talking to a technology? Well, social interaction is falling by the wayside.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Kip brought up, you know, is it just trying to race to get done? Whereas Daniel brought up process, and that’s the constructive part. Are we paying enough attention to the learning process and kids actually making things? That’s how you learn. Or are they just racing to get an output?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. MacKenzie, at Alpha Schools, your model centers on two hours of academics a day using AI-powered learning tools. Do you see that as sort of a race to get done? Or how do you interpret what students are doing during those two hours? How do you guide them?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> I will tell you, I think there has never been a more exciting time to be a five-year-old. And I think what we’re seeing in education is seriously an incredible moment where we can finally allow students to get the individual, personalized attention that is impossible for even the best teacher to provide to 15, 20, or 25 students in a room.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that’s what we’re doing at Alpha. We’re using artificial intelligence to create personalized learning plans that are able to meet the student where they are, at the level they need to be.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a result, during the two hours in the morning that Alpha provides academic teaching, our students are able to learn twice as much as students who are sitting in a traditional school classroom for the majority of the day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it really is because of two things. Number one, receiving that one-to-one, personalized, mastery-based tutoring experience. But number two, and most important and critical, is that the adults in our classrooms, the teachers, are freed up to spend time on what only humans can do, which is connect with the students, mentor them, coach them, and provide that motivational support.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That’s why we’re seeing such incredible results, because we’ve finally freed up the adult in the classroom to do what they’re great at.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> MacKenzie, how do you evaluate that they’ve learned, quote, “twice as much” as other students?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> You know, it’s an amazing claim, and as a result, people are always wondering, “Well, how do we actually know this?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we use is NWEA math assessments, where we’re basically able to see an anticipated score that a student is expected to grow by in any given year. About 11 million students across the country take the math assessments, students from public, private, and home schools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we expect at Alpha is that our students’ RIT scores will go up twice as much as expected. So a student, let’s say, who’s in the 60th percentile in math in grade five, would be expected to go up three points over a given year. At Alpha, our commitment is that they’ll go up six points, and that’s what we’re seeing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Again, this is such a new time in education, and it’s so different from what we’ve known for the last 150 years: a teacher in front of a classroom, kind of an everyone-teaching-at-the-same-pace model.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s important that we be able to show these results. I think it’s part of what our parents appreciate: seeing that students are learning so much better, retaining information, and then, of course, having so much more time freed up in the day to focus on human development and life skills.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Tom Wadbrook, let’s talk about the direction that Prospect Sierra in El Cerrito is taking. It serves students from TK through eighth grade, so there’s a very different culture around the use of AI. What are you hearing from parents and teachers at the school as you try to figure out how to approach the role of AI in a TK-through-eighth-grade classroom?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I guess the first thing I would say is we have the luxury of being TK through eighth grade, not high school. We don’t have the same pressures, and so we can take it slower. But we really are taking it slowly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re very intentional as a school, very process-driven, and also collectively have quite a lot of, I wouldn’t say antipathy, but —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You’ve heard some things from parents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and teachers. I mean, to be honest, two or three years ago, when we first started talking about AI as a faculty, it was a frosty reception. I think part of that was fear of the unknown, and part of it is what you were alluding to earlier, Kip, which is, you know, what is my identity?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe we’ve moved on from fear and antipathy and indifference to some curiosity and exploration of AI in the classroom from our teachers, but there’s still a lot of indifference and quite a lot of antipathy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s some key context here, too, that I’ve heard you talk about, which is that during the pandemic, of course, everything went super digital. All the assignments were online. Everyone was on a Chromebook or an iPad or whatever.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How is Prospect Sierra thinking about the overall amount of technology that’s present in education, with AI sort of wedged in there or coming in like a meteor strike into that context?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, that’s great. If you put AI aside for a second, the pandemic happened, we put devices in every kid’s hands, we sent them home. It was a mixed bag at best, right? Everyone came back, and we kind of kept on doing the same thing for a year or two. Then we realized that that was not a good direction.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we’ve been on what we’re calling a tech rollback. We’re in year three now, maybe even year four. And it’s really just been incremental. We don’t let the iPads and laptops go home in fifth through seventh grade anymore. They stay in the classroom. They get used a lot more intentionally. We’ve dialed back all of the apps that might be on them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, yeah, we’re really trying to bring back down the level of technology that we’re using.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s a parent faction that’s saying, “Well, the kids already have access to all these tools. As adults, they’re going to have access to all these tools. We must teach them to double down, AI-max, because that’s the world they’re going to live in.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> We do. I mean, we have the full gamut, from “There shouldn’t be any AI” to “You should be doing absolutely everything you can in terms of teaching these kids to immerse themselves in AI.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we’re figuring out where we fit. As I said, we’re being very slow and very intentional about it. We’ve basically figured out that there are a few baseline things we need to do. We need to teach them about wellness and safety, academic integrity, so cheating, obviously, and to ignite — either when they’re using AI or when they’re consuming AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’ve kind of set that as our baseline. And so now the big question for us is how much more AI belongs in the classroom. Is it none? Do we follow the model of New York schools? Or is it all the way in?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s not going to be all the way in. It’s going to be somewhere nearer the New York model, I suspect, but that’s really the big question we’re facing today.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Kip, do you have some AI-maxing parents who want you to double down on it, or do you actually find that, in the heart of Silicon Valley, it’s kind of the opposite?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> I’m going to say that we’re in the same situation as Tom is in. I think the more we think about student wellness and the pressure on our students, our parents are actually pretty reasonable in terms of what they think.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think that’s the goal, right? Discernment. We talk a lot about that. If you’re going to use this tool correctly, you do need to go slow to go fast.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The more we can involve our parent community in the conversation, because ultimately our goal is to support our students, whether the school is doing it, a teacher is doing it, or parents are doing it, the more grown-ups are having reasonable conversations, the better our students will be in the long run.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s start bringing in some calls. We’ve had four phones going since the second we opened them. Allison in Berkeley, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Allison:\u003c/strong> Hi, thank you so much. Yes, I’m part of a parent group in Berkeley called Berkeley Unplugged, and we’re really interested in this and related topics. A lot of great points have been made, and I just wanted to sort of emphasize two of them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One is that, you know, I think when we’re talking about AI in schools, sometimes we lose sight of how AI is very different for a kid who is learning and whose brain is forming, who does not know how to do, for example, critical thinking, doesn’t know how to write yet. That’s very different from if you or I, as grown-ups, want to use AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think when we’re thinking about using AI, we should really think about it mindfully in school, so that we’re very cautious about kids so-called never-skilling and never learning how to do these things. I think that’s really, really dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The other point I just wanted to bring up is that teaching how to use AI appropriately is very different from allowing kids to just use AI for assignments and things like that and sort of skipping the whole process.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Essentially, in some ways, it raises the opportunity for them, as was said, to skip the learning process. Big picture, what are we doing here? Kids are there to learn through iterative failure, essentially, and through challenge. AI allows them to bypass that, and I think that’s really dangerous. We need to keep that in mind.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Allison, great points. Let’s go to Jeremy Roschelle, our executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. What do you think about this concept of never-skilling and how to think about appropriate AI use or literacy at different ages?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for the question. And I love everything that Allison brought up about the developing brain, because that’s what learning science is all about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think we have to be careful that AI is not all one thing. So let me give you two quick scenarios.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One: Allison was talking about kids’ ability to monitor what they’re doing as they’re using, for example, a chatbot to help them answer a question. If their brain isn’t fully developed, they may not be able to pull back and monitor their own learning and make sure they’re using it effectively.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scenario number two: A child is learning to read and needs a lot of decoding support. An AI-based technology can listen to them read a real book, and when they miss a word, help them with the pronunciation of the syllables they missed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don’t feel the developmental risk with the reading example, because it’s not an open-ended chatbot that’s answering questions. It’s skill training for how to decode words.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So AI is many different things. It can be used in different ways, and we have to analyze the use case, not the technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. MacKenzie Price, what do you think about our Berkeley listener Allison worrying about skipping the learning process?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> I think it is a very valid concern. We have to make sure that AI does not enable children to outsource thinking. In fact, making sure kids get knowledge into their brains is more important than ever.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Teaching students how to build the skill of learning how to learn is absolutely critical. Not only do we need to make sure that our academic rigor is as high as ever, but we now have the opportunity to make it even better because of personalized education.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We also have to teach our students how to use these AI tools in ways that allow them to be creators and contributors, not consumers and not outsourcers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What access to tools do they have in your classroom? Do they just have your platform, or can they have Claude running on the side?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> No, they definitely can’t. In fact, in the morning, what we often tell our students is, if they’re using AI in the morning, they’re probably cheating. And if they’re not using AI in the afternoon, they’re probably missing out on some sort of learning opportunity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During that two-hour core learning block, the AI is really operating behind the scenes, simply assessing and understanding what lesson to put in front of a student. Our schools do not use chatbots. Chatbots in school are cheap bots, and they are not something that you should have in school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do like the direction that so many schools around the country are taking, which is, if they don’t know how to use AI well, then don’t give kids unfettered access to it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, what we see in the afternoons, as we’re helping students build the skills to be adaptable, become experts, and learn how to learn, is that it’s great to give them supervised access to some of these incredible tools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We see middle school and high school students building businesses using things like Claude, turning profits and making significant amounts of money on a regular basis. We also see kids taking their passions for art and music and using what they’ve built naturally to expand and grow using technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think that’s a skill that’s going to be so important for our young people to have when they go out into the world, because we’re no longer in a situation where everything we need to know we’ve learned by the time we graduate college.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we give our students a lot of opportunities to get to know how to use these tools well and go from there. But, you know, I enjoy thoughtful dialogue like what we’re having, because you do have to make sure it’s done right. Having technology in a classroom for technology’s sake is not the right thing to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think it’s part of why we’ve seen a major degradation in the quality of our education. So I appreciate what this mom and the group have said around doing that, but we’ve got to make sure that screen time is done intelligently. We have an incredible opportunity with AI when it’s done the right way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m going to just give a couple of representative parent comments here coming in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mark writes, “I have four kids under seven. Let’s teach our kids how to use these tools! Too much Luddite fearmongering out there. The future is bright for our kids.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alex writes on Discord, “I really don’t think schools need to adapt to AI because using AI doesn’t require any skills that are new. Being a good reader, communicator, and critical thinker are what makes you good with AI. The best way to learn these things is the old-school ways of being forced to think for yourself and struggle. Paper problem sets, tons of book reading, written or oral exams. AI is what you use when you don’t care to deeply learn much from your process, and the neurological research reflects this.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Obviously, a lot of strong feelings about this particular topic out there. We’d love to hear yours. How is AI showing up in your kid’s classroom? What are your questions or concerns about this new era of learning?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Teachers, if you’re out there, we’d love to hear your thoughts as well on how AI is changing how you teach or how your students learn. You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email is forum@kqed.org. And you can find us on social media: Bluesky, Instagram, or Discord, at KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are, of course, talking about AI in the classroom, and we are joined by a big panel here. MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. We’ve got Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra up in El Cerrito. We’ve got Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. And, of course, we have two educators: Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School and author of \u003cem>Ready to Lead with AI: A Practical Guide for School Leaders\u003c/em>, and Daniel Herman, a humanities teacher at Maybeck High School and faculty associate at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with a great panel. We’ve got Maybeck High School’s Daniel Herman, Mountain View High School’s Kip Glazer, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise Jeremy Roschelle, MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools, and Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are, of course, talking about AI in schools and all of the challenges and opportunities that it’s presenting. Let’s bring in some more callers. So let’s go to Megan T. in San Francisco. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Megan T.:\u003c/strong> Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for this conversation. I work at the Exploratorium, and we’ve worked to empower teachers to transform classrooms for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love the question “What are we doing here?” That’s one of the right questions. I agree with some of the guests that there’s an exciting opportunity here. But I don’t think it’s about personalization or even whether or not we use AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think if we’re going to keep bringing humans together in classroom spaces every day, we better be sure what we’re doing with those humans and bringing them together for reasons that matter.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m curious what folks think the purpose of the classroom should be next in an era of AI, but also climate change and societal change. I’ll take my answers off the air.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Megan T., thanks so much. And we’ve got to go to our teacher here, Daniel Herman.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> What’s it all about? I don’t know. I mean, I guess I’ll say I’m really skeptical about learning for learning’s sake. Teaching somebody the orthodox view of an Emily Dickinson poem — I don’t really believe there’s any inherent value there. The point is to have a meaningful connection to the subject, whatever it is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Writing is really sort of the crucible where this happens. Five years ago, I would have told you that writing is an absolutely essential skill, uncompromisable, that everybody needs to know how to write. Now I would say that writing is a tool. It’s a technology itself, a powerful, wonderful, liberative technology, but really just a way to grapple with complex ideas and organize our thinking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In most of my classes, we spend most of our time writing together, writing in spiral notebooks, me included, and then sharing our writing around the table. They can take that writing home and use it to write something bigger.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time, can I tell my students that in this age of TikTok and Instagram Reels, crafting an immaculate paragraph is as beneficial as being able to do video editing? Especially, I think about Zoran Mamdani’s short-form content. Can I tell them that being able to write, rather than make a beautiful video, is the best way to affect meaningful change in the world? I’m not sure that I can tell them either.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Can I add to that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, go ahead, Tom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> I would just say that, specifically in my school, we’re very focused on human-to-human connection. So if you put aside learning for a moment and ask what a classroom looks like in the age of AI, what’s really important to us is teaching our kids self-awareness, empathy, and connection.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI has got nothing to do with that. It’s all about adults and children being in a room together, connecting, and learning to be good humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think when we define learning as acquiring knowledge into your brain, we’re missing the foundational understanding of learning. Learning has always been social. It will remain social.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So what is a classroom supposed to be for? That’s the question I ask myself, as well as my students. What problem are we trying to solve, and for whom are we doing this? Just because we could doesn’t mean that we should. Knowing the difference really is human, and we have to lean into it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This conversation about how we effectively improve learning is important, because no one wants to sit around and feel like they’re wasting time. But that brain rest, and what we think of as play, is where our students and children can really thrive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I would ask all the adults who are trying to push our kids to be the version that we wish we had: we were different. We were slower. We were more playful. And I think our students are screaming for it. That’s why we have such a crisis with mental health and emotional dysregulation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If we want our students to be healthier, happier adults, then we also need to have some self-reflection about what we’re pushing toward.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I really think that point about knowledge being social, too, is such a — I mean, obviously, in this job, you learn a ton, but you learn it in this very particular way of talking with all these people. Over time, the web of knowledge that you have is embedded with all these people across the whole community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s a lot easier to remember stuff when you know who said it, why they said it, and the context of that person, rather than, you know, I read one sentence in a backgrounder that Claude created.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let’s bring in Patricia in Redwood City. Welcome, Patricia.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Patricia:\u003c/strong> Hello. So, yeah, I’m a retired teacher, and I found in the last year or two I was teaching that more and more students were using AI to write their bibliographies for them. But they couldn’t tell the difference between whether it was correct or not, because they had never really taken the time to learn how to do it themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I felt like one way of dealing with AI in the classroom is simply to highlight its deficiencies, or its limitations.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We had contests where we would divide up the class, half using AI and half using physical books, and there was a time limit. I flashed the name of a book on the screen, and the first team to feel confident that they had a correct bibliographic entry would put it on the board.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And guess which team always won? It was the team using the books, because they actually took the time to get it correct from the book that was being used, whereas the AI team always had something that was not accurate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> When were you doing this, Patricia?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Patricia:\u003c/strong> This was only just two or three years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> God, I would love to — I want you to rerun it. I want to rerun it. Patricia, what an exercise. What a fun exercise and an interesting exercise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The thing that it makes me think of, actually, is when AI companies are testing these tools, they do this thing called red-teaming. They’ll literally do exactly what you’re talking about, but they’ll tell the teams, “Try and go do something bad.” What they’re looking for is uplift.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you want to build some bomb thing, you could find sources in libraries and on the internet that could help you do that, or you could use AI to try to do that as well. They try to look for the delta between the two teams. If a model is too good at helping them do something bad, then they try to —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So you kind of came up with the red-team exercise for your students, which I love.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One thing I wanted to come to on this, Daniel, is: What do we do with technology that’s evolving really quickly? Because I love that this happened for Patricia and her students, and they were able to identify some of these problems. But if we look at how things are going, maybe now, maybe in 2030, the students using AI will probably start to win. Then what do you do?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s really been wild over the past four years to travel around and talk to teachers around the country. Teachers are a defensive group, and we do things a particular way, and we have every reason to want to continue doing things that way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’ve definitely noticed, over the years, teachers again and again trying to plant their flag in something that they want to be stable, and then the sand just slips away underneath them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Immediately after ChatGPT was released, I saw a lot of teachers saying, “Well, it can’t even write well.” And then a couple of years later, “Now it can write well.” They say, “Well, it can’t even do research,” or “It can’t even integrate quotes,” or “It can’t do MLA citations.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have every reason to believe that every single bar we establish that it can’t jump over is going to be something we have to rethink. It’s about being flexible in our thinking and being willing to let go of something.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, I’m sure I’m going to make a lot of enemies out there, but I’m going to pick one stupid example, and that’s apostrophes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every English teacher will know you’ll get a student in September, and they struggle using apostrophes properly. You show them in September, and you show them in December, and you show them in February, and you show them in May, and it’s hard, you know? I mean, it’s really complicated. When it’s plural, it’s different. And apostrophes are just this made-up thing. It’s this little squiggle mark.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then, to go back to Emily Dickinson, they read an Emily Dickinson poem, and she uses them in all kinds of weird ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, for me, if a student wants to take their essay and put it into Claude and say, “Make sure my apostrophes are perfect,” and they never have to think about it again, and I never have to think about it again, fine.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m way more concerned with what Kip is talking about, and about empathy, and listening to people who we disagree with, and people bringing their ideas, experiences, and beliefs, and finding a way to be together with other human beings. That’s way more important than apostrophes or, forgive me, MLA citations.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> A really interesting comment here. Nina writes, “I remember when people were debating whether children should be able to use calculators in school. The calculators won.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So you think you know where this comment is going. Plot twist: “And now we have generations of people who can’t do simple arithmetic in their heads. For example, have you ever tried to cashier why the bill is wrong? They don’t have the basic math skills.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The question there for me is, was it wrong to introduce the calculator into the classroom or not? I think most people would argue it’s OK to use calculators, given that adults use calculators.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But what do you think, Jeremy? When a new technology comes into play that can obviate the need to learn some skill, how do we say, “You must learn it anyway,” or “You shouldn’t have to learn it”? What’s your take on that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, graphing calculators are something we actually have a tremendous amount of evidence on, so I feel really happy right now, because it’s research that speaks to this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Look, a great thing about that technology was that a good teacher could say, “Kids, calculators down. We’re learning basic math skills now.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But take another scenario. Suppose you’re trying to learn what the slope of a graph means, and your alternative is pulling out graph paper, tediously plotting point by point, getting out a ruler, and drawing a line through it. By the time you go through all the steps, you’ve forgotten what you’re trying to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whereas with a graphing calculator, you can see that slope shift as you change the equation you’re working with. That’s invaluable to kids’ understanding of the meaning of slope.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I just think about how we design and implement the learning activities. And, again, we need educators, we need teachers who are prepared to hold the line. What are we trying to learn right now? Is it a basic skill? Put away the technology. Is it something where cognitive offloading is actually useful because it’s lower-level and we want to focus at a higher level right now? Go ahead, use the technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We have some comments coming from parents that I think get at the real dilemmas of this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Leah writes, “Managing technology is the single worst part of modern parenting. AI is not hard to learn. Why do we need to teach it to our students? Learning how to learn is the point of education. Why do we want to make everything easy? If our kids learn that answers are at their fingertips at all times, they also won’t know how to struggle through non-technology parts of life, like learning how to knit, or work out, or master a sport. Isn’t that the point of a growth mindset?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Daniel in San Mateo, somewhat relatedly, says, “What about the simple fact that since the proliferation of screens and tech in classrooms, growing evidence that AI degrades critical thinking, student attention disorders are up, and test scores are down? Why shouldn’t those results speak for themselves?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tom, are these some of the things you’ve been trying to think about as someone who’s considering the overall package of technology that kids are presented with? How do you help parents with “tech is the single worst part of modern parenting,” which I don’t disagree with?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, what do you do? I think a few things. My first response is that the really simplistic answer to both of those isn’t — it’s not about if you use AI; it’s about how you use it as a student, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think, Jeremy, you could probably speak to this better than me, and maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that the evidence is coming out that if you teach a kid how to explore the subject they’re trying to learn using an AI tool, they can actually learn more than they might have without the tool. Versus if you give a kid AI and just let them find the answers, they’re not learning anything.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, not if, but how.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Possibly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, Katie in Martinez writes, “Will AI need to follow the path of media literacy, although I’m not sure media literacy worked out well? But how to interpret it, how to use it, how to understand critical thinking skills.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Is that kind of where you’re headed at your school? At a high level, you think?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we have an AI scale from zero to four, where zero means no AI and four means complete automation, with everything in between. We’re trying to be a little more intentional and focused on how we want to see the behaviors of the students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think good, sound pedagogy, being able to know when to jump in and when to back off, is really important.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Teachers today may not have the opportunity or even access, because we’re conflating exposure with expertise and exposure alone. The conversation around AI is that if you’ve used it once, then you already know how to use it as an expert.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But we all know as educators that experimentation and experience have to be in the middle to really get to the expertise level. We have to be patient with ourselves as well as our students, to be able to provide that opportunity. I think educators now, more than ever before, have that responsibility and calling to do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Danny — it’s funny. I mean, I think my experience at a small, progressive, independent high school in Berkeley is maybe pretty different from Mountain View, where, you know, it’s been a while to see how right-wing-coded so much of AI has become, and the movement against data centers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There’s a vocal group at my school — I’m not sure if it’s a plurality or a majority, but it’s definitely vocal — that holds that there is simply no ethical use of AI, period. So it’s definitely been, at my school at least, student-led or student-driven.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> A listener writes in to say, “I hope we can keep the focus on the fact that, moral or not, helpful or not, the future of tech or not, AI is absolutely devastating the planet and accelerating climate change at an unheard-of rate.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We also have another person saying, Martha in Menlo Park: “Reading and thinking is not screen scrolling. Back to books.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Marjorie writes, “I’ve always been a tech skeptic. What do you do today with elementary kids who have parents who want to limit screen time, favoring more tactile opportunities, and don’t want their kids spending hours each day using screens at school?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And this is maybe the comment that gets at what I’ve heard a lot from my kids. Ambrosia writes, “My son is a sophomore in high school, a straight-A student, and really is all in and loves school. He’s very frustrated with one of his classes because the teacher is obviously using AI in her lesson plans. She has disclosed that to the students. He has noticed some errors in the lessons and is not only concerned he isn’t learning anything, he is also upset about the double standard. The messaging has been very clear that students can’t use AI because it’s cheating. And now he has a social science class with a curriculum streaked with slop.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How should high school be handling AI? I love it. We’re coming to the end of the discussion. Unfortunately, we probably could do four and a half hours on this. It’s been so interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’ve been joined by Daniel Herman, humanities teacher at Maybeck High School. Thank you, Daniel.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You should check out his essays in The Atlantic on this if you’re interested. We’ve been joined by Kip Glazer, principal of Mountain View High School. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra. Thank you very much. And MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. Thank you so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Also, thank you so, so much to all of our callers and listeners. We really appreciate it when you come in on a show like that and bring your best thoughts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Artificial intelligence has long entered the classroom and is rapidly changing how students learn and teachers teach. Some schools are embracing AI and personalized learning tools, while others are pulling back on technology in the classroom. Meanwhile, students are increasingly turning to chatbots to help with assignments, raising concerns about what happens to critical thinking, reading, and writing skills when AI does the work for them. Can schools harness the benefits of AI without compromising students’ learning? We’ll talk with educators and researchers about how AI is reshaping the classroom, what it means for students’ development, and how schools and parents are navigating this new era of education.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Current-day generative AI models can write just about everything, and we really haven’t wrapped our heads around having machines that can write. Some of us are ignoring this new reality or finding ways to minimize the power of these models. Others are enthusiastic or overenthusiastic adopters, happy to be done with one of life’s chores or delighted not to have to write in a second or third language.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Current-day generative AI models can write just about everything, and we really haven’t wrapped our heads around having machines that can write. Some of us are ignoring this new reality or finding ways to minimize the power of these models. Others are enthusiastic or overenthusiastic adopters, happy to be done with one of life’s chores or delighted not to have to write in a second or third language.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>For professional writers, there’s a lot of well-founded fear and anger, and maybe in some people, a dark tingle of excitement. But what about the educators who are supposed to teach our children? Children who, after all, are often tested via writing assignments that any model could ace in 10 seconds. How is the task of teaching different in this new world? And how should school administrators respond?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>For professional writers, there’s a lot of well-founded fear and anger, and maybe in some people, a dark tingle of excitement. But what about the educators who are supposed to teach our children? Children who, after all, are often tested via writing assignments that any model could ace in 10 seconds. How is the task of teaching different in this new world? And how should school administrators respond?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re joined first by two educators, a teacher and a principal. Daniel Herman is a humanities teacher at Maybeck High School in Berkeley and a faculty associate at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking, who has written a couple of great essays about teaching English in the age of ChatGPT for The Atlantic. Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, Daniel. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’re joined first by two educators, a teacher and a principal. Daniel Herman is a humanities teacher at Maybeck High School in Berkeley and a faculty associate at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking, who has written a couple of great essays about teaching English in the age of ChatGPT for The Atlantic. Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, Daniel. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And we’ve got Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School, author of \u003cem>Ready to Lead with AI: A Practical Guide for School Leaders\u003c/em>. Welcome. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, Daniel, I went back to the essay you wrote shortly after the launch of ChatGPT. You wrote this essay, “The End of High School English,” and it raised a lot of questions about the future of teaching writing in high school classrooms. So, four years later, how has AI actually changed things in your classroom, and what are you seeing from students?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, Daniel, I went back to the essay you wrote shortly after the launch of ChatGPT. You wrote this essay, “The End of High School English,” and it raised a lot of questions about the future of teaching writing in high school classrooms. So, four years later, how has AI actually changed things in your classroom, and what are you seeing from students?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> In many ways, very little has changed. My classroom remains pretty much the way that it’s always been. I remain committed to the idea that the classroom is a sacred space. bell hooks, I think, referred to it as a location of possibility. It’s a place where people come together to figure out a problem, explore an idea, hear different perspectives, and make meaning together, and where there’s a teacher who can model the behaviors, intellectual and otherwise, that they want their students to emulate.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> In many ways, very little has changed. My classroom remains pretty much the way that it’s always been. I remain committed to the idea that the classroom is a sacred space. bell hooks, I think, referred to it as a location of possibility. It’s a place where people come together to figure out a problem, explore an idea, hear different perspectives, and make meaning together, and where there’s a teacher who can model the behaviors, intellectual and otherwise, that they want their students to emulate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s when we turn to assessments that things can get a little dicey. So I’ve definitely had to go back and recalibrate or reassess all the things that I ask my students to do, not to make them AI-proof in the sense of preventing them from cheating, but really making sure that the things I’m asking them to do are in line with this new reality, where there is this computer that can do so many of the things that we used to assume students had to know how to do.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s when we turn to assessments that things can get a little dicey. So I’ve definitely had to go back and recalibrate or reassess all the things that I ask my students to do, not to make them AI-proof in the sense of preventing them from cheating, but really making sure that the things I’m asking them to do are in line with this new reality, where there is this computer that can do so many of the things that we used to assume students had to know how to do.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I’ve definitely encouraged my students’ writing to be way weirder than I ever did before, but overall —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I’ve definitely encouraged my students’ writing to be way weirder than I ever did before, but overall —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> My emails have gotten that way, too. Sorry for everyone out there. You’ve got to prove you really did it, you know?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> My emails have gotten that way, too. Sorry for everyone out there. You’ve got to prove you really did it, you know?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Overall, I’d say that it’s a question of emphasizing process over product. So instead of writing a research paper, maybe we’re doing research presentations where we’re sharing our learning together, or an interview project, but showing that we’re thinking on the page and really grappling with a problem.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Overall, I’d say that it’s a question of emphasizing process over product. So instead of writing a research paper, maybe we’re doing research presentations where we’re sharing our learning together, or an interview project, but showing that we’re thinking on the page and really grappling with a problem.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It also really feels like, for you, the introduction of these models has been a catalyst for thinking about the differences between what it is to think, what it is to learn, and what it is to assess that someone has learned. That seems to be how you’ve taken it as a prompt.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It also really feels like, for you, the introduction of these models has been a catalyst for thinking about the differences between what it is to think, what it is to learn, and what it is to assess that someone has learned. That seems to be how you’ve taken it as a prompt.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Totally. My rule of thumb, and this is maybe a little bit controversial, is that AI is actually pretty useful for learning, but terrible for thinking. I think the thing that took me a while to really figure out is that, for a 16-year-old, thinking for themselves does not go without saying. It really, in many ways, can come to the teacher to inspire that inquisitive impulse and persuade them that that sort of thing teachers sometimes talk about as productive struggle is actually worth their time, rather than just getting the lowest-common-denominator response to a problem.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Totally. My rule of thumb, and this is maybe a little bit controversial, is that AI is actually pretty useful for learning, but terrible for thinking. I think the thing that took me a while to really figure out is that, for a 16-year-old, thinking for themselves does not go without saying. It really, in many ways, can come to the teacher to inspire that inquisitive impulse and persuade them that that sort of thing teachers sometimes talk about as productive struggle is actually worth their time, rather than just getting the lowest-common-denominator response to a problem.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Kip, you’ve got a different set of challenges. You’re principal of Mountain View High School, in the heart of Silicon Valley. What does this look like at your school, with your educators and your students?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Kip, you’ve got a different set of challenges. You’re principal of Mountain View High School, in the heart of Silicon Valley. What does this look like at your school, with your educators and your students?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. I think, as a school leader, we want the student outcome to be what we desire it to be. And the environment sometimes doesn’t allow educators or school leaders to do what we know to be correct, because there’s so much noise around what is the right way to teach or what is the right outcome as a result of learning.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. I think, as a school leader, we want the student outcome to be what we desire it to be. And the environment sometimes doesn’t allow educators or school leaders to do what we know to be correct, because there’s so much noise around what is the right way to teach or what is the right outcome as a result of learning.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Our students are grappling with that. Some students actually say, “I don’t want to be defined as a cheater, so I’m going to never use this tool.” And that all-or-nothing thinking is, I think, really troubling for me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Our students are grappling with that. Some students actually say, “I don’t want to be defined as a cheater, so I’m going to never use this tool.” And that all-or-nothing thinking is, I think, really troubling for me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Dan and I were talking about it a little bit. We need to really think about how, as adults, to sit in the middle of the messiness, as much as we want our students to do that. And how do we model that? It’s really a challenge when we ourselves don’t really know how to interact with this new reality.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Dan and I were talking about it a little bit. We need to really think about how, as adults, to sit in the middle of the messiness, as much as we want our students to do that. And how do we model that? It’s really a challenge when we ourselves don’t really know how to interact with this new reality.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s an interesting point. Daniel was talking about modeling the intellectual and other behaviors he wants to see in his students. So what is the right thing for teachers, then, to model in their use of AI? Or for administrators to model?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s an interesting point. Daniel was talking about modeling the intellectual and other behaviors he wants to see in his students. So what is the right thing for teachers, then, to model in their use of AI? Or for administrators to model?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think about the identity threat, and I think that educators —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think about the identity threat, and I think that educators —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What do you mean by that? Spin that out a little bit for listeners.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What do you mean by that? Spin that out a little bit for listeners.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. For the longest time, I think educators have felt this sense of responsibility to be the most educated and learned person who can guide the way for our students, who are trusting us to follow and go, “Where is that intellectual pursuit?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. For the longest time, I think educators have felt this sense of responsibility to be the most educated and learned person who can guide the way for our students, who are trusting us to follow and go, “Where is that intellectual pursuit?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And when there is a tool that can actually mimic that behavior, sometimes more sophisticatedly or more refined than we can, there has to be a way of feeling threatened in terms of how we’re supposed to show up.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And when there is a tool that can actually mimic that behavior, sometimes more sophisticatedly or more refined than we can, there has to be a way of feeling threatened in terms of how we’re supposed to show up.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think some teachers’ way of dealing with it is to ban it all and say that we’re protecting ourselves in our insecurities or our struggles. Other teachers I see are able to share that they don’t know it all, and it’s OK for us to discover it together.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think some teachers’ way of dealing with it is to ban it all and say that we’re protecting ourselves in our insecurities or our struggles. Other teachers I see are able to share that they don’t know it all, and it’s OK for us to discover it together.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I see responses to that sort of honesty and vulnerability in two ways. Some students are actually embracing that, but other students are like, “When you don’t feel secure in what you know, how am I supposed to feel secure in how I’m supposed to follow?” Yeah, I’m supposed to follow. And I think there is a lot more work to be done in terms of how we emotionally support this transformation in our classrooms.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I see responses to that sort of honesty and vulnerability in two ways. Some students are actually embracing that, but other students are like, “When you don’t feel secure in what you know, how am I supposed to feel secure in how I’m supposed to follow?” Yeah, I’m supposed to follow. And I think there is a lot more work to be done in terms of how we emotionally support this transformation in our classrooms.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, Daniel, I have an East Bay 13-year-old who despises AI and is just like, “We’re destroying the world for this stupid technology.” What do you find with your East Bay teenage students about their relationship to this technology?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, Daniel, I have an East Bay 13-year-old who despises AI and is just like, “We’re destroying the world for this stupid technology.” What do you find with your East Bay teenage students about their relationship to this technology?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s funny. I mean, I don’t feel like there’s much curiosity about the technology. You know, this is just the world that they’ve inherited. They’re the ones who coined “AI slop.” This stuff has flooded their TikToks. This is their reality. This is the world they’re swimming in.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s funny. I mean, I don’t feel like there’s much curiosity about the technology. You know, this is just the world that they’ve inherited. They’re the ones who coined “AI slop.” This stuff has flooded their TikToks. This is their reality. This is the world they’re swimming in.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I totally agree with everything that Kip says. We really have to make sure that this is a dialogue, and I really appreciate you mentioning vulnerability. I ask my students for honesty and transparency. I think we really need to take seriously that this technology is arriving in a world where our students, like all of us, are stretched thin in so many ways: busy and overwhelmed, mental health crises, the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I totally agree with everything that Kip says. We really have to make sure that this is a dialogue, and I really appreciate you mentioning vulnerability. I ask my students for honesty and transparency. I think we really need to take seriously that this technology is arriving in a world where our students, like all of us, are stretched thin in so many ways: busy and overwhelmed, mental health crises, the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And now there’s this magical tool that can do their homework for them, and we can’t blame them if some of them are tempted to use it. So I really ask my students to be open with me if they’re thinking about using it, because depending on the class, there are definitely ways that it can be useful to their thinking and their learning, and other ways that it entirely gets in the way of their thinking and learning.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And now there’s this magical tool that can do their homework for them, and we can’t blame them if some of them are tempted to use it. So I really ask my students to be open with me if they’re thinking about using it, because depending on the class, there are definitely ways that it can be useful to their thinking and their learning, and other ways that it entirely gets in the way of their thinking and learning.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Whether all my students have abided by that request, I can’t say, but it definitely has to be a conversation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Whether all my students have abided by that request, I can’t say, but it definitely has to be a conversation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Kip, what do you say to students who you find out are, in fact, using chatbots to do their homework? Or even, at this point, we’re not just talking about chatbots. They could be using agents to — I mean, you were talking before the show about a student who wrote an agent to go download the homework from Canva, do the homework in their own hand, their own handwriting, and then upload the assignment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Kip, what do you say to students who you find out are, in fact, using chatbots to do their homework? Or even, at this point, we’re not just talking about chatbots. They could be using agents to — I mean, you were talking before the show about a student who wrote an agent to go download the homework from Canva, do the homework in their own hand, their own handwriting, and then upload the assignment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>At one level, you’re impressed, but in that kind of \u003cem>Ferris Bueller\u003c/em> way, where you’re like, “Oh, God, I can’t believe you did that.” Although, kind of impressive, but gah, I can’t believe you did it. So what do you do with a student like that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>At one level, you’re impressed, but in that kind of \u003cem>Ferris Bueller\u003c/em> way, where you’re like, “Oh, God, I can’t believe you did that.” Although, kind of impressive, but gah, I can’t believe you did it. So what do you do with a student like that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and that’s why I think what we’re defining as learning and how we’re assessing it has to be at the forefront of every conversation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and that’s why I think what we’re defining as learning and how we’re assessing it has to be at the forefront of every conversation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think the AI slop, or accelerating assessment, happens because the current platform invites that, right? When you have these worksheets that are being mass-produced, students know that. And one of the things that I hear from my students is, “How come teachers can replicate or not even grade my work and use AI tools, but I’m not supposed to use it?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think the AI slop, or accelerating assessment, happens because the current platform invites that, right? When you have these worksheets that are being mass-produced, students know that. And one of the things that I hear from my students is, “How come teachers can replicate or not even grade my work and use AI tools, but I’m not supposed to use it?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And when you’re working with teenagers, it’s beautiful to hear. They can spot hypocrisy a mile away, and some of them, politely or not so politely, call that out. I think we have to be honest in terms of how we’re allowing our work to be accelerated and what that means for our students.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And when you’re working with teenagers, it’s beautiful to hear. They can spot hypocrisy a mile away, and some of them, politely or not so politely, call that out. I think we have to be honest in terms of how we’re allowing our work to be accelerated and what that means for our students.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One of the dangers of these tools is that we’re not invited or allowed to be present anymore. We’re always trying to accelerate. Faster and more is always better — to what end?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>One of the dangers of these tools is that we’re not invited or allowed to be present anymore. We’re always trying to accelerate. Faster and more is always better — to what end?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m getting emails from seventh graders wanting to know what they have to do now so that they can be successful in high school. Two years ahead, they’re really trying to plan ahead. On the one hand, I’m impressed, but on the other hand, this is the situation we’re creating. Acceleration to what end?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m getting emails from seventh graders wanting to know what they have to do now so that they can be successful in high school. Two years ahead, they’re really trying to plan ahead. On the one hand, I’m impressed, but on the other hand, this is the situation we’re creating. Acceleration to what end?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think that is actually also really dangerous because when you deeply learn something, you need to take the time and be patient with yourself, as much as the world, and we’re not allowing our students to have that moment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think that is actually also really dangerous because when you deeply learn something, you need to take the time and be patient with yourself, as much as the world, and we’re not allowing our students to have that moment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it just seems like a lot of kids take the task to be good at school, not to sort of learn, right? And I understand that. I remember being a kid and thinking that, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it just seems like a lot of kids take the task to be good at school, not to sort of learn, right? And I understand that. I remember being a kid and thinking that, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re talking about artificial intelligence in the classroom. We’re joined by Daniel Herman, humanities teacher at Maybeck High School. We also have Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School, and, of course, we want to invite you into the conversation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’re talking about artificial intelligence in the classroom. We’re joined by Daniel Herman, humanities teacher at Maybeck High School. We also have Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School, and, of course, we want to invite you into the conversation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>To parents: How is AI showing up in your kid’s classroom, or maybe just on your kid’s phone? What are your questions or concerns about this era of learning?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>To parents: How is AI showing up in your kid’s classroom, or maybe just on your kid’s phone? What are your questions or concerns about this era of learning?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, you know, we know maybe there’s some teachers out there with a prep period. How is AI changing the way you teach, or how your students are approaching their learning?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And, you know, we know maybe there’s some teachers out there with a prep period. How is AI changing the way you teach, or how your students are approaching their learning?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Give us a call at 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Or email us at forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Give us a call at 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Or email us at forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re talking about AI in the classroom, trying to move this conversation forward a little bit. I’m joined by Maybeck High School’s Daniel Herman and the principal at Mountain View High School, Kip Glazer.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re talking about AI in the classroom, trying to move this conversation forward a little bit. I’m joined by Maybeck High School’s Daniel Herman and the principal at Mountain View High School, Kip Glazer.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re going to add a few other guests into the conversation here. We’ve got Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise and co-host of the \u003cem>Future Fluent\u003c/em> podcast. Welcome, Jeremy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’re going to add a few other guests into the conversation here. We’ve got Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise and co-host of the \u003cem>Future Fluent\u003c/em> podcast. Welcome, Jeremy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Great to be here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for joining us. And we’ve got Tom Wadbrook, who’s director of technology at Prospect Sierra, a school in El Cerrito. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for joining us. And we’ve got Tom Wadbrook, who’s director of technology at Prospect Sierra, a school in El Cerrito. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Thank you very much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Jeremy, your perspective as a learning scientist: What needs to happen for students to actually learn something? What do we know about that? And do you think that AI actually disrupts that ability for students to learn?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Jeremy, your perspective as a learning scientist: What needs to happen for students to actually learn something? What do we know about that? And do you think that AI actually disrupts that ability for students to learn?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, great place to start. And I just love the focus on learning and not just on this technology. The antidote to too much technology is to talk more about learning. What do we want learning to be?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, great place to start. And I just love the focus on learning and not just on this technology. The antidote to too much technology is to talk more about learning. What do we want learning to be?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Daniel painted a great portrait of his classroom. The students are active. They’ve got something constructive that they’re working on together. They’re building knowledge as a group, and they’re social. Those are three absolutely critical ingredients to any successful learning environment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Daniel painted a great portrait of his classroom. The students are active. They’ve got something constructive that they’re working on together. They’re building knowledge as a group, and they’re social. Those are three absolutely critical ingredients to any successful learning environment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Why is it, then, that I’m hearing that if students use AI, their brain function falls off? This seems to be a really serious concern of many educators and parents.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Why is it, then, that I’m hearing that if students use AI, their brain function falls off? This seems to be a really serious concern of many educators and parents.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, let’s go back to those three words. Look at what the students are doing. Are they active, for example, in solving the math problem? Or is it copy and paste, and it’s doing it for them? If their brain is not active, they’re not learning.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, let’s go back to those three words. Look at what the students are doing. Are they active, for example, in solving the math problem? Or is it copy and paste, and it’s doing it for them? If their brain is not active, they’re not learning.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Are they misdirecting time away from conversations with their peers and teachers to just be talking to a technology? Well, social interaction is falling by the wayside.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Are they misdirecting time away from conversations with their peers and teachers to just be talking to a technology? Well, social interaction is falling by the wayside.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And Kip brought up, you know, is it just trying to race to get done? Whereas Daniel brought up process, and that’s the constructive part. Are we paying enough attention to the learning process and kids actually making things? That’s how you learn. Or are they just racing to get an output?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And Kip brought up, you know, is it just trying to race to get done? Whereas Daniel brought up process, and that’s the constructive part. Are we paying enough attention to the learning process and kids actually making things? That’s how you learn. Or are they just racing to get an output?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. MacKenzie, at Alpha Schools, your model centers on two hours of academics a day using AI-powered learning tools. Do you see that as sort of a race to get done? Or how do you interpret what students are doing during those two hours? How do you guide them?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. MacKenzie, at Alpha Schools, your model centers on two hours of academics a day using AI-powered learning tools. Do you see that as sort of a race to get done? Or how do you interpret what students are doing during those two hours? How do you guide them?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> I will tell you, I think there has never been a more exciting time to be a five-year-old. And I think what we’re seeing in education is seriously an incredible moment where we can finally allow students to get the individual, personalized attention that is impossible for even the best teacher to provide to 15, 20, or 25 students in a room.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> I will tell you, I think there has never been a more exciting time to be a five-year-old. And I think what we’re seeing in education is seriously an incredible moment where we can finally allow students to get the individual, personalized attention that is impossible for even the best teacher to provide to 15, 20, or 25 students in a room.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And that’s what we’re doing at Alpha. We’re using artificial intelligence to create personalized learning plans that are able to meet the student where they are, at the level they need to be.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And that’s what we’re doing at Alpha. We’re using artificial intelligence to create personalized learning plans that are able to meet the student where they are, at the level they need to be.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As a result, during the two hours in the morning that Alpha provides academic teaching, our students are able to learn twice as much as students who are sitting in a traditional school classroom for the majority of the day.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>As a result, during the two hours in the morning that Alpha provides academic teaching, our students are able to learn twice as much as students who are sitting in a traditional school classroom for the majority of the day.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it really is because of two things. Number one, receiving that one-to-one, personalized, mastery-based tutoring experience. But number two, and most important and critical, is that the adults in our classrooms, the teachers, are freed up to spend time on what only humans can do, which is connect with the students, mentor them, coach them, and provide that motivational support.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it really is because of two things. Number one, receiving that one-to-one, personalized, mastery-based tutoring experience. But number two, and most important and critical, is that the adults in our classrooms, the teachers, are freed up to spend time on what only humans can do, which is connect with the students, mentor them, coach them, and provide that motivational support.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s why we’re seeing such incredible results, because we’ve finally freed up the adult in the classroom to do what they’re great at.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> MacKenzie, how do you evaluate that they’ve learned, quote, “twice as much” as other students?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> MacKenzie, how do you evaluate that they’ve learned, quote, “twice as much” as other students?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> You know, it’s an amazing claim, and as a result, people are always wondering, “Well, how do we actually know this?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> You know, it’s an amazing claim, and as a result, people are always wondering, “Well, how do we actually know this?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What we use is NWEA math assessments, where we’re basically able to see an anticipated score that a student is expected to grow by in any given year. About 11 million students across the country take the math assessments, students from public, private, and home schools.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What we use is NWEA math assessments, where we’re basically able to see an anticipated score that a student is expected to grow by in any given year. About 11 million students across the country take the math assessments, students from public, private, and home schools.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What we expect at Alpha is that our students’ RIT scores will go up twice as much as expected. So a student, let’s say, who’s in the 60th percentile in math in grade five, would be expected to go up three points over a given year. At Alpha, our commitment is that they’ll go up six points, and that’s what we’re seeing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What we expect at Alpha is that our students’ RIT scores will go up twice as much as expected. So a student, let’s say, who’s in the 60th percentile in math in grade five, would be expected to go up three points over a given year. At Alpha, our commitment is that they’ll go up six points, and that’s what we’re seeing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Again, this is such a new time in education, and it’s so different from what we’ve known for the last 150 years: a teacher in front of a classroom, kind of an everyone-teaching-at-the-same-pace model.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Again, this is such a new time in education, and it’s so different from what we’ve known for the last 150 years: a teacher in front of a classroom, kind of an everyone-teaching-at-the-same-pace model.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s important that we be able to show these results. I think it’s part of what our parents appreciate: seeing that students are learning so much better, retaining information, and then, of course, having so much more time freed up in the day to focus on human development and life skills.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s important that we be able to show these results. I think it’s part of what our parents appreciate: seeing that students are learning so much better, retaining information, and then, of course, having so much more time freed up in the day to focus on human development and life skills.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Tom Wadbrook, let’s talk about the direction that Prospect Sierra in El Cerrito is taking. It serves students from TK through eighth grade, so there’s a very different culture around the use of AI. What are you hearing from parents and teachers at the school as you try to figure out how to approach the role of AI in a TK-through-eighth-grade classroom?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Tom Wadbrook, let’s talk about the direction that Prospect Sierra in El Cerrito is taking. It serves students from TK through eighth grade, so there’s a very different culture around the use of AI. What are you hearing from parents and teachers at the school as you try to figure out how to approach the role of AI in a TK-through-eighth-grade classroom?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I guess the first thing I would say is we have the luxury of being TK through eighth grade, not high school. We don’t have the same pressures, and so we can take it slower. But we really are taking it slowly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I guess the first thing I would say is we have the luxury of being TK through eighth grade, not high school. We don’t have the same pressures, and so we can take it slower. But we really are taking it slowly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re very intentional as a school, very process-driven, and also collectively have quite a lot of, I wouldn’t say antipathy, but —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’re very intentional as a school, very process-driven, and also collectively have quite a lot of, I wouldn’t say antipathy, but —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You’ve heard some things from parents.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and teachers. I mean, to be honest, two or three years ago, when we first started talking about AI as a faculty, it was a frosty reception. I think part of that was fear of the unknown, and part of it is what you were alluding to earlier, Kip, which is, you know, what is my identity?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and teachers. I mean, to be honest, two or three years ago, when we first started talking about AI as a faculty, it was a frosty reception. I think part of that was fear of the unknown, and part of it is what you were alluding to earlier, Kip, which is, you know, what is my identity?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Maybe we’ve moved on from fear and antipathy and indifference to some curiosity and exploration of AI in the classroom from our teachers, but there’s still a lot of indifference and quite a lot of antipathy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Maybe we’ve moved on from fear and antipathy and indifference to some curiosity and exploration of AI in the classroom from our teachers, but there’s still a lot of indifference and quite a lot of antipathy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s some key context here, too, that I’ve heard you talk about, which is that during the pandemic, of course, everything went super digital. All the assignments were online. Everyone was on a Chromebook or an iPad or whatever.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s some key context here, too, that I’ve heard you talk about, which is that during the pandemic, of course, everything went super digital. All the assignments were online. Everyone was on a Chromebook or an iPad or whatever.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>How is Prospect Sierra thinking about the overall amount of technology that’s present in education, with AI sort of wedged in there or coming in like a meteor strike into that context?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, that’s great. If you put AI aside for a second, the pandemic happened, we put devices in every kid’s hands, we sent them home. It was a mixed bag at best, right? Everyone came back, and we kind of kept on doing the same thing for a year or two. Then we realized that that was not a good direction.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, that’s great. If you put AI aside for a second, the pandemic happened, we put devices in every kid’s hands, we sent them home. It was a mixed bag at best, right? Everyone came back, and we kind of kept on doing the same thing for a year or two. Then we realized that that was not a good direction.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we’ve been on what we’re calling a tech rollback. We’re in year three now, maybe even year four. And it’s really just been incremental. We don’t let the iPads and laptops go home in fifth through seventh grade anymore. They stay in the classroom. They get used a lot more intentionally. We’ve dialed back all of the apps that might be on them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we’ve been on what we’re calling a tech rollback. We’re in year three now, maybe even year four. And it’s really just been incremental. We don’t let the iPads and laptops go home in fifth through seventh grade anymore. They stay in the classroom. They get used a lot more intentionally. We’ve dialed back all of the apps that might be on them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, yeah, we’re really trying to bring back down the level of technology that we’re using.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, yeah, we’re really trying to bring back down the level of technology that we’re using.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s a parent faction that’s saying, “Well, the kids already have access to all these tools. As adults, they’re going to have access to all these tools. We must teach them to double down, AI-max, because that’s the world they’re going to live in.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s a parent faction that’s saying, “Well, the kids already have access to all these tools. As adults, they’re going to have access to all these tools. We must teach them to double down, AI-max, because that’s the world they’re going to live in.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> We do. I mean, we have the full gamut, from “There shouldn’t be any AI” to “You should be doing absolutely everything you can in terms of teaching these kids to immerse themselves in AI.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> We do. I mean, we have the full gamut, from “There shouldn’t be any AI” to “You should be doing absolutely everything you can in terms of teaching these kids to immerse themselves in AI.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we’re figuring out where we fit. As I said, we’re being very slow and very intentional about it. We’ve basically figured out that there are a few baseline things we need to do. We need to teach them about wellness and safety, academic integrity, so cheating, obviously, and to ignite — either when they’re using AI or when they’re consuming AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we’re figuring out where we fit. As I said, we’re being very slow and very intentional about it. We’ve basically figured out that there are a few baseline things we need to do. We need to teach them about wellness and safety, academic integrity, so cheating, obviously, and to ignite — either when they’re using AI or when they’re consuming AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’ve kind of set that as our baseline. And so now the big question for us is how much more AI belongs in the classroom. Is it none? Do we follow the model of New York schools? Or is it all the way in?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’ve kind of set that as our baseline. And so now the big question for us is how much more AI belongs in the classroom. Is it none? Do we follow the model of New York schools? Or is it all the way in?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s not going to be all the way in. It’s going to be somewhere nearer the New York model, I suspect, but that’s really the big question we’re facing today.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s not going to be all the way in. It’s going to be somewhere nearer the New York model, I suspect, but that’s really the big question we’re facing today.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Kip, do you have some AI-maxing parents who want you to double down on it, or do you actually find that, in the heart of Silicon Valley, it’s kind of the opposite?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Kip, do you have some AI-maxing parents who want you to double down on it, or do you actually find that, in the heart of Silicon Valley, it’s kind of the opposite?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> I’m going to say that we’re in the same situation as Tom is in. I think the more we think about student wellness and the pressure on our students, our parents are actually pretty reasonable in terms of what they think.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> I’m going to say that we’re in the same situation as Tom is in. I think the more we think about student wellness and the pressure on our students, our parents are actually pretty reasonable in terms of what they think.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think that’s the goal, right? Discernment. We talk a lot about that. If you’re going to use this tool correctly, you do need to go slow to go fast.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And I think that’s the goal, right? Discernment. We talk a lot about that. If you’re going to use this tool correctly, you do need to go slow to go fast.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The more we can involve our parent community in the conversation, because ultimately our goal is to support our students, whether the school is doing it, a teacher is doing it, or parents are doing it, the more grown-ups are having reasonable conversations, the better our students will be in the long run.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The more we can involve our parent community in the conversation, because ultimately our goal is to support our students, whether the school is doing it, a teacher is doing it, or parents are doing it, the more grown-ups are having reasonable conversations, the better our students will be in the long run.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s start bringing in some calls. We’ve had four phones going since the second we opened them. Allison in Berkeley, welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s start bringing in some calls. We’ve had four phones going since the second we opened them. Allison in Berkeley, welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Allison:\u003c/strong> Hi, thank you so much. Yes, I’m part of a parent group in Berkeley called Berkeley Unplugged, and we’re really interested in this and related topics. A lot of great points have been made, and I just wanted to sort of emphasize two of them.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Allison:\u003c/strong> Hi, thank you so much. Yes, I’m part of a parent group in Berkeley called Berkeley Unplugged, and we’re really interested in this and related topics. A lot of great points have been made, and I just wanted to sort of emphasize two of them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One is that, you know, I think when we’re talking about AI in schools, sometimes we lose sight of how AI is very different for a kid who is learning and whose brain is forming, who does not know how to do, for example, critical thinking, doesn’t know how to write yet. That’s very different from if you or I, as grown-ups, want to use AI.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>One is that, you know, I think when we’re talking about AI in schools, sometimes we lose sight of how AI is very different for a kid who is learning and whose brain is forming, who does not know how to do, for example, critical thinking, doesn’t know how to write yet. That’s very different from if you or I, as grown-ups, want to use AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think when we’re thinking about using AI, we should really think about it mindfully in school, so that we’re very cautious about kids so-called never-skilling and never learning how to do these things. I think that’s really, really dangerous.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think when we’re thinking about using AI, we should really think about it mindfully in school, so that we’re very cautious about kids so-called never-skilling and never learning how to do these things. I think that’s really, really dangerous.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The other point I just wanted to bring up is that teaching how to use AI appropriately is very different from allowing kids to just use AI for assignments and things like that and sort of skipping the whole process.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The other point I just wanted to bring up is that teaching how to use AI appropriately is very different from allowing kids to just use AI for assignments and things like that and sort of skipping the whole process.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Essentially, in some ways, it raises the opportunity for them, as was said, to skip the learning process. Big picture, what are we doing here? Kids are there to learn through iterative failure, essentially, and through challenge. AI allows them to bypass that, and I think that’s really dangerous. We need to keep that in mind.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Essentially, in some ways, it raises the opportunity for them, as was said, to skip the learning process. Big picture, what are we doing here? Kids are there to learn through iterative failure, essentially, and through challenge. AI allows them to bypass that, and I think that’s really dangerous. We need to keep that in mind.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Allison, great points. Let’s go to Jeremy Roschelle, our executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. What do you think about this concept of never-skilling and how to think about appropriate AI use or literacy at different ages?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Allison, great points. Let’s go to Jeremy Roschelle, our executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. What do you think about this concept of never-skilling and how to think about appropriate AI use or literacy at different ages?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for the question. And I love everything that Allison brought up about the developing brain, because that’s what learning science is all about.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for the question. And I love everything that Allison brought up about the developing brain, because that’s what learning science is all about.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think we have to be careful that AI is not all one thing. So let me give you two quick scenarios.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I think we have to be careful that AI is not all one thing. So let me give you two quick scenarios.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One: Allison was talking about kids’ ability to monitor what they’re doing as they’re using, for example, a chatbot to help them answer a question. If their brain isn’t fully developed, they may not be able to pull back and monitor their own learning and make sure they’re using it effectively.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>One: Allison was talking about kids’ ability to monitor what they’re doing as they’re using, for example, a chatbot to help them answer a question. If their brain isn’t fully developed, they may not be able to pull back and monitor their own learning and make sure they’re using it effectively.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Scenario number two: A child is learning to read and needs a lot of decoding support. An AI-based technology can listen to them read a real book, and when they miss a word, help them with the pronunciation of the syllables they missed.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Scenario number two: A child is learning to read and needs a lot of decoding support. An AI-based technology can listen to them read a real book, and when they miss a word, help them with the pronunciation of the syllables they missed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I don’t feel the developmental risk with the reading example, because it’s not an open-ended chatbot that’s answering questions. It’s skill training for how to decode words.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I don’t feel the developmental risk with the reading example, because it’s not an open-ended chatbot that’s answering questions. It’s skill training for how to decode words.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So AI is many different things. It can be used in different ways, and we have to analyze the use case, not the technology.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So AI is many different things. It can be used in different ways, and we have to analyze the use case, not the technology.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. MacKenzie Price, what do you think about our Berkeley listener Allison worrying about skipping the learning process?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. MacKenzie Price, what do you think about our Berkeley listener Allison worrying about skipping the learning process?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> I think it is a very valid concern. We have to make sure that AI does not enable children to outsource thinking. In fact, making sure kids get knowledge into their brains is more important than ever.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> I think it is a very valid concern. We have to make sure that AI does not enable children to outsource thinking. In fact, making sure kids get knowledge into their brains is more important than ever.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Teaching students how to build the skill of learning how to learn is absolutely critical. Not only do we need to make sure that our academic rigor is as high as ever, but we now have the opportunity to make it even better because of personalized education.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Teaching students how to build the skill of learning how to learn is absolutely critical. Not only do we need to make sure that our academic rigor is as high as ever, but we now have the opportunity to make it even better because of personalized education.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We also have to teach our students how to use these AI tools in ways that allow them to be creators and contributors, not consumers and not outsourcers.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We also have to teach our students how to use these AI tools in ways that allow them to be creators and contributors, not consumers and not outsourcers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What access to tools do they have in your classroom? Do they just have your platform, or can they have Claude running on the side?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What access to tools do they have in your classroom? Do they just have your platform, or can they have Claude running on the side?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> No, they definitely can’t. In fact, in the morning, what we often tell our students is, if they’re using AI in the morning, they’re probably cheating. And if they’re not using AI in the afternoon, they’re probably missing out on some sort of learning opportunity.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> No, they definitely can’t. In fact, in the morning, what we often tell our students is, if they’re using AI in the morning, they’re probably cheating. And if they’re not using AI in the afternoon, they’re probably missing out on some sort of learning opportunity.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>During that two-hour core learning block, the AI is really operating behind the scenes, simply assessing and understanding what lesson to put in front of a student. Our schools do not use chatbots. Chatbots in school are cheap bots, and they are not something that you should have in school.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>During that two-hour core learning block, the AI is really operating behind the scenes, simply assessing and understanding what lesson to put in front of a student. Our schools do not use chatbots. Chatbots in school are cheap bots, and they are not something that you should have in school.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I do like the direction that so many schools around the country are taking, which is, if they don’t know how to use AI well, then don’t give kids unfettered access to it.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I do like the direction that so many schools around the country are taking, which is, if they don’t know how to use AI well, then don’t give kids unfettered access to it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>However, what we see in the afternoons, as we’re helping students build the skills to be adaptable, become experts, and learn how to learn, is that it’s great to give them supervised access to some of these incredible tools.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>However, what we see in the afternoons, as we’re helping students build the skills to be adaptable, become experts, and learn how to learn, is that it’s great to give them supervised access to some of these incredible tools.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We see middle school and high school students building businesses using things like Claude, turning profits and making significant amounts of money on a regular basis. We also see kids taking their passions for art and music and using what they’ve built naturally to expand and grow using technology.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We see middle school and high school students building businesses using things like Claude, turning profits and making significant amounts of money on a regular basis. We also see kids taking their passions for art and music and using what they’ve built naturally to expand and grow using technology.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think that’s a skill that’s going to be so important for our young people to have when they go out into the world, because we’re no longer in a situation where everything we need to know we’ve learned by the time we graduate college.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think that’s a skill that’s going to be so important for our young people to have when they go out into the world, because we’re no longer in a situation where everything we need to know we’ve learned by the time we graduate college.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we give our students a lot of opportunities to get to know how to use these tools well and go from there. But, you know, I enjoy thoughtful dialogue like what we’re having, because you do have to make sure it’s done right. Having technology in a classroom for technology’s sake is not the right thing to do.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So we give our students a lot of opportunities to get to know how to use these tools well and go from there. But, you know, I enjoy thoughtful dialogue like what we’re having, because you do have to make sure it’s done right. Having technology in a classroom for technology’s sake is not the right thing to do.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think it’s part of why we’ve seen a major degradation in the quality of our education. So I appreciate what this mom and the group have said around doing that, but we’ve got to make sure that screen time is done intelligently. We have an incredible opportunity with AI when it’s done the right way.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I think it’s part of why we’ve seen a major degradation in the quality of our education. So I appreciate what this mom and the group have said around doing that, but we’ve got to make sure that screen time is done intelligently. We have an incredible opportunity with AI when it’s done the right way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m going to just give a couple of representative parent comments here coming in.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m going to just give a couple of representative parent comments here coming in.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Mark writes, “I have four kids under seven. Let’s teach our kids how to use these tools! Too much Luddite fearmongering out there. The future is bright for our kids.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Mark writes, “I have four kids under seven. Let’s teach our kids how to use these tools! Too much Luddite fearmongering out there. The future is bright for our kids.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Alex writes on Discord, “I really don’t think schools need to adapt to AI because using AI doesn’t require any skills that are new. Being a good reader, communicator, and critical thinker are what makes you good with AI. The best way to learn these things is the old-school ways of being forced to think for yourself and struggle. Paper problem sets, tons of book reading, written or oral exams. AI is what you use when you don’t care to deeply learn much from your process, and the neurological research reflects this.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Alex writes on Discord, “I really don’t think schools need to adapt to AI because using AI doesn’t require any skills that are new. Being a good reader, communicator, and critical thinker are what makes you good with AI. The best way to learn these things is the old-school ways of being forced to think for yourself and struggle. Paper problem sets, tons of book reading, written or oral exams. AI is what you use when you don’t care to deeply learn much from your process, and the neurological research reflects this.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Obviously, a lot of strong feelings about this particular topic out there. We’d love to hear yours. How is AI showing up in your kid’s classroom? What are your questions or concerns about this new era of learning?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Obviously, a lot of strong feelings about this particular topic out there. We’d love to hear yours. How is AI showing up in your kid’s classroom? What are your questions or concerns about this new era of learning?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Teachers, if you’re out there, we’d love to hear your thoughts as well on how AI is changing how you teach or how your students learn. You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email is forum@kqed.org. And you can find us on social media: Bluesky, Instagram, or Discord, at KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Teachers, if you’re out there, we’d love to hear your thoughts as well on how AI is changing how you teach or how your students learn. You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email is forum@kqed.org. And you can find us on social media: Bluesky, Instagram, or Discord, at KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We are, of course, talking about AI in the classroom, and we are joined by a big panel here. MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. We’ve got Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra up in El Cerrito. We’ve got Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. And, of course, we have two educators: Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School and author of \u003cem>Ready to Lead with AI: A Practical Guide for School Leaders\u003c/em>, and Daniel Herman, a humanities teacher at Maybeck High School and faculty associate at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We are, of course, talking about AI in the classroom, and we are joined by a big panel here. MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. We’ve got Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra up in El Cerrito. We’ve got Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. And, of course, we have two educators: Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School and author of \u003cem>Ready to Lead with AI: A Practical Guide for School Leaders\u003c/em>, and Daniel Herman, a humanities teacher at Maybeck High School and faculty associate at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with a great panel. We’ve got Maybeck High School’s Daniel Herman, Mountain View High School’s Kip Glazer, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise Jeremy Roschelle, MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools, and Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with a great panel. We’ve got Maybeck High School’s Daniel Herman, Mountain View High School’s Kip Glazer, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise Jeremy Roschelle, MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools, and Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We are, of course, talking about AI in schools and all of the challenges and opportunities that it’s presenting. Let’s bring in some more callers. So let’s go to Megan T. in San Francisco. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We are, of course, talking about AI in schools and all of the challenges and opportunities that it’s presenting. Let’s bring in some more callers. So let’s go to Megan T. in San Francisco. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Megan T.:\u003c/strong> Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for this conversation. I work at the Exploratorium, and we’ve worked to empower teachers to transform classrooms for a long time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Megan T.:\u003c/strong> Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for this conversation. I work at the Exploratorium, and we’ve worked to empower teachers to transform classrooms for a long time.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I love the question “What are we doing here?” That’s one of the right questions. I agree with some of the guests that there’s an exciting opportunity here. But I don’t think it’s about personalization or even whether or not we use AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I love the question “What are we doing here?” That’s one of the right questions. I agree with some of the guests that there’s an exciting opportunity here. But I don’t think it’s about personalization or even whether or not we use AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think if we’re going to keep bringing humans together in classroom spaces every day, we better be sure what we’re doing with those humans and bringing them together for reasons that matter.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think if we’re going to keep bringing humans together in classroom spaces every day, we better be sure what we’re doing with those humans and bringing them together for reasons that matter.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m curious what folks think the purpose of the classroom should be next in an era of AI, but also climate change and societal change. I’ll take my answers off the air.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Megan T., thanks so much. And we’ve got to go to our teacher here, Daniel Herman.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Megan T., thanks so much. And we’ve got to go to our teacher here, Daniel Herman.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> What’s it all about? I don’t know. I mean, I guess I’ll say I’m really skeptical about learning for learning’s sake. Teaching somebody the orthodox view of an Emily Dickinson poem — I don’t really believe there’s any inherent value there. The point is to have a meaningful connection to the subject, whatever it is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> What’s it all about? I don’t know. I mean, I guess I’ll say I’m really skeptical about learning for learning’s sake. Teaching somebody the orthodox view of an Emily Dickinson poem — I don’t really believe there’s any inherent value there. The point is to have a meaningful connection to the subject, whatever it is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Writing is really sort of the crucible where this happens. Five years ago, I would have told you that writing is an absolutely essential skill, uncompromisable, that everybody needs to know how to write. Now I would say that writing is a tool. It’s a technology itself, a powerful, wonderful, liberative technology, but really just a way to grapple with complex ideas and organize our thinking.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Writing is really sort of the crucible where this happens. Five years ago, I would have told you that writing is an absolutely essential skill, uncompromisable, that everybody needs to know how to write. Now I would say that writing is a tool. It’s a technology itself, a powerful, wonderful, liberative technology, but really just a way to grapple with complex ideas and organize our thinking.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In most of my classes, we spend most of our time writing together, writing in spiral notebooks, me included, and then sharing our writing around the table. They can take that writing home and use it to write something bigger.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In most of my classes, we spend most of our time writing together, writing in spiral notebooks, me included, and then sharing our writing around the table. They can take that writing home and use it to write something bigger.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>At the same time, can I tell my students that in this age of TikTok and Instagram Reels, crafting an immaculate paragraph is as beneficial as being able to do video editing? Especially, I think about Zoran Mamdani’s short-form content. Can I tell them that being able to write, rather than make a beautiful video, is the best way to affect meaningful change in the world? I’m not sure that I can tell them either.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>At the same time, can I tell my students that in this age of TikTok and Instagram Reels, crafting an immaculate paragraph is as beneficial as being able to do video editing? Especially, I think about Zoran Mamdani’s short-form content. Can I tell them that being able to write, rather than make a beautiful video, is the best way to affect meaningful change in the world? I’m not sure that I can tell them either.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Can I add to that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, go ahead, Tom.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, go ahead, Tom.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> I would just say that, specifically in my school, we’re very focused on human-to-human connection. So if you put aside learning for a moment and ask what a classroom looks like in the age of AI, what’s really important to us is teaching our kids self-awareness, empathy, and connection.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> I would just say that, specifically in my school, we’re very focused on human-to-human connection. So if you put aside learning for a moment and ask what a classroom looks like in the age of AI, what’s really important to us is teaching our kids self-awareness, empathy, and connection.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>AI has got nothing to do with that. It’s all about adults and children being in a room together, connecting, and learning to be good humans.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think when we define learning as acquiring knowledge into your brain, we’re missing the foundational understanding of learning. Learning has always been social. It will remain social.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think when we define learning as acquiring knowledge into your brain, we’re missing the foundational understanding of learning. Learning has always been social. It will remain social.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So what is a classroom supposed to be for? That’s the question I ask myself, as well as my students. What problem are we trying to solve, and for whom are we doing this? Just because we could doesn’t mean that we should. Knowing the difference really is human, and we have to lean into it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So what is a classroom supposed to be for? That’s the question I ask myself, as well as my students. What problem are we trying to solve, and for whom are we doing this? Just because we could doesn’t mean that we should. Knowing the difference really is human, and we have to lean into it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This conversation about how we effectively improve learning is important, because no one wants to sit around and feel like they’re wasting time. But that brain rest, and what we think of as play, is where our students and children can really thrive.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This conversation about how we effectively improve learning is important, because no one wants to sit around and feel like they’re wasting time. But that brain rest, and what we think of as play, is where our students and children can really thrive.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I would ask all the adults who are trying to push our kids to be the version that we wish we had: we were different. We were slower. We were more playful. And I think our students are screaming for it. That’s why we have such a crisis with mental health and emotional dysregulation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I would ask all the adults who are trying to push our kids to be the version that we wish we had: we were different. We were slower. We were more playful. And I think our students are screaming for it. That’s why we have such a crisis with mental health and emotional dysregulation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>If we want our students to be healthier, happier adults, then we also need to have some self-reflection about what we’re pushing toward.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I really think that point about knowledge being social, too, is such a — I mean, obviously, in this job, you learn a ton, but you learn it in this very particular way of talking with all these people. Over time, the web of knowledge that you have is embedded with all these people across the whole community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I really think that point about knowledge being social, too, is such a — I mean, obviously, in this job, you learn a ton, but you learn it in this very particular way of talking with all these people. Over time, the web of knowledge that you have is embedded with all these people across the whole community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s a lot easier to remember stuff when you know who said it, why they said it, and the context of that person, rather than, you know, I read one sentence in a backgrounder that Claude created.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s a lot easier to remember stuff when you know who said it, why they said it, and the context of that person, rather than, you know, I read one sentence in a backgrounder that Claude created.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Let’s bring in Patricia in Redwood City. Welcome, Patricia.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Patricia:\u003c/strong> Hello. So, yeah, I’m a retired teacher, and I found in the last year or two I was teaching that more and more students were using AI to write their bibliographies for them. But they couldn’t tell the difference between whether it was correct or not, because they had never really taken the time to learn how to do it themselves.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Patricia:\u003c/strong> Hello. So, yeah, I’m a retired teacher, and I found in the last year or two I was teaching that more and more students were using AI to write their bibliographies for them. But they couldn’t tell the difference between whether it was correct or not, because they had never really taken the time to learn how to do it themselves.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I felt like one way of dealing with AI in the classroom is simply to highlight its deficiencies, or its limitations.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I felt like one way of dealing with AI in the classroom is simply to highlight its deficiencies, or its limitations.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We had contests where we would divide up the class, half using AI and half using physical books, and there was a time limit. I flashed the name of a book on the screen, and the first team to feel confident that they had a correct bibliographic entry would put it on the board.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We had contests where we would divide up the class, half using AI and half using physical books, and there was a time limit. I flashed the name of a book on the screen, and the first team to feel confident that they had a correct bibliographic entry would put it on the board.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And guess which team always won? It was the team using the books, because they actually took the time to get it correct from the book that was being used, whereas the AI team always had something that was not accurate.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And guess which team always won? It was the team using the books, because they actually took the time to get it correct from the book that was being used, whereas the AI team always had something that was not accurate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> When were you doing this, Patricia?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> When were you doing this, Patricia?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Patricia:\u003c/strong> This was only just two or three years ago.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Patricia:\u003c/strong> This was only just two or three years ago.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> God, I would love to — I want you to rerun it. I want to rerun it. Patricia, what an exercise. What a fun exercise and an interesting exercise.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> God, I would love to — I want you to rerun it. I want to rerun it. Patricia, what an exercise. What a fun exercise and an interesting exercise.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The thing that it makes me think of, actually, is when AI companies are testing these tools, they do this thing called red-teaming. They’ll literally do exactly what you’re talking about, but they’ll tell the teams, “Try and go do something bad.” What they’re looking for is uplift.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The thing that it makes me think of, actually, is when AI companies are testing these tools, they do this thing called red-teaming. They’ll literally do exactly what you’re talking about, but they’ll tell the teams, “Try and go do something bad.” What they’re looking for is uplift.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>If you want to build some bomb thing, you could find sources in libraries and on the internet that could help you do that, or you could use AI to try to do that as well. They try to look for the delta between the two teams. If a model is too good at helping them do something bad, then they try to —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>If you want to build some bomb thing, you could find sources in libraries and on the internet that could help you do that, or you could use AI to try to do that as well. They try to look for the delta between the two teams. If a model is too good at helping them do something bad, then they try to —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So you kind of came up with the red-team exercise for your students, which I love.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So you kind of came up with the red-team exercise for your students, which I love.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One thing I wanted to come to on this, Daniel, is: What do we do with technology that’s evolving really quickly? Because I love that this happened for Patricia and her students, and they were able to identify some of these problems. But if we look at how things are going, maybe now, maybe in 2030, the students using AI will probably start to win. Then what do you do?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>One thing I wanted to come to on this, Daniel, is: What do we do with technology that’s evolving really quickly? Because I love that this happened for Patricia and her students, and they were able to identify some of these problems. But if we look at how things are going, maybe now, maybe in 2030, the students using AI will probably start to win. Then what do you do?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s really been wild over the past four years to travel around and talk to teachers around the country. Teachers are a defensive group, and we do things a particular way, and we have every reason to want to continue doing things that way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s really been wild over the past four years to travel around and talk to teachers around the country. Teachers are a defensive group, and we do things a particular way, and we have every reason to want to continue doing things that way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’ve definitely noticed, over the years, teachers again and again trying to plant their flag in something that they want to be stable, and then the sand just slips away underneath them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’ve definitely noticed, over the years, teachers again and again trying to plant their flag in something that they want to be stable, and then the sand just slips away underneath them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Immediately after ChatGPT was released, I saw a lot of teachers saying, “Well, it can’t even write well.” And then a couple of years later, “Now it can write well.” They say, “Well, it can’t even do research,” or “It can’t even integrate quotes,” or “It can’t do MLA citations.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Immediately after ChatGPT was released, I saw a lot of teachers saying, “Well, it can’t even write well.” And then a couple of years later, “Now it can write well.” They say, “Well, it can’t even do research,” or “It can’t even integrate quotes,” or “It can’t do MLA citations.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We have every reason to believe that every single bar we establish that it can’t jump over is going to be something we have to rethink. It’s about being flexible in our thinking and being willing to let go of something.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We have every reason to believe that every single bar we establish that it can’t jump over is going to be something we have to rethink. It’s about being flexible in our thinking and being willing to let go of something.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Now, I’m sure I’m going to make a lot of enemies out there, but I’m going to pick one stupid example, and that’s apostrophes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Every English teacher will know you’ll get a student in September, and they struggle using apostrophes properly. You show them in September, and you show them in December, and you show them in February, and you show them in May, and it’s hard, you know? I mean, it’s really complicated. When it’s plural, it’s different. And apostrophes are just this made-up thing. It’s this little squiggle mark.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Every English teacher will know you’ll get a student in September, and they struggle using apostrophes properly. You show them in September, and you show them in December, and you show them in February, and you show them in May, and it’s hard, you know? I mean, it’s really complicated. When it’s plural, it’s different. And apostrophes are just this made-up thing. It’s this little squiggle mark.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Then, to go back to Emily Dickinson, they read an Emily Dickinson poem, and she uses them in all kinds of weird ways.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Then, to go back to Emily Dickinson, they read an Emily Dickinson poem, and she uses them in all kinds of weird ways.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, for me, if a student wants to take their essay and put it into Claude and say, “Make sure my apostrophes are perfect,” and they never have to think about it again, and I never have to think about it again, fine.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, for me, if a student wants to take their essay and put it into Claude and say, “Make sure my apostrophes are perfect,” and they never have to think about it again, and I never have to think about it again, fine.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m way more concerned with what Kip is talking about, and about empathy, and listening to people who we disagree with, and people bringing their ideas, experiences, and beliefs, and finding a way to be together with other human beings. That’s way more important than apostrophes or, forgive me, MLA citations.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m way more concerned with what Kip is talking about, and about empathy, and listening to people who we disagree with, and people bringing their ideas, experiences, and beliefs, and finding a way to be together with other human beings. That’s way more important than apostrophes or, forgive me, MLA citations.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> A really interesting comment here. Nina writes, “I remember when people were debating whether children should be able to use calculators in school. The calculators won.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> A really interesting comment here. Nina writes, “I remember when people were debating whether children should be able to use calculators in school. The calculators won.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So you think you know where this comment is going. Plot twist: “And now we have generations of people who can’t do simple arithmetic in their heads. For example, have you ever tried to cashier why the bill is wrong? They don’t have the basic math skills.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So you think you know where this comment is going. Plot twist: “And now we have generations of people who can’t do simple arithmetic in their heads. For example, have you ever tried to cashier why the bill is wrong? They don’t have the basic math skills.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The question there for me is, was it wrong to introduce the calculator into the classroom or not? I think most people would argue it’s OK to use calculators, given that adults use calculators.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The question there for me is, was it wrong to introduce the calculator into the classroom or not? I think most people would argue it’s OK to use calculators, given that adults use calculators.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But what do you think, Jeremy? When a new technology comes into play that can obviate the need to learn some skill, how do we say, “You must learn it anyway,” or “You shouldn’t have to learn it”? What’s your take on that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But what do you think, Jeremy? When a new technology comes into play that can obviate the need to learn some skill, how do we say, “You must learn it anyway,” or “You shouldn’t have to learn it”? What’s your take on that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, graphing calculators are something we actually have a tremendous amount of evidence on, so I feel really happy right now, because it’s research that speaks to this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, graphing calculators are something we actually have a tremendous amount of evidence on, so I feel really happy right now, because it’s research that speaks to this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Look, a great thing about that technology was that a good teacher could say, “Kids, calculators down. We’re learning basic math skills now.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Look, a great thing about that technology was that a good teacher could say, “Kids, calculators down. We’re learning basic math skills now.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But take another scenario. Suppose you’re trying to learn what the slope of a graph means, and your alternative is pulling out graph paper, tediously plotting point by point, getting out a ruler, and drawing a line through it. By the time you go through all the steps, you’ve forgotten what you’re trying to do.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But take another scenario. Suppose you’re trying to learn what the slope of a graph means, and your alternative is pulling out graph paper, tediously plotting point by point, getting out a ruler, and drawing a line through it. By the time you go through all the steps, you’ve forgotten what you’re trying to do.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Whereas with a graphing calculator, you can see that slope shift as you change the equation you’re working with. That’s invaluable to kids’ understanding of the meaning of slope.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Whereas with a graphing calculator, you can see that slope shift as you change the equation you’re working with. That’s invaluable to kids’ understanding of the meaning of slope.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I just think about how we design and implement the learning activities. And, again, we need educators, we need teachers who are prepared to hold the line. What are we trying to learn right now? Is it a basic skill? Put away the technology. Is it something where cognitive offloading is actually useful because it’s lower-level and we want to focus at a higher level right now? Go ahead, use the technology.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I just think about how we design and implement the learning activities. And, again, we need educators, we need teachers who are prepared to hold the line. What are we trying to learn right now? Is it a basic skill? Put away the technology. Is it something where cognitive offloading is actually useful because it’s lower-level and we want to focus at a higher level right now? Go ahead, use the technology.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We have some comments coming from parents that I think get at the real dilemmas of this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We have some comments coming from parents that I think get at the real dilemmas of this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Leah writes, “Managing technology is the single worst part of modern parenting. AI is not hard to learn. Why do we need to teach it to our students? Learning how to learn is the point of education. Why do we want to make everything easy? If our kids learn that answers are at their fingertips at all times, they also won’t know how to struggle through non-technology parts of life, like learning how to knit, or work out, or master a sport. Isn’t that the point of a growth mindset?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Leah writes, “Managing technology is the single worst part of modern parenting. AI is not hard to learn. Why do we need to teach it to our students? Learning how to learn is the point of education. Why do we want to make everything easy? If our kids learn that answers are at their fingertips at all times, they also won’t know how to struggle through non-technology parts of life, like learning how to knit, or work out, or master a sport. Isn’t that the point of a growth mindset?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Daniel in San Mateo, somewhat relatedly, says, “What about the simple fact that since the proliferation of screens and tech in classrooms, growing evidence that AI degrades critical thinking, student attention disorders are up, and test scores are down? Why shouldn’t those results speak for themselves?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Daniel in San Mateo, somewhat relatedly, says, “What about the simple fact that since the proliferation of screens and tech in classrooms, growing evidence that AI degrades critical thinking, student attention disorders are up, and test scores are down? Why shouldn’t those results speak for themselves?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Tom, are these some of the things you’ve been trying to think about as someone who’s considering the overall package of technology that kids are presented with? How do you help parents with “tech is the single worst part of modern parenting,” which I don’t disagree with?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Tom, are these some of the things you’ve been trying to think about as someone who’s considering the overall package of technology that kids are presented with? How do you help parents with “tech is the single worst part of modern parenting,” which I don’t disagree with?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, what do you do? I think a few things. My first response is that the really simplistic answer to both of those isn’t — it’s not about if you use AI; it’s about how you use it as a student, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, what do you do? I think a few things. My first response is that the really simplistic answer to both of those isn’t — it’s not about if you use AI; it’s about how you use it as a student, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think, Jeremy, you could probably speak to this better than me, and maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that the evidence is coming out that if you teach a kid how to explore the subject they’re trying to learn using an AI tool, they can actually learn more than they might have without the tool. Versus if you give a kid AI and just let them find the answers, they’re not learning anything.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think, Jeremy, you could probably speak to this better than me, and maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that the evidence is coming out that if you teach a kid how to explore the subject they’re trying to learn using an AI tool, they can actually learn more than they might have without the tool. Versus if you give a kid AI and just let them find the answers, they’re not learning anything.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, not if, but how.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Possibly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, Katie in Martinez writes, “Will AI need to follow the path of media literacy, although I’m not sure media literacy worked out well? But how to interpret it, how to use it, how to understand critical thinking skills.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Possibly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, Katie in Martinez writes, “Will AI need to follow the path of media literacy, although I’m not sure media literacy worked out well? But how to interpret it, how to use it, how to understand critical thinking skills.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Is that kind of where you’re headed at your school? At a high level, you think?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we have an AI scale from zero to four, where zero means no AI and four means complete automation, with everything in between. We’re trying to be a little more intentional and focused on how we want to see the behaviors of the students.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we have an AI scale from zero to four, where zero means no AI and four means complete automation, with everything in between. We’re trying to be a little more intentional and focused on how we want to see the behaviors of the students.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think good, sound pedagogy, being able to know when to jump in and when to back off, is really important.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think good, sound pedagogy, being able to know when to jump in and when to back off, is really important.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Teachers today may not have the opportunity or even access, because we’re conflating exposure with expertise and exposure alone. The conversation around AI is that if you’ve used it once, then you already know how to use it as an expert.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Teachers today may not have the opportunity or even access, because we’re conflating exposure with expertise and exposure alone. The conversation around AI is that if you’ve used it once, then you already know how to use it as an expert.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But we all know as educators that experimentation and experience have to be in the middle to really get to the expertise level. We have to be patient with ourselves as well as our students, to be able to provide that opportunity. I think educators now, more than ever before, have that responsibility and calling to do that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But we all know as educators that experimentation and experience have to be in the middle to really get to the expertise level. We have to be patient with ourselves as well as our students, to be able to provide that opportunity. I think educators now, more than ever before, have that responsibility and calling to do that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Danny — it’s funny. I mean, I think my experience at a small, progressive, independent high school in Berkeley is maybe pretty different from Mountain View, where, you know, it’s been a while to see how right-wing-coded so much of AI has become, and the movement against data centers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Danny — it’s funny. I mean, I think my experience at a small, progressive, independent high school in Berkeley is maybe pretty different from Mountain View, where, you know, it’s been a while to see how right-wing-coded so much of AI has become, and the movement against data centers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There’s a vocal group at my school — I’m not sure if it’s a plurality or a majority, but it’s definitely vocal — that holds that there is simply no ethical use of AI, period. So it’s definitely been, at my school at least, student-led or student-driven.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There’s a vocal group at my school — I’m not sure if it’s a plurality or a majority, but it’s definitely vocal — that holds that there is simply no ethical use of AI, period. So it’s definitely been, at my school at least, student-led or student-driven.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> A listener writes in to say, “I hope we can keep the focus on the fact that, moral or not, helpful or not, the future of tech or not, AI is absolutely devastating the planet and accelerating climate change at an unheard-of rate.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> A listener writes in to say, “I hope we can keep the focus on the fact that, moral or not, helpful or not, the future of tech or not, AI is absolutely devastating the planet and accelerating climate change at an unheard-of rate.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We also have another person saying, Martha in Menlo Park: “Reading and thinking is not screen scrolling. Back to books.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We also have another person saying, Martha in Menlo Park: “Reading and thinking is not screen scrolling. Back to books.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Marjorie writes, “I’ve always been a tech skeptic. What do you do today with elementary kids who have parents who want to limit screen time, favoring more tactile opportunities, and don’t want their kids spending hours each day using screens at school?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Marjorie writes, “I’ve always been a tech skeptic. What do you do today with elementary kids who have parents who want to limit screen time, favoring more tactile opportunities, and don’t want their kids spending hours each day using screens at school?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And this is maybe the comment that gets at what I’ve heard a lot from my kids. Ambrosia writes, “My son is a sophomore in high school, a straight-A student, and really is all in and loves school. He’s very frustrated with one of his classes because the teacher is obviously using AI in her lesson plans. She has disclosed that to the students. He has noticed some errors in the lessons and is not only concerned he isn’t learning anything, he is also upset about the double standard. The messaging has been very clear that students can’t use AI because it’s cheating. And now he has a social science class with a curriculum streaked with slop.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And this is maybe the comment that gets at what I’ve heard a lot from my kids. Ambrosia writes, “My son is a sophomore in high school, a straight-A student, and really is all in and loves school. He’s very frustrated with one of his classes because the teacher is obviously using AI in her lesson plans. She has disclosed that to the students. He has noticed some errors in the lessons and is not only concerned he isn’t learning anything, he is also upset about the double standard. The messaging has been very clear that students can’t use AI because it’s cheating. And now he has a social science class with a curriculum streaked with slop.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>How should high school be handling AI? I love it. We’re coming to the end of the discussion. Unfortunately, we probably could do four and a half hours on this. It’s been so interesting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>How should high school be handling AI? I love it. We’re coming to the end of the discussion. Unfortunately, we probably could do four and a half hours on this. It’s been so interesting.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’ve been joined by Daniel Herman, humanities teacher at Maybeck High School. Thank you, Daniel.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You should check out his essays in The Atlantic on this if you’re interested. We’ve been joined by Kip Glazer, principal of Mountain View High School. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You should check out his essays in The Atlantic on this if you’re interested. We’ve been joined by Kip Glazer, principal of Mountain View High School. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra. Thank you very much. And MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. Thank you so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra. Thank you very much. And MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. Thank you so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Also, thank you so, so much to all of our callers and listeners. We really appreciate it when you come in on a show like that and bring your best thoughts.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Also, thank you so, so much to all of our callers and listeners. We really appreciate it when you come in on a show like that and bring your best thoughts.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Monday, October 26, 2026 at 9 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Artificial intelligence has long entered the classroom and is rapidly changing how students learn and teachers teach. Some schools are embracing AI and personalized learning tools, while others are pulling back on technology in the classroom. Meanwhile, students are increasingly turning to chatbots to help with assignments, raising concerns about what happens to critical thinking, reading, and writing skills when AI does the work for them. Can schools harness the benefits of AI without compromising students’ learning? We’ll talk with educators and researchers about how AI is reshaping the classroom, what it means for students’ development, and how schools and parents are navigating this new era of education.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman,\u003c/strong> humanities teacher, Maybeck High School; wrote about teaching English in the age of ChatGPT for \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/openai-chatgpt-writing-high-school-english-essay/672412/\">The Atlantic\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle, \u003c/strong>executive director of learning sciences research, Digital Promise\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer,\u003c/strong> principal, Mountain View High School\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price,\u003c/strong> co-founder, Alpha Schools\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook,\u003c/strong> director of technology, Prospect Sierra School\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Current-day generative AI models can write just about everything, and we really haven’t wrapped our heads around having machines that can write. Some of us are ignoring this new reality or finding ways to minimize the power of these models. Others are enthusiastic or overenthusiastic adopters, happy to be done with one of life’s chores or delighted not to have to write in a second or third language.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For professional writers, there’s a lot of well-founded fear and anger, and maybe in some people, a dark tingle of excitement. But what about the educators who are supposed to teach our children? Children who, after all, are often tested via writing assignments that any model could ace in 10 seconds. How is the task of teaching different in this new world? And how should school administrators respond?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re joined first by two educators, a teacher and a principal. Daniel Herman is a humanities teacher at Maybeck High School in Berkeley and a faculty associate at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking, who has written a couple of great essays about teaching English in the age of ChatGPT for The Atlantic. Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, Daniel. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And we’ve got Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School, author of \u003cem>Ready to Lead with AI: A Practical Guide for School Leaders\u003c/em>. Welcome. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, Daniel, I went back to the essay you wrote shortly after the launch of ChatGPT. You wrote this essay, “The End of High School English,” and it raised a lot of questions about the future of teaching writing in high school classrooms. So, four years later, how has AI actually changed things in your classroom, and what are you seeing from students?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> In many ways, very little has changed. My classroom remains pretty much the way that it’s always been. I remain committed to the idea that the classroom is a sacred space. bell hooks, I think, referred to it as a location of possibility. It’s a place where people come together to figure out a problem, explore an idea, hear different perspectives, and make meaning together, and where there’s a teacher who can model the behaviors, intellectual and otherwise, that they want their students to emulate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s when we turn to assessments that things can get a little dicey. So I’ve definitely had to go back and recalibrate or reassess all the things that I ask my students to do, not to make them AI-proof in the sense of preventing them from cheating, but really making sure that the things I’m asking them to do are in line with this new reality, where there is this computer that can do so many of the things that we used to assume students had to know how to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I’ve definitely encouraged my students’ writing to be way weirder than I ever did before, but overall —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> My emails have gotten that way, too. Sorry for everyone out there. You’ve got to prove you really did it, you know?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Overall, I’d say that it’s a question of emphasizing process over product. So instead of writing a research paper, maybe we’re doing research presentations where we’re sharing our learning together, or an interview project, but showing that we’re thinking on the page and really grappling with a problem.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It also really feels like, for you, the introduction of these models has been a catalyst for thinking about the differences between what it is to think, what it is to learn, and what it is to assess that someone has learned. That seems to be how you’ve taken it as a prompt.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Totally. My rule of thumb, and this is maybe a little bit controversial, is that AI is actually pretty useful for learning, but terrible for thinking. I think the thing that took me a while to really figure out is that, for a 16-year-old, thinking for themselves does not go without saying. It really, in many ways, can come to the teacher to inspire that inquisitive impulse and persuade them that that sort of thing teachers sometimes talk about as productive struggle is actually worth their time, rather than just getting the lowest-common-denominator response to a problem.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Kip, you’ve got a different set of challenges. You’re principal of Mountain View High School, in the heart of Silicon Valley. What does this look like at your school, with your educators and your students?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. I think, as a school leader, we want the student outcome to be what we desire it to be. And the environment sometimes doesn’t allow educators or school leaders to do what we know to be correct, because there’s so much noise around what is the right way to teach or what is the right outcome as a result of learning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our students are grappling with that. Some students actually say, “I don’t want to be defined as a cheater, so I’m going to never use this tool.” And that all-or-nothing thinking is, I think, really troubling for me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dan and I were talking about it a little bit. We need to really think about how, as adults, to sit in the middle of the messiness, as much as we want our students to do that. And how do we model that? It’s really a challenge when we ourselves don’t really know how to interact with this new reality.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s an interesting point. Daniel was talking about modeling the intellectual and other behaviors he wants to see in his students. So what is the right thing for teachers, then, to model in their use of AI? Or for administrators to model?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think about the identity threat, and I think that educators —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What do you mean by that? Spin that out a little bit for listeners.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. For the longest time, I think educators have felt this sense of responsibility to be the most educated and learned person who can guide the way for our students, who are trusting us to follow and go, “Where is that intellectual pursuit?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when there is a tool that can actually mimic that behavior, sometimes more sophisticatedly or more refined than we can, there has to be a way of feeling threatened in terms of how we’re supposed to show up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think some teachers’ way of dealing with it is to ban it all and say that we’re protecting ourselves in our insecurities or our struggles. Other teachers I see are able to share that they don’t know it all, and it’s OK for us to discover it together.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I see responses to that sort of honesty and vulnerability in two ways. Some students are actually embracing that, but other students are like, “When you don’t feel secure in what you know, how am I supposed to feel secure in how I’m supposed to follow?” Yeah, I’m supposed to follow. And I think there is a lot more work to be done in terms of how we emotionally support this transformation in our classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, Daniel, I have an East Bay 13-year-old who despises AI and is just like, “We’re destroying the world for this stupid technology.” What do you find with your East Bay teenage students about their relationship to this technology?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s funny. I mean, I don’t feel like there’s much curiosity about the technology. You know, this is just the world that they’ve inherited. They’re the ones who coined “AI slop.” This stuff has flooded their TikToks. This is their reality. This is the world they’re swimming in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I totally agree with everything that Kip says. We really have to make sure that this is a dialogue, and I really appreciate you mentioning vulnerability. I ask my students for honesty and transparency. I think we really need to take seriously that this technology is arriving in a world where our students, like all of us, are stretched thin in so many ways: busy and overwhelmed, mental health crises, the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And now there’s this magical tool that can do their homework for them, and we can’t blame them if some of them are tempted to use it. So I really ask my students to be open with me if they’re thinking about using it, because depending on the class, there are definitely ways that it can be useful to their thinking and their learning, and other ways that it entirely gets in the way of their thinking and learning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whether all my students have abided by that request, I can’t say, but it definitely has to be a conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Kip, what do you say to students who you find out are, in fact, using chatbots to do their homework? Or even, at this point, we’re not just talking about chatbots. They could be using agents to — I mean, you were talking before the show about a student who wrote an agent to go download the homework from Canva, do the homework in their own hand, their own handwriting, and then upload the assignment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At one level, you’re impressed, but in that kind of \u003cem>Ferris Bueller\u003c/em> way, where you’re like, “Oh, God, I can’t believe you did that.” Although, kind of impressive, but gah, I can’t believe you did it. So what do you do with a student like that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and that’s why I think what we’re defining as learning and how we’re assessing it has to be at the forefront of every conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think the AI slop, or accelerating assessment, happens because the current platform invites that, right? When you have these worksheets that are being mass-produced, students know that. And one of the things that I hear from my students is, “How come teachers can replicate or not even grade my work and use AI tools, but I’m not supposed to use it?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when you’re working with teenagers, it’s beautiful to hear. They can spot hypocrisy a mile away, and some of them, politely or not so politely, call that out. I think we have to be honest in terms of how we’re allowing our work to be accelerated and what that means for our students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the dangers of these tools is that we’re not invited or allowed to be present anymore. We’re always trying to accelerate. Faster and more is always better — to what end?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m getting emails from seventh graders wanting to know what they have to do now so that they can be successful in high school. Two years ahead, they’re really trying to plan ahead. On the one hand, I’m impressed, but on the other hand, this is the situation we’re creating. Acceleration to what end?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think that is actually also really dangerous because when you deeply learn something, you need to take the time and be patient with yourself, as much as the world, and we’re not allowing our students to have that moment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it just seems like a lot of kids take the task to be good at school, not to sort of learn, right? And I understand that. I remember being a kid and thinking that, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re talking about artificial intelligence in the classroom. We’re joined by Daniel Herman, humanities teacher at Maybeck High School. We also have Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School, and, of course, we want to invite you into the conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To parents: How is AI showing up in your kid’s classroom, or maybe just on your kid’s phone? What are your questions or concerns about this era of learning?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, you know, we know maybe there’s some teachers out there with a prep period. How is AI changing the way you teach, or how your students are approaching their learning?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Give us a call at 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Or email us at forum@kqed.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here. We’re talking about AI in the classroom, trying to move this conversation forward a little bit. I’m joined by Maybeck High School’s Daniel Herman and the principal at Mountain View High School, Kip Glazer.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re going to add a few other guests into the conversation here. We’ve got Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise and co-host of the \u003cem>Future Fluent\u003c/em> podcast. Welcome, Jeremy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Great to be here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for joining us. And we’ve got Tom Wadbrook, who’s director of technology at Prospect Sierra, a school in El Cerrito. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Thank you very much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Jeremy, your perspective as a learning scientist: What needs to happen for students to actually learn something? What do we know about that? And do you think that AI actually disrupts that ability for students to learn?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, great place to start. And I just love the focus on learning and not just on this technology. The antidote to too much technology is to talk more about learning. What do we want learning to be?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Daniel painted a great portrait of his classroom. The students are active. They’ve got something constructive that they’re working on together. They’re building knowledge as a group, and they’re social. Those are three absolutely critical ingredients to any successful learning environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Why is it, then, that I’m hearing that if students use AI, their brain function falls off? This seems to be a really serious concern of many educators and parents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, let’s go back to those three words. Look at what the students are doing. Are they active, for example, in solving the math problem? Or is it copy and paste, and it’s doing it for them? If their brain is not active, they’re not learning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Are they misdirecting time away from conversations with their peers and teachers to just be talking to a technology? Well, social interaction is falling by the wayside.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Kip brought up, you know, is it just trying to race to get done? Whereas Daniel brought up process, and that’s the constructive part. Are we paying enough attention to the learning process and kids actually making things? That’s how you learn. Or are they just racing to get an output?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. MacKenzie, at Alpha Schools, your model centers on two hours of academics a day using AI-powered learning tools. Do you see that as sort of a race to get done? Or how do you interpret what students are doing during those two hours? How do you guide them?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> I will tell you, I think there has never been a more exciting time to be a five-year-old. And I think what we’re seeing in education is seriously an incredible moment where we can finally allow students to get the individual, personalized attention that is impossible for even the best teacher to provide to 15, 20, or 25 students in a room.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that’s what we’re doing at Alpha. We’re using artificial intelligence to create personalized learning plans that are able to meet the student where they are, at the level they need to be.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a result, during the two hours in the morning that Alpha provides academic teaching, our students are able to learn twice as much as students who are sitting in a traditional school classroom for the majority of the day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it really is because of two things. Number one, receiving that one-to-one, personalized, mastery-based tutoring experience. But number two, and most important and critical, is that the adults in our classrooms, the teachers, are freed up to spend time on what only humans can do, which is connect with the students, mentor them, coach them, and provide that motivational support.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That’s why we’re seeing such incredible results, because we’ve finally freed up the adult in the classroom to do what they’re great at.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> MacKenzie, how do you evaluate that they’ve learned, quote, “twice as much” as other students?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> You know, it’s an amazing claim, and as a result, people are always wondering, “Well, how do we actually know this?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we use is NWEA math assessments, where we’re basically able to see an anticipated score that a student is expected to grow by in any given year. About 11 million students across the country take the math assessments, students from public, private, and home schools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we expect at Alpha is that our students’ RIT scores will go up twice as much as expected. So a student, let’s say, who’s in the 60th percentile in math in grade five, would be expected to go up three points over a given year. At Alpha, our commitment is that they’ll go up six points, and that’s what we’re seeing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Again, this is such a new time in education, and it’s so different from what we’ve known for the last 150 years: a teacher in front of a classroom, kind of an everyone-teaching-at-the-same-pace model.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s important that we be able to show these results. I think it’s part of what our parents appreciate: seeing that students are learning so much better, retaining information, and then, of course, having so much more time freed up in the day to focus on human development and life skills.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Tom Wadbrook, let’s talk about the direction that Prospect Sierra in El Cerrito is taking. It serves students from TK through eighth grade, so there’s a very different culture around the use of AI. What are you hearing from parents and teachers at the school as you try to figure out how to approach the role of AI in a TK-through-eighth-grade classroom?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I guess the first thing I would say is we have the luxury of being TK through eighth grade, not high school. We don’t have the same pressures, and so we can take it slower. But we really are taking it slowly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re very intentional as a school, very process-driven, and also collectively have quite a lot of, I wouldn’t say antipathy, but —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You’ve heard some things from parents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and teachers. I mean, to be honest, two or three years ago, when we first started talking about AI as a faculty, it was a frosty reception. I think part of that was fear of the unknown, and part of it is what you were alluding to earlier, Kip, which is, you know, what is my identity?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe we’ve moved on from fear and antipathy and indifference to some curiosity and exploration of AI in the classroom from our teachers, but there’s still a lot of indifference and quite a lot of antipathy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s some key context here, too, that I’ve heard you talk about, which is that during the pandemic, of course, everything went super digital. All the assignments were online. Everyone was on a Chromebook or an iPad or whatever.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How is Prospect Sierra thinking about the overall amount of technology that’s present in education, with AI sort of wedged in there or coming in like a meteor strike into that context?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, that’s great. If you put AI aside for a second, the pandemic happened, we put devices in every kid’s hands, we sent them home. It was a mixed bag at best, right? Everyone came back, and we kind of kept on doing the same thing for a year or two. Then we realized that that was not a good direction.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we’ve been on what we’re calling a tech rollback. We’re in year three now, maybe even year four. And it’s really just been incremental. We don’t let the iPads and laptops go home in fifth through seventh grade anymore. They stay in the classroom. They get used a lot more intentionally. We’ve dialed back all of the apps that might be on them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, yeah, we’re really trying to bring back down the level of technology that we’re using.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s a parent faction that’s saying, “Well, the kids already have access to all these tools. As adults, they’re going to have access to all these tools. We must teach them to double down, AI-max, because that’s the world they’re going to live in.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> We do. I mean, we have the full gamut, from “There shouldn’t be any AI” to “You should be doing absolutely everything you can in terms of teaching these kids to immerse themselves in AI.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we’re figuring out where we fit. As I said, we’re being very slow and very intentional about it. We’ve basically figured out that there are a few baseline things we need to do. We need to teach them about wellness and safety, academic integrity, so cheating, obviously, and to ignite — either when they’re using AI or when they’re consuming AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’ve kind of set that as our baseline. And so now the big question for us is how much more AI belongs in the classroom. Is it none? Do we follow the model of New York schools? Or is it all the way in?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s not going to be all the way in. It’s going to be somewhere nearer the New York model, I suspect, but that’s really the big question we’re facing today.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Kip, do you have some AI-maxing parents who want you to double down on it, or do you actually find that, in the heart of Silicon Valley, it’s kind of the opposite?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> I’m going to say that we’re in the same situation as Tom is in. I think the more we think about student wellness and the pressure on our students, our parents are actually pretty reasonable in terms of what they think.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think that’s the goal, right? Discernment. We talk a lot about that. If you’re going to use this tool correctly, you do need to go slow to go fast.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The more we can involve our parent community in the conversation, because ultimately our goal is to support our students, whether the school is doing it, a teacher is doing it, or parents are doing it, the more grown-ups are having reasonable conversations, the better our students will be in the long run.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s start bringing in some calls. We’ve had four phones going since the second we opened them. Allison in Berkeley, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Allison:\u003c/strong> Hi, thank you so much. Yes, I’m part of a parent group in Berkeley called Berkeley Unplugged, and we’re really interested in this and related topics. A lot of great points have been made, and I just wanted to sort of emphasize two of them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One is that, you know, I think when we’re talking about AI in schools, sometimes we lose sight of how AI is very different for a kid who is learning and whose brain is forming, who does not know how to do, for example, critical thinking, doesn’t know how to write yet. That’s very different from if you or I, as grown-ups, want to use AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think when we’re thinking about using AI, we should really think about it mindfully in school, so that we’re very cautious about kids so-called never-skilling and never learning how to do these things. I think that’s really, really dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The other point I just wanted to bring up is that teaching how to use AI appropriately is very different from allowing kids to just use AI for assignments and things like that and sort of skipping the whole process.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Essentially, in some ways, it raises the opportunity for them, as was said, to skip the learning process. Big picture, what are we doing here? Kids are there to learn through iterative failure, essentially, and through challenge. AI allows them to bypass that, and I think that’s really dangerous. We need to keep that in mind.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Allison, great points. Let’s go to Jeremy Roschelle, our executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. What do you think about this concept of never-skilling and how to think about appropriate AI use or literacy at different ages?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for the question. And I love everything that Allison brought up about the developing brain, because that’s what learning science is all about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think we have to be careful that AI is not all one thing. So let me give you two quick scenarios.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One: Allison was talking about kids’ ability to monitor what they’re doing as they’re using, for example, a chatbot to help them answer a question. If their brain isn’t fully developed, they may not be able to pull back and monitor their own learning and make sure they’re using it effectively.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scenario number two: A child is learning to read and needs a lot of decoding support. An AI-based technology can listen to them read a real book, and when they miss a word, help them with the pronunciation of the syllables they missed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don’t feel the developmental risk with the reading example, because it’s not an open-ended chatbot that’s answering questions. It’s skill training for how to decode words.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So AI is many different things. It can be used in different ways, and we have to analyze the use case, not the technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. MacKenzie Price, what do you think about our Berkeley listener Allison worrying about skipping the learning process?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> I think it is a very valid concern. We have to make sure that AI does not enable children to outsource thinking. In fact, making sure kids get knowledge into their brains is more important than ever.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Teaching students how to build the skill of learning how to learn is absolutely critical. Not only do we need to make sure that our academic rigor is as high as ever, but we now have the opportunity to make it even better because of personalized education.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We also have to teach our students how to use these AI tools in ways that allow them to be creators and contributors, not consumers and not outsourcers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What access to tools do they have in your classroom? Do they just have your platform, or can they have Claude running on the side?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> No, they definitely can’t. In fact, in the morning, what we often tell our students is, if they’re using AI in the morning, they’re probably cheating. And if they’re not using AI in the afternoon, they’re probably missing out on some sort of learning opportunity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During that two-hour core learning block, the AI is really operating behind the scenes, simply assessing and understanding what lesson to put in front of a student. Our schools do not use chatbots. Chatbots in school are cheap bots, and they are not something that you should have in school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do like the direction that so many schools around the country are taking, which is, if they don’t know how to use AI well, then don’t give kids unfettered access to it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, what we see in the afternoons, as we’re helping students build the skills to be adaptable, become experts, and learn how to learn, is that it’s great to give them supervised access to some of these incredible tools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We see middle school and high school students building businesses using things like Claude, turning profits and making significant amounts of money on a regular basis. We also see kids taking their passions for art and music and using what they’ve built naturally to expand and grow using technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think that’s a skill that’s going to be so important for our young people to have when they go out into the world, because we’re no longer in a situation where everything we need to know we’ve learned by the time we graduate college.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we give our students a lot of opportunities to get to know how to use these tools well and go from there. But, you know, I enjoy thoughtful dialogue like what we’re having, because you do have to make sure it’s done right. Having technology in a classroom for technology’s sake is not the right thing to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think it’s part of why we’ve seen a major degradation in the quality of our education. So I appreciate what this mom and the group have said around doing that, but we’ve got to make sure that screen time is done intelligently. We have an incredible opportunity with AI when it’s done the right way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m going to just give a couple of representative parent comments here coming in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mark writes, “I have four kids under seven. Let’s teach our kids how to use these tools! Too much Luddite fearmongering out there. The future is bright for our kids.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alex writes on Discord, “I really don’t think schools need to adapt to AI because using AI doesn’t require any skills that are new. Being a good reader, communicator, and critical thinker are what makes you good with AI. The best way to learn these things is the old-school ways of being forced to think for yourself and struggle. Paper problem sets, tons of book reading, written or oral exams. AI is what you use when you don’t care to deeply learn much from your process, and the neurological research reflects this.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Obviously, a lot of strong feelings about this particular topic out there. We’d love to hear yours. How is AI showing up in your kid’s classroom? What are your questions or concerns about this new era of learning?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Teachers, if you’re out there, we’d love to hear your thoughts as well on how AI is changing how you teach or how your students learn. You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email is forum@kqed.org. And you can find us on social media: Bluesky, Instagram, or Discord, at KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are, of course, talking about AI in the classroom, and we are joined by a big panel here. MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. We’ve got Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra up in El Cerrito. We’ve got Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. And, of course, we have two educators: Kip Glazer, principal at Mountain View High School and author of \u003cem>Ready to Lead with AI: A Practical Guide for School Leaders\u003c/em>, and Daniel Herman, a humanities teacher at Maybeck High School and faculty associate at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with a great panel. We’ve got Maybeck High School’s Daniel Herman, Mountain View High School’s Kip Glazer, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise Jeremy Roschelle, MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools, and Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are, of course, talking about AI in schools and all of the challenges and opportunities that it’s presenting. Let’s bring in some more callers. So let’s go to Megan T. in San Francisco. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Megan T.:\u003c/strong> Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for this conversation. I work at the Exploratorium, and we’ve worked to empower teachers to transform classrooms for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love the question “What are we doing here?” That’s one of the right questions. I agree with some of the guests that there’s an exciting opportunity here. But I don’t think it’s about personalization or even whether or not we use AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think if we’re going to keep bringing humans together in classroom spaces every day, we better be sure what we’re doing with those humans and bringing them together for reasons that matter.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m curious what folks think the purpose of the classroom should be next in an era of AI, but also climate change and societal change. I’ll take my answers off the air.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Megan T., thanks so much. And we’ve got to go to our teacher here, Daniel Herman.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> What’s it all about? I don’t know. I mean, I guess I’ll say I’m really skeptical about learning for learning’s sake. Teaching somebody the orthodox view of an Emily Dickinson poem — I don’t really believe there’s any inherent value there. The point is to have a meaningful connection to the subject, whatever it is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Writing is really sort of the crucible where this happens. Five years ago, I would have told you that writing is an absolutely essential skill, uncompromisable, that everybody needs to know how to write. Now I would say that writing is a tool. It’s a technology itself, a powerful, wonderful, liberative technology, but really just a way to grapple with complex ideas and organize our thinking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In most of my classes, we spend most of our time writing together, writing in spiral notebooks, me included, and then sharing our writing around the table. They can take that writing home and use it to write something bigger.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time, can I tell my students that in this age of TikTok and Instagram Reels, crafting an immaculate paragraph is as beneficial as being able to do video editing? Especially, I think about Zoran Mamdani’s short-form content. Can I tell them that being able to write, rather than make a beautiful video, is the best way to affect meaningful change in the world? I’m not sure that I can tell them either.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Can I add to that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, go ahead, Tom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> I would just say that, specifically in my school, we’re very focused on human-to-human connection. So if you put aside learning for a moment and ask what a classroom looks like in the age of AI, what’s really important to us is teaching our kids self-awareness, empathy, and connection.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI has got nothing to do with that. It’s all about adults and children being in a room together, connecting, and learning to be good humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think when we define learning as acquiring knowledge into your brain, we’re missing the foundational understanding of learning. Learning has always been social. It will remain social.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So what is a classroom supposed to be for? That’s the question I ask myself, as well as my students. What problem are we trying to solve, and for whom are we doing this? Just because we could doesn’t mean that we should. Knowing the difference really is human, and we have to lean into it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This conversation about how we effectively improve learning is important, because no one wants to sit around and feel like they’re wasting time. But that brain rest, and what we think of as play, is where our students and children can really thrive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I would ask all the adults who are trying to push our kids to be the version that we wish we had: we were different. We were slower. We were more playful. And I think our students are screaming for it. That’s why we have such a crisis with mental health and emotional dysregulation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If we want our students to be healthier, happier adults, then we also need to have some self-reflection about what we’re pushing toward.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I really think that point about knowledge being social, too, is such a — I mean, obviously, in this job, you learn a ton, but you learn it in this very particular way of talking with all these people. Over time, the web of knowledge that you have is embedded with all these people across the whole community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s a lot easier to remember stuff when you know who said it, why they said it, and the context of that person, rather than, you know, I read one sentence in a backgrounder that Claude created.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let’s bring in Patricia in Redwood City. Welcome, Patricia.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Patricia:\u003c/strong> Hello. So, yeah, I’m a retired teacher, and I found in the last year or two I was teaching that more and more students were using AI to write their bibliographies for them. But they couldn’t tell the difference between whether it was correct or not, because they had never really taken the time to learn how to do it themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I felt like one way of dealing with AI in the classroom is simply to highlight its deficiencies, or its limitations.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We had contests where we would divide up the class, half using AI and half using physical books, and there was a time limit. I flashed the name of a book on the screen, and the first team to feel confident that they had a correct bibliographic entry would put it on the board.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And guess which team always won? It was the team using the books, because they actually took the time to get it correct from the book that was being used, whereas the AI team always had something that was not accurate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> When were you doing this, Patricia?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Patricia:\u003c/strong> This was only just two or three years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> God, I would love to — I want you to rerun it. I want to rerun it. Patricia, what an exercise. What a fun exercise and an interesting exercise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The thing that it makes me think of, actually, is when AI companies are testing these tools, they do this thing called red-teaming. They’ll literally do exactly what you’re talking about, but they’ll tell the teams, “Try and go do something bad.” What they’re looking for is uplift.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you want to build some bomb thing, you could find sources in libraries and on the internet that could help you do that, or you could use AI to try to do that as well. They try to look for the delta between the two teams. If a model is too good at helping them do something bad, then they try to —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So you kind of came up with the red-team exercise for your students, which I love.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One thing I wanted to come to on this, Daniel, is: What do we do with technology that’s evolving really quickly? Because I love that this happened for Patricia and her students, and they were able to identify some of these problems. But if we look at how things are going, maybe now, maybe in 2030, the students using AI will probably start to win. Then what do you do?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s really been wild over the past four years to travel around and talk to teachers around the country. Teachers are a defensive group, and we do things a particular way, and we have every reason to want to continue doing things that way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’ve definitely noticed, over the years, teachers again and again trying to plant their flag in something that they want to be stable, and then the sand just slips away underneath them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Immediately after ChatGPT was released, I saw a lot of teachers saying, “Well, it can’t even write well.” And then a couple of years later, “Now it can write well.” They say, “Well, it can’t even do research,” or “It can’t even integrate quotes,” or “It can’t do MLA citations.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have every reason to believe that every single bar we establish that it can’t jump over is going to be something we have to rethink. It’s about being flexible in our thinking and being willing to let go of something.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, I’m sure I’m going to make a lot of enemies out there, but I’m going to pick one stupid example, and that’s apostrophes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every English teacher will know you’ll get a student in September, and they struggle using apostrophes properly. You show them in September, and you show them in December, and you show them in February, and you show them in May, and it’s hard, you know? I mean, it’s really complicated. When it’s plural, it’s different. And apostrophes are just this made-up thing. It’s this little squiggle mark.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then, to go back to Emily Dickinson, they read an Emily Dickinson poem, and she uses them in all kinds of weird ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, for me, if a student wants to take their essay and put it into Claude and say, “Make sure my apostrophes are perfect,” and they never have to think about it again, and I never have to think about it again, fine.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m way more concerned with what Kip is talking about, and about empathy, and listening to people who we disagree with, and people bringing their ideas, experiences, and beliefs, and finding a way to be together with other human beings. That’s way more important than apostrophes or, forgive me, MLA citations.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> A really interesting comment here. Nina writes, “I remember when people were debating whether children should be able to use calculators in school. The calculators won.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So you think you know where this comment is going. Plot twist: “And now we have generations of people who can’t do simple arithmetic in their heads. For example, have you ever tried to cashier why the bill is wrong? They don’t have the basic math skills.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The question there for me is, was it wrong to introduce the calculator into the classroom or not? I think most people would argue it’s OK to use calculators, given that adults use calculators.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But what do you think, Jeremy? When a new technology comes into play that can obviate the need to learn some skill, how do we say, “You must learn it anyway,” or “You shouldn’t have to learn it”? What’s your take on that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, graphing calculators are something we actually have a tremendous amount of evidence on, so I feel really happy right now, because it’s research that speaks to this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Look, a great thing about that technology was that a good teacher could say, “Kids, calculators down. We’re learning basic math skills now.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But take another scenario. Suppose you’re trying to learn what the slope of a graph means, and your alternative is pulling out graph paper, tediously plotting point by point, getting out a ruler, and drawing a line through it. By the time you go through all the steps, you’ve forgotten what you’re trying to do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whereas with a graphing calculator, you can see that slope shift as you change the equation you’re working with. That’s invaluable to kids’ understanding of the meaning of slope.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I just think about how we design and implement the learning activities. And, again, we need educators, we need teachers who are prepared to hold the line. What are we trying to learn right now? Is it a basic skill? Put away the technology. Is it something where cognitive offloading is actually useful because it’s lower-level and we want to focus at a higher level right now? Go ahead, use the technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We have some comments coming from parents that I think get at the real dilemmas of this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Leah writes, “Managing technology is the single worst part of modern parenting. AI is not hard to learn. Why do we need to teach it to our students? Learning how to learn is the point of education. Why do we want to make everything easy? If our kids learn that answers are at their fingertips at all times, they also won’t know how to struggle through non-technology parts of life, like learning how to knit, or work out, or master a sport. Isn’t that the point of a growth mindset?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Daniel in San Mateo, somewhat relatedly, says, “What about the simple fact that since the proliferation of screens and tech in classrooms, growing evidence that AI degrades critical thinking, student attention disorders are up, and test scores are down? Why shouldn’t those results speak for themselves?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tom, are these some of the things you’ve been trying to think about as someone who’s considering the overall package of technology that kids are presented with? How do you help parents with “tech is the single worst part of modern parenting,” which I don’t disagree with?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Tom Wadbrook:\u003c/strong> Yeah, what do you do? I think a few things. My first response is that the really simplistic answer to both of those isn’t — it’s not about if you use AI; it’s about how you use it as a student, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think, Jeremy, you could probably speak to this better than me, and maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that the evidence is coming out that if you teach a kid how to explore the subject they’re trying to learn using an AI tool, they can actually learn more than they might have without the tool. Versus if you give a kid AI and just let them find the answers, they’re not learning anything.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, not if, but how.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Possibly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, Katie in Martinez writes, “Will AI need to follow the path of media literacy, although I’m not sure media literacy worked out well? But how to interpret it, how to use it, how to understand critical thinking skills.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Is that kind of where you’re headed at your school? At a high level, you think?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we have an AI scale from zero to four, where zero means no AI and four means complete automation, with everything in between. We’re trying to be a little more intentional and focused on how we want to see the behaviors of the students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think good, sound pedagogy, being able to know when to jump in and when to back off, is really important.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Teachers today may not have the opportunity or even access, because we’re conflating exposure with expertise and exposure alone. The conversation around AI is that if you’ve used it once, then you already know how to use it as an expert.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But we all know as educators that experimentation and experience have to be in the middle to really get to the expertise level. We have to be patient with ourselves as well as our students, to be able to provide that opportunity. I think educators now, more than ever before, have that responsibility and calling to do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Danny — it’s funny. I mean, I think my experience at a small, progressive, independent high school in Berkeley is maybe pretty different from Mountain View, where, you know, it’s been a while to see how right-wing-coded so much of AI has become, and the movement against data centers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There’s a vocal group at my school — I’m not sure if it’s a plurality or a majority, but it’s definitely vocal — that holds that there is simply no ethical use of AI, period. So it’s definitely been, at my school at least, student-led or student-driven.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> A listener writes in to say, “I hope we can keep the focus on the fact that, moral or not, helpful or not, the future of tech or not, AI is absolutely devastating the planet and accelerating climate change at an unheard-of rate.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We also have another person saying, Martha in Menlo Park: “Reading and thinking is not screen scrolling. Back to books.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Marjorie writes, “I’ve always been a tech skeptic. What do you do today with elementary kids who have parents who want to limit screen time, favoring more tactile opportunities, and don’t want their kids spending hours each day using screens at school?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And this is maybe the comment that gets at what I’ve heard a lot from my kids. Ambrosia writes, “My son is a sophomore in high school, a straight-A student, and really is all in and loves school. He’s very frustrated with one of his classes because the teacher is obviously using AI in her lesson plans. She has disclosed that to the students. He has noticed some errors in the lessons and is not only concerned he isn’t learning anything, he is also upset about the double standard. The messaging has been very clear that students can’t use AI because it’s cheating. And now he has a social science class with a curriculum streaked with slop.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How should high school be handling AI? I love it. We’re coming to the end of the discussion. Unfortunately, we probably could do four and a half hours on this. It’s been so interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’ve been joined by Daniel Herman, humanities teacher at Maybeck High School. Thank you, Daniel.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Daniel Herman:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You should check out his essays in The Atlantic on this if you’re interested. We’ve been joined by Kip Glazer, principal of Mountain View High School. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Kip Glazer:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeremy Roschelle:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Tom Wadbrook, director of technology at Prospect Sierra. Thank you very much. And MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools and Two Hour Learning. Thank you so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>MacKenzie Price:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Also, thank you so, so much to all of our callers and listeners. We really appreciate it when you come in on a show like that and bring your best thoughts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, October 14, 2026 at 9 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For more than five decades, renowned nutritionist, molecular biologist and food activist Marion Nestle has worked to expose the connections between Americans’ health and the powerful agendas shaping what we eat. Her newest book, co-authored with Dr. Lisa Sutherland, “Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food” examines the politics of our morning meal. We talk with Nestle about the shifts in attitudes and regulations of what we eat — from soda taxes to the MAHA movement — and about what she believes it will take to build a healthier food system for all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health emerita, New York University; her latest book is \u003cem>Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Marion Nestle is a legend of the food world. Her work over many decades, including her pathbreaking book, \u003cem>Food Politics\u003c/em>, has changed the terms of the debate about food. And her blog, foodpolitics.com, is an incredible repository of news, ideas, and information about the broad world of food, nutrition, science, and politics. And for the fourth or even fifth time, we believe, Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU, joins us here on \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, so happy to be back!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are delighted to have you, in part because there is a measure on Berkeley’s ballot for a kind of update of the soda tax. You wrote a book in 2015 called \u003cem>Soda Politics\u003c/em>, and you, of course, know this history. So give us sort of the little summary: where did the soda taxes come from, and where did Berkeley’s role in it lie?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, Berkeley really took the leadership on all of this. There were some other towns that tried to pass soda taxes before, but Berkeley really — I use Berkeley as a case study of how to do food advocacy right. They did real community organizing. They went door to door in every community, the ones in the flats and the ones high up in the hills. And they talked to people about the effects of consuming large amounts of sugar in liquid form on obesity, diabetes risks for chronic disease. They talked to people about whether they knew anybody with type 2 diabetes and whether they understood that drinking a lot of your sugar isn’t a really good way to do it. And people got it. And then they promised that they would use the tax revenues for community initiatives, and they have done that. They have, you know, they’ve lived their promises. And this is a success story, with research that shows that it reduces soda consumption and maybe, maybe, maybe is helping people manage their weight better.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it’s interesting, too, because it was in the original ballot measure, right? There was a lot of spending against it from the — oh, tons. Who didn’t pass with 80% of the vote, is that —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I believe it was 60-something percent, but it was huge. And, you know, it was an enormous, unqualified passing with a very large percentage, and that was because of the fabulous way in which the committee that was running the campaign did it. I mean, they did real community organizing, which is what you have to do to make this stuff work.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So why do we need something else on the ballot in Berkeley?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, that has to do with how long the initiative lasted and California politics. I live in New York. I’m not up on these details. I do know that there has to be another vote on it. Maybe you could explain it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think they’re just adding another cent to it, right? I mean, that’s my —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, because it was really not as high as what they wanted to begin with. The evidence had shown that the higher the tax, the more effective it was. The amount that they actually did the tax at was a compromise, and so this is to kind of fix the compromise a little bit. So, you know —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Opponents of soda taxes, both here and elsewhere, have said, you know, they burden lower-income consumers. You know, government shouldn’t try to influence people’s personal food choices through taxes. What do you think about those critiques?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the government has an enormous influence on what people eat, based on what the government subsidizes, how the government gives food companies tax advantages for marketing. I mean, there are just a million ways in which the government influences what we eat. This is only a different way of doing it. Taxes are regressive, and there’s no question that this is a regressive tax. But the answer to that is type 2 diabetes is regressive, and it hurts the poor much more than it hurts the rich.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And sodas are a really convenient target. They’re different from any other food in that they’re sugars and water and flavors. And marketing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And marketing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> But nothing else of any nutritional value. So, in that sense, sodas differ from any other kind of junk or ultra-processed food in having no nutritional value at all other than the calories. And dumping large amounts of sugar into a metabolic system turns out not to be good for that metabolic system. We’re just not equipped to handle that amount of sugar at any one time. It’s much better to consume your sugar mixed up with other dietary components and much more slowly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So what about cereals, then? You’ve got a new book, which you co-wrote with Lisa Sutherland, who we’re going to talk about in just a second. Why cereal, though? Was it sort of the next most convenient target?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I’ve collected cereal boxes for years because they have the most hilarious advertising and marketing on them. I’ve collected mainly boxes with health claims on them, the more ridiculous the better. And at some point, I needed to think of another project, and I told my literary agent that it was time to do something with my cereal box collection. And so that’s how this came about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s interesting. I mean, one of the fascinating components of this book is that your co-author was actually a Kellogg’s executive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> A vice president for nutrition at Kellogg.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, I don’t know. Is this like dancing with the enemy? What’s going on?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, and she was anything but an enemy. I had met Lisa Sutherland probably 20 years ago when she was working for Hannaford Supermarkets, which is a chain of supermarkets in the Northeast. And she worked out their Guiding Stars program, which was a way of labeling house-brand foods for the ones that had the least amounts of salt, sugar, and saturated fat. And then she worked for Walmart, and then she worked for Chobani. And, you know, her view of that was she was trying to keep them nutritionally honest.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then at some point she called me and said, “I hope you’re not going to be mad at me, but I’m working for Kellogg.” And as it turned out, I wasn’t mad at all because I had been trying for months to get Kellogg to let me come and look at their archives. Because I wanted to look at packaging before Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling Act of 1990, and I had asked to see them, and they had said they would consider it. Nothing happened. So when she said, “I’m working for Kellogg,” I said, “Great, get me into the archives.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You got a woman on the inside now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Right, I was thrilled! And months went by, and then she wrote and said, “Okay, come.” So I flew out to Battle Creek, and we went into the Kellogg’s library, and they said, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” And I said, “Oh, all right, I’ll take the bad news first.” And the bad news was the lawyers weren’t going to let me anywhere near the files.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I said, “Oh, okay, what could the good news possibly be?” Well, the good news was spectacular because what they had done — and I still can’t believe this — was they had made color Xeroxes of the front and back of the three cereals I had asked to look at, from the year they were introduced until 2010, which is when this was. And they handed me a box of all-brand facsimiles from 1919 to 2010, Rice Krispies from 1928, and Froot Loops from 1963.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And we’re looking at these and paging through them, and the Kellogg nutritionists are saying things like, “Oh, this is when the FDA passed this regulation,” and, “Oh, look at this. This is when that research came out on oat bran,” and, “Oh, this is when the Center for Science in the Public Interest sued us.” And we were sitting there and looking at these things and saying, “There’s a book in this. There’s absolutely a book that’s going to tell the history of nutrition policy in the United States, the history of labeling policy, and a lot about marketing.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But we didn’t do it, and we drifted apart. And 15 years later, when I was thinking of doing this, I had this sudden guilty thought: maybe I should check with Lisa Sutherland and at least tell her that I’m doing this. And her response — I had to track her down. I hadn’t seen her in more than 10 years or heard from her in 10 years. And when I tracked her down and said, “This is what I’m doing,” she wrote back one sentence: “I’m in this with you.” We were off and running.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, what was interesting to you about those three cereals? I mean, I also love Lucky Charms, but what was interesting about them?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I particularly wanted All-Bran because I knew that Kellogg had used All-Bran cereal as a way to break the FDA’s restriction on health claims. They had done an end run around the FDA and gone straight to the National Cancer Institute to put a “National Cancer Institute says fiber is good for preventing cancer” claim on All-Bran, and I wanted that All-Bran box.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like a case study of how —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Right, a case study. I wanted Rice Krispies because it was an old cereal that started advertising Rice Krispies Treats right from the beginning, and it was sort of a normal, run-of-the-mill cereal. And I wanted Froot Loops also for a case study because Froot Loops was the cereal box that got the first Smart Choices logo, when the food industry had gotten together with nutritionists to put a kind of front-of-package symbol that would indicate that something was healthy. And the first one landed on Froot Loops, and so I wanted that box. So those were the three that I had picked. I also wanted Special K, but they didn’t think they could get me Special K.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As one that, like, targeted women in specific ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> So, you know, these I have, and they turn out to be — and they gave them to me. I have them in my office at NYU, and they’re fabulous for saying, “Well, how much sugar was in cereal in 1958?” I can answer that question. And it’s just enormously useful to have them. I’m quite grateful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, and what it’ll take to make it healthier. We’re joined by Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. And we want to hear from you. Is there a food you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now? Or maybe, how has your understanding of the food industry changed the way you shop or eat? Give us a call, 866-733-6786, or email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Marion Nestle. She’s got a new book out. It is about cereal. It is called \u003cem>Sugar Coated\u003c/em>. It was co-authored with Lisa Sutherland. Of course, she’s a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University. And we want to hear from you if there’s a food that you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now. Or maybe, you know, with so much nutrition advice and information available now, how do you decide what foods you eat? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email, of course, is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Social media: Bluesky, Instagram, Discord. We’re KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Before we talk about some other ultra-processed foods, what is the takeaway people should have about cereal? Like, if their kids want to have Honey Nut Cheerios, hypothetically, um, what would you say about that kind of food?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> They’re a once-in-a-while treat. Some of my friends who have kids who are demanding sugary cereals — I mean, first of all, these cereals are marketed directly to children. You know this because of the cartoon characters on the front. And now the toys are back in cereals. So the whole purpose of this is to get kids to demand the foods, to pester their parents for them. It’s called the pester factor, and nobody wants to fight with their kids about food, so everybody gives in. But I do have friends who give their kids a healthier cereal and sprinkle a little bit of this stuff on top of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we do that with our dog. He gets, like, kibble, and then he gets the stuff he really likes just a little bit on top. I understand. Is there any cereal that you would recommend, or is it just sort of —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the one that I like is mini shredded wheat, and they’re a one-ingredient cereal. There’s one ingredient: whole wheat. That’s it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You’re not talking about Frosted Mini-Wheats.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> No, I’m not. I like adding my own sugar, and I can put in a spoonful of sugar. It’ll be a third of the amount that’s in pre-sweetened cereals.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, so let’s talk about these ultra-processed foods. I mean, this is a label, or a way of talking about foods, I feel like has emerged over the last five or —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Since 2009. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so over time, and we now in California have a law that’s establishing a new non-ultra-processed-certified label for food products. What do you think about this kind of non-ultra-processed-certified label?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the Non-GMO Project did it first. Non-GMO is the most successful front-of-package indicator. Lisa and I call them widgets — the most-used one on packages. And they have started a non-UPF, ultra-processed food designation. I don’t know how it’s going. It’s just started, and California will be the first state to have this. I’m very interested to see what the symbol is going to look like. The law didn’t have any prototypes that I’m aware of.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think it’s a good idea because the ultra-processed food concept is a specific category of junk food, where the foods are industrially produced, usually have a lot of salt, sugar, and fat, and a lot of color, flavor, and texture additives. But they are designed specifically for profit and designed specifically to be irresistibly delicious, if not addictive. And there is now a phenomenal amount of evidence that links diets high in ultra-processed foods to poor health outcomes. And those are observational studies, and they don’t show causation. But there are also some very well-controlled, although short-term, clinical trials that show that these foods induce people to eat more calories — a lot more calories — without being aware that they’re doing it. So there are good reasons for cutting down on ultra-processed foods, and people are doing that. And it would be great, too, because there are issues about the definition. There are some categories of foods that some people argue are highly nutritious but meet the definition of ultra-processed foods, like commercial whole-wheat breads and yogurts. There are only a few plant-based meats —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And those kinds of things, and medical foods. So there are some exceptions, but I think — so there’s a big issue about the definition. I don’t think there should be an issue about the definition.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I think it’s kind of a red herring that the food is —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, because most people get the concept, and it’s pretty obvious what most of them are. And so having something that puts a label on the most obvious ultra-processed foods would help people identify them very quickly. So I can’t wait to see what it looks like.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Before we go to the phones, I just want to ask you: you know, here in San Francisco, City Attorney David Chiu filed a lawsuit last year against 10 of the country’s largest food manufacturers, saying these companies knowingly designed and marketed harmful, addictive products. This is true. Do you think that litigation will succeed? Do you think it’s going to be an effective way to hold the food industry accountable?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I have no idea. The food industry is remarkably powerful. And we see that in the Make America Healthy Again movement. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — apparently, they have a definition of ultra-processed foods, which would be the basis for regulation, although this is not a group that wants to regulate much. But they have put that definition and sent it to the White House, and it’s being held up. And I just saw an account of the food industry enterprises that have met with the White House officials to argue against a definition of ultra-processed food.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So the politics of this are enormous, and Berkeley and San Francisco both saw this during the soda tax things 10 years ago, or whenever it was. The amount of money that the soda industry put into fighting the idea of a soda tax is similar to the amount of money that they are willing to spend to defeat anything having to do with ultra-processed foods.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Noreen in Oakland. Welcome, Noreen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Hi there! Love the program. It’s worth noting that my maiden name is Post, and we were indeed the reckoning of Post Toasties.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You have venerable ancestors.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> I do. I do, in so many ways. But I wanted to share my love of Grape-Nuts cereal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I hear this a lot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I hear this a lot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Yeah, have you ever ate a pine cone? Many parts are edible. Right away, and it’s super crunchy and delicious, or you could let it sit there for a little while and it turns into kind of an oatmeal thing. And you can carve out a moon and let the milk be on one side, and then just gently enjoy it. And my mom used to take our leftover cereal and use it to make bread.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wow. Oh, good idea. Wow, Noreen, really appreciate that. I mean, this is — I would make cookies. Yeah, I think of Grape-Nuts. That was one of the things in our house, for sure, that it was like, okay, Grape-Nuts are a healthy cereal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and people are telling me that they’re really hard to find.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting, interesting. Is it true, though? Like, is it a healthy cereal, or is it just kind of a health halo?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You know, I need to look at the ingredient list. I can’t really tell until I look at that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> But I hear about — I’m hearing a lot about Grape-Nuts these days. I should go look at that ingredient list.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, let’s talk a little bit about — you mentioned MAHA and this movement that calls itself the Make America Healthy Again movement. How do you relate to it? Because I would imagine — I mean, I know from your blog that you believe in vaccination, you know, and have, I believe, standard public health kind of measures, which that movement has not always done. So how do you relate to it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I started out thinking that there were a lot of — with respect to the food issues — that there were a lot of very hopeful things in it. But as it’s turning out, they are unable to accomplish a lot of what they started out doing. For example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came in saying he was going to get rid of — that the food industry was poisoning America. That’s a little extreme. And he wanted ultra-processed foods out of the food supply. He wanted glyphosate, Roundup, out of the food supply. They wanted to get rid of all the chemicals and pesticides and herbicides that are contaminating food, PFAS and all those other things, and the artificial color dyes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the only thing they’ve been able to accomplish so far is they are actually getting the artificial color dyes out of breakfast cereals. And you can go to the store and see that you can buy Trix with vegetable dyes instead of the petroleum dyes, but the cereal’s still the same.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And getting rid of the dyes is not going to make America healthy again. Doing something about ultra-processed foods might, but they’re stuck in politics on that one. And they’ve not been able to accomplish much. So it’s been all talk, no action.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, I guess, was what you found hopeful in it the actual measures that MAHA wanted to take, or was it more that the coalition was kind of an unusual one in current American politics, and that it kind of cut across a lot of partisan divides?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I’ve wanted color additives out of the food supply for a long time. I didn’t think they were the be-all and end-all. They’re not the most important issue by any means, and they seemed like a no-brainer to me. It ought to be that, with the stroke of a pen, they should have been able to do that. But they’re not taking a regulatory approach. Kennedy has said that he thinks regulation is the nanny state, and so the companies have been pressured voluntarily to remove the color dyes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, General Mills did that once before. Nobody bought Trix when it was brown and yellow, and they brought the color dyes back. So maybe that’ll happen this time, too. It’s, you know, they’re just not accomplishing much, and they had the chance to do that. They had three branches of government. But it turns out eating less is very, very bad for business, and the food industry is not interested in public health measures that might reduce sales and profits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Surprise. So this is interesting because there is a thing happening in American life right now that is causing people to eat less. That is the growth of GLP-1s and similar drugs that have, you know, tended to reduce people’s caloric intake. What’s your take on them?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, they’re fascinating. I’m riveted by them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, same.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And for a year, whenever I gave a public talk, I would say, “If you’re taking GLP-1 drugs and are willing to share your experience, come up afterwards and let’s talk about it privately.” And I have now talked to dozens and dozens and dozens of people who are taking the drugs. And what’s interesting to me about it is that the personal accounts that I’ve heard are very consistent with what the research is showing — extraordinarily consistent. So there’s a wide range of responses. Some people lose lots of weight, some people only lose a little, some people have terrible side effects, some people don’t have any. It really varies. But overall, the drugs really do help people lose weight. People feel better, they feel stronger, they feel livelier. They feel better; their metabolic issues disappear. They’re doing great as long as they’re on the drug. The problem is what happens when you come off them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And there, most people regain the weight. Not all, but most people do. And that’s a problem, too, or you have to be on a maintenance dose for life. We’re still waiting to see what the side effects are, how serious some of the side effects are. There’ve been some rare ones that are pretty bad. Most people have GI side effects. Some are tolerable, some are not.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Are you interested in the mechanisms of it? That’s been the thing that’s been so interesting to me, is that most of the work seems to be happening in people’s minds as much as anything else. Like, there are the sort of changes that people experience in their digestive tract, but it’s mostly that people just think about eating a little bit less.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, the main overall effect is it reduces what’s called “food noise.” I had never heard the term before. I like it a lot. I get it totally. It’s the obsessive thinking about food, and that stops. Although people who are serious foodies tell me they still love food, they still think about food, they —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’d like to cook still.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You know, they do all of that, and it’s not affected. They’re just not eating as much. They just don’t want to eat as much. So the drugs affect the gut, various organs, and the brain, and scientists are hard at work trying to figure all that out. But there’s no question that they eat less, and they selectively eat less. So they’re eating less ultra-processed food. They’re eating less junk food. They’re eating healthier. Well, isn’t that amazing?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. How do you think they’re going to respond? I mean, this does —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, they’re already responding. I mean, the food industry is in trouble in general, overall. It’s in trouble because of RFK Jr. saying they’re poisoning people. It’s in trouble because of ultra-processed foods. It’s in trouble because of GLP-1 drugs. And it’s in trouble because of inflation. You know, I mean, I can’t believe what’s happened to the cost of food in the last couple of years. It’s just shocking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So what are their prospective responses? I mean, if I were putting on my executive hat, you would have to say, like, okay, well, if right now GLP-1s are most widely distributed in sort of middle-class, upper-middle-class households, so we’ve got to double down on targeting people who can’t afford GLP-1s and who maybe are also being hit harder by inflation, to even sell more to those people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, they’re certainly marketing, but they’re also reformulating products. You know, and you have to understand the context for this: in our investment system, it’s not enough to make a profit. You have to grow the profit and report growth to Wall Street every quarter. That’s very difficult to do if people are eating less. And so, if growth is flat or declining, these companies are in very, very serious trouble, and they are scrambling to try to dream up products that will be as profitable as ultra-processed products are. And they’re having a hard time doing it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But if you want to know why protein is on absolutely everything, everybody’s looking for protein, whether that’s reasonable or not, we can argue about. But everybody’s looking for protein. And so the food companies are putting protein into everything and marketing it, and they’re putting protein into the most ridiculous products. I just read that there’s a protein vodka you could drink. Are you kidding me? And because I’m so interested in cereals, my favorite current cereal product is Cookies ‘n’ Creme Oreos protein. You cannot make this stuff up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It does — it sounds like, yeah, a ’90s postmodernist novel product, for sure. We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, GLP-1s, MAHA, so much more, with food icon Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One listener writes in to say, “I was not a food obsessive for most of my life. My mother did make us eat wheat germ sprinkled on our Lucky Charms, as if this might counteract the problems of the magically delicious marshmallows. But when I had my own kids, I started to pay more attention to this, and we became the house where you can’t find snacks like Goldfish or potato chips, and we were not a breakfast cereal family. And to this day, my kids are not snackers, as far as I know.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We want to hear from you. Is there a food that you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now? Just want to ask Marion Nestle something. 866-733-6786, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. I’m here with Marion Nestle, icon, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, what it might take to make us all healthier. We’ve got a lot of callers here, so I want to make sure that we get them in. Let’s go to Hamayat in Fremont. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hamayat:\u003c/strong> Hi, good morning. I had a two-part question slash comment. And the first part is, I wanted to know, is there a difference in our processed food versus processed foods in other countries, such as in European countries? Because in the summer we went to London and Paris for a month, and before we went I checked my weight. And then when we came back, I had lost eight pounds, even though all of our meals were outside because we were staying in hotels in both places. So we weren’t eating home-cooked meals. There were restaurants and fast food, and that’s what we were having. So I was wondering if there’s any difference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The second thing I wanted to bring up is about the GLP-1 question. Since the last year and a half, everyone that we know was talking about it and trying to sell it on, even though nobody works for them as the only one thing. But I was reluctant to start because my father is a pediatrician, and he told me it depends on every person’s history. So I just started watching my calories using an Amazon skill, and I found that to be a lot more effective than doing something where you might have to continue it. So those are my two comments.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think one reason people have gotten into GLP-1s is that so many analyses of diets were just showing it wasn’t really working in the long term for most people, and so GLP-1s seem to have had some success. But let’s take the European processed food versus American processed food.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, people in Europe eat differently. They have processed foods there. They have different rules than we do, and some of the additives that we use here are not allowed there. But I just think that when you’re traveling, you eat differently. First of all, you’re not snacking all day long because you can’t get at it. You’re doing an awful lot of walking. It’s a healthier lifestyle. You’re not in a car. And lots of people experience weight loss when they’re traveling. And the food is good, and they have a different food culture that’s in some ways very admirable. On the other hand, American fast-food companies are quite prevalent. They have outlets there, and it’s quite possible to eat badly there, as well as it is here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Greg in Redwood City. Welcome, Greg.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Greg:\u003c/strong> Morning. I’d like to say, you know, I was a huge consumer of those cereals, everything from other kids’ favorites, Brilliant, Sugar Smacks, and Honeycomb, and I got older, Special K. You know, all the claims that it was not so bad. And now I look back, and I’m just so angry that I was, you know, the victim of that. You know, as consumers, we just don’t have the information to make intelligent decisions. And, uh, you know, now I’m just much more conscious of what I’m eating, and it’s really just the outer perimeter of the grocery store. And, you know, I don’t even like to go to restaurants because they don’t tell you what’s in it. They don’t tell you if it’s got a hundred ingredients and artificial cheese and all the rest of it. And I can really see the difference just by eating one meal, like how my body feels. So it’s incredibly frustrating that Americans can’t get the information to keep their family healthy. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the way I put it is, if you’re trying to eat healthfully in today’s food environment, you’re fighting an entire food system on your own. And the food system is set up to sell more food, not less. My mantra on this is: eating less is bad for business. And once you understand that, you get the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. You mentioned earlier, you said people are all trying to eat more protein, reasonable or not. Why don’t you talk a little bit about whether you do think it’s reasonable or not?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I don’t, because most people are already eating twice the protein that’s essential for replacing the protein losses in their body. And eating more protein doesn’t do much good except for people who are elite athletes or people who aren’t watching their — well, but that’s a very small minority. Most people get plenty of the protein they need, even if they’re vegetarian, even if they are vegan. They’re getting enough protein.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s never been an issue. Do you have a nutrition guideline for it? Do you like some measure or metric that you use?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> No, I just never think about these things. I follow my own advice.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Not protein-maxing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I’m very fond of quoting Michael Pollan: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” That really takes care of it. And that’s how I eat, and that’s why I advise other people to eat. I think food is one of life’s greatest pleasures. It’s something lovely that you get to do for yourself several times a day. I don’t want to do anything to take away the pleasure of food, but I think it’s possible to enjoy eating — eating real food, not too much, mostly plants. I mean, it seems really easy to me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So maybe you’ve already answered this, but the Trump administration does have a new version of the food pyramid, part of its dietary guidelines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Emphasizing protein, full-fat dairy, whole foods. What do you think? What do you think about the pyramid?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s a mixed bag. And it’s really sad that it’s a mixed bag, because the advice to eat real food and avoid highly processed foods is good advice. They didn’t use the words “ultra-processed,” which I wish they had, but they did pretty well on it. But then the rest of it is just a jumble of misinformation, things that are scientifically dubious, and one absolutely shocking nutritional error. You know, it made me think, this is why we have committees — to keep people from getting into trouble. And the shocking nutritional error was to say that beef tallow, olive oil, and butter were good sources of essential fatty acids. They’re not.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And this is because — and Alice writes in to ask about this — there is this real hatred in that part of the MAHA world for seed oils.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, yeah. It’s bizarre.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So Alice writes, “Seed oils are categorically branded as unhealthy these days. Can Marion share her views on these?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that’s — you know, they have 120 calories per tablespoon, like every other fat, and you don’t want to eat too much of them, like any other fat, because they’re very high in calories. But the seed oils are clean. They’ve been refined, but okay, and they have lots and lots of essential fatty acids, which we need. These are fatty acids that we can’t make, and then we have to eat them in our diet. They’re by far the best source of them. I don’t get the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, where does that come from?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, I know where it comes from. It comes from the processing — it comes from the idea, the correlation between the increase in consumption of seed oils parallels the rise in prevalence of obesity. That’s correlation, not causation. You know, obesity is — nobody wants to talk about calories. I turn out to be a calorie person. I really believe in them. If you eat more calories than you expend in activity, you’re going to gain weight. That is thermodynamics, and that still holds. And I think, you know, what you eat is important for health, but how much you eat is extraordinarily important for how much you weigh.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s go to — let’s take Lily in San Francisco. Welcome, Lily.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lily:\u003c/strong> Hi. Hey, go ahead. Hi, Marion. Hi. I just wanted to say, so in college, I ended up writing my senior-year work, and that was in part because my uncle had died from obesity the year before I had gone to college. And it was a deep question in my mind of how that could have happened, and I think it spurred this whole research career, actually. But at the time, I was really using your work. I just wanted to thank you for all of that. And I was examining how our sociocultural or political-cultural values and messaging around choice and freedom, specifically, have contributed to how we consume food and how it changes our behavior around food.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I’m curious because I feel like, as a senior in college, you know, we have now the rise of influencers and trends around food. And I’m curious about how you see messaging, whether that’s through advertising or lobbying, or just kind of the cultural zeitgeist around how we consume food and what it means about us. And, yeah, if you’ve seen anything change with that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, social media has changed everything. First of all, I’m so excited that you’ve read my work. That’s really touching. Thank you. I don’t know what to say about the influencer culture and what’s happening on social media. I worry about it a lot because the idea comes straight out of Orwell’s \u003cem>1984\u003c/em>: that if you repeat the same message over and over and again, and louder and louder and louder, people will believe it whether it has any relationship to truth or not. And we seem to be seeing a lot of that these days.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>How to deal with social media is an enormous problem. I sure am glad I raised my kids long before any of this. It was a lot easier. And we, as a society, have to figure out how to deal with a level of misinformation in which scientific facts are treated as if they’re just like any other opinion. Facts and opinion are different. The facts are facts, but if we as a society don’t agree about what those facts are, I think we’re in real trouble, and I worry about it a lot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I think one of the tricky things — and I think on your blog, you run these posts pretty much every week, I think, that take a look at an industry-funded study. A food-industry-funded study looks like a fact, but it’s sort of often not. As you break down in these posts, they’re sort of bad science by design, dressed up as a fact.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the science actually is pretty good. It’s the way they’ve formulated the research question to give them the answer that they want, or interpreted the results in a way that they want. These are industry-funded studies. I mean, there’s an enormous amount of research that shows a very high correlation between the funder and the outcome of the study. And, you know, some of these are just really funny. I look at the title and I know exactly who must have paid for it, because nobody else would do a study like that. There’s only one reason for doing that study, and that’s to prove that your product is healthy or not harmful. And there are so many of them, each one funnier than the next. So that’s my Monday morning amusement: to post the latest industry-funded study, where you really can predict — if you know who the funder is, you can predict the outcome. You shouldn’t be able to do that in science.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, one listener writes, “As a busy working parent, I often find myself pinched for dinner for the family. Often my choices are a frozen-food dinner from Trader Joe’s or, quote, healthy fast food like Chipotle. Is one better than the other? Any advice?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s so hard to say whether one product is good or better. What you have to look at is the whole diet, and that, of course, is very difficult to do, particularly since nobody can remember what they ate. You want to do the best you can: real foods, mostly plants, not exclusively necessarily, although exclusively is okay, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be only plants. And balancing calories so that you’re not consuming excessive numbers of calories. And the easiest way to cut down on calories is, first of all, the one food I would say to eliminate is sugar-sweetened beverages, because they’re demonstrably harmful. You’re getting a lot of calories and a lot of sugar all at once. So those should be absolutely minimized. And after that, you just want to eat foods that are foods, and processed as little as possible.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Speaking of drinks, one listener writes in to say, “What do you think of the new wave of soda, seltzers, drinks with zero sugar, no calories, no sweeteners, no sodium, no gluten, zero carbonation?” There’s just a million of these things, you know? Your Spindrifts and your LaCroix and all these things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, and the ones with CBD.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the ones that have CBD. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s Daytrip, et cetera. Yeah, what do you think of that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, they don’t have sugar — well, not much — and in that sense, they’re — I mean, whatever happened to water?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s still out there, I hear. Not a good marketing team, though.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Apparently not. They have some sweetener. I don’t like the ones with artificial sweeteners or the so-called natural sweeteners. I do not think they taste good. A lot of places have really good water supplies. If your community has a really good supply, I highly recommend it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, let me ask you one more on this question. How many Diet Cokes a month can I have and not feel bad about it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Um, it depends on everyone —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Less than 100.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> — and everything else you’re eating. You know, I’m not a Diet Coke fan because I’m not interested in artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners are a marker of ultra-processing, and I’d just as soon avoid them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I don’t think they taste good.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, I d — I can’t help myself. Um —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And I don’t judge what you eat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> If anyone can judge it, I’ll give you a pat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> How about this? We make a deal: I won’t say anything about what you eat if you don’t say anything about what I eat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Fair enough. Um, I, you know, I want you to kind of take the sweep of your career, you know? I mean, you have been working on these things for —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and, you know, you’ve been really working on the food industry. You’ve got policies changed. You’ve been deeply involved in some of these things. Like, where do you think we are relative to, you know, the year 2000? How have we done in the 21st century? Do we have a better food system than we used to? Do we not?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> In some ways, yes; in some ways, no. I mean, it’s possible now to go into any supermarket in America and eat healthfully if you make those kinds of choices. That wasn’t always true. Many, many, many more people are interested in these issues now and have generated a market for healthier foods. I think that’s a good thing, and it’s possible to get healthier foods practically everywhere, unless you happen to be living in a place where you have to drive miles to get to a supermarket. But most places, certainly in cities, you can do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And because I’m associated with the university, I get to deal with young people. And because my particular piece of the university is nutrition and food studies, we attract a population of people who are deeply interested in the way food is produced, sold, and consumed. I mean, deeply interested, and there are lots of them. And to me, that’s enormously exciting. And that’s new, too, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, yeah, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Relatively, yeah. We have been talking with Marion Nestle, of course, an incredible food scientist and nutritionist who has been working on these issues for many years. The latest book is called \u003cem>Sugar Coated\u003c/em>, and it is about breakfast cereal. So next time you want to fight with your kids in a supermarket aisle, you’ll be armed with everything you need. She co-wrote it with Lisa Sutherland, former executive at Kellogg. Fascinating. Of course, she’s also a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. And you really, if you’re interested in these things, you need to be reading her blog, foodpolitics.com, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Not dot com — yeah, dot com.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Marion Nestle, thank you so much for joining us this morning. An absolute pleasure. And thank you to all of our \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> listeners, commenters, callers. You’re the best. Thank you so much. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Marion Nestle is a legend of the food world. Her work over many decades, including her pathbreaking book, \u003cem>Food Politics\u003c/em>, has changed the terms of the debate about food. And her blog, foodpolitics.com, is an incredible repository of news, ideas, and information about the broad world of food, nutrition, science, and politics. And for the fourth or even fifth time, we believe, Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU, joins us here on \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Marion Nestle is a legend of the food world. Her work over many decades, including her pathbreaking book, \u003cem>Food Politics\u003c/em>, has changed the terms of the debate about food. And her blog, foodpolitics.com, is an incredible repository of news, ideas, and information about the broad world of food, nutrition, science, and politics. And for the fourth or even fifth time, we believe, Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU, joins us here on \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, so happy to be back!\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are delighted to have you, in part because there is a measure on Berkeley’s ballot for a kind of update of the soda tax. You wrote a book in 2015 called \u003cem>Soda Politics\u003c/em>, and you, of course, know this history. So give us sort of the little summary: where did the soda taxes come from, and where did Berkeley’s role in it lie?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, Berkeley really took the leadership on all of this. There were some other towns that tried to pass soda taxes before, but Berkeley really — I use Berkeley as a case study of how to do food advocacy right. They did real community organizing. They went door to door in every community, the ones in the flats and the ones high up in the hills. And they talked to people about the effects of consuming large amounts of sugar in liquid form on obesity, diabetes risks for chronic disease. They talked to people about whether they knew anybody with type 2 diabetes and whether they understood that drinking a lot of your sugar isn’t a really good way to do it. And people got it. And then they promised that they would use the tax revenues for community initiatives, and they have done that. They have, you know, they’ve lived their promises. And this is a success story, with research that shows that it reduces soda consumption and maybe, maybe, maybe is helping people manage their weight better.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, Berkeley really took the leadership on all of this. There were some other towns that tried to pass soda taxes before, but Berkeley really — I use Berkeley as a case study of how to do food advocacy right. They did real community organizing. They went door to door in every community, the ones in the flats and the ones high up in the hills. And they talked to people about the effects of consuming large amounts of sugar in liquid form on obesity, diabetes risks for chronic disease. They talked to people about whether they knew anybody with type 2 diabetes and whether they understood that drinking a lot of your sugar isn’t a really good way to do it. And people got it. And then they promised that they would use the tax revenues for community initiatives, and they have done that. They have, you know, they’ve lived their promises. And this is a success story, with research that shows that it reduces soda consumption and maybe, maybe, maybe is helping people manage their weight better.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it’s interesting, too, because it was in the original ballot measure, right? There was a lot of spending against it from the — oh, tons. Who didn’t pass with 80% of the vote, is that —\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I believe it was 60-something percent, but it was huge. And, you know, it was an enormous, unqualified passing with a very large percentage, and that was because of the fabulous way in which the committee that was running the campaign did it. I mean, they did real community organizing, which is what you have to do to make this stuff work.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So why do we need something else on the ballot in Berkeley?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, that has to do with how long the initiative lasted and California politics. I live in New York. I’m not up on these details. I do know that there has to be another vote on it. Maybe you could explain it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Opponents of soda taxes, both here and elsewhere, have said, you know, they burden lower-income consumers. You know, government shouldn’t try to influence people’s personal food choices through taxes. What do you think about those critiques?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Opponents of soda taxes, both here and elsewhere, have said, you know, they burden lower-income consumers. You know, government shouldn’t try to influence people’s personal food choices through taxes. What do you think about those critiques?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the government has an enormous influence on what people eat, based on what the government subsidizes, how the government gives food companies tax advantages for marketing. I mean, there are just a million ways in which the government influences what we eat. This is only a different way of doing it. Taxes are regressive, and there’s no question that this is a regressive tax. But the answer to that is type 2 diabetes is regressive, and it hurts the poor much more than it hurts the rich.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the government has an enormous influence on what people eat, based on what the government subsidizes, how the government gives food companies tax advantages for marketing. I mean, there are just a million ways in which the government influences what we eat. This is only a different way of doing it. Taxes are regressive, and there’s no question that this is a regressive tax. But the answer to that is type 2 diabetes is regressive, and it hurts the poor much more than it hurts the rich.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And sodas are a really convenient target. They’re different from any other food in that they’re sugars and water and flavors. And marketing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And sodas are a really convenient target. They’re different from any other food in that they’re sugars and water and flavors. And marketing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And marketing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And marketing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> But nothing else of any nutritional value. So, in that sense, sodas differ from any other kind of junk or ultra-processed food in having no nutritional value at all other than the calories. And dumping large amounts of sugar into a metabolic system turns out not to be good for that metabolic system. We’re just not equipped to handle that amount of sugar at any one time. It’s much better to consume your sugar mixed up with other dietary components and much more slowly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> But nothing else of any nutritional value. So, in that sense, sodas differ from any other kind of junk or ultra-processed food in having no nutritional value at all other than the calories. And dumping large amounts of sugar into a metabolic system turns out not to be good for that metabolic system. We’re just not equipped to handle that amount of sugar at any one time. It’s much better to consume your sugar mixed up with other dietary components and much more slowly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So what about cereals, then? You’ve got a new book, which you co-wrote with Lisa Sutherland, who we’re going to talk about in just a second. Why cereal, though? Was it sort of the next most convenient target?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So what about cereals, then? You’ve got a new book, which you co-wrote with Lisa Sutherland, who we’re going to talk about in just a second. Why cereal, though? Was it sort of the next most convenient target?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I’ve collected cereal boxes for years because they have the most hilarious advertising and marketing on them. I’ve collected mainly boxes with health claims on them, the more ridiculous the better. And at some point, I needed to think of another project, and I told my literary agent that it was time to do something with my cereal box collection. And so that’s how this came about.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I’ve collected cereal boxes for years because they have the most hilarious advertising and marketing on them. I’ve collected mainly boxes with health claims on them, the more ridiculous the better. And at some point, I needed to think of another project, and I told my literary agent that it was time to do something with my cereal box collection. And so that’s how this came about.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s interesting. I mean, one of the fascinating components of this book is that your co-author was actually a Kellogg’s executive.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s interesting. I mean, one of the fascinating components of this book is that your co-author was actually a Kellogg’s executive.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> A vice president for nutrition at Kellogg.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> A vice president for nutrition at Kellogg.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, I don’t know. Is this like dancing with the enemy? What’s going on?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, I don’t know. Is this like dancing with the enemy? What’s going on?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, and she was anything but an enemy. I had met Lisa Sutherland probably 20 years ago when she was working for Hannaford Supermarkets, which is a chain of supermarkets in the Northeast. And she worked out their Guiding Stars program, which was a way of labeling house-brand foods for the ones that had the least amounts of salt, sugar, and saturated fat. And then she worked for Walmart, and then she worked for Chobani. And, you know, her view of that was she was trying to keep them nutritionally honest.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, and she was anything but an enemy. I had met Lisa Sutherland probably 20 years ago when she was working for Hannaford Supermarkets, which is a chain of supermarkets in the Northeast. And she worked out their Guiding Stars program, which was a way of labeling house-brand foods for the ones that had the least amounts of salt, sugar, and saturated fat. And then she worked for Walmart, and then she worked for Chobani. And, you know, her view of that was she was trying to keep them nutritionally honest.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then at some point she called me and said, “I hope you’re not going to be mad at me, but I’m working for Kellogg.” And as it turned out, I wasn’t mad at all because I had been trying for months to get Kellogg to let me come and look at their archives. Because I wanted to look at packaging before Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling Act of 1990, and I had asked to see them, and they had said they would consider it. Nothing happened. So when she said, “I’m working for Kellogg,” I said, “Great, get me into the archives.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then at some point she called me and said, “I hope you’re not going to be mad at me, but I’m working for Kellogg.” And as it turned out, I wasn’t mad at all because I had been trying for months to get Kellogg to let me come and look at their archives. Because I wanted to look at packaging before Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling Act of 1990, and I had asked to see them, and they had said they would consider it. Nothing happened. So when she said, “I’m working for Kellogg,” I said, “Great, get me into the archives.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You got a woman on the inside now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You got a woman on the inside now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Right, I was thrilled! And months went by, and then she wrote and said, “Okay, come.” So I flew out to Battle Creek, and we went into the Kellogg’s library, and they said, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” And I said, “Oh, all right, I’ll take the bad news first.” And the bad news was the lawyers weren’t going to let me anywhere near the files.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Right, I was thrilled! And months went by, and then she wrote and said, “Okay, come.” So I flew out to Battle Creek, and we went into the Kellogg’s library, and they said, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” And I said, “Oh, all right, I’ll take the bad news first.” And the bad news was the lawyers weren’t going to let me anywhere near the files.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I said, “Oh, okay, what could the good news possibly be?” Well, the good news was spectacular because what they had done — and I still can’t believe this — was they had made color Xeroxes of the front and back of the three cereals I had asked to look at, from the year they were introduced until 2010, which is when this was. And they handed me a box of all-brand facsimiles from 1919 to 2010, Rice Krispies from 1928, and Froot Loops from 1963.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I said, “Oh, okay, what could the good news possibly be?” Well, the good news was spectacular because what they had done — and I still can’t believe this — was they had made color Xeroxes of the front and back of the three cereals I had asked to look at, from the year they were introduced until 2010, which is when this was. And they handed me a box of all-brand facsimiles from 1919 to 2010, Rice Krispies from 1928, and Froot Loops from 1963.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And we’re looking at these and paging through them, and the Kellogg nutritionists are saying things like, “Oh, this is when the FDA passed this regulation,” and, “Oh, look at this. This is when that research came out on oat bran,” and, “Oh, this is when the Center for Science in the Public Interest sued us.” And we were sitting there and looking at these things and saying, “There’s a book in this. There’s absolutely a book that’s going to tell the history of nutrition policy in the United States, the history of labeling policy, and a lot about marketing.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And we’re looking at these and paging through them, and the Kellogg nutritionists are saying things like, “Oh, this is when the FDA passed this regulation,” and, “Oh, look at this. This is when that research came out on oat bran,” and, “Oh, this is when the Center for Science in the Public Interest sued us.” And we were sitting there and looking at these things and saying, “There’s a book in this. There’s absolutely a book that’s going to tell the history of nutrition policy in the United States, the history of labeling policy, and a lot about marketing.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But we didn’t do it, and we drifted apart. And 15 years later, when I was thinking of doing this, I had this sudden guilty thought: maybe I should check with Lisa Sutherland and at least tell her that I’m doing this. And her response — I had to track her down. I hadn’t seen her in more than 10 years or heard from her in 10 years. And when I tracked her down and said, “This is what I’m doing,” she wrote back one sentence: “I’m in this with you.” We were off and running.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But we didn’t do it, and we drifted apart. And 15 years later, when I was thinking of doing this, I had this sudden guilty thought: maybe I should check with Lisa Sutherland and at least tell her that I’m doing this. And her response — I had to track her down. I hadn’t seen her in more than 10 years or heard from her in 10 years. And when I tracked her down and said, “This is what I’m doing,” she wrote back one sentence: “I’m in this with you.” We were off and running.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, what was interesting to you about those three cereals? I mean, I also love Lucky Charms, but what was interesting about them?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, what was interesting to you about those three cereals? I mean, I also love Lucky Charms, but what was interesting about them?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I particularly wanted All-Bran because I knew that Kellogg had used All-Bran cereal as a way to break the FDA’s restriction on health claims. They had done an end run around the FDA and gone straight to the National Cancer Institute to put a “National Cancer Institute says fiber is good for preventing cancer” claim on All-Bran, and I wanted that All-Bran box.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I particularly wanted All-Bran because I knew that Kellogg had used All-Bran cereal as a way to break the FDA’s restriction on health claims. They had done an end run around the FDA and gone straight to the National Cancer Institute to put a “National Cancer Institute says fiber is good for preventing cancer” claim on All-Bran, and I wanted that All-Bran box.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like a case study of how —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like a case study of how —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Right, a case study. I wanted Rice Krispies because it was an old cereal that started advertising Rice Krispies Treats right from the beginning, and it was sort of a normal, run-of-the-mill cereal. And I wanted Froot Loops also for a case study because Froot Loops was the cereal box that got the first Smart Choices logo, when the food industry had gotten together with nutritionists to put a kind of front-of-package symbol that would indicate that something was healthy. And the first one landed on Froot Loops, and so I wanted that box. So those were the three that I had picked. I also wanted Special K, but they didn’t think they could get me Special K.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Right, a case study. I wanted Rice Krispies because it was an old cereal that started advertising Rice Krispies Treats right from the beginning, and it was sort of a normal, run-of-the-mill cereal. And I wanted Froot Loops also for a case study because Froot Loops was the cereal box that got the first Smart Choices logo, when the food industry had gotten together with nutritionists to put a kind of front-of-package symbol that would indicate that something was healthy. And the first one landed on Froot Loops, and so I wanted that box. So those were the three that I had picked. I also wanted Special K, but they didn’t think they could get me Special K.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As one that, like, targeted women in specific ways.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As one that, like, targeted women in specific ways.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> So, you know, these I have, and they turn out to be — and they gave them to me. I have them in my office at NYU, and they’re fabulous for saying, “Well, how much sugar was in cereal in 1958?” I can answer that question. And it’s just enormously useful to have them. I’m quite grateful.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> So, you know, these I have, and they turn out to be — and they gave them to me. I have them in my office at NYU, and they’re fabulous for saying, “Well, how much sugar was in cereal in 1958?” I can answer that question. And it’s just enormously useful to have them. I’m quite grateful.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, and what it’ll take to make it healthier. We’re joined by Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. And we want to hear from you. Is there a food you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now? Or maybe, how has your understanding of the food industry changed the way you shop or eat? Give us a call, 866-733-6786, or email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, and what it’ll take to make it healthier. We’re joined by Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. And we want to hear from you. Is there a food you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now? Or maybe, how has your understanding of the food industry changed the way you shop or eat? Give us a call, 866-733-6786, or email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Marion Nestle. She’s got a new book out. It is about cereal. It is called \u003cem>Sugar Coated\u003c/em>. It was co-authored with Lisa Sutherland. Of course, she’s a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University. And we want to hear from you if there’s a food that you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now. Or maybe, you know, with so much nutrition advice and information available now, how do you decide what foods you eat? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email, of course, is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Social media: Bluesky, Instagram, Discord. We’re KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Marion Nestle. She’s got a new book out. It is about cereal. It is called \u003cem>Sugar Coated\u003c/em>. It was co-authored with Lisa Sutherland. Of course, she’s a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University. And we want to hear from you if there’s a food that you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now. Or maybe, you know, with so much nutrition advice and information available now, how do you decide what foods you eat? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email, of course, is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Social media: Bluesky, Instagram, Discord. We’re KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Before we talk about some other ultra-processed foods, what is the takeaway people should have about cereal? Like, if their kids want to have Honey Nut Cheerios, hypothetically, um, what would you say about that kind of food?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Before we talk about some other ultra-processed foods, what is the takeaway people should have about cereal? Like, if their kids want to have Honey Nut Cheerios, hypothetically, um, what would you say about that kind of food?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> They’re a once-in-a-while treat. Some of my friends who have kids who are demanding sugary cereals — I mean, first of all, these cereals are marketed directly to children. You know this because of the cartoon characters on the front. And now the toys are back in cereals. So the whole purpose of this is to get kids to demand the foods, to pester their parents for them. It’s called the pester factor, and nobody wants to fight with their kids about food, so everybody gives in. But I do have friends who give their kids a healthier cereal and sprinkle a little bit of this stuff on top of it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> They’re a once-in-a-while treat. Some of my friends who have kids who are demanding sugary cereals — I mean, first of all, these cereals are marketed directly to children. You know this because of the cartoon characters on the front. And now the toys are back in cereals. So the whole purpose of this is to get kids to demand the foods, to pester their parents for them. It’s called the pester factor, and nobody wants to fight with their kids about food, so everybody gives in. But I do have friends who give their kids a healthier cereal and sprinkle a little bit of this stuff on top of it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we do that with our dog. He gets, like, kibble, and then he gets the stuff he really likes just a little bit on top. I understand. Is there any cereal that you would recommend, or is it just sort of —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we do that with our dog. He gets, like, kibble, and then he gets the stuff he really likes just a little bit on top. I understand. Is there any cereal that you would recommend, or is it just sort of —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the one that I like is mini shredded wheat, and they’re a one-ingredient cereal. There’s one ingredient: whole wheat. That’s it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the one that I like is mini shredded wheat, and they’re a one-ingredient cereal. There’s one ingredient: whole wheat. That’s it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You’re not talking about Frosted Mini-Wheats.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You’re not talking about Frosted Mini-Wheats.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> No, I’m not. I like adding my own sugar, and I can put in a spoonful of sugar. It’ll be a third of the amount that’s in pre-sweetened cereals.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> No, I’m not. I like adding my own sugar, and I can put in a spoonful of sugar. It’ll be a third of the amount that’s in pre-sweetened cereals.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, so let’s talk about these ultra-processed foods. I mean, this is a label, or a way of talking about foods, I feel like has emerged over the last five or —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, so let’s talk about these ultra-processed foods. I mean, this is a label, or a way of talking about foods, I feel like has emerged over the last five or —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Since 2009. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Since 2009. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so over time, and we now in California have a law that’s establishing a new non-ultra-processed-certified label for food products. What do you think about this kind of non-ultra-processed-certified label?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so over time, and we now in California have a law that’s establishing a new non-ultra-processed-certified label for food products. What do you think about this kind of non-ultra-processed-certified label?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the Non-GMO Project did it first. Non-GMO is the most successful front-of-package indicator. Lisa and I call them widgets — the most-used one on packages. And they have started a non-UPF, ultra-processed food designation. I don’t know how it’s going. It’s just started, and California will be the first state to have this. I’m very interested to see what the symbol is going to look like. The law didn’t have any prototypes that I’m aware of.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the Non-GMO Project did it first. Non-GMO is the most successful front-of-package indicator. Lisa and I call them widgets — the most-used one on packages. And they have started a non-UPF, ultra-processed food designation. I don’t know how it’s going. It’s just started, and California will be the first state to have this. I’m very interested to see what the symbol is going to look like. The law didn’t have any prototypes that I’m aware of.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I think it’s a good idea because the ultra-processed food concept is a specific category of junk food, where the foods are industrially produced, usually have a lot of salt, sugar, and fat, and a lot of color, flavor, and texture additives. But they are designed specifically for profit and designed specifically to be irresistibly delicious, if not addictive. And there is now a phenomenal amount of evidence that links diets high in ultra-processed foods to poor health outcomes. And those are observational studies, and they don’t show causation. But there are also some very well-controlled, although short-term, clinical trials that show that these foods induce people to eat more calories — a lot more calories — without being aware that they’re doing it. So there are good reasons for cutting down on ultra-processed foods, and people are doing that. And it would be great, too, because there are issues about the definition. There are some categories of foods that some people argue are highly nutritious but meet the definition of ultra-processed foods, like commercial whole-wheat breads and yogurts. There are only a few plant-based meats —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I think it’s a good idea because the ultra-processed food concept is a specific category of junk food, where the foods are industrially produced, usually have a lot of salt, sugar, and fat, and a lot of color, flavor, and texture additives. But they are designed specifically for profit and designed specifically to be irresistibly delicious, if not addictive. And there is now a phenomenal amount of evidence that links diets high in ultra-processed foods to poor health outcomes. And those are observational studies, and they don’t show causation. But there are also some very well-controlled, although short-term, clinical trials that show that these foods induce people to eat more calories — a lot more calories — without being aware that they’re doing it. So there are good reasons for cutting down on ultra-processed foods, and people are doing that. And it would be great, too, because there are issues about the definition. There are some categories of foods that some people argue are highly nutritious but meet the definition of ultra-processed foods, like commercial whole-wheat breads and yogurts. There are only a few plant-based meats —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And those kinds of things, and medical foods. So there are some exceptions, but I think — so there’s a big issue about the definition. I don’t think there should be an issue about the definition.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And those kinds of things, and medical foods. So there are some exceptions, but I think — so there’s a big issue about the definition. I don’t think there should be an issue about the definition.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I think it’s kind of a red herring that the food is —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I think it’s kind of a red herring that the food is —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, because most people get the concept, and it’s pretty obvious what most of them are. And so having something that puts a label on the most obvious ultra-processed foods would help people identify them very quickly. So I can’t wait to see what it looks like.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, because most people get the concept, and it’s pretty obvious what most of them are. And so having something that puts a label on the most obvious ultra-processed foods would help people identify them very quickly. So I can’t wait to see what it looks like.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Before we go to the phones, I just want to ask you: you know, here in San Francisco, City Attorney David Chiu filed a lawsuit last year against 10 of the country’s largest food manufacturers, saying these companies knowingly designed and marketed harmful, addictive products. This is true. Do you think that litigation will succeed? Do you think it’s going to be an effective way to hold the food industry accountable?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Before we go to the phones, I just want to ask you: you know, here in San Francisco, City Attorney David Chiu filed a lawsuit last year against 10 of the country’s largest food manufacturers, saying these companies knowingly designed and marketed harmful, addictive products. This is true. Do you think that litigation will succeed? Do you think it’s going to be an effective way to hold the food industry accountable?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I have no idea. The food industry is remarkably powerful. And we see that in the Make America Healthy Again movement. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — apparently, they have a definition of ultra-processed foods, which would be the basis for regulation, although this is not a group that wants to regulate much. But they have put that definition and sent it to the White House, and it’s being held up. And I just saw an account of the food industry enterprises that have met with the White House officials to argue against a definition of ultra-processed food.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I have no idea. The food industry is remarkably powerful. And we see that in the Make America Healthy Again movement. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — apparently, they have a definition of ultra-processed foods, which would be the basis for regulation, although this is not a group that wants to regulate much. But they have put that definition and sent it to the White House, and it’s being held up. And I just saw an account of the food industry enterprises that have met with the White House officials to argue against a definition of ultra-processed food.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So the politics of this are enormous, and Berkeley and San Francisco both saw this during the soda tax things 10 years ago, or whenever it was. The amount of money that the soda industry put into fighting the idea of a soda tax is similar to the amount of money that they are willing to spend to defeat anything having to do with ultra-processed foods.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So the politics of this are enormous, and Berkeley and San Francisco both saw this during the soda tax things 10 years ago, or whenever it was. The amount of money that the soda industry put into fighting the idea of a soda tax is similar to the amount of money that they are willing to spend to defeat anything having to do with ultra-processed foods.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Noreen in Oakland. Welcome, Noreen.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Noreen in Oakland. Welcome, Noreen.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Hi there! Love the program. It’s worth noting that my maiden name is Post, and we were indeed the reckoning of Post Toasties.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Hi there! Love the program. It’s worth noting that my maiden name is Post, and we were indeed the reckoning of Post Toasties.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You have venerable ancestors.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You have venerable ancestors.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> I do. I do, in so many ways. But I wanted to share my love of Grape-Nuts cereal.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> I do. I do, in so many ways. But I wanted to share my love of Grape-Nuts cereal.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I hear this a lot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I hear this a lot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I hear this a lot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I hear this a lot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Yeah, have you ever ate a pine cone? Many parts are edible. Right away, and it’s super crunchy and delicious, or you could let it sit there for a little while and it turns into kind of an oatmeal thing. And you can carve out a moon and let the milk be on one side, and then just gently enjoy it. And my mom used to take our leftover cereal and use it to make bread.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Yeah, have you ever ate a pine cone? Many parts are edible. Right away, and it’s super crunchy and delicious, or you could let it sit there for a little while and it turns into kind of an oatmeal thing. And you can carve out a moon and let the milk be on one side, and then just gently enjoy it. And my mom used to take our leftover cereal and use it to make bread.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wow. Oh, good idea. Wow, Noreen, really appreciate that. I mean, this is — I would make cookies. Yeah, I think of Grape-Nuts. That was one of the things in our house, for sure, that it was like, okay, Grape-Nuts are a healthy cereal.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wow. Oh, good idea. Wow, Noreen, really appreciate that. I mean, this is — I would make cookies. Yeah, I think of Grape-Nuts. That was one of the things in our house, for sure, that it was like, okay, Grape-Nuts are a healthy cereal.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and people are telling me that they’re really hard to find.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and people are telling me that they’re really hard to find.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting, interesting. Is it true, though? Like, is it a healthy cereal, or is it just kind of a health halo?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting, interesting. Is it true, though? Like, is it a healthy cereal, or is it just kind of a health halo?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You know, I need to look at the ingredient list. I can’t really tell until I look at that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You know, I need to look at the ingredient list. I can’t really tell until I look at that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> But I hear about — I’m hearing a lot about Grape-Nuts these days. I should go look at that ingredient list.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> But I hear about — I’m hearing a lot about Grape-Nuts these days. I should go look at that ingredient list.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, let’s talk a little bit about — you mentioned MAHA and this movement that calls itself the Make America Healthy Again movement. How do you relate to it? Because I would imagine — I mean, I know from your blog that you believe in vaccination, you know, and have, I believe, standard public health kind of measures, which that movement has not always done. So how do you relate to it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, let’s talk a little bit about — you mentioned MAHA and this movement that calls itself the Make America Healthy Again movement. How do you relate to it? Because I would imagine — I mean, I know from your blog that you believe in vaccination, you know, and have, I believe, standard public health kind of measures, which that movement has not always done. So how do you relate to it?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I started out thinking that there were a lot of — with respect to the food issues — that there were a lot of very hopeful things in it. But as it’s turning out, they are unable to accomplish a lot of what they started out doing. For example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came in saying he was going to get rid of — that the food industry was poisoning America. That’s a little extreme. And he wanted ultra-processed foods out of the food supply. He wanted glyphosate, Roundup, out of the food supply. They wanted to get rid of all the chemicals and pesticides and herbicides that are contaminating food, PFAS and all those other things, and the artificial color dyes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I started out thinking that there were a lot of — with respect to the food issues — that there were a lot of very hopeful things in it. But as it’s turning out, they are unable to accomplish a lot of what they started out doing. For example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came in saying he was going to get rid of — that the food industry was poisoning America. That’s a little extreme. And he wanted ultra-processed foods out of the food supply. He wanted glyphosate, Roundup, out of the food supply. They wanted to get rid of all the chemicals and pesticides and herbicides that are contaminating food, PFAS and all those other things, and the artificial color dyes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the only thing they’ve been able to accomplish so far is they are actually getting the artificial color dyes out of breakfast cereals. And you can go to the store and see that you can buy Trix with vegetable dyes instead of the petroleum dyes, but the cereal’s still the same.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the only thing they’ve been able to accomplish so far is they are actually getting the artificial color dyes out of breakfast cereals. And you can go to the store and see that you can buy Trix with vegetable dyes instead of the petroleum dyes, but the cereal’s still the same.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And getting rid of the dyes is not going to make America healthy again. Doing something about ultra-processed foods might, but they’re stuck in politics on that one. And they’ve not been able to accomplish much. So it’s been all talk, no action.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And getting rid of the dyes is not going to make America healthy again. Doing something about ultra-processed foods might, but they’re stuck in politics on that one. And they’ve not been able to accomplish much. So it’s been all talk, no action.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, I guess, was what you found hopeful in it the actual measures that MAHA wanted to take, or was it more that the coalition was kind of an unusual one in current American politics, and that it kind of cut across a lot of partisan divides?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, I guess, was what you found hopeful in it the actual measures that MAHA wanted to take, or was it more that the coalition was kind of an unusual one in current American politics, and that it kind of cut across a lot of partisan divides?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I’ve wanted color additives out of the food supply for a long time. I didn’t think they were the be-all and end-all. They’re not the most important issue by any means, and they seemed like a no-brainer to me. It ought to be that, with the stroke of a pen, they should have been able to do that. But they’re not taking a regulatory approach. Kennedy has said that he thinks regulation is the nanny state, and so the companies have been pressured voluntarily to remove the color dyes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I’ve wanted color additives out of the food supply for a long time. I didn’t think they were the be-all and end-all. They’re not the most important issue by any means, and they seemed like a no-brainer to me. It ought to be that, with the stroke of a pen, they should have been able to do that. But they’re not taking a regulatory approach. Kennedy has said that he thinks regulation is the nanny state, and so the companies have been pressured voluntarily to remove the color dyes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Well, General Mills did that once before. Nobody bought Trix when it was brown and yellow, and they brought the color dyes back. So maybe that’ll happen this time, too. It’s, you know, they’re just not accomplishing much, and they had the chance to do that. They had three branches of government. But it turns out eating less is very, very bad for business, and the food industry is not interested in public health measures that might reduce sales and profits.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Well, General Mills did that once before. Nobody bought Trix when it was brown and yellow, and they brought the color dyes back. So maybe that’ll happen this time, too. It’s, you know, they’re just not accomplishing much, and they had the chance to do that. They had three branches of government. But it turns out eating less is very, very bad for business, and the food industry is not interested in public health measures that might reduce sales and profits.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Surprise. So this is interesting because there is a thing happening in American life right now that is causing people to eat less. That is the growth of GLP-1s and similar drugs that have, you know, tended to reduce people’s caloric intake. What’s your take on them?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Surprise. So this is interesting because there is a thing happening in American life right now that is causing people to eat less. That is the growth of GLP-1s and similar drugs that have, you know, tended to reduce people’s caloric intake. What’s your take on them?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, they’re fascinating. I’m riveted by them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, they’re fascinating. I’m riveted by them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, same.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, same.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And for a year, whenever I gave a public talk, I would say, “If you’re taking GLP-1 drugs and are willing to share your experience, come up afterwards and let’s talk about it privately.” And I have now talked to dozens and dozens and dozens of people who are taking the drugs. And what’s interesting to me about it is that the personal accounts that I’ve heard are very consistent with what the research is showing — extraordinarily consistent. So there’s a wide range of responses. Some people lose lots of weight, some people only lose a little, some people have terrible side effects, some people don’t have any. It really varies. But overall, the drugs really do help people lose weight. People feel better, they feel stronger, they feel livelier. They feel better; their metabolic issues disappear. They’re doing great as long as they’re on the drug. The problem is what happens when you come off them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And for a year, whenever I gave a public talk, I would say, “If you’re taking GLP-1 drugs and are willing to share your experience, come up afterwards and let’s talk about it privately.” And I have now talked to dozens and dozens and dozens of people who are taking the drugs. And what’s interesting to me about it is that the personal accounts that I’ve heard are very consistent with what the research is showing — extraordinarily consistent. So there’s a wide range of responses. Some people lose lots of weight, some people only lose a little, some people have terrible side effects, some people don’t have any. It really varies. But overall, the drugs really do help people lose weight. People feel better, they feel stronger, they feel livelier. They feel better; their metabolic issues disappear. They’re doing great as long as they’re on the drug. The problem is what happens when you come off them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And there, most people regain the weight. Not all, but most people do. And that’s a problem, too, or you have to be on a maintenance dose for life. We’re still waiting to see what the side effects are, how serious some of the side effects are. There’ve been some rare ones that are pretty bad. Most people have GI side effects. Some are tolerable, some are not.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And there, most people regain the weight. Not all, but most people do. And that’s a problem, too, or you have to be on a maintenance dose for life. We’re still waiting to see what the side effects are, how serious some of the side effects are. There’ve been some rare ones that are pretty bad. Most people have GI side effects. Some are tolerable, some are not.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Are you interested in the mechanisms of it? That’s been the thing that’s been so interesting to me, is that most of the work seems to be happening in people’s minds as much as anything else. Like, there are the sort of changes that people experience in their digestive tract, but it’s mostly that people just think about eating a little bit less.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Are you interested in the mechanisms of it? That’s been the thing that’s been so interesting to me, is that most of the work seems to be happening in people’s minds as much as anything else. Like, there are the sort of changes that people experience in their digestive tract, but it’s mostly that people just think about eating a little bit less.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, the main overall effect is it reduces what’s called “food noise.” I had never heard the term before. I like it a lot. I get it totally. It’s the obsessive thinking about food, and that stops. Although people who are serious foodies tell me they still love food, they still think about food, they —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, the main overall effect is it reduces what’s called “food noise.” I had never heard the term before. I like it a lot. I get it totally. It’s the obsessive thinking about food, and that stops. Although people who are serious foodies tell me they still love food, they still think about food, they —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’d like to cook still.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’d like to cook still.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You know, they do all of that, and it’s not affected. They’re just not eating as much. They just don’t want to eat as much. So the drugs affect the gut, various organs, and the brain, and scientists are hard at work trying to figure all that out. But there’s no question that they eat less, and they selectively eat less. So they’re eating less ultra-processed food. They’re eating less junk food. They’re eating healthier. Well, isn’t that amazing?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You know, they do all of that, and it’s not affected. They’re just not eating as much. They just don’t want to eat as much. So the drugs affect the gut, various organs, and the brain, and scientists are hard at work trying to figure all that out. But there’s no question that they eat less, and they selectively eat less. So they’re eating less ultra-processed food. They’re eating less junk food. They’re eating healthier. Well, isn’t that amazing?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. How do you think they’re going to respond? I mean, this does —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. How do you think they’re going to respond? I mean, this does —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, they’re already responding. I mean, the food industry is in trouble in general, overall. It’s in trouble because of RFK Jr. saying they’re poisoning people. It’s in trouble because of ultra-processed foods. It’s in trouble because of GLP-1 drugs. And it’s in trouble because of inflation. You know, I mean, I can’t believe what’s happened to the cost of food in the last couple of years. It’s just shocking.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, they’re already responding. I mean, the food industry is in trouble in general, overall. It’s in trouble because of RFK Jr. saying they’re poisoning people. It’s in trouble because of ultra-processed foods. It’s in trouble because of GLP-1 drugs. And it’s in trouble because of inflation. You know, I mean, I can’t believe what’s happened to the cost of food in the last couple of years. It’s just shocking.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So what are their prospective responses? I mean, if I were putting on my executive hat, you would have to say, like, okay, well, if right now GLP-1s are most widely distributed in sort of middle-class, upper-middle-class households, so we’ve got to double down on targeting people who can’t afford GLP-1s and who maybe are also being hit harder by inflation, to even sell more to those people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So what are their prospective responses? I mean, if I were putting on my executive hat, you would have to say, like, okay, well, if right now GLP-1s are most widely distributed in sort of middle-class, upper-middle-class households, so we’ve got to double down on targeting people who can’t afford GLP-1s and who maybe are also being hit harder by inflation, to even sell more to those people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, they’re certainly marketing, but they’re also reformulating products. You know, and you have to understand the context for this: in our investment system, it’s not enough to make a profit. You have to grow the profit and report growth to Wall Street every quarter. That’s very difficult to do if people are eating less. And so, if growth is flat or declining, these companies are in very, very serious trouble, and they are scrambling to try to dream up products that will be as profitable as ultra-processed products are. And they’re having a hard time doing it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, they’re certainly marketing, but they’re also reformulating products. You know, and you have to understand the context for this: in our investment system, it’s not enough to make a profit. You have to grow the profit and report growth to Wall Street every quarter. That’s very difficult to do if people are eating less. And so, if growth is flat or declining, these companies are in very, very serious trouble, and they are scrambling to try to dream up products that will be as profitable as ultra-processed products are. And they’re having a hard time doing it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But if you want to know why protein is on absolutely everything, everybody’s looking for protein, whether that’s reasonable or not, we can argue about. But everybody’s looking for protein. And so the food companies are putting protein into everything and marketing it, and they’re putting protein into the most ridiculous products. I just read that there’s a protein vodka you could drink. Are you kidding me? And because I’m so interested in cereals, my favorite current cereal product is Cookies ‘n’ Creme Oreos protein. You cannot make this stuff up.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But if you want to know why protein is on absolutely everything, everybody’s looking for protein, whether that’s reasonable or not, we can argue about. But everybody’s looking for protein. And so the food companies are putting protein into everything and marketing it, and they’re putting protein into the most ridiculous products. I just read that there’s a protein vodka you could drink. Are you kidding me? And because I’m so interested in cereals, my favorite current cereal product is Cookies ‘n’ Creme Oreos protein. You cannot make this stuff up.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It does — it sounds like, yeah, a ’90s postmodernist novel product, for sure. We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, GLP-1s, MAHA, so much more, with food icon Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It does — it sounds like, yeah, a ’90s postmodernist novel product, for sure. We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, GLP-1s, MAHA, so much more, with food icon Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One listener writes in to say, “I was not a food obsessive for most of my life. My mother did make us eat wheat germ sprinkled on our Lucky Charms, as if this might counteract the problems of the magically delicious marshmallows. But when I had my own kids, I started to pay more attention to this, and we became the house where you can’t find snacks like Goldfish or potato chips, and we were not a breakfast cereal family. And to this day, my kids are not snackers, as far as I know.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>One listener writes in to say, “I was not a food obsessive for most of my life. My mother did make us eat wheat germ sprinkled on our Lucky Charms, as if this might counteract the problems of the magically delicious marshmallows. But when I had my own kids, I started to pay more attention to this, and we became the house where you can’t find snacks like Goldfish or potato chips, and we were not a breakfast cereal family. And to this day, my kids are not snackers, as far as I know.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We want to hear from you. Is there a food that you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now? Just want to ask Marion Nestle something. 866-733-6786, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We want to hear from you. Is there a food that you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now? Just want to ask Marion Nestle something. 866-733-6786, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. I’m here with Marion Nestle, icon, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, what it might take to make us all healthier. We’ve got a lot of callers here, so I want to make sure that we get them in. Let’s go to Hamayat in Fremont. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. I’m here with Marion Nestle, icon, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, what it might take to make us all healthier. We’ve got a lot of callers here, so I want to make sure that we get them in. Let’s go to Hamayat in Fremont. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hamayat:\u003c/strong> Hi, good morning. I had a two-part question slash comment. And the first part is, I wanted to know, is there a difference in our processed food versus processed foods in other countries, such as in European countries? Because in the summer we went to London and Paris for a month, and before we went I checked my weight. And then when we came back, I had lost eight pounds, even though all of our meals were outside because we were staying in hotels in both places. So we weren’t eating home-cooked meals. There were restaurants and fast food, and that’s what we were having. So I was wondering if there’s any difference.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hamayat:\u003c/strong> Hi, good morning. I had a two-part question slash comment. And the first part is, I wanted to know, is there a difference in our processed food versus processed foods in other countries, such as in European countries? Because in the summer we went to London and Paris for a month, and before we went I checked my weight. And then when we came back, I had lost eight pounds, even though all of our meals were outside because we were staying in hotels in both places. So we weren’t eating home-cooked meals. There were restaurants and fast food, and that’s what we were having. So I was wondering if there’s any difference.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The second thing I wanted to bring up is about the GLP-1 question. Since the last year and a half, everyone that we know was talking about it and trying to sell it on, even though nobody works for them as the only one thing. But I was reluctant to start because my father is a pediatrician, and he told me it depends on every person’s history. So I just started watching my calories using an Amazon skill, and I found that to be a lot more effective than doing something where you might have to continue it. So those are my two comments.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The second thing I wanted to bring up is about the GLP-1 question. Since the last year and a half, everyone that we know was talking about it and trying to sell it on, even though nobody works for them as the only one thing. But I was reluctant to start because my father is a pediatrician, and he told me it depends on every person’s history. So I just started watching my calories using an Amazon skill, and I found that to be a lot more effective than doing something where you might have to continue it. So those are my two comments.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think one reason people have gotten into GLP-1s is that so many analyses of diets were just showing it wasn’t really working in the long term for most people, and so GLP-1s seem to have had some success. But let’s take the European processed food versus American processed food.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think one reason people have gotten into GLP-1s is that so many analyses of diets were just showing it wasn’t really working in the long term for most people, and so GLP-1s seem to have had some success. But let’s take the European processed food versus American processed food.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, people in Europe eat differently. They have processed foods there. They have different rules than we do, and some of the additives that we use here are not allowed there. But I just think that when you’re traveling, you eat differently. First of all, you’re not snacking all day long because you can’t get at it. You’re doing an awful lot of walking. It’s a healthier lifestyle. You’re not in a car. And lots of people experience weight loss when they’re traveling. And the food is good, and they have a different food culture that’s in some ways very admirable. On the other hand, American fast-food companies are quite prevalent. They have outlets there, and it’s quite possible to eat badly there, as well as it is here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, people in Europe eat differently. They have processed foods there. They have different rules than we do, and some of the additives that we use here are not allowed there. But I just think that when you’re traveling, you eat differently. First of all, you’re not snacking all day long because you can’t get at it. You’re doing an awful lot of walking. It’s a healthier lifestyle. You’re not in a car. And lots of people experience weight loss when they’re traveling. And the food is good, and they have a different food culture that’s in some ways very admirable. On the other hand, American fast-food companies are quite prevalent. They have outlets there, and it’s quite possible to eat badly there, as well as it is here.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Greg in Redwood City. Welcome, Greg.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Greg in Redwood City. Welcome, Greg.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Greg:\u003c/strong> Morning. I’d like to say, you know, I was a huge consumer of those cereals, everything from other kids’ favorites, Brilliant, Sugar Smacks, and Honeycomb, and I got older, Special K. You know, all the claims that it was not so bad. And now I look back, and I’m just so angry that I was, you know, the victim of that. You know, as consumers, we just don’t have the information to make intelligent decisions. And, uh, you know, now I’m just much more conscious of what I’m eating, and it’s really just the outer perimeter of the grocery store. And, you know, I don’t even like to go to restaurants because they don’t tell you what’s in it. They don’t tell you if it’s got a hundred ingredients and artificial cheese and all the rest of it. And I can really see the difference just by eating one meal, like how my body feels. So it’s incredibly frustrating that Americans can’t get the information to keep their family healthy. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Greg:\u003c/strong> Morning. I’d like to say, you know, I was a huge consumer of those cereals, everything from other kids’ favorites, Brilliant, Sugar Smacks, and Honeycomb, and I got older, Special K. You know, all the claims that it was not so bad. And now I look back, and I’m just so angry that I was, you know, the victim of that. You know, as consumers, we just don’t have the information to make intelligent decisions. And, uh, you know, now I’m just much more conscious of what I’m eating, and it’s really just the outer perimeter of the grocery store. And, you know, I don’t even like to go to restaurants because they don’t tell you what’s in it. They don’t tell you if it’s got a hundred ingredients and artificial cheese and all the rest of it. And I can really see the difference just by eating one meal, like how my body feels. So it’s incredibly frustrating that Americans can’t get the information to keep their family healthy. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the way I put it is, if you’re trying to eat healthfully in today’s food environment, you’re fighting an entire food system on your own. And the food system is set up to sell more food, not less. My mantra on this is: eating less is bad for business. And once you understand that, you get the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the way I put it is, if you’re trying to eat healthfully in today’s food environment, you’re fighting an entire food system on your own. And the food system is set up to sell more food, not less. My mantra on this is: eating less is bad for business. And once you understand that, you get the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. You mentioned earlier, you said people are all trying to eat more protein, reasonable or not. Why don’t you talk a little bit about whether you do think it’s reasonable or not?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. You mentioned earlier, you said people are all trying to eat more protein, reasonable or not. Why don’t you talk a little bit about whether you do think it’s reasonable or not?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I don’t, because most people are already eating twice the protein that’s essential for replacing the protein losses in their body. And eating more protein doesn’t do much good except for people who are elite athletes or people who aren’t watching their — well, but that’s a very small minority. Most people get plenty of the protein they need, even if they’re vegetarian, even if they are vegan. They’re getting enough protein.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I don’t, because most people are already eating twice the protein that’s essential for replacing the protein losses in their body. And eating more protein doesn’t do much good except for people who are elite athletes or people who aren’t watching their — well, but that’s a very small minority. Most people get plenty of the protein they need, even if they’re vegetarian, even if they are vegan. They’re getting enough protein.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s never been an issue. Do you have a nutrition guideline for it? Do you like some measure or metric that you use?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s never been an issue. Do you have a nutrition guideline for it? Do you like some measure or metric that you use?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> No, I just never think about these things. I follow my own advice.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> No, I just never think about these things. I follow my own advice.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Not protein-maxing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Not protein-maxing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I’m very fond of quoting Michael Pollan: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” That really takes care of it. And that’s how I eat, and that’s why I advise other people to eat. I think food is one of life’s greatest pleasures. It’s something lovely that you get to do for yourself several times a day. I don’t want to do anything to take away the pleasure of food, but I think it’s possible to enjoy eating — eating real food, not too much, mostly plants. I mean, it seems really easy to me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I’m very fond of quoting Michael Pollan: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” That really takes care of it. And that’s how I eat, and that’s why I advise other people to eat. I think food is one of life’s greatest pleasures. It’s something lovely that you get to do for yourself several times a day. I don’t want to do anything to take away the pleasure of food, but I think it’s possible to enjoy eating — eating real food, not too much, mostly plants. I mean, it seems really easy to me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So maybe you’ve already answered this, but the Trump administration does have a new version of the food pyramid, part of its dietary guidelines.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So maybe you’ve already answered this, but the Trump administration does have a new version of the food pyramid, part of its dietary guidelines.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, yes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, yes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Emphasizing protein, full-fat dairy, whole foods. What do you think? What do you think about the pyramid?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Emphasizing protein, full-fat dairy, whole foods. What do you think? What do you think about the pyramid?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s a mixed bag. And it’s really sad that it’s a mixed bag, because the advice to eat real food and avoid highly processed foods is good advice. They didn’t use the words “ultra-processed,” which I wish they had, but they did pretty well on it. But then the rest of it is just a jumble of misinformation, things that are scientifically dubious, and one absolutely shocking nutritional error. You know, it made me think, this is why we have committees — to keep people from getting into trouble. And the shocking nutritional error was to say that beef tallow, olive oil, and butter were good sources of essential fatty acids. They’re not.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s a mixed bag. And it’s really sad that it’s a mixed bag, because the advice to eat real food and avoid highly processed foods is good advice. They didn’t use the words “ultra-processed,” which I wish they had, but they did pretty well on it. But then the rest of it is just a jumble of misinformation, things that are scientifically dubious, and one absolutely shocking nutritional error. You know, it made me think, this is why we have committees — to keep people from getting into trouble. And the shocking nutritional error was to say that beef tallow, olive oil, and butter were good sources of essential fatty acids. They’re not.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And this is because — and Alice writes in to ask about this — there is this real hatred in that part of the MAHA world for seed oils.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And this is because — and Alice writes in to ask about this — there is this real hatred in that part of the MAHA world for seed oils.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, yeah. It’s bizarre.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, yeah. It’s bizarre.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So Alice writes, “Seed oils are categorically branded as unhealthy these days. Can Marion share her views on these?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So Alice writes, “Seed oils are categorically branded as unhealthy these days. Can Marion share her views on these?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that’s — you know, they have 120 calories per tablespoon, like every other fat, and you don’t want to eat too much of them, like any other fat, because they’re very high in calories. But the seed oils are clean. They’ve been refined, but okay, and they have lots and lots of essential fatty acids, which we need. These are fatty acids that we can’t make, and then we have to eat them in our diet. They’re by far the best source of them. I don’t get the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that’s — you know, they have 120 calories per tablespoon, like every other fat, and you don’t want to eat too much of them, like any other fat, because they’re very high in calories. But the seed oils are clean. They’ve been refined, but okay, and they have lots and lots of essential fatty acids, which we need. These are fatty acids that we can’t make, and then we have to eat them in our diet. They’re by far the best source of them. I don’t get the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, where does that come from?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, where does that come from?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, I know where it comes from. It comes from the processing — it comes from the idea, the correlation between the increase in consumption of seed oils parallels the rise in prevalence of obesity. That’s correlation, not causation. You know, obesity is — nobody wants to talk about calories. I turn out to be a calorie person. I really believe in them. If you eat more calories than you expend in activity, you’re going to gain weight. That is thermodynamics, and that still holds. And I think, you know, what you eat is important for health, but how much you eat is extraordinarily important for how much you weigh.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, I know where it comes from. It comes from the processing — it comes from the idea, the correlation between the increase in consumption of seed oils parallels the rise in prevalence of obesity. That’s correlation, not causation. You know, obesity is — nobody wants to talk about calories. I turn out to be a calorie person. I really believe in them. If you eat more calories than you expend in activity, you’re going to gain weight. That is thermodynamics, and that still holds. And I think, you know, what you eat is important for health, but how much you eat is extraordinarily important for how much you weigh.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s go to — let’s take Lily in San Francisco. Welcome, Lily.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s go to — let’s take Lily in San Francisco. Welcome, Lily.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lily:\u003c/strong> Hi. Hey, go ahead. Hi, Marion. Hi. I just wanted to say, so in college, I ended up writing my senior-year work, and that was in part because my uncle had died from obesity the year before I had gone to college. And it was a deep question in my mind of how that could have happened, and I think it spurred this whole research career, actually. But at the time, I was really using your work. I just wanted to thank you for all of that. And I was examining how our sociocultural or political-cultural values and messaging around choice and freedom, specifically, have contributed to how we consume food and how it changes our behavior around food.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lily:\u003c/strong> Hi. Hey, go ahead. Hi, Marion. Hi. I just wanted to say, so in college, I ended up writing my senior-year work, and that was in part because my uncle had died from obesity the year before I had gone to college. And it was a deep question in my mind of how that could have happened, and I think it spurred this whole research career, actually. But at the time, I was really using your work. I just wanted to thank you for all of that. And I was examining how our sociocultural or political-cultural values and messaging around choice and freedom, specifically, have contributed to how we consume food and how it changes our behavior around food.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I’m curious because I feel like, as a senior in college, you know, we have now the rise of influencers and trends around food. And I’m curious about how you see messaging, whether that’s through advertising or lobbying, or just kind of the cultural zeitgeist around how we consume food and what it means about us. And, yeah, if you’ve seen anything change with that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I’m curious because I feel like, as a senior in college, you know, we have now the rise of influencers and trends around food. And I’m curious about how you see messaging, whether that’s through advertising or lobbying, or just kind of the cultural zeitgeist around how we consume food and what it means about us. And, yeah, if you’ve seen anything change with that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, social media has changed everything. First of all, I’m so excited that you’ve read my work. That’s really touching. Thank you. I don’t know what to say about the influencer culture and what’s happening on social media. I worry about it a lot because the idea comes straight out of Orwell’s \u003cem>1984\u003c/em>: that if you repeat the same message over and over and again, and louder and louder and louder, people will believe it whether it has any relationship to truth or not. And we seem to be seeing a lot of that these days.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, social media has changed everything. First of all, I’m so excited that you’ve read my work. That’s really touching. Thank you. I don’t know what to say about the influencer culture and what’s happening on social media. I worry about it a lot because the idea comes straight out of Orwell’s \u003cem>1984\u003c/em>: that if you repeat the same message over and over and again, and louder and louder and louder, people will believe it whether it has any relationship to truth or not. And we seem to be seeing a lot of that these days.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>How to deal with social media is an enormous problem. I sure am glad I raised my kids long before any of this. It was a lot easier. And we, as a society, have to figure out how to deal with a level of misinformation in which scientific facts are treated as if they’re just like any other opinion. Facts and opinion are different. The facts are facts, but if we as a society don’t agree about what those facts are, I think we’re in real trouble, and I worry about it a lot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>How to deal with social media is an enormous problem. I sure am glad I raised my kids long before any of this. It was a lot easier. And we, as a society, have to figure out how to deal with a level of misinformation in which scientific facts are treated as if they’re just like any other opinion. Facts and opinion are different. The facts are facts, but if we as a society don’t agree about what those facts are, I think we’re in real trouble, and I worry about it a lot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I think one of the tricky things — and I think on your blog, you run these posts pretty much every week, I think, that take a look at an industry-funded study. A food-industry-funded study looks like a fact, but it’s sort of often not. As you break down in these posts, they’re sort of bad science by design, dressed up as a fact.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I think one of the tricky things — and I think on your blog, you run these posts pretty much every week, I think, that take a look at an industry-funded study. A food-industry-funded study looks like a fact, but it’s sort of often not. As you break down in these posts, they’re sort of bad science by design, dressed up as a fact.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the science actually is pretty good. It’s the way they’ve formulated the research question to give them the answer that they want, or interpreted the results in a way that they want. These are industry-funded studies. I mean, there’s an enormous amount of research that shows a very high correlation between the funder and the outcome of the study. And, you know, some of these are just really funny. I look at the title and I know exactly who must have paid for it, because nobody else would do a study like that. There’s only one reason for doing that study, and that’s to prove that your product is healthy or not harmful. And there are so many of them, each one funnier than the next. So that’s my Monday morning amusement: to post the latest industry-funded study, where you really can predict — if you know who the funder is, you can predict the outcome. You shouldn’t be able to do that in science.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the science actually is pretty good. It’s the way they’ve formulated the research question to give them the answer that they want, or interpreted the results in a way that they want. These are industry-funded studies. I mean, there’s an enormous amount of research that shows a very high correlation between the funder and the outcome of the study. And, you know, some of these are just really funny. I look at the title and I know exactly who must have paid for it, because nobody else would do a study like that. There’s only one reason for doing that study, and that’s to prove that your product is healthy or not harmful. And there are so many of them, each one funnier than the next. So that’s my Monday morning amusement: to post the latest industry-funded study, where you really can predict — if you know who the funder is, you can predict the outcome. You shouldn’t be able to do that in science.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, one listener writes, “As a busy working parent, I often find myself pinched for dinner for the family. Often my choices are a frozen-food dinner from Trader Joe’s or, quote, healthy fast food like Chipotle. Is one better than the other? Any advice?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, one listener writes, “As a busy working parent, I often find myself pinched for dinner for the family. Often my choices are a frozen-food dinner from Trader Joe’s or, quote, healthy fast food like Chipotle. Is one better than the other? Any advice?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s so hard to say whether one product is good or better. What you have to look at is the whole diet, and that, of course, is very difficult to do, particularly since nobody can remember what they ate. You want to do the best you can: real foods, mostly plants, not exclusively necessarily, although exclusively is okay, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be only plants. And balancing calories so that you’re not consuming excessive numbers of calories. And the easiest way to cut down on calories is, first of all, the one food I would say to eliminate is sugar-sweetened beverages, because they’re demonstrably harmful. You’re getting a lot of calories and a lot of sugar all at once. So those should be absolutely minimized. And after that, you just want to eat foods that are foods, and processed as little as possible.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s so hard to say whether one product is good or better. What you have to look at is the whole diet, and that, of course, is very difficult to do, particularly since nobody can remember what they ate. You want to do the best you can: real foods, mostly plants, not exclusively necessarily, although exclusively is okay, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be only plants. And balancing calories so that you’re not consuming excessive numbers of calories. And the easiest way to cut down on calories is, first of all, the one food I would say to eliminate is sugar-sweetened beverages, because they’re demonstrably harmful. You’re getting a lot of calories and a lot of sugar all at once. So those should be absolutely minimized. And after that, you just want to eat foods that are foods, and processed as little as possible.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Speaking of drinks, one listener writes in to say, “What do you think of the new wave of soda, seltzers, drinks with zero sugar, no calories, no sweeteners, no sodium, no gluten, zero carbonation?” There’s just a million of these things, you know? Your Spindrifts and your LaCroix and all these things.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Speaking of drinks, one listener writes in to say, “What do you think of the new wave of soda, seltzers, drinks with zero sugar, no calories, no sweeteners, no sodium, no gluten, zero carbonation?” There’s just a million of these things, you know? Your Spindrifts and your LaCroix and all these things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, and the ones with CBD.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, and the ones with CBD.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the ones that have CBD. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s Daytrip, et cetera. Yeah, what do you think of that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the ones that have CBD. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s Daytrip, et cetera. Yeah, what do you think of that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, they don’t have sugar — well, not much — and in that sense, they’re — I mean, whatever happened to water?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, they don’t have sugar — well, not much — and in that sense, they’re — I mean, whatever happened to water?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s still out there, I hear. Not a good marketing team, though.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s still out there, I hear. Not a good marketing team, though.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Apparently not. They have some sweetener. I don’t like the ones with artificial sweeteners or the so-called natural sweeteners. I do not think they taste good. A lot of places have really good water supplies. If your community has a really good supply, I highly recommend it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Apparently not. They have some sweetener. I don’t like the ones with artificial sweeteners or the so-called natural sweeteners. I do not think they taste good. A lot of places have really good water supplies. If your community has a really good supply, I highly recommend it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, let me ask you one more on this question. How many Diet Cokes a month can I have and not feel bad about it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, let me ask you one more on this question. How many Diet Cokes a month can I have and not feel bad about it?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Um, it depends on everyone —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Um, it depends on everyone —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Less than 100.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Less than 100.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> — and everything else you’re eating. You know, I’m not a Diet Coke fan because I’m not interested in artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners are a marker of ultra-processing, and I’d just as soon avoid them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> — and everything else you’re eating. You know, I’m not a Diet Coke fan because I’m not interested in artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners are a marker of ultra-processing, and I’d just as soon avoid them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I don’t think they taste good.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I don’t think they taste good.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, I d — I can’t help myself. Um —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, I d — I can’t help myself. Um —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And I don’t judge what you eat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And I don’t judge what you eat.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> How about this? We make a deal: I won’t say anything about what you eat if you don’t say anything about what I eat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Fair enough. Um, I, you know, I want you to kind of take the sweep of your career, you know? I mean, you have been working on these things for —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Fair enough. Um, I, you know, I want you to kind of take the sweep of your career, you know? I mean, you have been working on these things for —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and, you know, you’ve been really working on the food industry. You’ve got policies changed. You’ve been deeply involved in some of these things. Like, where do you think we are relative to, you know, the year 2000? How have we done in the 21st century? Do we have a better food system than we used to? Do we not?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and, you know, you’ve been really working on the food industry. You’ve got policies changed. You’ve been deeply involved in some of these things. Like, where do you think we are relative to, you know, the year 2000? How have we done in the 21st century? Do we have a better food system than we used to? Do we not?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> In some ways, yes; in some ways, no. I mean, it’s possible now to go into any supermarket in America and eat healthfully if you make those kinds of choices. That wasn’t always true. Many, many, many more people are interested in these issues now and have generated a market for healthier foods. I think that’s a good thing, and it’s possible to get healthier foods practically everywhere, unless you happen to be living in a place where you have to drive miles to get to a supermarket. But most places, certainly in cities, you can do that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> In some ways, yes; in some ways, no. I mean, it’s possible now to go into any supermarket in America and eat healthfully if you make those kinds of choices. That wasn’t always true. Many, many, many more people are interested in these issues now and have generated a market for healthier foods. I think that’s a good thing, and it’s possible to get healthier foods practically everywhere, unless you happen to be living in a place where you have to drive miles to get to a supermarket. But most places, certainly in cities, you can do that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And because I’m associated with the university, I get to deal with young people. And because my particular piece of the university is nutrition and food studies, we attract a population of people who are deeply interested in the way food is produced, sold, and consumed. I mean, deeply interested, and there are lots of them. And to me, that’s enormously exciting. And that’s new, too, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Relatively, yeah. We have been talking with Marion Nestle, of course, an incredible food scientist and nutritionist who has been working on these issues for many years. The latest book is called \u003cem>Sugar Coated\u003c/em>, and it is about breakfast cereal. So next time you want to fight with your kids in a supermarket aisle, you’ll be armed with everything you need. She co-wrote it with Lisa Sutherland, former executive at Kellogg. Fascinating. Of course, she’s also a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. And you really, if you’re interested in these things, you need to be reading her blog, foodpolitics.com, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Not dot com — yeah, dot com.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Marion Nestle, thank you so much for joining us this morning. An absolute pleasure. And thank you to all of our \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> listeners, commenters, callers. You’re the best. Thank you so much. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Marion Nestle, thank you so much for joining us this morning. An absolute pleasure. And thank you to all of our \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> listeners, commenters, callers. You’re the best. Thank you so much. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, October 14, 2026 at 9 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For more than five decades, renowned nutritionist, molecular biologist and food activist Marion Nestle has worked to expose the connections between Americans’ health and the powerful agendas shaping what we eat. Her newest book, co-authored with Dr. Lisa Sutherland, “Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food” examines the politics of our morning meal. We talk with Nestle about the shifts in attitudes and regulations of what we eat — from soda taxes to the MAHA movement — and about what she believes it will take to build a healthier food system for all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health emerita, New York University; her latest book is \u003cem>Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Marion Nestle is a legend of the food world. Her work over many decades, including her pathbreaking book, \u003cem>Food Politics\u003c/em>, has changed the terms of the debate about food. And her blog, foodpolitics.com, is an incredible repository of news, ideas, and information about the broad world of food, nutrition, science, and politics. And for the fourth or even fifth time, we believe, Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU, joins us here on \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, so happy to be back!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are delighted to have you, in part because there is a measure on Berkeley’s ballot for a kind of update of the soda tax. You wrote a book in 2015 called \u003cem>Soda Politics\u003c/em>, and you, of course, know this history. So give us sort of the little summary: where did the soda taxes come from, and where did Berkeley’s role in it lie?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, Berkeley really took the leadership on all of this. There were some other towns that tried to pass soda taxes before, but Berkeley really — I use Berkeley as a case study of how to do food advocacy right. They did real community organizing. They went door to door in every community, the ones in the flats and the ones high up in the hills. And they talked to people about the effects of consuming large amounts of sugar in liquid form on obesity, diabetes risks for chronic disease. They talked to people about whether they knew anybody with type 2 diabetes and whether they understood that drinking a lot of your sugar isn’t a really good way to do it. And people got it. And then they promised that they would use the tax revenues for community initiatives, and they have done that. They have, you know, they’ve lived their promises. And this is a success story, with research that shows that it reduces soda consumption and maybe, maybe, maybe is helping people manage their weight better.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it’s interesting, too, because it was in the original ballot measure, right? There was a lot of spending against it from the — oh, tons. Who didn’t pass with 80% of the vote, is that —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I believe it was 60-something percent, but it was huge. And, you know, it was an enormous, unqualified passing with a very large percentage, and that was because of the fabulous way in which the committee that was running the campaign did it. I mean, they did real community organizing, which is what you have to do to make this stuff work.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So why do we need something else on the ballot in Berkeley?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, that has to do with how long the initiative lasted and California politics. I live in New York. I’m not up on these details. I do know that there has to be another vote on it. Maybe you could explain it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think they’re just adding another cent to it, right? I mean, that’s my —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, because it was really not as high as what they wanted to begin with. The evidence had shown that the higher the tax, the more effective it was. The amount that they actually did the tax at was a compromise, and so this is to kind of fix the compromise a little bit. So, you know —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Opponents of soda taxes, both here and elsewhere, have said, you know, they burden lower-income consumers. You know, government shouldn’t try to influence people’s personal food choices through taxes. What do you think about those critiques?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the government has an enormous influence on what people eat, based on what the government subsidizes, how the government gives food companies tax advantages for marketing. I mean, there are just a million ways in which the government influences what we eat. This is only a different way of doing it. Taxes are regressive, and there’s no question that this is a regressive tax. But the answer to that is type 2 diabetes is regressive, and it hurts the poor much more than it hurts the rich.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And sodas are a really convenient target. They’re different from any other food in that they’re sugars and water and flavors. And marketing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And marketing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> But nothing else of any nutritional value. So, in that sense, sodas differ from any other kind of junk or ultra-processed food in having no nutritional value at all other than the calories. And dumping large amounts of sugar into a metabolic system turns out not to be good for that metabolic system. We’re just not equipped to handle that amount of sugar at any one time. It’s much better to consume your sugar mixed up with other dietary components and much more slowly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So what about cereals, then? You’ve got a new book, which you co-wrote with Lisa Sutherland, who we’re going to talk about in just a second. Why cereal, though? Was it sort of the next most convenient target?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I’ve collected cereal boxes for years because they have the most hilarious advertising and marketing on them. I’ve collected mainly boxes with health claims on them, the more ridiculous the better. And at some point, I needed to think of another project, and I told my literary agent that it was time to do something with my cereal box collection. And so that’s how this came about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s interesting. I mean, one of the fascinating components of this book is that your co-author was actually a Kellogg’s executive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> A vice president for nutrition at Kellogg.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, I don’t know. Is this like dancing with the enemy? What’s going on?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, and she was anything but an enemy. I had met Lisa Sutherland probably 20 years ago when she was working for Hannaford Supermarkets, which is a chain of supermarkets in the Northeast. And she worked out their Guiding Stars program, which was a way of labeling house-brand foods for the ones that had the least amounts of salt, sugar, and saturated fat. And then she worked for Walmart, and then she worked for Chobani. And, you know, her view of that was she was trying to keep them nutritionally honest.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then at some point she called me and said, “I hope you’re not going to be mad at me, but I’m working for Kellogg.” And as it turned out, I wasn’t mad at all because I had been trying for months to get Kellogg to let me come and look at their archives. Because I wanted to look at packaging before Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling Act of 1990, and I had asked to see them, and they had said they would consider it. Nothing happened. So when she said, “I’m working for Kellogg,” I said, “Great, get me into the archives.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You got a woman on the inside now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Right, I was thrilled! And months went by, and then she wrote and said, “Okay, come.” So I flew out to Battle Creek, and we went into the Kellogg’s library, and they said, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” And I said, “Oh, all right, I’ll take the bad news first.” And the bad news was the lawyers weren’t going to let me anywhere near the files.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I said, “Oh, okay, what could the good news possibly be?” Well, the good news was spectacular because what they had done — and I still can’t believe this — was they had made color Xeroxes of the front and back of the three cereals I had asked to look at, from the year they were introduced until 2010, which is when this was. And they handed me a box of all-brand facsimiles from 1919 to 2010, Rice Krispies from 1928, and Froot Loops from 1963.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And we’re looking at these and paging through them, and the Kellogg nutritionists are saying things like, “Oh, this is when the FDA passed this regulation,” and, “Oh, look at this. This is when that research came out on oat bran,” and, “Oh, this is when the Center for Science in the Public Interest sued us.” And we were sitting there and looking at these things and saying, “There’s a book in this. There’s absolutely a book that’s going to tell the history of nutrition policy in the United States, the history of labeling policy, and a lot about marketing.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But we didn’t do it, and we drifted apart. And 15 years later, when I was thinking of doing this, I had this sudden guilty thought: maybe I should check with Lisa Sutherland and at least tell her that I’m doing this. And her response — I had to track her down. I hadn’t seen her in more than 10 years or heard from her in 10 years. And when I tracked her down and said, “This is what I’m doing,” she wrote back one sentence: “I’m in this with you.” We were off and running.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, what was interesting to you about those three cereals? I mean, I also love Lucky Charms, but what was interesting about them?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I particularly wanted All-Bran because I knew that Kellogg had used All-Bran cereal as a way to break the FDA’s restriction on health claims. They had done an end run around the FDA and gone straight to the National Cancer Institute to put a “National Cancer Institute says fiber is good for preventing cancer” claim on All-Bran, and I wanted that All-Bran box.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like a case study of how —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Right, a case study. I wanted Rice Krispies because it was an old cereal that started advertising Rice Krispies Treats right from the beginning, and it was sort of a normal, run-of-the-mill cereal. And I wanted Froot Loops also for a case study because Froot Loops was the cereal box that got the first Smart Choices logo, when the food industry had gotten together with nutritionists to put a kind of front-of-package symbol that would indicate that something was healthy. And the first one landed on Froot Loops, and so I wanted that box. So those were the three that I had picked. I also wanted Special K, but they didn’t think they could get me Special K.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As one that, like, targeted women in specific ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> So, you know, these I have, and they turn out to be — and they gave them to me. I have them in my office at NYU, and they’re fabulous for saying, “Well, how much sugar was in cereal in 1958?” I can answer that question. And it’s just enormously useful to have them. I’m quite grateful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, and what it’ll take to make it healthier. We’re joined by Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. And we want to hear from you. Is there a food you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now? Or maybe, how has your understanding of the food industry changed the way you shop or eat? Give us a call, 866-733-6786, or email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Marion Nestle. She’s got a new book out. It is about cereal. It is called \u003cem>Sugar Coated\u003c/em>. It was co-authored with Lisa Sutherland. Of course, she’s a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University. And we want to hear from you if there’s a food that you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now. Or maybe, you know, with so much nutrition advice and information available now, how do you decide what foods you eat? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email, of course, is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Social media: Bluesky, Instagram, Discord. We’re KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Before we talk about some other ultra-processed foods, what is the takeaway people should have about cereal? Like, if their kids want to have Honey Nut Cheerios, hypothetically, um, what would you say about that kind of food?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> They’re a once-in-a-while treat. Some of my friends who have kids who are demanding sugary cereals — I mean, first of all, these cereals are marketed directly to children. You know this because of the cartoon characters on the front. And now the toys are back in cereals. So the whole purpose of this is to get kids to demand the foods, to pester their parents for them. It’s called the pester factor, and nobody wants to fight with their kids about food, so everybody gives in. But I do have friends who give their kids a healthier cereal and sprinkle a little bit of this stuff on top of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we do that with our dog. He gets, like, kibble, and then he gets the stuff he really likes just a little bit on top. I understand. Is there any cereal that you would recommend, or is it just sort of —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the one that I like is mini shredded wheat, and they’re a one-ingredient cereal. There’s one ingredient: whole wheat. That’s it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You’re not talking about Frosted Mini-Wheats.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> No, I’m not. I like adding my own sugar, and I can put in a spoonful of sugar. It’ll be a third of the amount that’s in pre-sweetened cereals.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, so let’s talk about these ultra-processed foods. I mean, this is a label, or a way of talking about foods, I feel like has emerged over the last five or —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Since 2009. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so over time, and we now in California have a law that’s establishing a new non-ultra-processed-certified label for food products. What do you think about this kind of non-ultra-processed-certified label?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the Non-GMO Project did it first. Non-GMO is the most successful front-of-package indicator. Lisa and I call them widgets — the most-used one on packages. And they have started a non-UPF, ultra-processed food designation. I don’t know how it’s going. It’s just started, and California will be the first state to have this. I’m very interested to see what the symbol is going to look like. The law didn’t have any prototypes that I’m aware of.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think it’s a good idea because the ultra-processed food concept is a specific category of junk food, where the foods are industrially produced, usually have a lot of salt, sugar, and fat, and a lot of color, flavor, and texture additives. But they are designed specifically for profit and designed specifically to be irresistibly delicious, if not addictive. And there is now a phenomenal amount of evidence that links diets high in ultra-processed foods to poor health outcomes. And those are observational studies, and they don’t show causation. But there are also some very well-controlled, although short-term, clinical trials that show that these foods induce people to eat more calories — a lot more calories — without being aware that they’re doing it. So there are good reasons for cutting down on ultra-processed foods, and people are doing that. And it would be great, too, because there are issues about the definition. There are some categories of foods that some people argue are highly nutritious but meet the definition of ultra-processed foods, like commercial whole-wheat breads and yogurts. There are only a few plant-based meats —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And those kinds of things, and medical foods. So there are some exceptions, but I think — so there’s a big issue about the definition. I don’t think there should be an issue about the definition.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I think it’s kind of a red herring that the food is —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, because most people get the concept, and it’s pretty obvious what most of them are. And so having something that puts a label on the most obvious ultra-processed foods would help people identify them very quickly. So I can’t wait to see what it looks like.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Before we go to the phones, I just want to ask you: you know, here in San Francisco, City Attorney David Chiu filed a lawsuit last year against 10 of the country’s largest food manufacturers, saying these companies knowingly designed and marketed harmful, addictive products. This is true. Do you think that litigation will succeed? Do you think it’s going to be an effective way to hold the food industry accountable?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I have no idea. The food industry is remarkably powerful. And we see that in the Make America Healthy Again movement. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — apparently, they have a definition of ultra-processed foods, which would be the basis for regulation, although this is not a group that wants to regulate much. But they have put that definition and sent it to the White House, and it’s being held up. And I just saw an account of the food industry enterprises that have met with the White House officials to argue against a definition of ultra-processed food.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So the politics of this are enormous, and Berkeley and San Francisco both saw this during the soda tax things 10 years ago, or whenever it was. The amount of money that the soda industry put into fighting the idea of a soda tax is similar to the amount of money that they are willing to spend to defeat anything having to do with ultra-processed foods.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Noreen in Oakland. Welcome, Noreen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Hi there! Love the program. It’s worth noting that my maiden name is Post, and we were indeed the reckoning of Post Toasties.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You have venerable ancestors.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> I do. I do, in so many ways. But I wanted to share my love of Grape-Nuts cereal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I hear this a lot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I hear this a lot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noreen:\u003c/strong> Yeah, have you ever ate a pine cone? Many parts are edible. Right away, and it’s super crunchy and delicious, or you could let it sit there for a little while and it turns into kind of an oatmeal thing. And you can carve out a moon and let the milk be on one side, and then just gently enjoy it. And my mom used to take our leftover cereal and use it to make bread.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wow. Oh, good idea. Wow, Noreen, really appreciate that. I mean, this is — I would make cookies. Yeah, I think of Grape-Nuts. That was one of the things in our house, for sure, that it was like, okay, Grape-Nuts are a healthy cereal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and people are telling me that they’re really hard to find.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting, interesting. Is it true, though? Like, is it a healthy cereal, or is it just kind of a health halo?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You know, I need to look at the ingredient list. I can’t really tell until I look at that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> But I hear about — I’m hearing a lot about Grape-Nuts these days. I should go look at that ingredient list.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, let’s talk a little bit about — you mentioned MAHA and this movement that calls itself the Make America Healthy Again movement. How do you relate to it? Because I would imagine — I mean, I know from your blog that you believe in vaccination, you know, and have, I believe, standard public health kind of measures, which that movement has not always done. So how do you relate to it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I started out thinking that there were a lot of — with respect to the food issues — that there were a lot of very hopeful things in it. But as it’s turning out, they are unable to accomplish a lot of what they started out doing. For example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came in saying he was going to get rid of — that the food industry was poisoning America. That’s a little extreme. And he wanted ultra-processed foods out of the food supply. He wanted glyphosate, Roundup, out of the food supply. They wanted to get rid of all the chemicals and pesticides and herbicides that are contaminating food, PFAS and all those other things, and the artificial color dyes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the only thing they’ve been able to accomplish so far is they are actually getting the artificial color dyes out of breakfast cereals. And you can go to the store and see that you can buy Trix with vegetable dyes instead of the petroleum dyes, but the cereal’s still the same.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And getting rid of the dyes is not going to make America healthy again. Doing something about ultra-processed foods might, but they’re stuck in politics on that one. And they’ve not been able to accomplish much. So it’s been all talk, no action.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, I guess, was what you found hopeful in it the actual measures that MAHA wanted to take, or was it more that the coalition was kind of an unusual one in current American politics, and that it kind of cut across a lot of partisan divides?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I’ve wanted color additives out of the food supply for a long time. I didn’t think they were the be-all and end-all. They’re not the most important issue by any means, and they seemed like a no-brainer to me. It ought to be that, with the stroke of a pen, they should have been able to do that. But they’re not taking a regulatory approach. Kennedy has said that he thinks regulation is the nanny state, and so the companies have been pressured voluntarily to remove the color dyes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, General Mills did that once before. Nobody bought Trix when it was brown and yellow, and they brought the color dyes back. So maybe that’ll happen this time, too. It’s, you know, they’re just not accomplishing much, and they had the chance to do that. They had three branches of government. But it turns out eating less is very, very bad for business, and the food industry is not interested in public health measures that might reduce sales and profits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Surprise. So this is interesting because there is a thing happening in American life right now that is causing people to eat less. That is the growth of GLP-1s and similar drugs that have, you know, tended to reduce people’s caloric intake. What’s your take on them?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, they’re fascinating. I’m riveted by them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, same.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And for a year, whenever I gave a public talk, I would say, “If you’re taking GLP-1 drugs and are willing to share your experience, come up afterwards and let’s talk about it privately.” And I have now talked to dozens and dozens and dozens of people who are taking the drugs. And what’s interesting to me about it is that the personal accounts that I’ve heard are very consistent with what the research is showing — extraordinarily consistent. So there’s a wide range of responses. Some people lose lots of weight, some people only lose a little, some people have terrible side effects, some people don’t have any. It really varies. But overall, the drugs really do help people lose weight. People feel better, they feel stronger, they feel livelier. They feel better; their metabolic issues disappear. They’re doing great as long as they’re on the drug. The problem is what happens when you come off them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And there, most people regain the weight. Not all, but most people do. And that’s a problem, too, or you have to be on a maintenance dose for life. We’re still waiting to see what the side effects are, how serious some of the side effects are. There’ve been some rare ones that are pretty bad. Most people have GI side effects. Some are tolerable, some are not.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Are you interested in the mechanisms of it? That’s been the thing that’s been so interesting to me, is that most of the work seems to be happening in people’s minds as much as anything else. Like, there are the sort of changes that people experience in their digestive tract, but it’s mostly that people just think about eating a little bit less.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, the main overall effect is it reduces what’s called “food noise.” I had never heard the term before. I like it a lot. I get it totally. It’s the obsessive thinking about food, and that stops. Although people who are serious foodies tell me they still love food, they still think about food, they —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’d like to cook still.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> You know, they do all of that, and it’s not affected. They’re just not eating as much. They just don’t want to eat as much. So the drugs affect the gut, various organs, and the brain, and scientists are hard at work trying to figure all that out. But there’s no question that they eat less, and they selectively eat less. So they’re eating less ultra-processed food. They’re eating less junk food. They’re eating healthier. Well, isn’t that amazing?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. How do you think they’re going to respond? I mean, this does —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, they’re already responding. I mean, the food industry is in trouble in general, overall. It’s in trouble because of RFK Jr. saying they’re poisoning people. It’s in trouble because of ultra-processed foods. It’s in trouble because of GLP-1 drugs. And it’s in trouble because of inflation. You know, I mean, I can’t believe what’s happened to the cost of food in the last couple of years. It’s just shocking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So what are their prospective responses? I mean, if I were putting on my executive hat, you would have to say, like, okay, well, if right now GLP-1s are most widely distributed in sort of middle-class, upper-middle-class households, so we’ve got to double down on targeting people who can’t afford GLP-1s and who maybe are also being hit harder by inflation, to even sell more to those people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, they’re certainly marketing, but they’re also reformulating products. You know, and you have to understand the context for this: in our investment system, it’s not enough to make a profit. You have to grow the profit and report growth to Wall Street every quarter. That’s very difficult to do if people are eating less. And so, if growth is flat or declining, these companies are in very, very serious trouble, and they are scrambling to try to dream up products that will be as profitable as ultra-processed products are. And they’re having a hard time doing it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But if you want to know why protein is on absolutely everything, everybody’s looking for protein, whether that’s reasonable or not, we can argue about. But everybody’s looking for protein. And so the food companies are putting protein into everything and marketing it, and they’re putting protein into the most ridiculous products. I just read that there’s a protein vodka you could drink. Are you kidding me? And because I’m so interested in cereals, my favorite current cereal product is Cookies ‘n’ Creme Oreos protein. You cannot make this stuff up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It does — it sounds like, yeah, a ’90s postmodernist novel product, for sure. We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, GLP-1s, MAHA, so much more, with food icon Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One listener writes in to say, “I was not a food obsessive for most of my life. My mother did make us eat wheat germ sprinkled on our Lucky Charms, as if this might counteract the problems of the magically delicious marshmallows. But when I had my own kids, I started to pay more attention to this, and we became the house where you can’t find snacks like Goldfish or potato chips, and we were not a breakfast cereal family. And to this day, my kids are not snackers, as far as I know.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We want to hear from you. Is there a food that you grew up thinking was healthy that you see differently now? Just want to ask Marion Nestle something. 866-733-6786, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. I’m here with Marion Nestle, icon, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. We’re talking about the powerful forces shaping what Americans eat, the politics of our food, what it might take to make us all healthier. We’ve got a lot of callers here, so I want to make sure that we get them in. Let’s go to Hamayat in Fremont. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hamayat:\u003c/strong> Hi, good morning. I had a two-part question slash comment. And the first part is, I wanted to know, is there a difference in our processed food versus processed foods in other countries, such as in European countries? Because in the summer we went to London and Paris for a month, and before we went I checked my weight. And then when we came back, I had lost eight pounds, even though all of our meals were outside because we were staying in hotels in both places. So we weren’t eating home-cooked meals. There were restaurants and fast food, and that’s what we were having. So I was wondering if there’s any difference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The second thing I wanted to bring up is about the GLP-1 question. Since the last year and a half, everyone that we know was talking about it and trying to sell it on, even though nobody works for them as the only one thing. But I was reluctant to start because my father is a pediatrician, and he told me it depends on every person’s history. So I just started watching my calories using an Amazon skill, and I found that to be a lot more effective than doing something where you might have to continue it. So those are my two comments.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think one reason people have gotten into GLP-1s is that so many analyses of diets were just showing it wasn’t really working in the long term for most people, and so GLP-1s seem to have had some success. But let’s take the European processed food versus American processed food.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, people in Europe eat differently. They have processed foods there. They have different rules than we do, and some of the additives that we use here are not allowed there. But I just think that when you’re traveling, you eat differently. First of all, you’re not snacking all day long because you can’t get at it. You’re doing an awful lot of walking. It’s a healthier lifestyle. You’re not in a car. And lots of people experience weight loss when they’re traveling. And the food is good, and they have a different food culture that’s in some ways very admirable. On the other hand, American fast-food companies are quite prevalent. They have outlets there, and it’s quite possible to eat badly there, as well as it is here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Greg in Redwood City. Welcome, Greg.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Greg:\u003c/strong> Morning. I’d like to say, you know, I was a huge consumer of those cereals, everything from other kids’ favorites, Brilliant, Sugar Smacks, and Honeycomb, and I got older, Special K. You know, all the claims that it was not so bad. And now I look back, and I’m just so angry that I was, you know, the victim of that. You know, as consumers, we just don’t have the information to make intelligent decisions. And, uh, you know, now I’m just much more conscious of what I’m eating, and it’s really just the outer perimeter of the grocery store. And, you know, I don’t even like to go to restaurants because they don’t tell you what’s in it. They don’t tell you if it’s got a hundred ingredients and artificial cheese and all the rest of it. And I can really see the difference just by eating one meal, like how my body feels. So it’s incredibly frustrating that Americans can’t get the information to keep their family healthy. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the way I put it is, if you’re trying to eat healthfully in today’s food environment, you’re fighting an entire food system on your own. And the food system is set up to sell more food, not less. My mantra on this is: eating less is bad for business. And once you understand that, you get the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. You mentioned earlier, you said people are all trying to eat more protein, reasonable or not. Why don’t you talk a little bit about whether you do think it’s reasonable or not?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, I don’t, because most people are already eating twice the protein that’s essential for replacing the protein losses in their body. And eating more protein doesn’t do much good except for people who are elite athletes or people who aren’t watching their — well, but that’s a very small minority. Most people get plenty of the protein they need, even if they’re vegetarian, even if they are vegan. They’re getting enough protein.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s never been an issue. Do you have a nutrition guideline for it? Do you like some measure or metric that you use?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> No, I just never think about these things. I follow my own advice.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Not protein-maxing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I’m very fond of quoting Michael Pollan: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” That really takes care of it. And that’s how I eat, and that’s why I advise other people to eat. I think food is one of life’s greatest pleasures. It’s something lovely that you get to do for yourself several times a day. I don’t want to do anything to take away the pleasure of food, but I think it’s possible to enjoy eating — eating real food, not too much, mostly plants. I mean, it seems really easy to me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So maybe you’ve already answered this, but the Trump administration does have a new version of the food pyramid, part of its dietary guidelines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Emphasizing protein, full-fat dairy, whole foods. What do you think? What do you think about the pyramid?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s a mixed bag. And it’s really sad that it’s a mixed bag, because the advice to eat real food and avoid highly processed foods is good advice. They didn’t use the words “ultra-processed,” which I wish they had, but they did pretty well on it. But then the rest of it is just a jumble of misinformation, things that are scientifically dubious, and one absolutely shocking nutritional error. You know, it made me think, this is why we have committees — to keep people from getting into trouble. And the shocking nutritional error was to say that beef tallow, olive oil, and butter were good sources of essential fatty acids. They’re not.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And this is because — and Alice writes in to ask about this — there is this real hatred in that part of the MAHA world for seed oils.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, yeah. It’s bizarre.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So Alice writes, “Seed oils are categorically branded as unhealthy these days. Can Marion share her views on these?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that’s — you know, they have 120 calories per tablespoon, like every other fat, and you don’t want to eat too much of them, like any other fat, because they’re very high in calories. But the seed oils are clean. They’ve been refined, but okay, and they have lots and lots of essential fatty acids, which we need. These are fatty acids that we can’t make, and then we have to eat them in our diet. They’re by far the best source of them. I don’t get the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, where does that come from?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, I know where it comes from. It comes from the processing — it comes from the idea, the correlation between the increase in consumption of seed oils parallels the rise in prevalence of obesity. That’s correlation, not causation. You know, obesity is — nobody wants to talk about calories. I turn out to be a calorie person. I really believe in them. If you eat more calories than you expend in activity, you’re going to gain weight. That is thermodynamics, and that still holds. And I think, you know, what you eat is important for health, but how much you eat is extraordinarily important for how much you weigh.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s go to — let’s take Lily in San Francisco. Welcome, Lily.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lily:\u003c/strong> Hi. Hey, go ahead. Hi, Marion. Hi. I just wanted to say, so in college, I ended up writing my senior-year work, and that was in part because my uncle had died from obesity the year before I had gone to college. And it was a deep question in my mind of how that could have happened, and I think it spurred this whole research career, actually. But at the time, I was really using your work. I just wanted to thank you for all of that. And I was examining how our sociocultural or political-cultural values and messaging around choice and freedom, specifically, have contributed to how we consume food and how it changes our behavior around food.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I’m curious because I feel like, as a senior in college, you know, we have now the rise of influencers and trends around food. And I’m curious about how you see messaging, whether that’s through advertising or lobbying, or just kind of the cultural zeitgeist around how we consume food and what it means about us. And, yeah, if you’ve seen anything change with that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, social media has changed everything. First of all, I’m so excited that you’ve read my work. That’s really touching. Thank you. I don’t know what to say about the influencer culture and what’s happening on social media. I worry about it a lot because the idea comes straight out of Orwell’s \u003cem>1984\u003c/em>: that if you repeat the same message over and over and again, and louder and louder and louder, people will believe it whether it has any relationship to truth or not. And we seem to be seeing a lot of that these days.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>How to deal with social media is an enormous problem. I sure am glad I raised my kids long before any of this. It was a lot easier. And we, as a society, have to figure out how to deal with a level of misinformation in which scientific facts are treated as if they’re just like any other opinion. Facts and opinion are different. The facts are facts, but if we as a society don’t agree about what those facts are, I think we’re in real trouble, and I worry about it a lot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I think one of the tricky things — and I think on your blog, you run these posts pretty much every week, I think, that take a look at an industry-funded study. A food-industry-funded study looks like a fact, but it’s sort of often not. As you break down in these posts, they’re sort of bad science by design, dressed up as a fact.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, the science actually is pretty good. It’s the way they’ve formulated the research question to give them the answer that they want, or interpreted the results in a way that they want. These are industry-funded studies. I mean, there’s an enormous amount of research that shows a very high correlation between the funder and the outcome of the study. And, you know, some of these are just really funny. I look at the title and I know exactly who must have paid for it, because nobody else would do a study like that. There’s only one reason for doing that study, and that’s to prove that your product is healthy or not harmful. And there are so many of them, each one funnier than the next. So that’s my Monday morning amusement: to post the latest industry-funded study, where you really can predict — if you know who the funder is, you can predict the outcome. You shouldn’t be able to do that in science.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, one listener writes, “As a busy working parent, I often find myself pinched for dinner for the family. Often my choices are a frozen-food dinner from Trader Joe’s or, quote, healthy fast food like Chipotle. Is one better than the other? Any advice?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s so hard to say whether one product is good or better. What you have to look at is the whole diet, and that, of course, is very difficult to do, particularly since nobody can remember what they ate. You want to do the best you can: real foods, mostly plants, not exclusively necessarily, although exclusively is okay, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be only plants. And balancing calories so that you’re not consuming excessive numbers of calories. And the easiest way to cut down on calories is, first of all, the one food I would say to eliminate is sugar-sweetened beverages, because they’re demonstrably harmful. You’re getting a lot of calories and a lot of sugar all at once. So those should be absolutely minimized. And after that, you just want to eat foods that are foods, and processed as little as possible.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Speaking of drinks, one listener writes in to say, “What do you think of the new wave of soda, seltzers, drinks with zero sugar, no calories, no sweeteners, no sodium, no gluten, zero carbonation?” There’s just a million of these things, you know? Your Spindrifts and your LaCroix and all these things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Oh, and the ones with CBD.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the ones that have CBD. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s Daytrip, et cetera. Yeah, what do you think of that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Well, they don’t have sugar — well, not much — and in that sense, they’re — I mean, whatever happened to water?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s still out there, I hear. Not a good marketing team, though.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Apparently not. They have some sweetener. I don’t like the ones with artificial sweeteners or the so-called natural sweeteners. I do not think they taste good. A lot of places have really good water supplies. If your community has a really good supply, I highly recommend it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, let me ask you one more on this question. How many Diet Cokes a month can I have and not feel bad about it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Um, it depends on everyone —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Less than 100.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> — and everything else you’re eating. You know, I’m not a Diet Coke fan because I’m not interested in artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners are a marker of ultra-processing, and I’d just as soon avoid them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> I don’t think they taste good.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, I d — I can’t help myself. Um —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> And I don’t judge what you eat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> If anyone can judge it, I’ll give you a pat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> How about this? We make a deal: I won’t say anything about what you eat if you don’t say anything about what I eat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Fair enough. Um, I, you know, I want you to kind of take the sweep of your career, you know? I mean, you have been working on these things for —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and, you know, you’ve been really working on the food industry. You’ve got policies changed. You’ve been deeply involved in some of these things. Like, where do you think we are relative to, you know, the year 2000? How have we done in the 21st century? Do we have a better food system than we used to? Do we not?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> In some ways, yes; in some ways, no. I mean, it’s possible now to go into any supermarket in America and eat healthfully if you make those kinds of choices. That wasn’t always true. Many, many, many more people are interested in these issues now and have generated a market for healthier foods. I think that’s a good thing, and it’s possible to get healthier foods practically everywhere, unless you happen to be living in a place where you have to drive miles to get to a supermarket. But most places, certainly in cities, you can do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And because I’m associated with the university, I get to deal with young people. And because my particular piece of the university is nutrition and food studies, we attract a population of people who are deeply interested in the way food is produced, sold, and consumed. I mean, deeply interested, and there are lots of them. And to me, that’s enormously exciting. And that’s new, too, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, yeah, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Relatively, yeah. We have been talking with Marion Nestle, of course, an incredible food scientist and nutritionist who has been working on these issues for many years. The latest book is called \u003cem>Sugar Coated\u003c/em>, and it is about breakfast cereal. So next time you want to fight with your kids in a supermarket aisle, you’ll be armed with everything you need. She co-wrote it with Lisa Sutherland, former executive at Kellogg. Fascinating. Of course, she’s also a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. And you really, if you’re interested in these things, you need to be reading her blog, foodpolitics.com, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marion Nestle:\u003c/strong> Not dot com — yeah, dot com.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Marion Nestle, thank you so much for joining us this morning. An absolute pleasure. And thank you to all of our \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> listeners, commenters, callers. You’re the best. Thank you so much. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, October 7, 2026 at 9 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Some of the Bay Area’s biggest political battles this fall are happening between fellow Democrats in hotly contested races for Congress. There’s a fierce fight for retiring former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s seat in San Francisco. In Napa, where redistricting has shaken up the district, a multimillionaire is courting votes from Republicans and progressives to unseat an establishment fellow Democrat. And in Sacramento, younger progressive challengers are taking on longtime incumbents, raising a bigger question about what Democratic voters value right now: a new generation of leadership, or the experience that comes with years in office? KQED’s politics team joins us to break down the races, the candidates and what to watch heading into Election Day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati,\u003c/strong> correspondent, KQED’s California Politics and Government Desk\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer,\u003c/strong> senior editor, KQED’s California Politics and Government Desk and co-host of Political Breakdown\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom, \u003c/strong>reporter and producer, KQED California Politics & Government Desk\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. A month out from the midterms, it looks like a Democrat could win for Senate in Texas, North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia. Poll after poll shows an unpopular president dragging down the Republican Party across the country. Nobody knows how big the blue wave will be, but it’s looking pretty big.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Locally, many congressional races pit Democrats against Democrats, sometimes in districts that have been transformed by Prop 50 redistricting. Will the blue wave push our congressional delegation to the left? The highest-profile contest is the race to represent San Francisco, almost all of it at least, replacing the legendary Nancy Pelosi. But there are other interesting races in the East Bay, in the North Bay, up towards Sacramento. We’re gonna cover them all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Here to talk with us, we’ve got some folks from KQED’s politics team. Scott Shafer, of course, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, and of course has a new podcast series about Nancy Pelosi called \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em>. I think episode four dropped today, Scott.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s right. Get it wherever you get your podcasts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s right. Thanks for joining us. We’ve also got Guy Marzorati, correspondent on KQED’s politics and government desk. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Hey, good morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Scott, you were one of the moderators of last week’s debate at KQED between Supervisor Connie Chan, Senator Scott Wiener. What can you tell us about the two candidates, core components, what’s kind of the texture, landscape of this campaign?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, I think underlying all of it is Nancy Pelosi. She has a big shadow. And when she endorsed Connie Chan just before the primary, it boosted Connie Chan into second place. And both she and the third-place finisher, Shoykat Chakrabarti, are really stepping on the gas pedal to try to get Chan to win the seat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s a bit of an uphill battle because Scott Wiener has been around for a long time. He was on the Board of Supervisors. He was in the state Senate. He’s been a very prolific lawmaker. He sort of led the charge on housing, issues ranging from taking on Trump over ICE, masking, other things like that, as well as AI regulation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Connie Chan, more progressive, close with labor, has been a representative of her district, the Richmond, in ways that don’t necessarily help her citywide, for example, opposing closure of the Great Highway to make way for Sunset Dunes Park, a very popular inner district, maybe less so citywide in this congressional district.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But these are two very distinctive people and personalities. They both have interesting biographies. Connie Chan came to the U.S. when she was young from China. Scott Wiener, openly gay, came from the East Coast.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think their differences over issues are, I think, in all these races we’re going to talk about, how these folks are going to vote. Whoever wins and goes back to D.C. among the Democrats, they’re going to vote the same way the vast majority of the time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think for me as a voter and as voters evaluate this race, it’s who will be the most effective, who is gonna go back there and get things done, who’s gonna represent our values, who can build coalitions. And I think that’s really something that voters are grappling with.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, in this one, it feels like there is a pretty clear choice, at least around housing stuff, right? I mean, Scott Wiener being known as like kind of the most YIMBY guy in the state of California, perhaps. And Connie Chan, definitely not in the —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. I mean, Scott Wiener has not just championed more housing, but has been relentless. If a bill failed, he went back and talked to the people who voted against it, talked to the governor. He did that with AI as well. And so there is now evidence that there is some evidence that the legislation that he’s gotten through and signed is having an impact. There’s more housing being built.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The thing is, though, there is also — that can be a polarizing issue. People can say, oh, yes, we need to build more housing. But not in my backyard. You know, that’s the whole nitty-gritty. That’s where that phrase comes from, you know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so I think, you know, in a number of ways, Scott Wiener is, while he’s prolific and often seen by colleagues up in Sacramento as one of the most effective lawmakers, he’s also polarizing. And there are people both in the gay community and outside, in labor certainly, that, you know, find him to be not their cup of tea for one reason or another.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think, yes, if you’re pro-housing, Scott Wiener is, you know, pretty clearly the person you’re going to support. But, you know, like I said, there’s nuances to that issue.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Guy, can you talk a little bit about some of the dynamics of this race? Like, have things changed? Have people changed their positions on any key issues, trying to pick up and increase their coalition’s breadth?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Biggest change in dynamic is Nancy Pelosi deciding to be a main character in this election. The question of how she would weigh in and at what point, as Scott said, late in the primary, her endorsement helped boost Chan into the top two, but really that was the start for her. She decided to continue her involvement in the campaign, rallying financial support for Chan, had a key staff member go work on Connie Chan’s campaign.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think you really saw this crystallize most when Scott Wiener made what was perhaps his biggest misstep in the campaign to date, which was when he rolled out this AI chatbot that mocked Connie Chan, basically to show that Chan stands in the way of housing and other things. The chatbot was supposed to give answers like Connie Chan would give and kind of portray an obstructionist.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Nancy Pelosi was able to marshal opposition to this chatbot, labeling it sexist, racist, in a way that, within a matter of days, got Wiener to take down the chatbot and profusely apologize. It was just — it was a master class in kind of the way Pelosi was able to leverage relationships. She had it on official House of Representatives letterhead, opposition from members of the delegation, and so that, to me, stood out as like, okay, this could be the biggest kind of roadblock for Wiener if Pelosi really kind of takes on this role and makes it not so much about Chan versus Wiener, but about her legacy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, because I was listening to you guys on the debate and one of the most fascinating things for me was that Connie Chan didn’t mention her Pelosi endorsement, but then Scott Wiener gave a sort of like sweet thing about —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Nancy Pelosi. That’s so interesting. And, you know, I think that, you know, I asked Ian Kramer, who’s the staffer from Pelosi’s office, like, why didn’t, you know, Connie Chan mention Pelosi at all? Just for the mic. And he was like, well, you know, elections are about the future, you know. And we think most people know that Nancy Pelosi is already for Connie Chan.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m not sure that rings entirely true. I’m sure that if they thought it would benefit her, Chan would have mentioned it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, Wiener has always been deferential publicly toward Pelosi. But what irritated Pelosi, and I think this is what fueled a lot of conspiracy theories about why is she so adamant for Connie Chan, in 2006, Scott Wiener began raising money for a congressional race. He said, “I’m not going to run against Speaker Pelosi, and I hope she doesn’t retire. But if she does or when she does, I am going to be ready.” And then in October of last year, he actually announced he was going to run before she was retiring.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, in the world of Pelosi — you know, and the Burton machine, and I see this election kind of is the last gasp of the Burton machine. Loyalty is everything. And by Wiener stepping out before it was, quote unquote, his turn, you know, they saw that as very disloyal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Interesting, because that’s exactly what Pelosi did when she ran for leadership back after the 2000 election. They were like, no, it’s not your turn. She said, I don’t care. I’m going to run. I am going to win.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So anyway, I do think that, you know, what was poignant, I think, and what humanized Scott Wiener in that debate was his closing statement where he said, you know, back in 1987, the year that Pelosi got elected, she went back to Washington and she fought for AIDS funding. And there was a gay teenager in the closet back in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, I forget where he was, who saw that as permission to come out and be who I am. And I thank Nancy Pelosi. That person is on the stage now tonight.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so he is always publicly, even after Pelosi has done some things, like Guy mentioned, for Connie Chan, always been very deferential. There’s really not much in it for him to go after her. She is an icon, you know, and so he has to be very careful. I mean, he did push back a little bit on some of the characterization of the chatbot, but, you know, it’s careful. It’s tricky for him.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Also, just noting for folks, Phil Burton and then Sala Burton succeeded him, which is going to come up later with another —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> And don’t forget John Burton.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yes, yeah, and John. So we’ve got just a whole bunch of the California politicians who have been running in San Francisco with the last name of Burton.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Guy, I wanted to ask you one other issue on this campaign. Where are these candidates on Prop 40, California’s billionaire wealth tax?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this is an issue where they actually are split. Wiener opposes Prop 40, the billionaire wealth tax; Chan is for it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This came up in the debate, and I think, if anything, it illustrates Wiener on these issues of taxes being, in kind of San Francisco, California Democratic circles, more moderate. He’s expressed his opposition to this, and honestly to an earlier corporate tax on the ballot this year in San Francisco, as perhaps creating a climate that would be too unfriendly to business.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>His concerns with Prop 40 on the ballot are similar to concerns we’ve heard from Gavin Newsom, other Democrats, about this just being a one-time tax, this concentrating too much of the benefits just on health care to the exclusion of education, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I can also imagine, because he’s such a kind of technocratic thinker, that he’s like, we should really solve this at the national level. That all kind of checks out with his sort of version of —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, I mean, to Scott’s point, these folks are going to vote the same 90, 95 percent of the time in Washington. There are a few issues where they have differences. This is one of them on taxation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think another one, and this came up in the debate as well, is how they’d approach the American relationship with Israel. We heard Connie Chan say she wants a full arms embargo against Israel, meaning no American funding even for defensive systems like the Dome. Scott Wiener’s kind of drawn the line there where he says, I don’t want to send offensive military assistance, but I’m okay with funding the Iron Dome and those kind of missile defense projects.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Where is this race, Scott? Like, do we know, you know, is it close? Is it not close?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, there has been some polling that shows, you know, Scott — let’s go back to the primary. Wiener got 41% of the vote. Chan got 20-something. I mean, it was maybe it was 30. But Wiener was way ahead.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So it’s a different electorate for the general election. But generally, it seems like Wiener is ahead still. The chatbot was a big unforced error on his part. But there’s been a lot going on. You know, I’m not sure how closely people are paying attention to this. You know, now they begin to focus because they have a ballot on their table.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think, you know, based on all the things that Pelosi is doing, the things Wiener is doing, you know, what people are saying, the dynamic, you know, reputational — I think Wiener’s positive ratings have come down a bit, you know, since before this campaign started because, you know, there’s been a lot of attacks on him.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I still think it’s, like I said, his to lose. But, you know, we try to stay out of the prediction business, but I wish — from everything I have heard, it seems like Wiener has the edge right now. Ha, ha.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Guy, do you have anything that we should be looking out for just the last month, either of them closing on anything different or special?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, let’s go back to this Pelosi thing. There was a pro-Wiener super PAC that did some polling in this race that they released last week. And the data point that stood out to me, fewer than half of voters were aware that Pelosi had endorsed Chan. Which is interesting because she didn’t bring it up. That’s why we go back to this debate and say, was that a missed opportunity for her to just remind folks, hey, I’m running for Nancy Pelosi’s seat and Nancy Pelosi’s endorsing me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with people from KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer and Guy Marzorati. We’re of course gonna talk about Napa County. We’re gonna talk Alameda County when we get back from the break. And we wanna hear from you. What issues matter most to you in these congressional races? Housing, affordability, immigration, AI, foreign policy. Let us know, 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’ve got KQED’s politics team in the house here. We’ve got Scott Shafer, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, and of course, got a new podcast series out about Nancy Pelosi called \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em> that’s coming out now. Episode four just dropped. We’ve also got Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s politics and government desk. And we want to bring in Izzy Bloom, a reporter and producer on KQED’s politics desk. Thanks so much for joining us, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s talk about Napa. This is congressional district four, although they always confuse me, and now with redistricting it’s even more confusing. But anyway, it’s Napa, long-time Democratic congressman Mike Thompson, now facing a challenge from Eric Jones, right? 35-year-old, former venture capitalist. Give us a lay of the land here on this race.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so intra-party fight. The incumbent, Mike Thompson, has been in Congress since 1999. He served in the state legislature for eight years before that. He was born in St. Helena, raised his family here, still lives there. And he’s a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He’s a Blue Dog Democrat with establishment support from the likes of Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Adam Schiff and Governor Gavin Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And he’s facing a challenge, as you said, 35-year-old Eric Jones, former venture capitalist. He moved to Napa in 2021 with his young family. And he is really running on some progressive policies, fighting for working families. He sort of points to his upbringing in Maine as the son of a disabled veteran, said his family was low income and, you know, relied on Medicaid and food stamps and disability checks at certain times.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so he is running on some of these progressive policies like universal child care, a $10,000 tax credit for working-class households. And he’s also part of this wave of generational-change candidates that we’ve seen across the state, with sort of younger, often progressive Democrats challenging their party’s aging incumbents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> How has that been going for people, though?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> I would say, you know, there was like five races in the primary with these younger Democrats challenging incumbents, and Eric Jones made it through the primary, and Mai Vang in District 7 out in Sacramento was the other candidate. The other three didn’t make it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think that at least shows that it wasn’t a mandate from voters that they necessarily want generational change. There has been polling from NPR that shows eight in 10 Americans are in favor of setting age caps and term limits on Congress members, but that’s not really going anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Right, right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> And I think also people might be generally in favor of an age cap, but when it comes to their own representative, they tend to like them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> I’ll say, I mean, there has been, like, the New York Times did an analysis of this nationwide, and it was like nine in 10 of these older incumbents won their primary challenge.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What’s different here is we have a top-two primary. I think so much of the challenge in these generational contests is you run in a primary, it’s a lower turnout, it’s very hard to establish your name and also then draw a contrast all in the course of a primary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What we have here with Eric Jones is like, and Mai Vang as well, just get out of the primary. Get to that general election where you can have a one-on-one runoff against the older incumbent. I think that creates a very different dynamic than what you see across the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> I think those two races, though, the one in Sacramento with Doris Matsui, who’s 82, versus Mai Vang, who’s 41, and the Thompson-Jones issue is, first of all, Thompson’s not quite as old. He’s 75, I think. But he’s also — he’s from the district, as he said. He’s in the district a lot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you mentioned Napa. This district goes from Petaluma all the way to like Yuba City now with the — after Prop 50. It’s a huge district. And, you know, Eric Jones… Not as well known in the district, and he’s trying to thread this interesting needle where he’s progressive and promoting progressive causes and issues, but he’s also trying to get Republican votes because the district has a lot of Republicans and they may not like Thompson because he’s a Democrat and well-known Democrat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But on the other hand, you know, so the one top Republican in the primary, he didn’t make it into the top two, but Ray Relyea has endorsed Jones. And so, you know, you’ve got this kind of odd Republican, but also progressive. And that, to me, raises the question for voters of authenticity. Who is this person?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> There’s so much 2014 Ro Khanna in this Eric Jones campaign to me, which is — he, like, to Izzy’s point, very hard to pin down on exactly where on the policy spectrum is he. He’s kind of taking positions that appeal very broadly. And also, yes, running a campaign that’s really centered on this, my opponent’s been in office for a long time, I want to do something different.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And kind of, you know, kind of got, you know, blown out the first time he ran in the primary against Mike Honda, got a little closer in the general election, came back and ran the next time. It would not shock me at all if Eric Jones lost this race, he pulls a Forrest Gump and just keeps running. I mean, it just keeps going. And he’s, you know, back on the ballot in two years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those kind of parallels where it’s like, where does it work? You know, where is he actually standing? He has support from Our Revolution, but then also the Bernie PAC, but then also the top Republican opponent. Yeah, it’s — it’s a —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Well, also, the person who ran Ro Khanna’s campaign, Brian Parveshavi, is now the campaign manager for Eric Jones. And they really say, I mean, in 2014, Ro Khanna did lose, but he made up 17 points between the primary and the general election. And Brian Parveshavi says, you know, that runway time between the primary and general really gives Eric Jones the opportunity to build name ID.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They also say that the general electorate tends to be younger and more diverse and working class, which they say is all sort of the types of voters that Eric Jones’s campaign appeals to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. I mean, is there a lane that I want to — I guess, populist lane that’s different from moderate-progressive, or just like somehow opens up some other political space?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> I think, you know, there are a lot of voters, and we see this, like, in Michigan, where Al-Sayed is actually attracting a fair number of Trump voters, you know, from 2024. People, you know, if you’re anti-establishment, sort of anti-corruption, you know, accountability, those kinds of issues that are, you know, could be progressive, but also appeal to some of the more, you know, conservative voters as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that, you know, that is a possibility. I think, though, you can also kind of overreach and be a little too cute.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think Jones did a video where Obama is talking about the need for generational change. Not talking about this race, not talking about Eric Jones, hasn’t endorsed Eric Jones or Mike Thompson. And then you’ve got pictures of Eric Jones kind of, you know, woven in with Obama and then like a really grainy, old-looking picture of Thompson.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, I think that did not go over well in Obama world, you know, and so it’s one of those things where it’s like, okay, that’s clever, but, you know, maybe not a little bit misleading.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Also, Thompson’s campaign sort of pushed back on that this week, saying that it’s part of Jones’ being deceptive to voters, because earlier this year there was sort of a similar thing with ads. I mean, the Obama one, if you weren’t paying attention, maybe implied that Obama was endorsing him, but in the caption it said it’s not an endorsement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Jones put out a video of him talking to Representative Latifah and Dolores Huerta, and then it didn’t say that it wasn’t an endorsement, sort of implied that it was. They didn’t know he was recording. They said that it wasn’t an endorsement. He had to take it down and then reposted it saying it’s not an endorsement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Ethics, ethical issues.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting. We’re talking with KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer, Guy Marzorati, Izzy Bloom here in the studio with us. We want to hear from you. If you’re looking at one of these congressional races here in Northern California, what issues matter most to you? Housing, affordability, immigration, AI, foreign policy, I don’t know, data centers. That’s probably it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Give us a call. 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. You can email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, Discord. You know, let’s go to Patricia in San Rafael. Welcome, Patricia.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, can you hear me?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, sure can. Go ahead.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Okay, great. I just wanted to bring up something about Wiener’s legislation for housing and the way it’s affecting San Rafael is that the developers are going way out of scale with 17-story, 24-story buildings and others that aren’t quite that outrageous. And the city people are not allowed, because of the way the legislation favors the developers, to question whether or not we have the infrastructure, the parking, and all kinds of things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s just, those are being thrown out the window, and I’m all for housing, but I think it’s just gone over the edge for that kind of building.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Patricia, thanks for that perspective. I’m curious, Scott, you mentioned in our first segment that Scott Wiener has gotten lots of stuff done. You also mentioned that housing can cut both ways. That seemed like such a perfect example that when you get something done, you change the law and the law enables new things like big towers in San Rafael. Now there’s some opposition.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> He’s not running in San Rafael. He’s probably happy about having heard that call. Yeah, no, there was the Marina Safeway as well, which caused a lot of consternation among people in that neighborhood, but also support as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, some of these things that get ascribed to Wiener legislation aren’t really because of that. There’s other issues. Some of these zoning and permitting issues are a little bit complicated, but there’s no question that he has authored legislation that will allow for more density, higher buildings, especially near transit corridors.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Now, I’m not sure where that building is, proposed building in San Rafael. But here in San Francisco, if you’re on a Muni line, a BART line, and I think a lot of public policy people would say that is where you want higher density, because so that people don’t need to rely on cars, they can use the public transit.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it is controversial, and it’s like, well, I like more housing, but not here. Do it over there. And that was the point, kind of, Connie Chan sort of made as well. Her district has had the least amount of housing of any of the Supervisors since she got there in 2021, 2022. And she said, yeah, but, you know, there’s all this new housing in South of Market in the Mission, you know. It’s like, well, that’s kind of the point.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> But I mean, we talk about housing as an issue that could potentially kind of scramble coalition and alliances in the map in this race, because Connie Chan in the primary won the Sunset neighborhood. That’s traditionally a neighborhood that goes for more moderate candidates. Daniel Lurie won the Sunset when he ran for mayor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, who are the Chan-Lurie voters in this race? And is the issue of housing one of those kind of parochial issues where people feel like, look, maybe Connie Chan is too far left for me on issues like public safety. She, you know, said, I want to dismantle the police department a few years ago. She said that was kind of a misquote, but like, that’s something that stuck with her.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Um, is that an issue where voters on the West Side feel like, oh, I have some hesitation about Scott Wiener, even though he’s more of a moderate politician, because of housing? Chan will, if she’s going to win this race, she will need those kinds of realignments, uh, to kind of change —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Connie Chan speaks for me, but only on housing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think Wiener did win her district, right? In the Richmond. He did win the Richmond in the primary, for what it’s worth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Caroline in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s perfect because I am from the Richmond district and in Connie Chan’s, and I am voting for Wiener because, for me, as a die-hard progressive, we have to send somebody to Washington who can get things done. And so I have voted for Chan in the past, but I will be voting for Wiener as I — I just really, truly believe we have — we have to see more, um, we had to get some of that Pelosi energy back, which we haven’t had for a long time representing us. And I’m really excited to see him to be there and to drive that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And on the other note, especially on the housing note, he’s just the technocratic side of him. One of the first things he worked on was SB 35, which was the bill for affordable housing, and everybody in San Francisco, progressives, moderates, want to see affordable housing. And so that’s just demonstrative of how effective he will be. And I’ve gotten very passionate, more passionate about this than I thought I would, but I just wanted to give my two cents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, appreciate the passion. People getting into this race, clearly, this is a hot one here in the city for sure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Guy, I wanna turn things briefly to another race. Congressional District 1 reaches into Sonoma County. This is one that pits incumbent Republican James Gallagher and Democrat Mike McGuire.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> About this. So James Gallagher took office this year. He won a special election following the death of Representative Doug LaMalfa. He ran in that election under the old lines, under our old congressional district lines, in which the first district was really a safe Republican seat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This district was completely reshaped and transformed by Proposition 50, and the way that happened was the lines were dragged down into Sonoma County. Suddenly you have all these blue Democratic voters in Sonoma County that will make up the base of this district now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Gallagher now faces an uphill climb to win reelection under the new line. So he’s facing Mike McGuire, who is a state senator, previously the pro tem of the state Senate, who under these new lines gets to run with all these North Bay Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is one of the seats when Democrats kind of drew up that Proposition 50 map. They felt like, okay, we know we’re gonna get — flip this seat as part of their effort to take back the House of Representatives.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So just to put some numbers to it, I think these are your numbers, Guy. Under the previous map, Donald Trump carried the district by roughly 25 points in 2024. Under the new boundaries, Kamala Harris would have carried it by about 12. And that’s just basically Santa Rosa is the end.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Right. And when you’re talking about, you know, breaking down any House district in America, the single best predictor, how do they vote for president?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Yeah. And is this just essentially a down-the-line, like, partisan battle? Like, are you voting R? Are you voting D in this one?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would guess that’s how it breaks out. I would imagine Gallagher, you know, retain strength in more of the more northern rural parts of this district. And those numbers are simply just outweighed by the number of voters in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I’m sure for folks in the North Bay, like, this is an exciting organizing opportunity. They get to be in one of the seats that will potentially flip and help Democrats potentially retake the House of Representatives. So I’m sure you’re going to see a strong turnout there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, curious. I mean, how important is California to this, you know, effort to retake the House? I mean, how’s it looking?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s very important just because we have so many seats. I mean, with Prop 50, I think the hope among Democrats was that they could flip five of those seats. They had a near-death experience with one of those seats where Kevin Kiley up in the Sacramento foothills area, very, very — he switched to independent. And he and a very kind of fringy Republican almost made it into the top two before all the votes were counted.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So some of these things are a little hard to tell ahead of time. But, you know, many of these races, I mean, as Guy said, it went from a whatever-plus for Trump to 12 for Harris, you know, the new district. That’s, you know, that looks good for Democrats, but some of these, they’re not slam dunks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, if you look at the one, the seat down in San Diego, Riverside, where you’ve got Issa not running and you’ve got a Republican and a Democrat, that’s a competitive seat. Same with Adam Gray, the incumbent Democrat. I mean, so, you know, these are not slam dunks. You know, easy layups for the Democrats. They’re gonna have to earn some of these wins.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But to your point, your question, you know, they need to pick up three or four in California, I think, you know, or at least they would like to. I mean, we’re talking, how big is the margin gonna be? You know, I think certainly the conventional wisdom is Democrats are gonna win back the House. Question is how big the majority is gonna be. And California could be a big part. Yeah, absolutely.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, absolutely. But less of a big — I mean, the fact is Prop 50 reduced the playing field of what’s competitive. That’s the point, right? It’s like, make it more Democratic. In previous years, we had four, five, six, seven, eight competitive districts. Now we’re down to three.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Although one of the more interesting ones has two Republicans running, you know, Young Kim versus Ken Calvert, who are both currently in Congress. And they are going at it, you know, hammer and tong at each other. That one’s going to be very interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wow.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’re talking with KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, new podcast series about Nancy Pelosi, \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em>. Great baseline for thinking about this Scott Wiener, Connie Chan race.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’ve got Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s Politics Desk. We’ve got Izzy Bloom, reporter and producer on the desk as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We wanna hear from you. I mean, do you have newly drawn congressional district lines? Has it changed where you’re voting? Do you feel like it’s gonna have an impact? What about, how much do you value experience and seniority in Congress, or are you more drawn to candidates who are promising kind of generational change or newness just in general?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, Discord, or KQED Forum for all those things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Before we go to the break, real quick, Guy, do you wanna give the pitch for our KQED voter guide?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yes, let’s do it. KQED.org/voter-guide, state elections, Bay Area elections, and this year, for the first time, a school board voter guide. I know that’s one that often goes overlooked, hard to find information. You’re probably like texting, oh, who’s my friend who might know something about school? No, we sent out a questionnaire to every school board candidate in the Bay Area on a variety of relevant issues and hope you’ll check it out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Am I going to figure out Props 40, 41, 42, whatever, all that whole set of props? I had Marissa Lagos on that. You will understand it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’ll be back with more on our local congressional races right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Scott Shafer, Guy Marzorati, and Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics team. We’re talking about our local congressional races. We’re gonna get to Alameda County in a second, but first let’s bring in Chris in Sonoma County. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, you know, I was calling because I’m a younger voter. I have a young family. I’m progressive that supports a lot of the new wave like El-Sayed and Mamdani and AOC, but I’m very, very much pro-Mike Thompson here from Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I just feel like the Eric Jones race has been really disingenuous. He’s backed by Reform California, which is a right-wing conservative PAC. And I just wanna put in there that people think Mike Thompson’s a Blue Dog, but in my experience, not only has he stood up for us for fire survivors, the nine-year anniversary of the Tubbs fire, but he’s got a 97% environmental voting record, 95% labor, he was an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, like… Seem to know —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Big fans!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Chris, I know. I appreciate your taking a look at this race and providing your perspective as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Let’s bring in Bob in Santa Rosa and we’ll take these together. Hey, Bob, I’m Santa Rosa, welcome!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Oh, hi!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, thank you very much. Listen, I’ve heard everything everybody’s saying, but what I haven’t heard is anyone talking about the immigration issues, particularly in Sonoma County, probably Napa also, and the collaboration with ICE in the sheriff’s department up here, the amount of deportation centers and camps that people are sent to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think it’s a shadow issue, actually, for sure, in Sonoma. It’s easy to be what seems to be a liberal and not deal at all with the fact that our sheriff here in Sonoma County turns people, the names of people who are being released from jail, over to ICE and they get picked up outside the county jail.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And you haven’t heard it from any of the congressional candidates.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Not that I can tell. No. They all say, I’m against that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Bob in Santa Rosa, thanks so much. How much do you think, you know, obviously nationally immigration for Donald Trump still remains one of his better issues and still under water, but relative to, say, the economy, it’s doing relatively better there. How much has this played into any of the races that we know about up here around here?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> That’s — yeah, go ahead. That’s interesting. I mean, that point specifically, I have not heard the candidates talk about local sheriff cooperation. So that was fascinating to hear.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> It does depend. I mean, the law in California does allow if there’s a violent criminal who is going to be released, I think the sheriff can let them know. They don’t turn them over, right. But, you know, certainly — yeah. So I’ll just leave it at that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think with most of the races that we’ve been talking about in the Bay Area, there’s not a lot of daylight between the candidates. You know, maybe Gallagher and McGuire up there. That’s a different question. But here in the Bay Area, I think maybe it hasn’t come up because there’s not much difference between the two candidates.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> I do think that’s — in District 4, they’re pretty much on the same page. Eric Jones has said that he would want to move ICE out of the Department of Homeland Security, to eliminate additional funding he received in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill last year. But I don’t think he’s taking quite as strong a position as Mai Vang in District 7 over in Sacramento, where she’s calling for abolishing ICE.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh-huh. Yeah, it’s — my thing, and we’re going to turn to the Alameda County race again in a second. But is Mai Vang kind of our most progressive-wave kind of a candidate out there?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think she’s taking on that mantle a lot more. You know, she’s taken on like Medicare for All and, like I said, abolishing ICE.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> These are like Bernie cred out here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, the not accepting corporate PAC money is something that we see from also Eric Jones, but Mai Vang as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> All right, let’s bring in Sunil in Livermore. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Thank you. I want to talk about the district here in Livermore, Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, that is Eric Swalwell’s former district. I’m waiting for — I’m definitely voting for Aisha Wahab.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What I wanted to talk is the lack of enthusiasm among the South Asian. And I see a hint of Islamophobia with Ayesha Wahhab. And I would like to hear from your guest who is leading right now between these two candidates and any thoughts on, because there is a large population of Indian Americans, unfortunately, I have not seen that kind of enthusiasm for Ayesha Wahab. Any comment?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Sunil, really, really appreciate it. That is, of course, Aisha Wahab, Melissa Hernandez, seat formerly held by Eric Swalwell. Guy, do you wanna take this one on?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this was an election, you know, Hernandez, Wahab both on the ballot in the June primary because Swalwell had decided to run for governor, not for reelection. Then scandal broke, sexual misconduct allegations, he resigns from his seat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There was also a concurrent special election between these two. Wahab won the initial primary there. Things got really interesting in the special election in August because we started to see millions of dollars come from AIPAC supporting Melissa Hernandez.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There had not really been any public discussion about America’s relationship with Israel besides Wahab making a comment in a candidate forum that she considered Israel’s actions in Gaza genocide. Nevertheless, we saw this money pour in. All of a sudden, the special election got pretty close. Hernandez was down 20 points in the primary. The special election, Wahab ended up winning by only six points.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So there was this thinking, okay, this is now potentially a collision course. In the November election, where we’re gonna see this national discussion about Israel play out here, that hasn’t happened. Instead, AIPAC has completely stopped spending money after the special election. Hernandez has not had that outside backing that she had. Wahab is now running as an incumbent.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so a very different race than where we thought it might just be even just a few weeks ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>To the caller’s point, though, I have not done any reporting on what he raised about — are there concerns, Islamophobia, concerns about Wahab. I will note, though, the areas where we saw some of the biggest falloff in support for Wahab, Mission San Jose neighborhood in Fremont, a lot of Indian American neighborhoods where we heard her vote totals drop between the primary election and the special election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There were a lot of negative ads run against her on a variety of issues. And I wondered… Some of that, issues that caller brought up, I have not done any more in-depth reporting into that, but I do wonder if some of those kind of negative attacks took a hit on Wahab ahead of the August election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, and there was a piece of legislation that she authored that basically would have beefed up civil rights protections against caste discrimination. And that really divided the Asian community in that district. I think Newsom ultimately vetoed that bill, but she took a lot of heat for that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I don’t know if that’s what reflects what the caller is talking about, but that did happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, I remember we did a show on some of the reporting around these caste issues, and it was very, very heated on the phone lines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And just to set the table, let’s see, Wahab defeated Hernandez in the August runoff 53-47, right? So it was like fairly close. And so the presumption here is maybe things are not as close, but we just don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think we might look at that as the high-water mark, at least of, like, outside support for Hernandez, because that’s really what propelled her.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, I think AIPAC, these outside groups made a bet that we have this really short window in a special election where if we just flood the zone with money — I mean, they were running broadcast TV ads that were running across the Bay Area. Most of the people watching those ads didn’t even vote in the district, but it was just pouring money into this. Let’s try to get a quick win in an election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You saw members of California’s congressional delegation add on support Hernandez. It’s a very different thing once Wahab is the incumbent. Now, are those same members of the delegation, folks like Zoe Lofgren who is critical of Wahab, is she going to be spending her time going after a member of the delegation when, like, Democrats are trying to take back the House nationally? A little bit of a different calculation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, there was also kind of a brushback from organized labor. Lorena Gonzalez, you know, when Zoe Lofgren released a video just before the election attacking Wahab for — I don’t know if we want to go into it, but, you know, she declined — she declined to step aside so they could have a caretaker when Swalwell resigned, and they had a kind of, you know, they wanted to avoid an expensive, messy primary, in which they ended up having.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, you know, but I think to Guy’s point, she’s now the incumbent. And they’re all about loyalty. Also, does the worm turn on AIPAC —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> PAC spending, right. It was effective because there was a few weeks stretch there where it was just — they were blanketing the district with ads, and it’s like, where’s this — what’s happening? Where’s this coming from?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Then once the story kind of takes shape that, oh, this is spending from this group that Democrats nationwide have kind of started to be critical of, takes on a little bit different picture.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> You know, and they — I think they just saw they tried a whole bunch of different attacks. Aisha Wahab, it didn’t work, and they’re probably trying to spend their money on other races. They’ve been kind of like kryptonite for a lot of the candidates they’ve supported in this election cycle.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Colin in San Francisco, kind of a callback to the top of the show and Scott Wiener, but also on the topic of Israel. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Good morning. Today the third anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel. At the time, Scott Wiener posted on that, that what’s happening in Israel is not a both-side situation. Scott also referenced Israel’s right to defend itself without any mention of Palestinian civilian casualties, even though by then the Israeli government had signaled that it would respond harshly to the Hamas assault.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As a state legislator, Wiener also criticized the nonviolent BDS movement and was instrumental in passing AB 715 as a law that would potentially subject students and teachers to disciplinary actions for criticism of Israel.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I’d have to question whether Wiener’s calling Israel’s actions in Gaza to be genocide is all that genuine. Is he just saying what he thinks he needs to say to win in the district, where Israel’s actions over the past three years and AIPAC spending on our elections have proven to be deeply unpopular?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Come on, let’s take that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Our panel here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, the issue of whether or not what Israel has done in Gaza is genocide came up in one of the debates during the primary, where Wiener declined to say yes or no, and then had to — you know, he got some blowback and said yes, it’s genocide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He’s, you know, to be fair, Wiener, who’s Jewish, has been very critical of Israel, Netanyahu for sure, and I think the differences between Chan and Wiener on this issue have narrowed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, Guy mentioned earlier that Chan is now supporting a full arms embargo, even for defensive weapons. Though that is a difference. I think if you had to say who is more, I don’t know, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, however you wanna say it, Chan is certainly more to the left, I guess you would say, from Wiener.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think really, there’s not a lot of daylight between the two of them. I mean, there are some nuances, but the reality is, I mean, if this is your top issue, that’s how you’re going to vote. And there are some voters for whom this is the top issue, and they’ll decide one way or the other on both sides of that question.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Yeah, yeah, for sure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Brandon in Foster City. Welcome, Brandon.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Thank you, guys. Good morning. I just want to say I had attended the rally with Bernie and Jane Kim in Rilcon last Saturday at the Curran Theater. It was originally scheduled to be at the Warfield, but they had to change it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I just wanna say that Bernie was born in 1941 and he’s 85 years old, and I can’t believe how sharp that guy is. And I just want to say he inspires everybody to be, you know, for progressives. And I’m about to vote yes on Prop 40 and no on 41 and 42, and I just want to give a little plug for that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And thank you, KQED. I hope my business does well and I can become a sponsor. And bless you guys. You guys are having such good times.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks, Brandon. Appreciate that. Appreciate people’s civic enthusiasm always. Love it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, Emily’s on the Discord writes in to say, you know, this is about the McGuire-Gallagher race. She says, “I’m in that redrawn district and a registered Democrat. I haven’t seen or heard anything from either candidate yet. It’s hard to buy TV since it stretches across three TV markets. But my neighbors who are registered no party preference are getting flooded with Gallagher direct mail pieces, trying to disqualify McGuire on character grounds. Even with the Harris-Tilton 2024, I wonder what proportion of the district is no party preference and getting a very different picture of the candidates than registered Democrats.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm. That’s interesting. That does seem interesting, isn’t it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, you definitely — they do target, like, the mail that you will get, the, you know, stuff that will pop up on, you know, digital and stuff like that is very targeted towards, you know, households based on who’s registered for what.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Scott, you can look up the registration while I’m venting here. But I think, yeah, I mean, I would expect McGuire — I don’t think, like, I agree with the caller in the sense that, like, I wouldn’t expect a huge TV campaign just given all the different areas that it touches. But that’s interesting that that’s Gallagher’s play.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Yeah. Let’s bring in Rick into —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Looks like about 20 percent.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Twenty percent?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Is no party preference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hey, Rick, uh, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Okay, well, for my member of Congress, I’m voting for Dr. Richard Pan. Pan is your man. And I’m voting — because there were so many different propositions on the ballot, I’m only going to talk about two of them. I care enough for housing, so I’m voting yes on Prop 1 and yes on Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If Kevin Kiley is elected to my district, I’d probably be back in an institution because I have multiple disabilities. And that is exactly what Trump wants. For people with disabilities to put them away, out of sight, out of mind. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Rick, appreciate that. Why don’t you — we haven’t talked about this race yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> This is another one Democrats have circled to kind of pick up. A little kind of strange backstory. Scott talked a little bit about it in the primary. Kiley, a Republican, switched parties, became an independent, survival tactic, also switched districts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So this is — he’s running in a somewhat new district. His district kind of got fractured by Prop 50. Richard Pan, a former state senator, Ami Bera switched districts. He’s another Sacramento-area Democrat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So the net result is Democrats could still pick up the seat here if they’re able to knock off Kiley. This is one, again, Kiley is going from running in a district that was pretty friendly towards Republicans. Now he’s having to run in the Sacramento suburbs, a place Kamala Harris did very well. Kamala was in town last week campaigning for Richard Pan.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So this is one Democrats also feel pretty confident.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I would also imagine this is one where there’s probably still at least a chunk of undecided voters, right? Because people don’t know these people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think this honestly plays across all of these districts. Like, we talk about the Mike Thompson seat. Yes, he’s the incumbent. Yes, he’s been in Congress for a long time. About 50 percent of those voters were not in his district before Prop 50.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So even for these longtime incumbents, there is a little bit of a reintroduction that has to take place that honestly could scramble some of these races.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. Is a national party getting involved? You mentioned Kamala Harris coming out to campaign in these cases. How much is the sort of National Democratic Party sort of investing in California?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, they’re certainly helping out in some of the key tight races, like in the Central Valley with Adam Gray, Democratic incumbent. And then the one where David Valadao, the Republican, they’re trying to flip that seat. He’s been very difficult to beat. It’s a little bit like Lucy in the football. They’ve tried to defeat him and think they can’t — haven’t.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think they’re playing in that one. Also in the San Diego-Riverside seat where you’ve got Desmond, the Republican, and Von Wilpert, the Democrat. They’re definitely playing in that one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I don’t think they’re going to — they’re not going to play in the ones that are not going to flip. So that’s what I know. Maybe you guys know something.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I do think the money piece is interesting this year because it’s different. Democrats in these last few midterms have had a financial advantage. That is not the case this year.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So you look at a district like the one in Bakersfield with Valadao, Republicans — the outside spending there is over — they have a huge advantage right now. I think they’ve spent the fourth most on any district in America to try to help David Valadao.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So when you talk, when people talk about the blue wave this year, I think it needs to be tempered with two things: the money and the map. The money being Republicans have more of a financial advantage than they’ve had in previous years. And the map, the gerrymandering that has occurred across the country, has put a lower ceiling on where Democrats can go.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The idea that, like, yes, they may end up getting a nine-point advantage in kind of the generic polling or the popular vote, that’s not going to translate into 30, 40 seats the way it did in previous elections, just because, A, through natural sorting, Democrats have already kind of picked off areas where people don’t like Trump, and, B, this gerrymandering is just kind of lowered how the reach of how far a blue wave could go.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> I think the caveat to that is that, like in Texas, you know, in the Rio Grande Valley, you know, they drew those districts assuming that the voters who voted for Trump would vote for the Republican, and, you know, Latino voters have flipped completely. And so some of those that they thought they would pick up, maybe they may not.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the same is true in California, the reverse. I mean, I think some of these races could be closer than Democrats would like to think.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve been talking with KQED’s politics team about the hotly contested races for Congress across the Bay Area. I’ve been joined by Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s Politics and Government Desk. Thanks, Guy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Thanks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve had Scott Shafer, KQED’s senior politics correspondent.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thanks, Alexis.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve had Izzy Bloom, reporter and producer with KQED’s Politics and Government Desk. Thank you so much, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m Alexis Madrigal. Thank you so, so much to all of our callers, listeners. Appreciate you all getting involved in your local politics here. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with guest host Laura Klivans.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Some of the Bay Area’s biggest political battles this fall are happening between fellow Democrats in hotly contested races for Congress. There’s a fierce fight for retiring former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s seat in San Francisco. In Napa, where redistricting has shaken up the district, a multimillionaire is courting votes from Republicans and progressives to unseat an establishment fellow Democrat. And in Sacramento, younger progressive challengers are taking on longtime incumbents, raising a bigger question about what Democratic voters value right now: a new generation of leadership, or the experience that comes with years in office? KQED’s politics team joins us to break down the races, the candidates and what to watch heading into Election Day.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Some of the Bay Area’s biggest political battles this fall are happening between fellow Democrats in hotly contested races for Congress. There’s a fierce fight for retiring former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s seat in San Francisco. In Napa, where redistricting has shaken up the district, a multimillionaire is courting votes from Republicans and progressives to unseat an establishment fellow Democrat. And in Sacramento, younger progressive challengers are taking on longtime incumbents, raising a bigger question about what Democratic voters value right now: a new generation of leadership, or the experience that comes with years in office? KQED’s politics team joins us to break down the races, the candidates and what to watch heading into Election Day.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. A month out from the midterms, it looks like a Democrat could win for Senate in Texas, North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia. Poll after poll shows an unpopular president dragging down the Republican Party across the country. Nobody knows how big the blue wave will be, but it’s looking pretty big.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. A month out from the midterms, it looks like a Democrat could win for Senate in Texas, North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia. Poll after poll shows an unpopular president dragging down the Republican Party across the country. Nobody knows how big the blue wave will be, but it’s looking pretty big.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Locally, many congressional races pit Democrats against Democrats, sometimes in districts that have been transformed by Prop 50 redistricting. Will the blue wave push our congressional delegation to the left? The highest-profile contest is the race to represent San Francisco, almost all of it at least, replacing the legendary Nancy Pelosi. But there are other interesting races in the East Bay, in the North Bay, up towards Sacramento. We’re gonna cover them all.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Locally, many congressional races pit Democrats against Democrats, sometimes in districts that have been transformed by Prop 50 redistricting. Will the blue wave push our congressional delegation to the left? The highest-profile contest is the race to represent San Francisco, almost all of it at least, replacing the legendary Nancy Pelosi. But there are other interesting races in the East Bay, in the North Bay, up towards Sacramento. We’re gonna cover them all.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Here to talk with us, we’ve got some folks from KQED’s politics team. Scott Shafer, of course, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, and of course has a new podcast series about Nancy Pelosi called \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em>. I think episode four dropped today, Scott.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Here to talk with us, we’ve got some folks from KQED’s politics team. Scott Shafer, of course, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, and of course has a new podcast series about Nancy Pelosi called \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em>. I think episode four dropped today, Scott.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s right. Get it wherever you get your podcasts.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s right. Thanks for joining us. We’ve also got Guy Marzorati, correspondent on KQED’s politics and government desk. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s right. Thanks for joining us. We’ve also got Guy Marzorati, correspondent on KQED’s politics and government desk. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Scott, you were one of the moderators of last week’s debate at KQED between Supervisor Connie Chan, Senator Scott Wiener. What can you tell us about the two candidates, core components, what’s kind of the texture, landscape of this campaign?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Scott, you were one of the moderators of last week’s debate at KQED between Supervisor Connie Chan, Senator Scott Wiener. What can you tell us about the two candidates, core components, what’s kind of the texture, landscape of this campaign?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, I think underlying all of it is Nancy Pelosi. She has a big shadow. And when she endorsed Connie Chan just before the primary, it boosted Connie Chan into second place. And both she and the third-place finisher, Shoykat Chakrabarti, are really stepping on the gas pedal to try to get Chan to win the seat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, I think underlying all of it is Nancy Pelosi. She has a big shadow. And when she endorsed Connie Chan just before the primary, it boosted Connie Chan into second place. And both she and the third-place finisher, Shoykat Chakrabarti, are really stepping on the gas pedal to try to get Chan to win the seat.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s a bit of an uphill battle because Scott Wiener has been around for a long time. He was on the Board of Supervisors. He was in the state Senate. He’s been a very prolific lawmaker. He sort of led the charge on housing, issues ranging from taking on Trump over ICE, masking, other things like that, as well as AI regulation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s a bit of an uphill battle because Scott Wiener has been around for a long time. He was on the Board of Supervisors. He was in the state Senate. He’s been a very prolific lawmaker. He sort of led the charge on housing, issues ranging from taking on Trump over ICE, masking, other things like that, as well as AI regulation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Connie Chan, more progressive, close with labor, has been a representative of her district, the Richmond, in ways that don’t necessarily help her citywide, for example, opposing closure of the Great Highway to make way for Sunset Dunes Park, a very popular inner district, maybe less so citywide in this congressional district.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Connie Chan, more progressive, close with labor, has been a representative of her district, the Richmond, in ways that don’t necessarily help her citywide, for example, opposing closure of the Great Highway to make way for Sunset Dunes Park, a very popular inner district, maybe less so citywide in this congressional district.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But these are two very distinctive people and personalities. They both have interesting biographies. Connie Chan came to the U.S. when she was young from China. Scott Wiener, openly gay, came from the East Coast.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But these are two very distinctive people and personalities. They both have interesting biographies. Connie Chan came to the U.S. when she was young from China. Scott Wiener, openly gay, came from the East Coast.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think their differences over issues are, I think, in all these races we’re going to talk about, how these folks are going to vote. Whoever wins and goes back to D.C. among the Democrats, they’re going to vote the same way the vast majority of the time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think their differences over issues are, I think, in all these races we’re going to talk about, how these folks are going to vote. Whoever wins and goes back to D.C. among the Democrats, they’re going to vote the same way the vast majority of the time.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think for me as a voter and as voters evaluate this race, it’s who will be the most effective, who is gonna go back there and get things done, who’s gonna represent our values, who can build coalitions. And I think that’s really something that voters are grappling with.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think for me as a voter and as voters evaluate this race, it’s who will be the most effective, who is gonna go back there and get things done, who’s gonna represent our values, who can build coalitions. And I think that’s really something that voters are grappling with.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, in this one, it feels like there is a pretty clear choice, at least around housing stuff, right? I mean, Scott Wiener being known as like kind of the most YIMBY guy in the state of California, perhaps. And Connie Chan, definitely not in the —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, in this one, it feels like there is a pretty clear choice, at least around housing stuff, right? I mean, Scott Wiener being known as like kind of the most YIMBY guy in the state of California, perhaps. And Connie Chan, definitely not in the —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. I mean, Scott Wiener has not just championed more housing, but has been relentless. If a bill failed, he went back and talked to the people who voted against it, talked to the governor. He did that with AI as well. And so there is now evidence that there is some evidence that the legislation that he’s gotten through and signed is having an impact. There’s more housing being built.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. I mean, Scott Wiener has not just championed more housing, but has been relentless. If a bill failed, he went back and talked to the people who voted against it, talked to the governor. He did that with AI as well. And so there is now evidence that there is some evidence that the legislation that he’s gotten through and signed is having an impact. There’s more housing being built.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The thing is, though, there is also — that can be a polarizing issue. People can say, oh, yes, we need to build more housing. But not in my backyard. You know, that’s the whole nitty-gritty. That’s where that phrase comes from, you know.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The thing is, though, there is also — that can be a polarizing issue. People can say, oh, yes, we need to build more housing. But not in my backyard. You know, that’s the whole nitty-gritty. That’s where that phrase comes from, you know.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so I think, you know, in a number of ways, Scott Wiener is, while he’s prolific and often seen by colleagues up in Sacramento as one of the most effective lawmakers, he’s also polarizing. And there are people both in the gay community and outside, in labor certainly, that, you know, find him to be not their cup of tea for one reason or another.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so I think, you know, in a number of ways, Scott Wiener is, while he’s prolific and often seen by colleagues up in Sacramento as one of the most effective lawmakers, he’s also polarizing. And there are people both in the gay community and outside, in labor certainly, that, you know, find him to be not their cup of tea for one reason or another.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think, yes, if you’re pro-housing, Scott Wiener is, you know, pretty clearly the person you’re going to support. But, you know, like I said, there’s nuances to that issue.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think, yes, if you’re pro-housing, Scott Wiener is, you know, pretty clearly the person you’re going to support. But, you know, like I said, there’s nuances to that issue.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Guy, can you talk a little bit about some of the dynamics of this race? Like, have things changed? Have people changed their positions on any key issues, trying to pick up and increase their coalition’s breadth?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Guy, can you talk a little bit about some of the dynamics of this race? Like, have things changed? Have people changed their positions on any key issues, trying to pick up and increase their coalition’s breadth?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Biggest change in dynamic is Nancy Pelosi deciding to be a main character in this election. The question of how she would weigh in and at what point, as Scott said, late in the primary, her endorsement helped boost Chan into the top two, but really that was the start for her. She decided to continue her involvement in the campaign, rallying financial support for Chan, had a key staff member go work on Connie Chan’s campaign.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Biggest change in dynamic is Nancy Pelosi deciding to be a main character in this election. The question of how she would weigh in and at what point, as Scott said, late in the primary, her endorsement helped boost Chan into the top two, but really that was the start for her. She decided to continue her involvement in the campaign, rallying financial support for Chan, had a key staff member go work on Connie Chan’s campaign.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think you really saw this crystallize most when Scott Wiener made what was perhaps his biggest misstep in the campaign to date, which was when he rolled out this AI chatbot that mocked Connie Chan, basically to show that Chan stands in the way of housing and other things. The chatbot was supposed to give answers like Connie Chan would give and kind of portray an obstructionist.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think you really saw this crystallize most when Scott Wiener made what was perhaps his biggest misstep in the campaign to date, which was when he rolled out this AI chatbot that mocked Connie Chan, basically to show that Chan stands in the way of housing and other things. The chatbot was supposed to give answers like Connie Chan would give and kind of portray an obstructionist.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Nancy Pelosi was able to marshal opposition to this chatbot, labeling it sexist, racist, in a way that, within a matter of days, got Wiener to take down the chatbot and profusely apologize. It was just — it was a master class in kind of the way Pelosi was able to leverage relationships. She had it on official House of Representatives letterhead, opposition from members of the delegation, and so that, to me, stood out as like, okay, this could be the biggest kind of roadblock for Wiener if Pelosi really kind of takes on this role and makes it not so much about Chan versus Wiener, but about her legacy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Nancy Pelosi was able to marshal opposition to this chatbot, labeling it sexist, racist, in a way that, within a matter of days, got Wiener to take down the chatbot and profusely apologize. It was just — it was a master class in kind of the way Pelosi was able to leverage relationships. She had it on official House of Representatives letterhead, opposition from members of the delegation, and so that, to me, stood out as like, okay, this could be the biggest kind of roadblock for Wiener if Pelosi really kind of takes on this role and makes it not so much about Chan versus Wiener, but about her legacy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, because I was listening to you guys on the debate and one of the most fascinating things for me was that Connie Chan didn’t mention her Pelosi endorsement, but then Scott Wiener gave a sort of like sweet thing about —\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Nancy Pelosi. That’s so interesting. And, you know, I think that, you know, I asked Ian Kramer, who’s the staffer from Pelosi’s office, like, why didn’t, you know, Connie Chan mention Pelosi at all? Just for the mic. And he was like, well, you know, elections are about the future, you know. And we think most people know that Nancy Pelosi is already for Connie Chan.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Nancy Pelosi. That’s so interesting. And, you know, I think that, you know, I asked Ian Kramer, who’s the staffer from Pelosi’s office, like, why didn’t, you know, Connie Chan mention Pelosi at all? Just for the mic. And he was like, well, you know, elections are about the future, you know. And we think most people know that Nancy Pelosi is already for Connie Chan.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m not sure that rings entirely true. I’m sure that if they thought it would benefit her, Chan would have mentioned it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m not sure that rings entirely true. I’m sure that if they thought it would benefit her, Chan would have mentioned it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, Wiener has always been deferential publicly toward Pelosi. But what irritated Pelosi, and I think this is what fueled a lot of conspiracy theories about why is she so adamant for Connie Chan, in 2006, Scott Wiener began raising money for a congressional race. He said, “I’m not going to run against Speaker Pelosi, and I hope she doesn’t retire. But if she does or when she does, I am going to be ready.” And then in October of last year, he actually announced he was going to run before she was retiring.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, Wiener has always been deferential publicly toward Pelosi. But what irritated Pelosi, and I think this is what fueled a lot of conspiracy theories about why is she so adamant for Connie Chan, in 2006, Scott Wiener began raising money for a congressional race. He said, “I’m not going to run against Speaker Pelosi, and I hope she doesn’t retire. But if she does or when she does, I am going to be ready.” And then in October of last year, he actually announced he was going to run before she was retiring.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, you know, in the world of Pelosi — you know, and the Burton machine, and I see this election kind of is the last gasp of the Burton machine. Loyalty is everything. And by Wiener stepping out before it was, quote unquote, his turn, you know, they saw that as very disloyal.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And, you know, in the world of Pelosi — you know, and the Burton machine, and I see this election kind of is the last gasp of the Burton machine. Loyalty is everything. And by Wiener stepping out before it was, quote unquote, his turn, you know, they saw that as very disloyal.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Interesting, because that’s exactly what Pelosi did when she ran for leadership back after the 2000 election. They were like, no, it’s not your turn. She said, I don’t care. I’m going to run. I am going to win.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Interesting, because that’s exactly what Pelosi did when she ran for leadership back after the 2000 election. They were like, no, it’s not your turn. She said, I don’t care. I’m going to run. I am going to win.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So anyway, I do think that, you know, what was poignant, I think, and what humanized Scott Wiener in that debate was his closing statement where he said, you know, back in 1987, the year that Pelosi got elected, she went back to Washington and she fought for AIDS funding. And there was a gay teenager in the closet back in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, I forget where he was, who saw that as permission to come out and be who I am. And I thank Nancy Pelosi. That person is on the stage now tonight.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So anyway, I do think that, you know, what was poignant, I think, and what humanized Scott Wiener in that debate was his closing statement where he said, you know, back in 1987, the year that Pelosi got elected, she went back to Washington and she fought for AIDS funding. And there was a gay teenager in the closet back in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, I forget where he was, who saw that as permission to come out and be who I am. And I thank Nancy Pelosi. That person is on the stage now tonight.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so he is always publicly, even after Pelosi has done some things, like Guy mentioned, for Connie Chan, always been very deferential. There’s really not much in it for him to go after her. She is an icon, you know, and so he has to be very careful. I mean, he did push back a little bit on some of the characterization of the chatbot, but, you know, it’s careful. It’s tricky for him.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so he is always publicly, even after Pelosi has done some things, like Guy mentioned, for Connie Chan, always been very deferential. There’s really not much in it for him to go after her. She is an icon, you know, and so he has to be very careful. I mean, he did push back a little bit on some of the characterization of the chatbot, but, you know, it’s careful. It’s tricky for him.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Also, just noting for folks, Phil Burton and then Sala Burton succeeded him, which is going to come up later with another —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Also, just noting for folks, Phil Burton and then Sala Burton succeeded him, which is going to come up later with another —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> And don’t forget John Burton.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> And don’t forget John Burton.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yes, yeah, and John. So we’ve got just a whole bunch of the California politicians who have been running in San Francisco with the last name of Burton.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yes, yeah, and John. So we’ve got just a whole bunch of the California politicians who have been running in San Francisco with the last name of Burton.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Guy, I wanted to ask you one other issue on this campaign. Where are these candidates on Prop 40, California’s billionaire wealth tax?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Guy, I wanted to ask you one other issue on this campaign. Where are these candidates on Prop 40, California’s billionaire wealth tax?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this is an issue where they actually are split. Wiener opposes Prop 40, the billionaire wealth tax; Chan is for it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this is an issue where they actually are split. Wiener opposes Prop 40, the billionaire wealth tax; Chan is for it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This came up in the debate, and I think, if anything, it illustrates Wiener on these issues of taxes being, in kind of San Francisco, California Democratic circles, more moderate. He’s expressed his opposition to this, and honestly to an earlier corporate tax on the ballot this year in San Francisco, as perhaps creating a climate that would be too unfriendly to business.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This came up in the debate, and I think, if anything, it illustrates Wiener on these issues of taxes being, in kind of San Francisco, California Democratic circles, more moderate. He’s expressed his opposition to this, and honestly to an earlier corporate tax on the ballot this year in San Francisco, as perhaps creating a climate that would be too unfriendly to business.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>His concerns with Prop 40 on the ballot are similar to concerns we’ve heard from Gavin Newsom, other Democrats, about this just being a one-time tax, this concentrating too much of the benefits just on health care to the exclusion of education, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>His concerns with Prop 40 on the ballot are similar to concerns we’ve heard from Gavin Newsom, other Democrats, about this just being a one-time tax, this concentrating too much of the benefits just on health care to the exclusion of education, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I can also imagine, because he’s such a kind of technocratic thinker, that he’s like, we should really solve this at the national level. That all kind of checks out with his sort of version of —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I can also imagine, because he’s such a kind of technocratic thinker, that he’s like, we should really solve this at the national level. That all kind of checks out with his sort of version of —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, I mean, to Scott’s point, these folks are going to vote the same 90, 95 percent of the time in Washington. There are a few issues where they have differences. This is one of them on taxation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, I mean, to Scott’s point, these folks are going to vote the same 90, 95 percent of the time in Washington. There are a few issues where they have differences. This is one of them on taxation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think another one, and this came up in the debate as well, is how they’d approach the American relationship with Israel. We heard Connie Chan say she wants a full arms embargo against Israel, meaning no American funding even for defensive systems like the Dome. Scott Wiener’s kind of drawn the line there where he says, I don’t want to send offensive military assistance, but I’m okay with funding the Iron Dome and those kind of missile defense projects.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think another one, and this came up in the debate as well, is how they’d approach the American relationship with Israel. We heard Connie Chan say she wants a full arms embargo against Israel, meaning no American funding even for defensive systems like the Dome. Scott Wiener’s kind of drawn the line there where he says, I don’t want to send offensive military assistance, but I’m okay with funding the Iron Dome and those kind of missile defense projects.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Where is this race, Scott? Like, do we know, you know, is it close? Is it not close?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Where is this race, Scott? Like, do we know, you know, is it close? Is it not close?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, there has been some polling that shows, you know, Scott — let’s go back to the primary. Wiener got 41% of the vote. Chan got 20-something. I mean, it was maybe it was 30. But Wiener was way ahead.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, there has been some polling that shows, you know, Scott — let’s go back to the primary. Wiener got 41% of the vote. Chan got 20-something. I mean, it was maybe it was 30. But Wiener was way ahead.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So it’s a different electorate for the general election. But generally, it seems like Wiener is ahead still. The chatbot was a big unforced error on his part. But there’s been a lot going on. You know, I’m not sure how closely people are paying attention to this. You know, now they begin to focus because they have a ballot on their table.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So it’s a different electorate for the general election. But generally, it seems like Wiener is ahead still. The chatbot was a big unforced error on his part. But there’s been a lot going on. You know, I’m not sure how closely people are paying attention to this. You know, now they begin to focus because they have a ballot on their table.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I think, you know, based on all the things that Pelosi is doing, the things Wiener is doing, you know, what people are saying, the dynamic, you know, reputational — I think Wiener’s positive ratings have come down a bit, you know, since before this campaign started because, you know, there’s been a lot of attacks on him.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I think, you know, based on all the things that Pelosi is doing, the things Wiener is doing, you know, what people are saying, the dynamic, you know, reputational — I think Wiener’s positive ratings have come down a bit, you know, since before this campaign started because, you know, there’s been a lot of attacks on him.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I still think it’s, like I said, his to lose. But, you know, we try to stay out of the prediction business, but I wish — from everything I have heard, it seems like Wiener has the edge right now. Ha, ha.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I still think it’s, like I said, his to lose. But, you know, we try to stay out of the prediction business, but I wish — from everything I have heard, it seems like Wiener has the edge right now. Ha, ha.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Guy, do you have anything that we should be looking out for just the last month, either of them closing on anything different or special?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Guy, do you have anything that we should be looking out for just the last month, either of them closing on anything different or special?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, let’s go back to this Pelosi thing. There was a pro-Wiener super PAC that did some polling in this race that they released last week. And the data point that stood out to me, fewer than half of voters were aware that Pelosi had endorsed Chan. Which is interesting because she didn’t bring it up. That’s why we go back to this debate and say, was that a missed opportunity for her to just remind folks, hey, I’m running for Nancy Pelosi’s seat and Nancy Pelosi’s endorsing me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, let’s go back to this Pelosi thing. There was a pro-Wiener super PAC that did some polling in this race that they released last week. And the data point that stood out to me, fewer than half of voters were aware that Pelosi had endorsed Chan. Which is interesting because she didn’t bring it up. That’s why we go back to this debate and say, was that a missed opportunity for her to just remind folks, hey, I’m running for Nancy Pelosi’s seat and Nancy Pelosi’s endorsing me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with people from KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer and Guy Marzorati. We’re of course gonna talk about Napa County. We’re gonna talk Alameda County when we get back from the break. And we wanna hear from you. What issues matter most to you in these congressional races? Housing, affordability, immigration, AI, foreign policy. Let us know, 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with people from KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer and Guy Marzorati. We’re of course gonna talk about Napa County. We’re gonna talk Alameda County when we get back from the break. And we wanna hear from you. What issues matter most to you in these congressional races? Housing, affordability, immigration, AI, foreign policy. Let us know, 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’ve got KQED’s politics team in the house here. We’ve got Scott Shafer, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, and of course, got a new podcast series out about Nancy Pelosi called \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em> that’s coming out now. Episode four just dropped. We’ve also got Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s politics and government desk. And we want to bring in Izzy Bloom, a reporter and producer on KQED’s politics desk. Thanks so much for joining us, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’ve got KQED’s politics team in the house here. We’ve got Scott Shafer, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, and of course, got a new podcast series out about Nancy Pelosi called \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em> that’s coming out now. Episode four just dropped. We’ve also got Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s politics and government desk. And we want to bring in Izzy Bloom, a reporter and producer on KQED’s politics desk. Thanks so much for joining us, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s talk about Napa. This is congressional district four, although they always confuse me, and now with redistricting it’s even more confusing. But anyway, it’s Napa, long-time Democratic congressman Mike Thompson, now facing a challenge from Eric Jones, right? 35-year-old, former venture capitalist. Give us a lay of the land here on this race.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s talk about Napa. This is congressional district four, although they always confuse me, and now with redistricting it’s even more confusing. But anyway, it’s Napa, long-time Democratic congressman Mike Thompson, now facing a challenge from Eric Jones, right? 35-year-old, former venture capitalist. Give us a lay of the land here on this race.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so intra-party fight. The incumbent, Mike Thompson, has been in Congress since 1999. He served in the state legislature for eight years before that. He was born in St. Helena, raised his family here, still lives there. And he’s a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He’s a Blue Dog Democrat with establishment support from the likes of Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Adam Schiff and Governor Gavin Newsom.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so intra-party fight. The incumbent, Mike Thompson, has been in Congress since 1999. He served in the state legislature for eight years before that. He was born in St. Helena, raised his family here, still lives there. And he’s a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He’s a Blue Dog Democrat with establishment support from the likes of Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Adam Schiff and Governor Gavin Newsom.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And he’s facing a challenge, as you said, 35-year-old Eric Jones, former venture capitalist. He moved to Napa in 2021 with his young family. And he is really running on some progressive policies, fighting for working families. He sort of points to his upbringing in Maine as the son of a disabled veteran, said his family was low income and, you know, relied on Medicaid and food stamps and disability checks at certain times.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And he’s facing a challenge, as you said, 35-year-old Eric Jones, former venture capitalist. He moved to Napa in 2021 with his young family. And he is really running on some progressive policies, fighting for working families. He sort of points to his upbringing in Maine as the son of a disabled veteran, said his family was low income and, you know, relied on Medicaid and food stamps and disability checks at certain times.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so he is running on some of these progressive policies like universal child care, a $10,000 tax credit for working-class households. And he’s also part of this wave of generational-change candidates that we’ve seen across the state, with sort of younger, often progressive Democrats challenging their party’s aging incumbents.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so he is running on some of these progressive policies like universal child care, a $10,000 tax credit for working-class households. And he’s also part of this wave of generational-change candidates that we’ve seen across the state, with sort of younger, often progressive Democrats challenging their party’s aging incumbents.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> How has that been going for people, though?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> How has that been going for people, though?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> I would say, you know, there was like five races in the primary with these younger Democrats challenging incumbents, and Eric Jones made it through the primary, and Mai Vang in District 7 out in Sacramento was the other candidate. The other three didn’t make it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> I would say, you know, there was like five races in the primary with these younger Democrats challenging incumbents, and Eric Jones made it through the primary, and Mai Vang in District 7 out in Sacramento was the other candidate. The other three didn’t make it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think that at least shows that it wasn’t a mandate from voters that they necessarily want generational change. There has been polling from NPR that shows eight in 10 Americans are in favor of setting age caps and term limits on Congress members, but that’s not really going anywhere.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think that at least shows that it wasn’t a mandate from voters that they necessarily want generational change. There has been polling from NPR that shows eight in 10 Americans are in favor of setting age caps and term limits on Congress members, but that’s not really going anywhere.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Right, right.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Right, right.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> And I think also people might be generally in favor of an age cap, but when it comes to their own representative, they tend to like them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> And I think also people might be generally in favor of an age cap, but when it comes to their own representative, they tend to like them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> I’ll say, I mean, there has been, like, the New York Times did an analysis of this nationwide, and it was like nine in 10 of these older incumbents won their primary challenge.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> I’ll say, I mean, there has been, like, the New York Times did an analysis of this nationwide, and it was like nine in 10 of these older incumbents won their primary challenge.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What’s different here is we have a top-two primary. I think so much of the challenge in these generational contests is you run in a primary, it’s a lower turnout, it’s very hard to establish your name and also then draw a contrast all in the course of a primary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What’s different here is we have a top-two primary. I think so much of the challenge in these generational contests is you run in a primary, it’s a lower turnout, it’s very hard to establish your name and also then draw a contrast all in the course of a primary.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What we have here with Eric Jones is like, and Mai Vang as well, just get out of the primary. Get to that general election where you can have a one-on-one runoff against the older incumbent. I think that creates a very different dynamic than what you see across the country.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What we have here with Eric Jones is like, and Mai Vang as well, just get out of the primary. Get to that general election where you can have a one-on-one runoff against the older incumbent. I think that creates a very different dynamic than what you see across the country.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> I think those two races, though, the one in Sacramento with Doris Matsui, who’s 82, versus Mai Vang, who’s 41, and the Thompson-Jones issue is, first of all, Thompson’s not quite as old. He’s 75, I think. But he’s also — he’s from the district, as he said. He’s in the district a lot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> I think those two races, though, the one in Sacramento with Doris Matsui, who’s 82, versus Mai Vang, who’s 41, and the Thompson-Jones issue is, first of all, Thompson’s not quite as old. He’s 75, I think. But he’s also — he’s from the district, as he said. He’s in the district a lot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And you mentioned Napa. This district goes from Petaluma all the way to like Yuba City now with the — after Prop 50. It’s a huge district. And, you know, Eric Jones… Not as well known in the district, and he’s trying to thread this interesting needle where he’s progressive and promoting progressive causes and issues, but he’s also trying to get Republican votes because the district has a lot of Republicans and they may not like Thompson because he’s a Democrat and well-known Democrat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And you mentioned Napa. This district goes from Petaluma all the way to like Yuba City now with the — after Prop 50. It’s a huge district. And, you know, Eric Jones… Not as well known in the district, and he’s trying to thread this interesting needle where he’s progressive and promoting progressive causes and issues, but he’s also trying to get Republican votes because the district has a lot of Republicans and they may not like Thompson because he’s a Democrat and well-known Democrat.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But on the other hand, you know, so the one top Republican in the primary, he didn’t make it into the top two, but Ray Relyea has endorsed Jones. And so, you know, you’ve got this kind of odd Republican, but also progressive. And that, to me, raises the question for voters of authenticity. Who is this person?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But on the other hand, you know, so the one top Republican in the primary, he didn’t make it into the top two, but Ray Relyea has endorsed Jones. And so, you know, you’ve got this kind of odd Republican, but also progressive. And that, to me, raises the question for voters of authenticity. Who is this person?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> There’s so much 2014 Ro Khanna in this Eric Jones campaign to me, which is — he, like, to Izzy’s point, very hard to pin down on exactly where on the policy spectrum is he. He’s kind of taking positions that appeal very broadly. And also, yes, running a campaign that’s really centered on this, my opponent’s been in office for a long time, I want to do something different.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> There’s so much 2014 Ro Khanna in this Eric Jones campaign to me, which is — he, like, to Izzy’s point, very hard to pin down on exactly where on the policy spectrum is he. He’s kind of taking positions that appeal very broadly. And also, yes, running a campaign that’s really centered on this, my opponent’s been in office for a long time, I want to do something different.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And kind of, you know, kind of got, you know, blown out the first time he ran in the primary against Mike Honda, got a little closer in the general election, came back and ran the next time. It would not shock me at all if Eric Jones lost this race, he pulls a Forrest Gump and just keeps running. I mean, it just keeps going. And he’s, you know, back on the ballot in two years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And kind of, you know, kind of got, you know, blown out the first time he ran in the primary against Mike Honda, got a little closer in the general election, came back and ran the next time. It would not shock me at all if Eric Jones lost this race, he pulls a Forrest Gump and just keeps running. I mean, it just keeps going. And he’s, you know, back on the ballot in two years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Those kind of parallels where it’s like, where does it work? You know, where is he actually standing? He has support from Our Revolution, but then also the Bernie PAC, but then also the top Republican opponent. Yeah, it’s — it’s a —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Those kind of parallels where it’s like, where does it work? You know, where is he actually standing? He has support from Our Revolution, but then also the Bernie PAC, but then also the top Republican opponent. Yeah, it’s — it’s a —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Well, also, the person who ran Ro Khanna’s campaign, Brian Parveshavi, is now the campaign manager for Eric Jones. And they really say, I mean, in 2014, Ro Khanna did lose, but he made up 17 points between the primary and the general election. And Brian Parveshavi says, you know, that runway time between the primary and general really gives Eric Jones the opportunity to build name ID.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Well, also, the person who ran Ro Khanna’s campaign, Brian Parveshavi, is now the campaign manager for Eric Jones. And they really say, I mean, in 2014, Ro Khanna did lose, but he made up 17 points between the primary and the general election. And Brian Parveshavi says, you know, that runway time between the primary and general really gives Eric Jones the opportunity to build name ID.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They also say that the general electorate tends to be younger and more diverse and working class, which they say is all sort of the types of voters that Eric Jones’s campaign appeals to.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They also say that the general electorate tends to be younger and more diverse and working class, which they say is all sort of the types of voters that Eric Jones’s campaign appeals to.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. I mean, is there a lane that I want to — I guess, populist lane that’s different from moderate-progressive, or just like somehow opens up some other political space?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. I mean, is there a lane that I want to — I guess, populist lane that’s different from moderate-progressive, or just like somehow opens up some other political space?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> I think, you know, there are a lot of voters, and we see this, like, in Michigan, where Al-Sayed is actually attracting a fair number of Trump voters, you know, from 2024. People, you know, if you’re anti-establishment, sort of anti-corruption, you know, accountability, those kinds of issues that are, you know, could be progressive, but also appeal to some of the more, you know, conservative voters as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> I think, you know, there are a lot of voters, and we see this, like, in Michigan, where Al-Sayed is actually attracting a fair number of Trump voters, you know, from 2024. People, you know, if you’re anti-establishment, sort of anti-corruption, you know, accountability, those kinds of issues that are, you know, could be progressive, but also appeal to some of the more, you know, conservative voters as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think that, you know, that is a possibility. I think, though, you can also kind of overreach and be a little too cute.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think that, you know, that is a possibility. I think, though, you can also kind of overreach and be a little too cute.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think Jones did a video where Obama is talking about the need for generational change. Not talking about this race, not talking about Eric Jones, hasn’t endorsed Eric Jones or Mike Thompson. And then you’ve got pictures of Eric Jones kind of, you know, woven in with Obama and then like a really grainy, old-looking picture of Thompson.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think Jones did a video where Obama is talking about the need for generational change. Not talking about this race, not talking about Eric Jones, hasn’t endorsed Eric Jones or Mike Thompson. And then you’ve got pictures of Eric Jones kind of, you know, woven in with Obama and then like a really grainy, old-looking picture of Thompson.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, you know, I think that did not go over well in Obama world, you know, and so it’s one of those things where it’s like, okay, that’s clever, but, you know, maybe not a little bit misleading.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And, you know, I think that did not go over well in Obama world, you know, and so it’s one of those things where it’s like, okay, that’s clever, but, you know, maybe not a little bit misleading.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Also, Thompson’s campaign sort of pushed back on that this week, saying that it’s part of Jones’ being deceptive to voters, because earlier this year there was sort of a similar thing with ads. I mean, the Obama one, if you weren’t paying attention, maybe implied that Obama was endorsing him, but in the caption it said it’s not an endorsement.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Also, Thompson’s campaign sort of pushed back on that this week, saying that it’s part of Jones’ being deceptive to voters, because earlier this year there was sort of a similar thing with ads. I mean, the Obama one, if you weren’t paying attention, maybe implied that Obama was endorsing him, but in the caption it said it’s not an endorsement.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Jones put out a video of him talking to Representative Latifah and Dolores Huerta, and then it didn’t say that it wasn’t an endorsement, sort of implied that it was. They didn’t know he was recording. They said that it wasn’t an endorsement. He had to take it down and then reposted it saying it’s not an endorsement.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Jones put out a video of him talking to Representative Latifah and Dolores Huerta, and then it didn’t say that it wasn’t an endorsement, sort of implied that it was. They didn’t know he was recording. They said that it wasn’t an endorsement. He had to take it down and then reposted it saying it’s not an endorsement.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Ethics, ethical issues.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Ethics, ethical issues.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting. We’re talking with KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer, Guy Marzorati, Izzy Bloom here in the studio with us. We want to hear from you. If you’re looking at one of these congressional races here in Northern California, what issues matter most to you? Housing, affordability, immigration, AI, foreign policy, I don’t know, data centers. That’s probably it.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting. We’re talking with KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer, Guy Marzorati, Izzy Bloom here in the studio with us. We want to hear from you. If you’re looking at one of these congressional races here in Northern California, what issues matter most to you? Housing, affordability, immigration, AI, foreign policy, I don’t know, data centers. That’s probably it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Give us a call. 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. You can email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, Discord. You know, let’s go to Patricia in San Rafael. Welcome, Patricia.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Give us a call. 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. You can email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, Discord. You know, let’s go to Patricia in San Rafael. Welcome, Patricia.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, can you hear me?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, can you hear me?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, sure can. Go ahead.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, sure can. Go ahead.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Okay, great. I just wanted to bring up something about Wiener’s legislation for housing and the way it’s affecting San Rafael is that the developers are going way out of scale with 17-story, 24-story buildings and others that aren’t quite that outrageous. And the city people are not allowed, because of the way the legislation favors the developers, to question whether or not we have the infrastructure, the parking, and all kinds of things like that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Okay, great. I just wanted to bring up something about Wiener’s legislation for housing and the way it’s affecting San Rafael is that the developers are going way out of scale with 17-story, 24-story buildings and others that aren’t quite that outrageous. And the city people are not allowed, because of the way the legislation favors the developers, to question whether or not we have the infrastructure, the parking, and all kinds of things like that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s just, those are being thrown out the window, and I’m all for housing, but I think it’s just gone over the edge for that kind of building.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>It’s just, those are being thrown out the window, and I’m all for housing, but I think it’s just gone over the edge for that kind of building.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Patricia, thanks for that perspective. I’m curious, Scott, you mentioned in our first segment that Scott Wiener has gotten lots of stuff done. You also mentioned that housing can cut both ways. That seemed like such a perfect example that when you get something done, you change the law and the law enables new things like big towers in San Rafael. Now there’s some opposition.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Patricia, thanks for that perspective. I’m curious, Scott, you mentioned in our first segment that Scott Wiener has gotten lots of stuff done. You also mentioned that housing can cut both ways. That seemed like such a perfect example that when you get something done, you change the law and the law enables new things like big towers in San Rafael. Now there’s some opposition.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> He’s not running in San Rafael. He’s probably happy about having heard that call. Yeah, no, there was the Marina Safeway as well, which caused a lot of consternation among people in that neighborhood, but also support as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> He’s not running in San Rafael. He’s probably happy about having heard that call. Yeah, no, there was the Marina Safeway as well, which caused a lot of consternation among people in that neighborhood, but also support as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, some of these things that get ascribed to Wiener legislation aren’t really because of that. There’s other issues. Some of these zoning and permitting issues are a little bit complicated, but there’s no question that he has authored legislation that will allow for more density, higher buildings, especially near transit corridors.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, some of these things that get ascribed to Wiener legislation aren’t really because of that. There’s other issues. Some of these zoning and permitting issues are a little bit complicated, but there’s no question that he has authored legislation that will allow for more density, higher buildings, especially near transit corridors.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Now, I’m not sure where that building is, proposed building in San Rafael. But here in San Francisco, if you’re on a Muni line, a BART line, and I think a lot of public policy people would say that is where you want higher density, because so that people don’t need to rely on cars, they can use the public transit.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Now, I’m not sure where that building is, proposed building in San Rafael. But here in San Francisco, if you’re on a Muni line, a BART line, and I think a lot of public policy people would say that is where you want higher density, because so that people don’t need to rely on cars, they can use the public transit.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But it is controversial, and it’s like, well, I like more housing, but not here. Do it over there. And that was the point, kind of, Connie Chan sort of made as well. Her district has had the least amount of housing of any of the Supervisors since she got there in 2021, 2022. And she said, yeah, but, you know, there’s all this new housing in South of Market in the Mission, you know. It’s like, well, that’s kind of the point.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But it is controversial, and it’s like, well, I like more housing, but not here. Do it over there. And that was the point, kind of, Connie Chan sort of made as well. Her district has had the least amount of housing of any of the Supervisors since she got there in 2021, 2022. And she said, yeah, but, you know, there’s all this new housing in South of Market in the Mission, you know. It’s like, well, that’s kind of the point.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> But I mean, we talk about housing as an issue that could potentially kind of scramble coalition and alliances in the map in this race, because Connie Chan in the primary won the Sunset neighborhood. That’s traditionally a neighborhood that goes for more moderate candidates. Daniel Lurie won the Sunset when he ran for mayor.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> But I mean, we talk about housing as an issue that could potentially kind of scramble coalition and alliances in the map in this race, because Connie Chan in the primary won the Sunset neighborhood. That’s traditionally a neighborhood that goes for more moderate candidates. Daniel Lurie won the Sunset when he ran for mayor.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, who are the Chan-Lurie voters in this race? And is the issue of housing one of those kind of parochial issues where people feel like, look, maybe Connie Chan is too far left for me on issues like public safety. She, you know, said, I want to dismantle the police department a few years ago. She said that was kind of a misquote, but like, that’s something that stuck with her.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, who are the Chan-Lurie voters in this race? And is the issue of housing one of those kind of parochial issues where people feel like, look, maybe Connie Chan is too far left for me on issues like public safety. She, you know, said, I want to dismantle the police department a few years ago. She said that was kind of a misquote, but like, that’s something that stuck with her.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Um, is that an issue where voters on the West Side feel like, oh, I have some hesitation about Scott Wiener, even though he’s more of a moderate politician, because of housing? Chan will, if she’s going to win this race, she will need those kinds of realignments, uh, to kind of change —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Um, is that an issue where voters on the West Side feel like, oh, I have some hesitation about Scott Wiener, even though he’s more of a moderate politician, because of housing? Chan will, if she’s going to win this race, she will need those kinds of realignments, uh, to kind of change —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Connie Chan speaks for me, but only on housing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Connie Chan speaks for me, but only on housing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think Wiener did win her district, right? In the Richmond. He did win the Richmond in the primary, for what it’s worth.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think Wiener did win her district, right? In the Richmond. He did win the Richmond in the primary, for what it’s worth.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Caroline in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Caroline in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s perfect because I am from the Richmond district and in Connie Chan’s, and I am voting for Wiener because, for me, as a die-hard progressive, we have to send somebody to Washington who can get things done. And so I have voted for Chan in the past, but I will be voting for Wiener as I — I just really, truly believe we have — we have to see more, um, we had to get some of that Pelosi energy back, which we haven’t had for a long time representing us. And I’m really excited to see him to be there and to drive that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s perfect because I am from the Richmond district and in Connie Chan’s, and I am voting for Wiener because, for me, as a die-hard progressive, we have to send somebody to Washington who can get things done. And so I have voted for Chan in the past, but I will be voting for Wiener as I — I just really, truly believe we have — we have to see more, um, we had to get some of that Pelosi energy back, which we haven’t had for a long time representing us. And I’m really excited to see him to be there and to drive that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And on the other note, especially on the housing note, he’s just the technocratic side of him. One of the first things he worked on was SB 35, which was the bill for affordable housing, and everybody in San Francisco, progressives, moderates, want to see affordable housing. And so that’s just demonstrative of how effective he will be. And I’ve gotten very passionate, more passionate about this than I thought I would, but I just wanted to give my two cents.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And on the other note, especially on the housing note, he’s just the technocratic side of him. One of the first things he worked on was SB 35, which was the bill for affordable housing, and everybody in San Francisco, progressives, moderates, want to see affordable housing. And so that’s just demonstrative of how effective he will be. And I’ve gotten very passionate, more passionate about this than I thought I would, but I just wanted to give my two cents.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, appreciate the passion. People getting into this race, clearly, this is a hot one here in the city for sure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, appreciate the passion. People getting into this race, clearly, this is a hot one here in the city for sure.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Guy, I wanna turn things briefly to another race. Congressional District 1 reaches into Sonoma County. This is one that pits incumbent Republican James Gallagher and Democrat Mike McGuire.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Guy, I wanna turn things briefly to another race. Congressional District 1 reaches into Sonoma County. This is one that pits incumbent Republican James Gallagher and Democrat Mike McGuire.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> About this. So James Gallagher took office this year. He won a special election following the death of Representative Doug LaMalfa. He ran in that election under the old lines, under our old congressional district lines, in which the first district was really a safe Republican seat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> About this. So James Gallagher took office this year. He won a special election following the death of Representative Doug LaMalfa. He ran in that election under the old lines, under our old congressional district lines, in which the first district was really a safe Republican seat.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This district was completely reshaped and transformed by Proposition 50, and the way that happened was the lines were dragged down into Sonoma County. Suddenly you have all these blue Democratic voters in Sonoma County that will make up the base of this district now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This district was completely reshaped and transformed by Proposition 50, and the way that happened was the lines were dragged down into Sonoma County. Suddenly you have all these blue Democratic voters in Sonoma County that will make up the base of this district now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Gallagher now faces an uphill climb to win reelection under the new line. So he’s facing Mike McGuire, who is a state senator, previously the pro tem of the state Senate, who under these new lines gets to run with all these North Bay Democrats.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Gallagher now faces an uphill climb to win reelection under the new line. So he’s facing Mike McGuire, who is a state senator, previously the pro tem of the state Senate, who under these new lines gets to run with all these North Bay Democrats.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is one of the seats when Democrats kind of drew up that Proposition 50 map. They felt like, okay, we know we’re gonna get — flip this seat as part of their effort to take back the House of Representatives.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This is one of the seats when Democrats kind of drew up that Proposition 50 map. They felt like, okay, we know we’re gonna get — flip this seat as part of their effort to take back the House of Representatives.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So just to put some numbers to it, I think these are your numbers, Guy. Under the previous map, Donald Trump carried the district by roughly 25 points in 2024. Under the new boundaries, Kamala Harris would have carried it by about 12. And that’s just basically Santa Rosa is the end.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So just to put some numbers to it, I think these are your numbers, Guy. Under the previous map, Donald Trump carried the district by roughly 25 points in 2024. Under the new boundaries, Kamala Harris would have carried it by about 12. And that’s just basically Santa Rosa is the end.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Right. And when you’re talking about, you know, breaking down any House district in America, the single best predictor, how do they vote for president?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Right. And when you’re talking about, you know, breaking down any House district in America, the single best predictor, how do they vote for president?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Yeah. And is this just essentially a down-the-line, like, partisan battle? Like, are you voting R? Are you voting D in this one?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Yeah. And is this just essentially a down-the-line, like, partisan battle? Like, are you voting R? Are you voting D in this one?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would guess that’s how it breaks out. I would imagine Gallagher, you know, retain strength in more of the more northern rural parts of this district. And those numbers are simply just outweighed by the number of voters in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would guess that’s how it breaks out. I would imagine Gallagher, you know, retain strength in more of the more northern rural parts of this district. And those numbers are simply just outweighed by the number of voters in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I’m sure for folks in the North Bay, like, this is an exciting organizing opportunity. They get to be in one of the seats that will potentially flip and help Democrats potentially retake the House of Representatives. So I’m sure you’re going to see a strong turnout there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I’m sure for folks in the North Bay, like, this is an exciting organizing opportunity. They get to be in one of the seats that will potentially flip and help Democrats potentially retake the House of Representatives. So I’m sure you’re going to see a strong turnout there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, curious. I mean, how important is California to this, you know, effort to retake the House? I mean, how’s it looking?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, curious. I mean, how important is California to this, you know, effort to retake the House? I mean, how’s it looking?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s very important just because we have so many seats. I mean, with Prop 50, I think the hope among Democrats was that they could flip five of those seats. They had a near-death experience with one of those seats where Kevin Kiley up in the Sacramento foothills area, very, very — he switched to independent. And he and a very kind of fringy Republican almost made it into the top two before all the votes were counted.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s very important just because we have so many seats. I mean, with Prop 50, I think the hope among Democrats was that they could flip five of those seats. They had a near-death experience with one of those seats where Kevin Kiley up in the Sacramento foothills area, very, very — he switched to independent. And he and a very kind of fringy Republican almost made it into the top two before all the votes were counted.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So some of these things are a little hard to tell ahead of time. But, you know, many of these races, I mean, as Guy said, it went from a whatever-plus for Trump to 12 for Harris, you know, the new district. That’s, you know, that looks good for Democrats, but some of these, they’re not slam dunks.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So some of these things are a little hard to tell ahead of time. But, you know, many of these races, I mean, as Guy said, it went from a whatever-plus for Trump to 12 for Harris, you know, the new district. That’s, you know, that looks good for Democrats, but some of these, they’re not slam dunks.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, if you look at the one, the seat down in San Diego, Riverside, where you’ve got Issa not running and you’ve got a Republican and a Democrat, that’s a competitive seat. Same with Adam Gray, the incumbent Democrat. I mean, so, you know, these are not slam dunks. You know, easy layups for the Democrats. They’re gonna have to earn some of these wins.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I mean, if you look at the one, the seat down in San Diego, Riverside, where you’ve got Issa not running and you’ve got a Republican and a Democrat, that’s a competitive seat. Same with Adam Gray, the incumbent Democrat. I mean, so, you know, these are not slam dunks. You know, easy layups for the Democrats. They’re gonna have to earn some of these wins.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But to your point, your question, you know, they need to pick up three or four in California, I think, you know, or at least they would like to. I mean, we’re talking, how big is the margin gonna be? You know, I think certainly the conventional wisdom is Democrats are gonna win back the House. Question is how big the majority is gonna be. And California could be a big part. Yeah, absolutely.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But to your point, your question, you know, they need to pick up three or four in California, I think, you know, or at least they would like to. I mean, we’re talking, how big is the margin gonna be? You know, I think certainly the conventional wisdom is Democrats are gonna win back the House. Question is how big the majority is gonna be. And California could be a big part. Yeah, absolutely.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, absolutely. But less of a big — I mean, the fact is Prop 50 reduced the playing field of what’s competitive. That’s the point, right? It’s like, make it more Democratic. In previous years, we had four, five, six, seven, eight competitive districts. Now we’re down to three.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, absolutely. But less of a big — I mean, the fact is Prop 50 reduced the playing field of what’s competitive. That’s the point, right? It’s like, make it more Democratic. In previous years, we had four, five, six, seven, eight competitive districts. Now we’re down to three.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Although one of the more interesting ones has two Republicans running, you know, Young Kim versus Ken Calvert, who are both currently in Congress. And they are going at it, you know, hammer and tong at each other. That one’s going to be very interesting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Although one of the more interesting ones has two Republicans running, you know, Young Kim versus Ken Calvert, who are both currently in Congress. And they are going at it, you know, hammer and tong at each other. That one’s going to be very interesting.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wow.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wow.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re talking with KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, new podcast series about Nancy Pelosi, \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em>. Great baseline for thinking about this Scott Wiener, Connie Chan race.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We’re talking with KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, new podcast series about Nancy Pelosi, \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em>. Great baseline for thinking about this Scott Wiener, Connie Chan race.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’ve got Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s Politics Desk. We’ve got Izzy Bloom, reporter and producer on the desk as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’ve got Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s Politics Desk. We’ve got Izzy Bloom, reporter and producer on the desk as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We wanna hear from you. I mean, do you have newly drawn congressional district lines? Has it changed where you’re voting? Do you feel like it’s gonna have an impact? What about, how much do you value experience and seniority in Congress, or are you more drawn to candidates who are promising kind of generational change or newness just in general?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We wanna hear from you. I mean, do you have newly drawn congressional district lines? Has it changed where you’re voting? Do you feel like it’s gonna have an impact? What about, how much do you value experience and seniority in Congress, or are you more drawn to candidates who are promising kind of generational change or newness just in general?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, Discord, or KQED Forum for all those things.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, Discord, or KQED Forum for all those things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Before we go to the break, real quick, Guy, do you wanna give the pitch for our KQED voter guide?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Before we go to the break, real quick, Guy, do you wanna give the pitch for our KQED voter guide?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yes, let’s do it. KQED.org/voter-guide, state elections, Bay Area elections, and this year, for the first time, a school board voter guide. I know that’s one that often goes overlooked, hard to find information. You’re probably like texting, oh, who’s my friend who might know something about school? No, we sent out a questionnaire to every school board candidate in the Bay Area on a variety of relevant issues and hope you’ll check it out.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yes, let’s do it. KQED.org/voter-guide, state elections, Bay Area elections, and this year, for the first time, a school board voter guide. I know that’s one that often goes overlooked, hard to find information. You’re probably like texting, oh, who’s my friend who might know something about school? No, we sent out a questionnaire to every school board candidate in the Bay Area on a variety of relevant issues and hope you’ll check it out.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Am I going to figure out Props 40, 41, 42, whatever, all that whole set of props? I had Marissa Lagos on that. You will understand it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Am I going to figure out Props 40, 41, 42, whatever, all that whole set of props? I had Marissa Lagos on that. You will understand it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’ll be back with more on our local congressional races right after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’ll be back with more on our local congressional races right after the break.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Scott Shafer, Guy Marzorati, and Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics team. We’re talking about our local congressional races. We’re gonna get to Alameda County in a second, but first let’s bring in Chris in Sonoma County. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Scott Shafer, Guy Marzorati, and Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics team. We’re talking about our local congressional races. We’re gonna get to Alameda County in a second, but first let’s bring in Chris in Sonoma County. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, you know, I was calling because I’m a younger voter. I have a young family. I’m progressive that supports a lot of the new wave like El-Sayed and Mamdani and AOC, but I’m very, very much pro-Mike Thompson here from Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, you know, I was calling because I’m a younger voter. I have a young family. I’m progressive that supports a lot of the new wave like El-Sayed and Mamdani and AOC, but I’m very, very much pro-Mike Thompson here from Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I just feel like the Eric Jones race has been really disingenuous. He’s backed by Reform California, which is a right-wing conservative PAC. And I just wanna put in there that people think Mike Thompson’s a Blue Dog, but in my experience, not only has he stood up for us for fire survivors, the nine-year anniversary of the Tubbs fire, but he’s got a 97% environmental voting record, 95% labor, he was an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, like… Seem to know —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I just feel like the Eric Jones race has been really disingenuous. He’s backed by Reform California, which is a right-wing conservative PAC. And I just wanna put in there that people think Mike Thompson’s a Blue Dog, but in my experience, not only has he stood up for us for fire survivors, the nine-year anniversary of the Tubbs fire, but he’s got a 97% environmental voting record, 95% labor, he was an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, like… Seem to know —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Big fans!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Big fans!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Chris, I know. I appreciate your taking a look at this race and providing your perspective as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Chris, I know. I appreciate your taking a look at this race and providing your perspective as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Let’s bring in Bob in Santa Rosa and we’ll take these together. Hey, Bob, I’m Santa Rosa, welcome!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Let’s bring in Bob in Santa Rosa and we’ll take these together. Hey, Bob, I’m Santa Rosa, welcome!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Oh, hi!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Oh, hi!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Well, thank you very much. Listen, I’ve heard everything everybody’s saying, but what I haven’t heard is anyone talking about the immigration issues, particularly in Sonoma County, probably Napa also, and the collaboration with ICE in the sheriff’s department up here, the amount of deportation centers and camps that people are sent to.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Well, thank you very much. Listen, I’ve heard everything everybody’s saying, but what I haven’t heard is anyone talking about the immigration issues, particularly in Sonoma County, probably Napa also, and the collaboration with ICE in the sheriff’s department up here, the amount of deportation centers and camps that people are sent to.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think it’s a shadow issue, actually, for sure, in Sonoma. It’s easy to be what seems to be a liberal and not deal at all with the fact that our sheriff here in Sonoma County turns people, the names of people who are being released from jail, over to ICE and they get picked up outside the county jail.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think it’s a shadow issue, actually, for sure, in Sonoma. It’s easy to be what seems to be a liberal and not deal at all with the fact that our sheriff here in Sonoma County turns people, the names of people who are being released from jail, over to ICE and they get picked up outside the county jail.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And you haven’t heard it from any of the congressional candidates.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And you haven’t heard it from any of the congressional candidates.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Not that I can tell. No. They all say, I’m against that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Not that I can tell. No. They all say, I’m against that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Bob in Santa Rosa, thanks so much. How much do you think, you know, obviously nationally immigration for Donald Trump still remains one of his better issues and still under water, but relative to, say, the economy, it’s doing relatively better there. How much has this played into any of the races that we know about up here around here?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Bob in Santa Rosa, thanks so much. How much do you think, you know, obviously nationally immigration for Donald Trump still remains one of his better issues and still under water, but relative to, say, the economy, it’s doing relatively better there. How much has this played into any of the races that we know about up here around here?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> That’s — yeah, go ahead. That’s interesting. I mean, that point specifically, I have not heard the candidates talk about local sheriff cooperation. So that was fascinating to hear.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> That’s — yeah, go ahead. That’s interesting. I mean, that point specifically, I have not heard the candidates talk about local sheriff cooperation. So that was fascinating to hear.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> It does depend. I mean, the law in California does allow if there’s a violent criminal who is going to be released, I think the sheriff can let them know. They don’t turn them over, right. But, you know, certainly — yeah. So I’ll just leave it at that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> It does depend. I mean, the law in California does allow if there’s a violent criminal who is going to be released, I think the sheriff can let them know. They don’t turn them over, right. But, you know, certainly — yeah. So I’ll just leave it at that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think with most of the races that we’ve been talking about in the Bay Area, there’s not a lot of daylight between the candidates. You know, maybe Gallagher and McGuire up there. That’s a different question. But here in the Bay Area, I think maybe it hasn’t come up because there’s not much difference between the two candidates.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think with most of the races that we’ve been talking about in the Bay Area, there’s not a lot of daylight between the candidates. You know, maybe Gallagher and McGuire up there. That’s a different question. But here in the Bay Area, I think maybe it hasn’t come up because there’s not much difference between the two candidates.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> I do think that’s — in District 4, they’re pretty much on the same page. Eric Jones has said that he would want to move ICE out of the Department of Homeland Security, to eliminate additional funding he received in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill last year. But I don’t think he’s taking quite as strong a position as Mai Vang in District 7 over in Sacramento, where she’s calling for abolishing ICE.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> I do think that’s — in District 4, they’re pretty much on the same page. Eric Jones has said that he would want to move ICE out of the Department of Homeland Security, to eliminate additional funding he received in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill last year. But I don’t think he’s taking quite as strong a position as Mai Vang in District 7 over in Sacramento, where she’s calling for abolishing ICE.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh-huh. Yeah, it’s — my thing, and we’re going to turn to the Alameda County race again in a second. But is Mai Vang kind of our most progressive-wave kind of a candidate out there?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh-huh. Yeah, it’s — my thing, and we’re going to turn to the Alameda County race again in a second. But is Mai Vang kind of our most progressive-wave kind of a candidate out there?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think she’s taking on that mantle a lot more. You know, she’s taken on like Medicare for All and, like I said, abolishing ICE.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think she’s taking on that mantle a lot more. You know, she’s taken on like Medicare for All and, like I said, abolishing ICE.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> These are like Bernie cred out here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> These are like Bernie cred out here.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, the not accepting corporate PAC money is something that we see from also Eric Jones, but Mai Vang as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, the not accepting corporate PAC money is something that we see from also Eric Jones, but Mai Vang as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> All right, let’s bring in Sunil in Livermore. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> All right, let’s bring in Sunil in Livermore. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Thank you. I want to talk about the district here in Livermore, Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, that is Eric Swalwell’s former district. I’m waiting for — I’m definitely voting for Aisha Wahab.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Thank you. I want to talk about the district here in Livermore, Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, that is Eric Swalwell’s former district. I’m waiting for — I’m definitely voting for Aisha Wahab.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What I wanted to talk is the lack of enthusiasm among the South Asian. And I see a hint of Islamophobia with Ayesha Wahhab. And I would like to hear from your guest who is leading right now between these two candidates and any thoughts on, because there is a large population of Indian Americans, unfortunately, I have not seen that kind of enthusiasm for Ayesha Wahab. Any comment?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What I wanted to talk is the lack of enthusiasm among the South Asian. And I see a hint of Islamophobia with Ayesha Wahhab. And I would like to hear from your guest who is leading right now between these two candidates and any thoughts on, because there is a large population of Indian Americans, unfortunately, I have not seen that kind of enthusiasm for Ayesha Wahab. Any comment?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Sunil, really, really appreciate it. That is, of course, Aisha Wahab, Melissa Hernandez, seat formerly held by Eric Swalwell. Guy, do you wanna take this one on?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Sunil, really, really appreciate it. That is, of course, Aisha Wahab, Melissa Hernandez, seat formerly held by Eric Swalwell. Guy, do you wanna take this one on?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this was an election, you know, Hernandez, Wahab both on the ballot in the June primary because Swalwell had decided to run for governor, not for reelection. Then scandal broke, sexual misconduct allegations, he resigns from his seat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this was an election, you know, Hernandez, Wahab both on the ballot in the June primary because Swalwell had decided to run for governor, not for reelection. Then scandal broke, sexual misconduct allegations, he resigns from his seat.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There was also a concurrent special election between these two. Wahab won the initial primary there. Things got really interesting in the special election in August because we started to see millions of dollars come from AIPAC supporting Melissa Hernandez.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>There was also a concurrent special election between these two. Wahab won the initial primary there. Things got really interesting in the special election in August because we started to see millions of dollars come from AIPAC supporting Melissa Hernandez.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There had not really been any public discussion about America’s relationship with Israel besides Wahab making a comment in a candidate forum that she considered Israel’s actions in Gaza genocide. Nevertheless, we saw this money pour in. All of a sudden, the special election got pretty close. Hernandez was down 20 points in the primary. The special election, Wahab ended up winning by only six points.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There had not really been any public discussion about America’s relationship with Israel besides Wahab making a comment in a candidate forum that she considered Israel’s actions in Gaza genocide. Nevertheless, we saw this money pour in. All of a sudden, the special election got pretty close. Hernandez was down 20 points in the primary. The special election, Wahab ended up winning by only six points.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So there was this thinking, okay, this is now potentially a collision course. In the November election, where we’re gonna see this national discussion about Israel play out here, that hasn’t happened. Instead, AIPAC has completely stopped spending money after the special election. Hernandez has not had that outside backing that she had. Wahab is now running as an incumbent.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So there was this thinking, okay, this is now potentially a collision course. In the November election, where we’re gonna see this national discussion about Israel play out here, that hasn’t happened. Instead, AIPAC has completely stopped spending money after the special election. Hernandez has not had that outside backing that she had. Wahab is now running as an incumbent.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so a very different race than where we thought it might just be even just a few weeks ago.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so a very different race than where we thought it might just be even just a few weeks ago.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>To the caller’s point, though, I have not done any reporting on what he raised about — are there concerns, Islamophobia, concerns about Wahab. I will note, though, the areas where we saw some of the biggest falloff in support for Wahab, Mission San Jose neighborhood in Fremont, a lot of Indian American neighborhoods where we heard her vote totals drop between the primary election and the special election.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>To the caller’s point, though, I have not done any reporting on what he raised about — are there concerns, Islamophobia, concerns about Wahab. I will note, though, the areas where we saw some of the biggest falloff in support for Wahab, Mission San Jose neighborhood in Fremont, a lot of Indian American neighborhoods where we heard her vote totals drop between the primary election and the special election.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There were a lot of negative ads run against her on a variety of issues. And I wondered… Some of that, issues that caller brought up, I have not done any more in-depth reporting into that, but I do wonder if some of those kind of negative attacks took a hit on Wahab ahead of the August election.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There were a lot of negative ads run against her on a variety of issues. And I wondered… Some of that, issues that caller brought up, I have not done any more in-depth reporting into that, but I do wonder if some of those kind of negative attacks took a hit on Wahab ahead of the August election.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, and there was a piece of legislation that she authored that basically would have beefed up civil rights protections against caste discrimination. And that really divided the Asian community in that district. I think Newsom ultimately vetoed that bill, but she took a lot of heat for that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, and there was a piece of legislation that she authored that basically would have beefed up civil rights protections against caste discrimination. And that really divided the Asian community in that district. I think Newsom ultimately vetoed that bill, but she took a lot of heat for that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I don’t know if that’s what reflects what the caller is talking about, but that did happen.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I don’t know if that’s what reflects what the caller is talking about, but that did happen.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, I remember we did a show on some of the reporting around these caste issues, and it was very, very heated on the phone lines.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, I remember we did a show on some of the reporting around these caste issues, and it was very, very heated on the phone lines.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And just to set the table, let’s see, Wahab defeated Hernandez in the August runoff 53-47, right? So it was like fairly close. And so the presumption here is maybe things are not as close, but we just don’t know.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And just to set the table, let’s see, Wahab defeated Hernandez in the August runoff 53-47, right? So it was like fairly close. And so the presumption here is maybe things are not as close, but we just don’t know.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think we might look at that as the high-water mark, at least of, like, outside support for Hernandez, because that’s really what propelled her.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think we might look at that as the high-water mark, at least of, like, outside support for Hernandez, because that’s really what propelled her.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, I think AIPAC, these outside groups made a bet that we have this really short window in a special election where if we just flood the zone with money — I mean, they were running broadcast TV ads that were running across the Bay Area. Most of the people watching those ads didn’t even vote in the district, but it was just pouring money into this. Let’s try to get a quick win in an election.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I mean, I think AIPAC, these outside groups made a bet that we have this really short window in a special election where if we just flood the zone with money — I mean, they were running broadcast TV ads that were running across the Bay Area. Most of the people watching those ads didn’t even vote in the district, but it was just pouring money into this. Let’s try to get a quick win in an election.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You saw members of California’s congressional delegation add on support Hernandez. It’s a very different thing once Wahab is the incumbent. Now, are those same members of the delegation, folks like Zoe Lofgren who is critical of Wahab, is she going to be spending her time going after a member of the delegation when, like, Democrats are trying to take back the House nationally? A little bit of a different calculation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You saw members of California’s congressional delegation add on support Hernandez. It’s a very different thing once Wahab is the incumbent. Now, are those same members of the delegation, folks like Zoe Lofgren who is critical of Wahab, is she going to be spending her time going after a member of the delegation when, like, Democrats are trying to take back the House nationally? A little bit of a different calculation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, there was also kind of a brushback from organized labor. Lorena Gonzalez, you know, when Zoe Lofgren released a video just before the election attacking Wahab for — I don’t know if we want to go into it, but, you know, she declined — she declined to step aside so they could have a caretaker when Swalwell resigned, and they had a kind of, you know, they wanted to avoid an expensive, messy primary, in which they ended up having.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, there was also kind of a brushback from organized labor. Lorena Gonzalez, you know, when Zoe Lofgren released a video just before the election attacking Wahab for — I don’t know if we want to go into it, but, you know, she declined — she declined to step aside so they could have a caretaker when Swalwell resigned, and they had a kind of, you know, they wanted to avoid an expensive, messy primary, in which they ended up having.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, you know, but I think to Guy’s point, she’s now the incumbent. And they’re all about loyalty. Also, does the worm turn on AIPAC —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, you know, but I think to Guy’s point, she’s now the incumbent. And they’re all about loyalty. Also, does the worm turn on AIPAC —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> PAC spending, right. It was effective because there was a few weeks stretch there where it was just — they were blanketing the district with ads, and it’s like, where’s this — what’s happening? Where’s this coming from?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> PAC spending, right. It was effective because there was a few weeks stretch there where it was just — they were blanketing the district with ads, and it’s like, where’s this — what’s happening? Where’s this coming from?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Then once the story kind of takes shape that, oh, this is spending from this group that Democrats nationwide have kind of started to be critical of, takes on a little bit different picture.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Then once the story kind of takes shape that, oh, this is spending from this group that Democrats nationwide have kind of started to be critical of, takes on a little bit different picture.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> You know, and they — I think they just saw they tried a whole bunch of different attacks. Aisha Wahab, it didn’t work, and they’re probably trying to spend their money on other races. They’ve been kind of like kryptonite for a lot of the candidates they’ve supported in this election cycle.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> You know, and they — I think they just saw they tried a whole bunch of different attacks. Aisha Wahab, it didn’t work, and they’re probably trying to spend their money on other races. They’ve been kind of like kryptonite for a lot of the candidates they’ve supported in this election cycle.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Colin in San Francisco, kind of a callback to the top of the show and Scott Wiener, but also on the topic of Israel. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Colin in San Francisco, kind of a callback to the top of the show and Scott Wiener, but also on the topic of Israel. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Good morning. Today the third anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel. At the time, Scott Wiener posted on that, that what’s happening in Israel is not a both-side situation. Scott also referenced Israel’s right to defend itself without any mention of Palestinian civilian casualties, even though by then the Israeli government had signaled that it would respond harshly to the Hamas assault.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Good morning. Today the third anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel. At the time, Scott Wiener posted on that, that what’s happening in Israel is not a both-side situation. Scott also referenced Israel’s right to defend itself without any mention of Palestinian civilian casualties, even though by then the Israeli government had signaled that it would respond harshly to the Hamas assault.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As a state legislator, Wiener also criticized the nonviolent BDS movement and was instrumental in passing AB 715 as a law that would potentially subject students and teachers to disciplinary actions for criticism of Israel.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>As a state legislator, Wiener also criticized the nonviolent BDS movement and was instrumental in passing AB 715 as a law that would potentially subject students and teachers to disciplinary actions for criticism of Israel.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I’d have to question whether Wiener’s calling Israel’s actions in Gaza to be genocide is all that genuine. Is he just saying what he thinks he needs to say to win in the district, where Israel’s actions over the past three years and AIPAC spending on our elections have proven to be deeply unpopular?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I’d have to question whether Wiener’s calling Israel’s actions in Gaza to be genocide is all that genuine. Is he just saying what he thinks he needs to say to win in the district, where Israel’s actions over the past three years and AIPAC spending on our elections have proven to be deeply unpopular?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Come on, let’s take that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Come on, let’s take that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Our panel here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Our panel here.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, the issue of whether or not what Israel has done in Gaza is genocide came up in one of the debates during the primary, where Wiener declined to say yes or no, and then had to — you know, he got some blowback and said yes, it’s genocide.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, the issue of whether or not what Israel has done in Gaza is genocide came up in one of the debates during the primary, where Wiener declined to say yes or no, and then had to — you know, he got some blowback and said yes, it’s genocide.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>He’s, you know, to be fair, Wiener, who’s Jewish, has been very critical of Israel, Netanyahu for sure, and I think the differences between Chan and Wiener on this issue have narrowed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>He’s, you know, to be fair, Wiener, who’s Jewish, has been very critical of Israel, Netanyahu for sure, and I think the differences between Chan and Wiener on this issue have narrowed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, Guy mentioned earlier that Chan is now supporting a full arms embargo, even for defensive weapons. Though that is a difference. I think if you had to say who is more, I don’t know, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, however you wanna say it, Chan is certainly more to the left, I guess you would say, from Wiener.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I mean, Guy mentioned earlier that Chan is now supporting a full arms embargo, even for defensive weapons. Though that is a difference. I think if you had to say who is more, I don’t know, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, however you wanna say it, Chan is certainly more to the left, I guess you would say, from Wiener.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I think really, there’s not a lot of daylight between the two of them. I mean, there are some nuances, but the reality is, I mean, if this is your top issue, that’s how you’re going to vote. And there are some voters for whom this is the top issue, and they’ll decide one way or the other on both sides of that question.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I think really, there’s not a lot of daylight between the two of them. I mean, there are some nuances, but the reality is, I mean, if this is your top issue, that’s how you’re going to vote. And there are some voters for whom this is the top issue, and they’ll decide one way or the other on both sides of that question.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Yeah, yeah, for sure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Yeah, yeah, for sure.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Brandon in Foster City. Welcome, Brandon.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Brandon in Foster City. Welcome, Brandon.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Thank you, guys. Good morning. I just want to say I had attended the rally with Bernie and Jane Kim in Rilcon last Saturday at the Curran Theater. It was originally scheduled to be at the Warfield, but they had to change it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Thank you, guys. Good morning. I just want to say I had attended the rally with Bernie and Jane Kim in Rilcon last Saturday at the Curran Theater. It was originally scheduled to be at the Warfield, but they had to change it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I just wanna say that Bernie was born in 1941 and he’s 85 years old, and I can’t believe how sharp that guy is. And I just want to say he inspires everybody to be, you know, for progressives. And I’m about to vote yes on Prop 40 and no on 41 and 42, and I just want to give a little plug for that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I just wanna say that Bernie was born in 1941 and he’s 85 years old, and I can’t believe how sharp that guy is. And I just want to say he inspires everybody to be, you know, for progressives. And I’m about to vote yes on Prop 40 and no on 41 and 42, and I just want to give a little plug for that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And thank you, KQED. I hope my business does well and I can become a sponsor. And bless you guys. You guys are having such good times.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And thank you, KQED. I hope my business does well and I can become a sponsor. And bless you guys. You guys are having such good times.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks, Brandon. Appreciate that. Appreciate people’s civic enthusiasm always. Love it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks, Brandon. Appreciate that. Appreciate people’s civic enthusiasm always. Love it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, Emily’s on the Discord writes in to say, you know, this is about the McGuire-Gallagher race. She says, “I’m in that redrawn district and a registered Democrat. I haven’t seen or heard anything from either candidate yet. It’s hard to buy TV since it stretches across three TV markets. But my neighbors who are registered no party preference are getting flooded with Gallagher direct mail pieces, trying to disqualify McGuire on character grounds. Even with the Harris-Tilton 2024, I wonder what proportion of the district is no party preference and getting a very different picture of the candidates than registered Democrats.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, Emily’s on the Discord writes in to say, you know, this is about the McGuire-Gallagher race. She says, “I’m in that redrawn district and a registered Democrat. I haven’t seen or heard anything from either candidate yet. It’s hard to buy TV since it stretches across three TV markets. But my neighbors who are registered no party preference are getting flooded with Gallagher direct mail pieces, trying to disqualify McGuire on character grounds. Even with the Harris-Tilton 2024, I wonder what proportion of the district is no party preference and getting a very different picture of the candidates than registered Democrats.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm. That’s interesting. That does seem interesting, isn’t it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm. That’s interesting. That does seem interesting, isn’t it?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, you definitely — they do target, like, the mail that you will get, the, you know, stuff that will pop up on, you know, digital and stuff like that is very targeted towards, you know, households based on who’s registered for what.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, you definitely — they do target, like, the mail that you will get, the, you know, stuff that will pop up on, you know, digital and stuff like that is very targeted towards, you know, households based on who’s registered for what.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Scott, you can look up the registration while I’m venting here. But I think, yeah, I mean, I would expect McGuire — I don’t think, like, I agree with the caller in the sense that, like, I wouldn’t expect a huge TV campaign just given all the different areas that it touches. But that’s interesting that that’s Gallagher’s play.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Scott, you can look up the registration while I’m venting here. But I think, yeah, I mean, I would expect McGuire — I don’t think, like, I agree with the caller in the sense that, like, I wouldn’t expect a huge TV campaign just given all the different areas that it touches. But that’s interesting that that’s Gallagher’s play.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Yeah. Let’s bring in Rick into —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Yeah. Let’s bring in Rick into —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Looks like about 20 percent.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Looks like about 20 percent.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Twenty percent?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Twenty percent?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Is no party preference.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Is no party preference.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hey, Rick, uh, welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hey, Rick, uh, welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Okay, well, for my member of Congress, I’m voting for Dr. Richard Pan. Pan is your man. And I’m voting — because there were so many different propositions on the ballot, I’m only going to talk about two of them. I care enough for housing, so I’m voting yes on Prop 1 and yes on Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Okay, well, for my member of Congress, I’m voting for Dr. Richard Pan. Pan is your man. And I’m voting — because there were so many different propositions on the ballot, I’m only going to talk about two of them. I care enough for housing, so I’m voting yes on Prop 1 and yes on Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>If Kevin Kiley is elected to my district, I’d probably be back in an institution because I have multiple disabilities. And that is exactly what Trump wants. For people with disabilities to put them away, out of sight, out of mind. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>If Kevin Kiley is elected to my district, I’d probably be back in an institution because I have multiple disabilities. And that is exactly what Trump wants. For people with disabilities to put them away, out of sight, out of mind. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Rick, appreciate that. Why don’t you — we haven’t talked about this race yet.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Rick, appreciate that. Why don’t you — we haven’t talked about this race yet.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> This is another one Democrats have circled to kind of pick up. A little kind of strange backstory. Scott talked a little bit about it in the primary. Kiley, a Republican, switched parties, became an independent, survival tactic, also switched districts.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> This is another one Democrats have circled to kind of pick up. A little kind of strange backstory. Scott talked a little bit about it in the primary. Kiley, a Republican, switched parties, became an independent, survival tactic, also switched districts.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So this is — he’s running in a somewhat new district. His district kind of got fractured by Prop 50. Richard Pan, a former state senator, Ami Bera switched districts. He’s another Sacramento-area Democrat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So this is — he’s running in a somewhat new district. His district kind of got fractured by Prop 50. Richard Pan, a former state senator, Ami Bera switched districts. He’s another Sacramento-area Democrat.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So the net result is Democrats could still pick up the seat here if they’re able to knock off Kiley. This is one, again, Kiley is going from running in a district that was pretty friendly towards Republicans. Now he’s having to run in the Sacramento suburbs, a place Kamala Harris did very well. Kamala was in town last week campaigning for Richard Pan.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So the net result is Democrats could still pick up the seat here if they’re able to knock off Kiley. This is one, again, Kiley is going from running in a district that was pretty friendly towards Republicans. Now he’s having to run in the Sacramento suburbs, a place Kamala Harris did very well. Kamala was in town last week campaigning for Richard Pan.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So this is one Democrats also feel pretty confident.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So this is one Democrats also feel pretty confident.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I would also imagine this is one where there’s probably still at least a chunk of undecided voters, right? Because people don’t know these people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I would also imagine this is one where there’s probably still at least a chunk of undecided voters, right? Because people don’t know these people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think this honestly plays across all of these districts. Like, we talk about the Mike Thompson seat. Yes, he’s the incumbent. Yes, he’s been in Congress for a long time. About 50 percent of those voters were not in his district before Prop 50.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think this honestly plays across all of these districts. Like, we talk about the Mike Thompson seat. Yes, he’s the incumbent. Yes, he’s been in Congress for a long time. About 50 percent of those voters were not in his district before Prop 50.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So even for these longtime incumbents, there is a little bit of a reintroduction that has to take place that honestly could scramble some of these races.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So even for these longtime incumbents, there is a little bit of a reintroduction that has to take place that honestly could scramble some of these races.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. Is a national party getting involved? You mentioned Kamala Harris coming out to campaign in these cases. How much is the sort of National Democratic Party sort of investing in California?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. Is a national party getting involved? You mentioned Kamala Harris coming out to campaign in these cases. How much is the sort of National Democratic Party sort of investing in California?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, they’re certainly helping out in some of the key tight races, like in the Central Valley with Adam Gray, Democratic incumbent. And then the one where David Valadao, the Republican, they’re trying to flip that seat. He’s been very difficult to beat. It’s a little bit like Lucy in the football. They’ve tried to defeat him and think they can’t — haven’t.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, they’re certainly helping out in some of the key tight races, like in the Central Valley with Adam Gray, Democratic incumbent. And then the one where David Valadao, the Republican, they’re trying to flip that seat. He’s been very difficult to beat. It’s a little bit like Lucy in the football. They’ve tried to defeat him and think they can’t — haven’t.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think they’re playing in that one. Also in the San Diego-Riverside seat where you’ve got Desmond, the Republican, and Von Wilpert, the Democrat. They’re definitely playing in that one.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think they’re playing in that one. Also in the San Diego-Riverside seat where you’ve got Desmond, the Republican, and Von Wilpert, the Democrat. They’re definitely playing in that one.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I don’t think they’re going to — they’re not going to play in the ones that are not going to flip. So that’s what I know. Maybe you guys know something.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I don’t think they’re going to — they’re not going to play in the ones that are not going to flip. So that’s what I know. Maybe you guys know something.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I do think the money piece is interesting this year because it’s different. Democrats in these last few midterms have had a financial advantage. That is not the case this year.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I do think the money piece is interesting this year because it’s different. Democrats in these last few midterms have had a financial advantage. That is not the case this year.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So you look at a district like the one in Bakersfield with Valadao, Republicans — the outside spending there is over — they have a huge advantage right now. I think they’ve spent the fourth most on any district in America to try to help David Valadao.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So you look at a district like the one in Bakersfield with Valadao, Republicans — the outside spending there is over — they have a huge advantage right now. I think they’ve spent the fourth most on any district in America to try to help David Valadao.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So when you talk, when people talk about the blue wave this year, I think it needs to be tempered with two things: the money and the map. The money being Republicans have more of a financial advantage than they’ve had in previous years. And the map, the gerrymandering that has occurred across the country, has put a lower ceiling on where Democrats can go.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So when you talk, when people talk about the blue wave this year, I think it needs to be tempered with two things: the money and the map. The money being Republicans have more of a financial advantage than they’ve had in previous years. And the map, the gerrymandering that has occurred across the country, has put a lower ceiling on where Democrats can go.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The idea that, like, yes, they may end up getting a nine-point advantage in kind of the generic polling or the popular vote, that’s not going to translate into 30, 40 seats the way it did in previous elections, just because, A, through natural sorting, Democrats have already kind of picked off areas where people don’t like Trump, and, B, this gerrymandering is just kind of lowered how the reach of how far a blue wave could go.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve been talking with KQED’s politics team about the hotly contested races for Congress across the Bay Area. I’ve been joined by Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s Politics and Government Desk. Thanks, Guy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve had Izzy Bloom, reporter and producer with KQED’s Politics and Government Desk. Thank you so much, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve had Izzy Bloom, reporter and producer with KQED’s Politics and Government Desk. Thank you so much, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m Alexis Madrigal. Thank you so, so much to all of our callers, listeners. Appreciate you all getting involved in your local politics here. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with guest host Laura Klivans.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, October 7, 2026 at 9 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Some of the Bay Area’s biggest political battles this fall are happening between fellow Democrats in hotly contested races for Congress. There’s a fierce fight for retiring former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s seat in San Francisco. In Napa, where redistricting has shaken up the district, a multimillionaire is courting votes from Republicans and progressives to unseat an establishment fellow Democrat. And in Sacramento, younger progressive challengers are taking on longtime incumbents, raising a bigger question about what Democratic voters value right now: a new generation of leadership, or the experience that comes with years in office? KQED’s politics team joins us to break down the races, the candidates and what to watch heading into Election Day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati,\u003c/strong> correspondent, KQED’s California Politics and Government Desk\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer,\u003c/strong> senior editor, KQED’s California Politics and Government Desk and co-host of Political Breakdown\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom, \u003c/strong>reporter and producer, KQED California Politics & Government Desk\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. A month out from the midterms, it looks like a Democrat could win for Senate in Texas, North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia. Poll after poll shows an unpopular president dragging down the Republican Party across the country. Nobody knows how big the blue wave will be, but it’s looking pretty big.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Locally, many congressional races pit Democrats against Democrats, sometimes in districts that have been transformed by Prop 50 redistricting. Will the blue wave push our congressional delegation to the left? The highest-profile contest is the race to represent San Francisco, almost all of it at least, replacing the legendary Nancy Pelosi. But there are other interesting races in the East Bay, in the North Bay, up towards Sacramento. We’re gonna cover them all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Here to talk with us, we’ve got some folks from KQED’s politics team. Scott Shafer, of course, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, and of course has a new podcast series about Nancy Pelosi called \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em>. I think episode four dropped today, Scott.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s right. Get it wherever you get your podcasts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s right. Thanks for joining us. We’ve also got Guy Marzorati, correspondent on KQED’s politics and government desk. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Hey, good morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So, Scott, you were one of the moderators of last week’s debate at KQED between Supervisor Connie Chan, Senator Scott Wiener. What can you tell us about the two candidates, core components, what’s kind of the texture, landscape of this campaign?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, I think underlying all of it is Nancy Pelosi. She has a big shadow. And when she endorsed Connie Chan just before the primary, it boosted Connie Chan into second place. And both she and the third-place finisher, Shoykat Chakrabarti, are really stepping on the gas pedal to try to get Chan to win the seat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s a bit of an uphill battle because Scott Wiener has been around for a long time. He was on the Board of Supervisors. He was in the state Senate. He’s been a very prolific lawmaker. He sort of led the charge on housing, issues ranging from taking on Trump over ICE, masking, other things like that, as well as AI regulation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Connie Chan, more progressive, close with labor, has been a representative of her district, the Richmond, in ways that don’t necessarily help her citywide, for example, opposing closure of the Great Highway to make way for Sunset Dunes Park, a very popular inner district, maybe less so citywide in this congressional district.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But these are two very distinctive people and personalities. They both have interesting biographies. Connie Chan came to the U.S. when she was young from China. Scott Wiener, openly gay, came from the East Coast.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think their differences over issues are, I think, in all these races we’re going to talk about, how these folks are going to vote. Whoever wins and goes back to D.C. among the Democrats, they’re going to vote the same way the vast majority of the time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think for me as a voter and as voters evaluate this race, it’s who will be the most effective, who is gonna go back there and get things done, who’s gonna represent our values, who can build coalitions. And I think that’s really something that voters are grappling with.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, in this one, it feels like there is a pretty clear choice, at least around housing stuff, right? I mean, Scott Wiener being known as like kind of the most YIMBY guy in the state of California, perhaps. And Connie Chan, definitely not in the —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. I mean, Scott Wiener has not just championed more housing, but has been relentless. If a bill failed, he went back and talked to the people who voted against it, talked to the governor. He did that with AI as well. And so there is now evidence that there is some evidence that the legislation that he’s gotten through and signed is having an impact. There’s more housing being built.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The thing is, though, there is also — that can be a polarizing issue. People can say, oh, yes, we need to build more housing. But not in my backyard. You know, that’s the whole nitty-gritty. That’s where that phrase comes from, you know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so I think, you know, in a number of ways, Scott Wiener is, while he’s prolific and often seen by colleagues up in Sacramento as one of the most effective lawmakers, he’s also polarizing. And there are people both in the gay community and outside, in labor certainly, that, you know, find him to be not their cup of tea for one reason or another.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think, yes, if you’re pro-housing, Scott Wiener is, you know, pretty clearly the person you’re going to support. But, you know, like I said, there’s nuances to that issue.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Guy, can you talk a little bit about some of the dynamics of this race? Like, have things changed? Have people changed their positions on any key issues, trying to pick up and increase their coalition’s breadth?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Biggest change in dynamic is Nancy Pelosi deciding to be a main character in this election. The question of how she would weigh in and at what point, as Scott said, late in the primary, her endorsement helped boost Chan into the top two, but really that was the start for her. She decided to continue her involvement in the campaign, rallying financial support for Chan, had a key staff member go work on Connie Chan’s campaign.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think you really saw this crystallize most when Scott Wiener made what was perhaps his biggest misstep in the campaign to date, which was when he rolled out this AI chatbot that mocked Connie Chan, basically to show that Chan stands in the way of housing and other things. The chatbot was supposed to give answers like Connie Chan would give and kind of portray an obstructionist.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Nancy Pelosi was able to marshal opposition to this chatbot, labeling it sexist, racist, in a way that, within a matter of days, got Wiener to take down the chatbot and profusely apologize. It was just — it was a master class in kind of the way Pelosi was able to leverage relationships. She had it on official House of Representatives letterhead, opposition from members of the delegation, and so that, to me, stood out as like, okay, this could be the biggest kind of roadblock for Wiener if Pelosi really kind of takes on this role and makes it not so much about Chan versus Wiener, but about her legacy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, because I was listening to you guys on the debate and one of the most fascinating things for me was that Connie Chan didn’t mention her Pelosi endorsement, but then Scott Wiener gave a sort of like sweet thing about —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Nancy Pelosi. That’s so interesting. And, you know, I think that, you know, I asked Ian Kramer, who’s the staffer from Pelosi’s office, like, why didn’t, you know, Connie Chan mention Pelosi at all? Just for the mic. And he was like, well, you know, elections are about the future, you know. And we think most people know that Nancy Pelosi is already for Connie Chan.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m not sure that rings entirely true. I’m sure that if they thought it would benefit her, Chan would have mentioned it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, Wiener has always been deferential publicly toward Pelosi. But what irritated Pelosi, and I think this is what fueled a lot of conspiracy theories about why is she so adamant for Connie Chan, in 2006, Scott Wiener began raising money for a congressional race. He said, “I’m not going to run against Speaker Pelosi, and I hope she doesn’t retire. But if she does or when she does, I am going to be ready.” And then in October of last year, he actually announced he was going to run before she was retiring.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, in the world of Pelosi — you know, and the Burton machine, and I see this election kind of is the last gasp of the Burton machine. Loyalty is everything. And by Wiener stepping out before it was, quote unquote, his turn, you know, they saw that as very disloyal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Interesting, because that’s exactly what Pelosi did when she ran for leadership back after the 2000 election. They were like, no, it’s not your turn. She said, I don’t care. I’m going to run. I am going to win.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So anyway, I do think that, you know, what was poignant, I think, and what humanized Scott Wiener in that debate was his closing statement where he said, you know, back in 1987, the year that Pelosi got elected, she went back to Washington and she fought for AIDS funding. And there was a gay teenager in the closet back in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, I forget where he was, who saw that as permission to come out and be who I am. And I thank Nancy Pelosi. That person is on the stage now tonight.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so he is always publicly, even after Pelosi has done some things, like Guy mentioned, for Connie Chan, always been very deferential. There’s really not much in it for him to go after her. She is an icon, you know, and so he has to be very careful. I mean, he did push back a little bit on some of the characterization of the chatbot, but, you know, it’s careful. It’s tricky for him.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Also, just noting for folks, Phil Burton and then Sala Burton succeeded him, which is going to come up later with another —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> And don’t forget John Burton.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yes, yeah, and John. So we’ve got just a whole bunch of the California politicians who have been running in San Francisco with the last name of Burton.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Guy, I wanted to ask you one other issue on this campaign. Where are these candidates on Prop 40, California’s billionaire wealth tax?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this is an issue where they actually are split. Wiener opposes Prop 40, the billionaire wealth tax; Chan is for it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This came up in the debate, and I think, if anything, it illustrates Wiener on these issues of taxes being, in kind of San Francisco, California Democratic circles, more moderate. He’s expressed his opposition to this, and honestly to an earlier corporate tax on the ballot this year in San Francisco, as perhaps creating a climate that would be too unfriendly to business.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>His concerns with Prop 40 on the ballot are similar to concerns we’ve heard from Gavin Newsom, other Democrats, about this just being a one-time tax, this concentrating too much of the benefits just on health care to the exclusion of education, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I can also imagine, because he’s such a kind of technocratic thinker, that he’s like, we should really solve this at the national level. That all kind of checks out with his sort of version of —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, I mean, to Scott’s point, these folks are going to vote the same 90, 95 percent of the time in Washington. There are a few issues where they have differences. This is one of them on taxation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think another one, and this came up in the debate as well, is how they’d approach the American relationship with Israel. We heard Connie Chan say she wants a full arms embargo against Israel, meaning no American funding even for defensive systems like the Dome. Scott Wiener’s kind of drawn the line there where he says, I don’t want to send offensive military assistance, but I’m okay with funding the Iron Dome and those kind of missile defense projects.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Where is this race, Scott? Like, do we know, you know, is it close? Is it not close?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, there has been some polling that shows, you know, Scott — let’s go back to the primary. Wiener got 41% of the vote. Chan got 20-something. I mean, it was maybe it was 30. But Wiener was way ahead.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So it’s a different electorate for the general election. But generally, it seems like Wiener is ahead still. The chatbot was a big unforced error on his part. But there’s been a lot going on. You know, I’m not sure how closely people are paying attention to this. You know, now they begin to focus because they have a ballot on their table.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think, you know, based on all the things that Pelosi is doing, the things Wiener is doing, you know, what people are saying, the dynamic, you know, reputational — I think Wiener’s positive ratings have come down a bit, you know, since before this campaign started because, you know, there’s been a lot of attacks on him.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I still think it’s, like I said, his to lose. But, you know, we try to stay out of the prediction business, but I wish — from everything I have heard, it seems like Wiener has the edge right now. Ha, ha.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Guy, do you have anything that we should be looking out for just the last month, either of them closing on anything different or special?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, let’s go back to this Pelosi thing. There was a pro-Wiener super PAC that did some polling in this race that they released last week. And the data point that stood out to me, fewer than half of voters were aware that Pelosi had endorsed Chan. Which is interesting because she didn’t bring it up. That’s why we go back to this debate and say, was that a missed opportunity for her to just remind folks, hey, I’m running for Nancy Pelosi’s seat and Nancy Pelosi’s endorsing me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with people from KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer and Guy Marzorati. We’re of course gonna talk about Napa County. We’re gonna talk Alameda County when we get back from the break. And we wanna hear from you. What issues matter most to you in these congressional races? Housing, affordability, immigration, AI, foreign policy. Let us know, 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786, \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’ve got KQED’s politics team in the house here. We’ve got Scott Shafer, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, and of course, got a new podcast series out about Nancy Pelosi called \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em> that’s coming out now. Episode four just dropped. We’ve also got Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s politics and government desk. And we want to bring in Izzy Bloom, a reporter and producer on KQED’s politics desk. Thanks so much for joining us, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s talk about Napa. This is congressional district four, although they always confuse me, and now with redistricting it’s even more confusing. But anyway, it’s Napa, long-time Democratic congressman Mike Thompson, now facing a challenge from Eric Jones, right? 35-year-old, former venture capitalist. Give us a lay of the land here on this race.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so intra-party fight. The incumbent, Mike Thompson, has been in Congress since 1999. He served in the state legislature for eight years before that. He was born in St. Helena, raised his family here, still lives there. And he’s a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He’s a Blue Dog Democrat with establishment support from the likes of Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Adam Schiff and Governor Gavin Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And he’s facing a challenge, as you said, 35-year-old Eric Jones, former venture capitalist. He moved to Napa in 2021 with his young family. And he is really running on some progressive policies, fighting for working families. He sort of points to his upbringing in Maine as the son of a disabled veteran, said his family was low income and, you know, relied on Medicaid and food stamps and disability checks at certain times.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so he is running on some of these progressive policies like universal child care, a $10,000 tax credit for working-class households. And he’s also part of this wave of generational-change candidates that we’ve seen across the state, with sort of younger, often progressive Democrats challenging their party’s aging incumbents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> How has that been going for people, though?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> I would say, you know, there was like five races in the primary with these younger Democrats challenging incumbents, and Eric Jones made it through the primary, and Mai Vang in District 7 out in Sacramento was the other candidate. The other three didn’t make it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think that at least shows that it wasn’t a mandate from voters that they necessarily want generational change. There has been polling from NPR that shows eight in 10 Americans are in favor of setting age caps and term limits on Congress members, but that’s not really going anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Right, right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> And I think also people might be generally in favor of an age cap, but when it comes to their own representative, they tend to like them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> I’ll say, I mean, there has been, like, the New York Times did an analysis of this nationwide, and it was like nine in 10 of these older incumbents won their primary challenge.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What’s different here is we have a top-two primary. I think so much of the challenge in these generational contests is you run in a primary, it’s a lower turnout, it’s very hard to establish your name and also then draw a contrast all in the course of a primary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What we have here with Eric Jones is like, and Mai Vang as well, just get out of the primary. Get to that general election where you can have a one-on-one runoff against the older incumbent. I think that creates a very different dynamic than what you see across the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> I think those two races, though, the one in Sacramento with Doris Matsui, who’s 82, versus Mai Vang, who’s 41, and the Thompson-Jones issue is, first of all, Thompson’s not quite as old. He’s 75, I think. But he’s also — he’s from the district, as he said. He’s in the district a lot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you mentioned Napa. This district goes from Petaluma all the way to like Yuba City now with the — after Prop 50. It’s a huge district. And, you know, Eric Jones… Not as well known in the district, and he’s trying to thread this interesting needle where he’s progressive and promoting progressive causes and issues, but he’s also trying to get Republican votes because the district has a lot of Republicans and they may not like Thompson because he’s a Democrat and well-known Democrat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But on the other hand, you know, so the one top Republican in the primary, he didn’t make it into the top two, but Ray Relyea has endorsed Jones. And so, you know, you’ve got this kind of odd Republican, but also progressive. And that, to me, raises the question for voters of authenticity. Who is this person?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> There’s so much 2014 Ro Khanna in this Eric Jones campaign to me, which is — he, like, to Izzy’s point, very hard to pin down on exactly where on the policy spectrum is he. He’s kind of taking positions that appeal very broadly. And also, yes, running a campaign that’s really centered on this, my opponent’s been in office for a long time, I want to do something different.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And kind of, you know, kind of got, you know, blown out the first time he ran in the primary against Mike Honda, got a little closer in the general election, came back and ran the next time. It would not shock me at all if Eric Jones lost this race, he pulls a Forrest Gump and just keeps running. I mean, it just keeps going. And he’s, you know, back on the ballot in two years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those kind of parallels where it’s like, where does it work? You know, where is he actually standing? He has support from Our Revolution, but then also the Bernie PAC, but then also the top Republican opponent. Yeah, it’s — it’s a —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Well, also, the person who ran Ro Khanna’s campaign, Brian Parveshavi, is now the campaign manager for Eric Jones. And they really say, I mean, in 2014, Ro Khanna did lose, but he made up 17 points between the primary and the general election. And Brian Parveshavi says, you know, that runway time between the primary and general really gives Eric Jones the opportunity to build name ID.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They also say that the general electorate tends to be younger and more diverse and working class, which they say is all sort of the types of voters that Eric Jones’s campaign appeals to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. I mean, is there a lane that I want to — I guess, populist lane that’s different from moderate-progressive, or just like somehow opens up some other political space?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> I think, you know, there are a lot of voters, and we see this, like, in Michigan, where Al-Sayed is actually attracting a fair number of Trump voters, you know, from 2024. People, you know, if you’re anti-establishment, sort of anti-corruption, you know, accountability, those kinds of issues that are, you know, could be progressive, but also appeal to some of the more, you know, conservative voters as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that, you know, that is a possibility. I think, though, you can also kind of overreach and be a little too cute.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think Jones did a video where Obama is talking about the need for generational change. Not talking about this race, not talking about Eric Jones, hasn’t endorsed Eric Jones or Mike Thompson. And then you’ve got pictures of Eric Jones kind of, you know, woven in with Obama and then like a really grainy, old-looking picture of Thompson.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, I think that did not go over well in Obama world, you know, and so it’s one of those things where it’s like, okay, that’s clever, but, you know, maybe not a little bit misleading.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Also, Thompson’s campaign sort of pushed back on that this week, saying that it’s part of Jones’ being deceptive to voters, because earlier this year there was sort of a similar thing with ads. I mean, the Obama one, if you weren’t paying attention, maybe implied that Obama was endorsing him, but in the caption it said it’s not an endorsement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Jones put out a video of him talking to Representative Latifah and Dolores Huerta, and then it didn’t say that it wasn’t an endorsement, sort of implied that it was. They didn’t know he was recording. They said that it wasn’t an endorsement. He had to take it down and then reposted it saying it’s not an endorsement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Ethics, ethical issues.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting. We’re talking with KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer, Guy Marzorati, Izzy Bloom here in the studio with us. We want to hear from you. If you’re looking at one of these congressional races here in Northern California, what issues matter most to you? Housing, affordability, immigration, AI, foreign policy, I don’t know, data centers. That’s probably it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Give us a call. 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. You can email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, Discord. You know, let’s go to Patricia in San Rafael. Welcome, Patricia.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, can you hear me?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, sure can. Go ahead.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Okay, great. I just wanted to bring up something about Wiener’s legislation for housing and the way it’s affecting San Rafael is that the developers are going way out of scale with 17-story, 24-story buildings and others that aren’t quite that outrageous. And the city people are not allowed, because of the way the legislation favors the developers, to question whether or not we have the infrastructure, the parking, and all kinds of things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s just, those are being thrown out the window, and I’m all for housing, but I think it’s just gone over the edge for that kind of building.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Patricia, thanks for that perspective. I’m curious, Scott, you mentioned in our first segment that Scott Wiener has gotten lots of stuff done. You also mentioned that housing can cut both ways. That seemed like such a perfect example that when you get something done, you change the law and the law enables new things like big towers in San Rafael. Now there’s some opposition.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> He’s not running in San Rafael. He’s probably happy about having heard that call. Yeah, no, there was the Marina Safeway as well, which caused a lot of consternation among people in that neighborhood, but also support as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, some of these things that get ascribed to Wiener legislation aren’t really because of that. There’s other issues. Some of these zoning and permitting issues are a little bit complicated, but there’s no question that he has authored legislation that will allow for more density, higher buildings, especially near transit corridors.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Now, I’m not sure where that building is, proposed building in San Rafael. But here in San Francisco, if you’re on a Muni line, a BART line, and I think a lot of public policy people would say that is where you want higher density, because so that people don’t need to rely on cars, they can use the public transit.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it is controversial, and it’s like, well, I like more housing, but not here. Do it over there. And that was the point, kind of, Connie Chan sort of made as well. Her district has had the least amount of housing of any of the Supervisors since she got there in 2021, 2022. And she said, yeah, but, you know, there’s all this new housing in South of Market in the Mission, you know. It’s like, well, that’s kind of the point.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> But I mean, we talk about housing as an issue that could potentially kind of scramble coalition and alliances in the map in this race, because Connie Chan in the primary won the Sunset neighborhood. That’s traditionally a neighborhood that goes for more moderate candidates. Daniel Lurie won the Sunset when he ran for mayor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, who are the Chan-Lurie voters in this race? And is the issue of housing one of those kind of parochial issues where people feel like, look, maybe Connie Chan is too far left for me on issues like public safety. She, you know, said, I want to dismantle the police department a few years ago. She said that was kind of a misquote, but like, that’s something that stuck with her.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Um, is that an issue where voters on the West Side feel like, oh, I have some hesitation about Scott Wiener, even though he’s more of a moderate politician, because of housing? Chan will, if she’s going to win this race, she will need those kinds of realignments, uh, to kind of change —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Connie Chan speaks for me, but only on housing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think Wiener did win her district, right? In the Richmond. He did win the Richmond in the primary, for what it’s worth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Caroline in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s perfect because I am from the Richmond district and in Connie Chan’s, and I am voting for Wiener because, for me, as a die-hard progressive, we have to send somebody to Washington who can get things done. And so I have voted for Chan in the past, but I will be voting for Wiener as I — I just really, truly believe we have — we have to see more, um, we had to get some of that Pelosi energy back, which we haven’t had for a long time representing us. And I’m really excited to see him to be there and to drive that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And on the other note, especially on the housing note, he’s just the technocratic side of him. One of the first things he worked on was SB 35, which was the bill for affordable housing, and everybody in San Francisco, progressives, moderates, want to see affordable housing. And so that’s just demonstrative of how effective he will be. And I’ve gotten very passionate, more passionate about this than I thought I would, but I just wanted to give my two cents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, appreciate the passion. People getting into this race, clearly, this is a hot one here in the city for sure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Guy, I wanna turn things briefly to another race. Congressional District 1 reaches into Sonoma County. This is one that pits incumbent Republican James Gallagher and Democrat Mike McGuire.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> About this. So James Gallagher took office this year. He won a special election following the death of Representative Doug LaMalfa. He ran in that election under the old lines, under our old congressional district lines, in which the first district was really a safe Republican seat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This district was completely reshaped and transformed by Proposition 50, and the way that happened was the lines were dragged down into Sonoma County. Suddenly you have all these blue Democratic voters in Sonoma County that will make up the base of this district now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Gallagher now faces an uphill climb to win reelection under the new line. So he’s facing Mike McGuire, who is a state senator, previously the pro tem of the state Senate, who under these new lines gets to run with all these North Bay Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is one of the seats when Democrats kind of drew up that Proposition 50 map. They felt like, okay, we know we’re gonna get — flip this seat as part of their effort to take back the House of Representatives.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So just to put some numbers to it, I think these are your numbers, Guy. Under the previous map, Donald Trump carried the district by roughly 25 points in 2024. Under the new boundaries, Kamala Harris would have carried it by about 12. And that’s just basically Santa Rosa is the end.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Right. And when you’re talking about, you know, breaking down any House district in America, the single best predictor, how do they vote for president?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Yeah. And is this just essentially a down-the-line, like, partisan battle? Like, are you voting R? Are you voting D in this one?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would guess that’s how it breaks out. I would imagine Gallagher, you know, retain strength in more of the more northern rural parts of this district. And those numbers are simply just outweighed by the number of voters in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I’m sure for folks in the North Bay, like, this is an exciting organizing opportunity. They get to be in one of the seats that will potentially flip and help Democrats potentially retake the House of Representatives. So I’m sure you’re going to see a strong turnout there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, curious. I mean, how important is California to this, you know, effort to retake the House? I mean, how’s it looking?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s very important just because we have so many seats. I mean, with Prop 50, I think the hope among Democrats was that they could flip five of those seats. They had a near-death experience with one of those seats where Kevin Kiley up in the Sacramento foothills area, very, very — he switched to independent. And he and a very kind of fringy Republican almost made it into the top two before all the votes were counted.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So some of these things are a little hard to tell ahead of time. But, you know, many of these races, I mean, as Guy said, it went from a whatever-plus for Trump to 12 for Harris, you know, the new district. That’s, you know, that looks good for Democrats, but some of these, they’re not slam dunks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, if you look at the one, the seat down in San Diego, Riverside, where you’ve got Issa not running and you’ve got a Republican and a Democrat, that’s a competitive seat. Same with Adam Gray, the incumbent Democrat. I mean, so, you know, these are not slam dunks. You know, easy layups for the Democrats. They’re gonna have to earn some of these wins.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But to your point, your question, you know, they need to pick up three or four in California, I think, you know, or at least they would like to. I mean, we’re talking, how big is the margin gonna be? You know, I think certainly the conventional wisdom is Democrats are gonna win back the House. Question is how big the majority is gonna be. And California could be a big part. Yeah, absolutely.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, absolutely. But less of a big — I mean, the fact is Prop 50 reduced the playing field of what’s competitive. That’s the point, right? It’s like, make it more Democratic. In previous years, we had four, five, six, seven, eight competitive districts. Now we’re down to three.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Although one of the more interesting ones has two Republicans running, you know, Young Kim versus Ken Calvert, who are both currently in Congress. And they are going at it, you know, hammer and tong at each other. That one’s going to be very interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wow.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’re talking with KQED’s politics team. We’ve got Scott Shafer, KQED’s senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, new podcast series about Nancy Pelosi, \u003cem>The Speaker\u003c/em>. Great baseline for thinking about this Scott Wiener, Connie Chan race.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’ve got Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s Politics Desk. We’ve got Izzy Bloom, reporter and producer on the desk as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We wanna hear from you. I mean, do you have newly drawn congressional district lines? Has it changed where you’re voting? Do you feel like it’s gonna have an impact? What about, how much do you value experience and seniority in Congress, or are you more drawn to candidates who are promising kind of generational change or newness just in general?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, Discord, or KQED Forum for all those things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Before we go to the break, real quick, Guy, do you wanna give the pitch for our KQED voter guide?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yes, let’s do it. KQED.org/voter-guide, state elections, Bay Area elections, and this year, for the first time, a school board voter guide. I know that’s one that often goes overlooked, hard to find information. You’re probably like texting, oh, who’s my friend who might know something about school? No, we sent out a questionnaire to every school board candidate in the Bay Area on a variety of relevant issues and hope you’ll check it out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Am I going to figure out Props 40, 41, 42, whatever, all that whole set of props? I had Marissa Lagos on that. You will understand it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’ll be back with more on our local congressional races right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here with Scott Shafer, Guy Marzorati, and Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics team. We’re talking about our local congressional races. We’re gonna get to Alameda County in a second, but first let’s bring in Chris in Sonoma County. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, you know, I was calling because I’m a younger voter. I have a young family. I’m progressive that supports a lot of the new wave like El-Sayed and Mamdani and AOC, but I’m very, very much pro-Mike Thompson here from Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I just feel like the Eric Jones race has been really disingenuous. He’s backed by Reform California, which is a right-wing conservative PAC. And I just wanna put in there that people think Mike Thompson’s a Blue Dog, but in my experience, not only has he stood up for us for fire survivors, the nine-year anniversary of the Tubbs fire, but he’s got a 97% environmental voting record, 95% labor, he was an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, like… Seem to know —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Big fans!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Chris, I know. I appreciate your taking a look at this race and providing your perspective as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Let’s bring in Bob in Santa Rosa and we’ll take these together. Hey, Bob, I’m Santa Rosa, welcome!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Oh, hi!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, thank you very much. Listen, I’ve heard everything everybody’s saying, but what I haven’t heard is anyone talking about the immigration issues, particularly in Sonoma County, probably Napa also, and the collaboration with ICE in the sheriff’s department up here, the amount of deportation centers and camps that people are sent to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think it’s a shadow issue, actually, for sure, in Sonoma. It’s easy to be what seems to be a liberal and not deal at all with the fact that our sheriff here in Sonoma County turns people, the names of people who are being released from jail, over to ICE and they get picked up outside the county jail.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And you haven’t heard it from any of the congressional candidates.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Not that I can tell. No. They all say, I’m against that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Bob in Santa Rosa, thanks so much. How much do you think, you know, obviously nationally immigration for Donald Trump still remains one of his better issues and still under water, but relative to, say, the economy, it’s doing relatively better there. How much has this played into any of the races that we know about up here around here?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> That’s — yeah, go ahead. That’s interesting. I mean, that point specifically, I have not heard the candidates talk about local sheriff cooperation. So that was fascinating to hear.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> It does depend. I mean, the law in California does allow if there’s a violent criminal who is going to be released, I think the sheriff can let them know. They don’t turn them over, right. But, you know, certainly — yeah. So I’ll just leave it at that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think with most of the races that we’ve been talking about in the Bay Area, there’s not a lot of daylight between the candidates. You know, maybe Gallagher and McGuire up there. That’s a different question. But here in the Bay Area, I think maybe it hasn’t come up because there’s not much difference between the two candidates.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> I do think that’s — in District 4, they’re pretty much on the same page. Eric Jones has said that he would want to move ICE out of the Department of Homeland Security, to eliminate additional funding he received in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill last year. But I don’t think he’s taking quite as strong a position as Mai Vang in District 7 over in Sacramento, where she’s calling for abolishing ICE.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Uh-huh. Yeah, it’s — my thing, and we’re going to turn to the Alameda County race again in a second. But is Mai Vang kind of our most progressive-wave kind of a candidate out there?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think she’s taking on that mantle a lot more. You know, she’s taken on like Medicare for All and, like I said, abolishing ICE.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> These are like Bernie cred out here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, the not accepting corporate PAC money is something that we see from also Eric Jones, but Mai Vang as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> All right, let’s bring in Sunil in Livermore. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Thank you. I want to talk about the district here in Livermore, Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, that is Eric Swalwell’s former district. I’m waiting for — I’m definitely voting for Aisha Wahab.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What I wanted to talk is the lack of enthusiasm among the South Asian. And I see a hint of Islamophobia with Ayesha Wahhab. And I would like to hear from your guest who is leading right now between these two candidates and any thoughts on, because there is a large population of Indian Americans, unfortunately, I have not seen that kind of enthusiasm for Ayesha Wahab. Any comment?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Sunil, really, really appreciate it. That is, of course, Aisha Wahab, Melissa Hernandez, seat formerly held by Eric Swalwell. Guy, do you wanna take this one on?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this was an election, you know, Hernandez, Wahab both on the ballot in the June primary because Swalwell had decided to run for governor, not for reelection. Then scandal broke, sexual misconduct allegations, he resigns from his seat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There was also a concurrent special election between these two. Wahab won the initial primary there. Things got really interesting in the special election in August because we started to see millions of dollars come from AIPAC supporting Melissa Hernandez.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There had not really been any public discussion about America’s relationship with Israel besides Wahab making a comment in a candidate forum that she considered Israel’s actions in Gaza genocide. Nevertheless, we saw this money pour in. All of a sudden, the special election got pretty close. Hernandez was down 20 points in the primary. The special election, Wahab ended up winning by only six points.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So there was this thinking, okay, this is now potentially a collision course. In the November election, where we’re gonna see this national discussion about Israel play out here, that hasn’t happened. Instead, AIPAC has completely stopped spending money after the special election. Hernandez has not had that outside backing that she had. Wahab is now running as an incumbent.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so a very different race than where we thought it might just be even just a few weeks ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>To the caller’s point, though, I have not done any reporting on what he raised about — are there concerns, Islamophobia, concerns about Wahab. I will note, though, the areas where we saw some of the biggest falloff in support for Wahab, Mission San Jose neighborhood in Fremont, a lot of Indian American neighborhoods where we heard her vote totals drop between the primary election and the special election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There were a lot of negative ads run against her on a variety of issues. And I wondered… Some of that, issues that caller brought up, I have not done any more in-depth reporting into that, but I do wonder if some of those kind of negative attacks took a hit on Wahab ahead of the August election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, and there was a piece of legislation that she authored that basically would have beefed up civil rights protections against caste discrimination. And that really divided the Asian community in that district. I think Newsom ultimately vetoed that bill, but she took a lot of heat for that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I don’t know if that’s what reflects what the caller is talking about, but that did happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, I remember we did a show on some of the reporting around these caste issues, and it was very, very heated on the phone lines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And just to set the table, let’s see, Wahab defeated Hernandez in the August runoff 53-47, right? So it was like fairly close. And so the presumption here is maybe things are not as close, but we just don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think we might look at that as the high-water mark, at least of, like, outside support for Hernandez, because that’s really what propelled her.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, I think AIPAC, these outside groups made a bet that we have this really short window in a special election where if we just flood the zone with money — I mean, they were running broadcast TV ads that were running across the Bay Area. Most of the people watching those ads didn’t even vote in the district, but it was just pouring money into this. Let’s try to get a quick win in an election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You saw members of California’s congressional delegation add on support Hernandez. It’s a very different thing once Wahab is the incumbent. Now, are those same members of the delegation, folks like Zoe Lofgren who is critical of Wahab, is she going to be spending her time going after a member of the delegation when, like, Democrats are trying to take back the House nationally? A little bit of a different calculation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, there was also kind of a brushback from organized labor. Lorena Gonzalez, you know, when Zoe Lofgren released a video just before the election attacking Wahab for — I don’t know if we want to go into it, but, you know, she declined — she declined to step aside so they could have a caretaker when Swalwell resigned, and they had a kind of, you know, they wanted to avoid an expensive, messy primary, in which they ended up having.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, you know, but I think to Guy’s point, she’s now the incumbent. And they’re all about loyalty. Also, does the worm turn on AIPAC —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> PAC spending, right. It was effective because there was a few weeks stretch there where it was just — they were blanketing the district with ads, and it’s like, where’s this — what’s happening? Where’s this coming from?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Then once the story kind of takes shape that, oh, this is spending from this group that Democrats nationwide have kind of started to be critical of, takes on a little bit different picture.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> You know, and they — I think they just saw they tried a whole bunch of different attacks. Aisha Wahab, it didn’t work, and they’re probably trying to spend their money on other races. They’ve been kind of like kryptonite for a lot of the candidates they’ve supported in this election cycle.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in Colin in San Francisco, kind of a callback to the top of the show and Scott Wiener, but also on the topic of Israel. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Good morning. Today the third anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel. At the time, Scott Wiener posted on that, that what’s happening in Israel is not a both-side situation. Scott also referenced Israel’s right to defend itself without any mention of Palestinian civilian casualties, even though by then the Israeli government had signaled that it would respond harshly to the Hamas assault.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As a state legislator, Wiener also criticized the nonviolent BDS movement and was instrumental in passing AB 715 as a law that would potentially subject students and teachers to disciplinary actions for criticism of Israel.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I’d have to question whether Wiener’s calling Israel’s actions in Gaza to be genocide is all that genuine. Is he just saying what he thinks he needs to say to win in the district, where Israel’s actions over the past three years and AIPAC spending on our elections have proven to be deeply unpopular?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Come on, let’s take that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Our panel here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, the issue of whether or not what Israel has done in Gaza is genocide came up in one of the debates during the primary, where Wiener declined to say yes or no, and then had to — you know, he got some blowback and said yes, it’s genocide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He’s, you know, to be fair, Wiener, who’s Jewish, has been very critical of Israel, Netanyahu for sure, and I think the differences between Chan and Wiener on this issue have narrowed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, Guy mentioned earlier that Chan is now supporting a full arms embargo, even for defensive weapons. Though that is a difference. I think if you had to say who is more, I don’t know, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, however you wanna say it, Chan is certainly more to the left, I guess you would say, from Wiener.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think really, there’s not a lot of daylight between the two of them. I mean, there are some nuances, but the reality is, I mean, if this is your top issue, that’s how you’re going to vote. And there are some voters for whom this is the top issue, and they’ll decide one way or the other on both sides of that question.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Yeah, yeah, for sure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, let’s bring in Brandon in Foster City. Welcome, Brandon.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Thank you, guys. Good morning. I just want to say I had attended the rally with Bernie and Jane Kim in Rilcon last Saturday at the Curran Theater. It was originally scheduled to be at the Warfield, but they had to change it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I just wanna say that Bernie was born in 1941 and he’s 85 years old, and I can’t believe how sharp that guy is. And I just want to say he inspires everybody to be, you know, for progressives. And I’m about to vote yes on Prop 40 and no on 41 and 42, and I just want to give a little plug for that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And thank you, KQED. I hope my business does well and I can become a sponsor. And bless you guys. You guys are having such good times.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks, Brandon. Appreciate that. Appreciate people’s civic enthusiasm always. Love it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, Emily’s on the Discord writes in to say, you know, this is about the McGuire-Gallagher race. She says, “I’m in that redrawn district and a registered Democrat. I haven’t seen or heard anything from either candidate yet. It’s hard to buy TV since it stretches across three TV markets. But my neighbors who are registered no party preference are getting flooded with Gallagher direct mail pieces, trying to disqualify McGuire on character grounds. Even with the Harris-Tilton 2024, I wonder what proportion of the district is no party preference and getting a very different picture of the candidates than registered Democrats.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm. That’s interesting. That does seem interesting, isn’t it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Yeah, I mean, you definitely — they do target, like, the mail that you will get, the, you know, stuff that will pop up on, you know, digital and stuff like that is very targeted towards, you know, households based on who’s registered for what.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Scott, you can look up the registration while I’m venting here. But I think, yeah, I mean, I would expect McGuire — I don’t think, like, I agree with the caller in the sense that, like, I wouldn’t expect a huge TV campaign just given all the different areas that it touches. But that’s interesting that that’s Gallagher’s play.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Yeah. Let’s bring in Rick into —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Looks like about 20 percent.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Twenty percent?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Is no party preference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hey, Rick, uh, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Okay, well, for my member of Congress, I’m voting for Dr. Richard Pan. Pan is your man. And I’m voting — because there were so many different propositions on the ballot, I’m only going to talk about two of them. I care enough for housing, so I’m voting yes on Prop 1 and yes on Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If Kevin Kiley is elected to my district, I’d probably be back in an institution because I have multiple disabilities. And that is exactly what Trump wants. For people with disabilities to put them away, out of sight, out of mind. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Rick, appreciate that. Why don’t you — we haven’t talked about this race yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> This is another one Democrats have circled to kind of pick up. A little kind of strange backstory. Scott talked a little bit about it in the primary. Kiley, a Republican, switched parties, became an independent, survival tactic, also switched districts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So this is — he’s running in a somewhat new district. His district kind of got fractured by Prop 50. Richard Pan, a former state senator, Ami Bera switched districts. He’s another Sacramento-area Democrat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So the net result is Democrats could still pick up the seat here if they’re able to knock off Kiley. This is one, again, Kiley is going from running in a district that was pretty friendly towards Republicans. Now he’s having to run in the Sacramento suburbs, a place Kamala Harris did very well. Kamala was in town last week campaigning for Richard Pan.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So this is one Democrats also feel pretty confident.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I would also imagine this is one where there’s probably still at least a chunk of undecided voters, right? Because people don’t know these people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think this honestly plays across all of these districts. Like, we talk about the Mike Thompson seat. Yes, he’s the incumbent. Yes, he’s been in Congress for a long time. About 50 percent of those voters were not in his district before Prop 50.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So even for these longtime incumbents, there is a little bit of a reintroduction that has to take place that honestly could scramble some of these races.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> So interesting. Is a national party getting involved? You mentioned Kamala Harris coming out to campaign in these cases. How much is the sort of National Democratic Party sort of investing in California?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Well, they’re certainly helping out in some of the key tight races, like in the Central Valley with Adam Gray, Democratic incumbent. And then the one where David Valadao, the Republican, they’re trying to flip that seat. He’s been very difficult to beat. It’s a little bit like Lucy in the football. They’ve tried to defeat him and think they can’t — haven’t.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think they’re playing in that one. Also in the San Diego-Riverside seat where you’ve got Desmond, the Republican, and Von Wilpert, the Democrat. They’re definitely playing in that one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I don’t think they’re going to — they’re not going to play in the ones that are not going to flip. So that’s what I know. Maybe you guys know something.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I do think the money piece is interesting this year because it’s different. Democrats in these last few midterms have had a financial advantage. That is not the case this year.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So you look at a district like the one in Bakersfield with Valadao, Republicans — the outside spending there is over — they have a huge advantage right now. I think they’ve spent the fourth most on any district in America to try to help David Valadao.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So when you talk, when people talk about the blue wave this year, I think it needs to be tempered with two things: the money and the map. The money being Republicans have more of a financial advantage than they’ve had in previous years. And the map, the gerrymandering that has occurred across the country, has put a lower ceiling on where Democrats can go.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The idea that, like, yes, they may end up getting a nine-point advantage in kind of the generic polling or the popular vote, that’s not going to translate into 30, 40 seats the way it did in previous elections, just because, A, through natural sorting, Democrats have already kind of picked off areas where people don’t like Trump, and, B, this gerrymandering is just kind of lowered how the reach of how far a blue wave could go.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> I think the caveat to that is that, like in Texas, you know, in the Rio Grande Valley, you know, they drew those districts assuming that the voters who voted for Trump would vote for the Republican, and, you know, Latino voters have flipped completely. And so some of those that they thought they would pick up, maybe they may not.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the same is true in California, the reverse. I mean, I think some of these races could be closer than Democrats would like to think.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve been talking with KQED’s politics team about the hotly contested races for Congress across the Bay Area. I’ve been joined by Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED’s Politics and Government Desk. Thanks, Guy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Thanks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve had Scott Shafer, KQED’s senior politics correspondent.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Shafer:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thanks, Alexis.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve had Izzy Bloom, reporter and producer with KQED’s Politics and Government Desk. Thank you so much, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m Alexis Madrigal. Thank you so, so much to all of our callers, listeners. Appreciate you all getting involved in your local politics here. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with guest host Laura Klivans.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Economists Make the Case For and Against California’s Billionaire Tax",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Monday, September 14, 2026\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>California voters will decide this fall whether the state should impose a one-time 5 percent tax on billionaires, with much of the revenue going toward health care amid federal funding cuts. Supporters say Proposition 40 could raise tens of billions of dollars while also helping to address the growing wealth inequality in the state. Opponents argue the tax could drive billionaires out of California, shrinking the state’s income tax base and ultimately costing more than it raises. We talk to two leading economists: Gabriel Zucman, who helped develop the measure, and Joshua Rauh, one of its most vocal critics, about whether the billionaire tax would help California’s economy – or hurt it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman,\u003c/strong> professor of economics, UC Berkeley; Paris School of Economics – author of “We Need to Tax Billionaires”; helped develop Prop 40\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh,\u003c/strong> economist and professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business – senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; opposes CA Prop 40\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Alexis Madrigal. Proposition 40 is one of the most contentious and intriguing propositions of recent years. It’s a one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires. It would raise a substantial amount of money, though there are questions about how much net revenue it could pour into state coffers, and those dollars would mostly be used to fund health care.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Our first guest is Gabriel Zucman. He is a UC Berkeley economist and author of the admirably straightforwardly named book, \u003cem>We Need to Tax Billionaires\u003c/em>. He helped to develop the proposition. Welcome, Gabriel.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Our second guest is Joshua Rauh, an economist and professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He authored a study about the potential effects of the wealth tax and has emerged as perhaps the leading economist voice opposing Prop 40. Welcome, Josh.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> Good to be on the show.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, you guys ready? Ready to fight? Gabriel, let’s start with you. You did help develop this proposition. So let’s just start with the basics. What’s the measure do? Who’s subject to the tax, where does the money go?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> So this would be a one-time tax on billionaires. Only people who have more than $1 billion of net wealth would be affected. We’re talking about roughly 250 people in California, mostly Silicon Valley tech billionaires who would have to pay a one-time tax equal to 5% of their wealth. For context, their wealth has grown by 170% since 2023, and they would have to pay just 5%.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We can expect about $100 billion in tax revenue for the state with this tax. Ninety percent of the money would go to health care. And California needs this money because the big budget bill that was passed last year by Congress has defunded Medicaid. And if nothing is done, two million people in California are going to lose their health insurance. The fraction of uninsured individuals will increase from 6% to 10%.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The California governor, Gavin Newsom, or the California legislature haven’t proposed any solution. So voters can solve this problem by themselves with Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m curious, just like, is this for you primarily a fiscal measure about the state’s budget, or is it more of a moral one about the way that you think the state should be approaching billionaire wealth?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> Well, it is a budget fiscal issue. There’s a major shortfall of revenue for Medicaid. And the question is, where do we find the money? Now you have essentially two big levers. There is the California income tax, and there is this potential wealth tax on billionaires.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What’s really important to understand is this. And when I first realized that, it blew my mind. If you look at the total wealth of California’s 250 billionaires, we’re talking about $2.3 trillion today. This is as big as the total income of all Californian families. Their total taxable income, AGI, is also $2.3 trillion.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So essentially, if you want to get $100 billion in revenue for the state, you can do it in two ways. Either with a 5% tax on the wealth of 250 billionaires or with an increase in the income tax of five percentage points for all Californian taxpayers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And so, in answer to the question of why target wealth specifically rather than income, that’s where the money is. It represents this massive sum. But is it also that billionaires don’t have traditional income as their core component of how they make money?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> True. The current tax system fails at taxing billionaires. This is true in California. This is true in the U.S. more broadly. This is all over the world. And the reason is that when you’re extremely rich, it’s very easy to organize your wealth such that this wealth will generate no or very little taxable income.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s how, in 2019, in 2022, in 2023, the two worthiest billionaires in California, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, essentially paid no income tax. They didn’t pay themselves any wage from Google. Google didn’t distribute any dividend. They didn’t sell shares in the company, so they didn’t realize any capital gains.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So their taxable income, what is subject to the income tax, was zero or close to zero, extremely low, so that no matter the rate that you apply to that income, you are not going to be able to make billionaires pay more tax just by changing the income tax. This is why the proper way to tax the super rich is with a tax directly on their wealth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Josh, let’s bring you in here to a two-part question here. Do you agree that wealth concentration in billionaires is a problem generally? And then more specifically, do you agree that billionaire taxation is also a problem?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> Well, I’d like to begin with just the premise that you have to support anyone who votes for Prop 40, for the Billionaire Tax Act, has got to support — first, you have to believe that it will raise revenue, not lose revenue for the state. And I think this is one of the key points of difference between myself and Gabriel Zucman, which is that they say it will raise $100 billion for the state. We say it will lose $25 to $38 billion for this state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And why the difference? It’s because of the losses to the state coffers that will be caused by these high-net-worth individuals who are leaving in response to the tax. The state won’t collect the wealth tax from the billionaires who have left in response to the tax, and it won’t collect any more income taxes from the billionaires who have left in response to the tax.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so Dr. Zucman and his colleagues have assumed 10% losses when they arrived at their $100 billion estimate, but going through person by person, we find that public announcements have shown that already 30% of the wealth tax base has left. Half a trillion dollars of wealth has left California. So this is gonna lose money for the state government. Those people, their wealth isn’t gonna be collected by the Billionaire Tax Act, and their income taxes will no longer be collected.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Secondly, you have to believe, if you support this proposition, that on balance the tax will be good for the people of California. And that’s a different question from whether the tax is going to raise revenue or not. I mean, even if the tax were gonna raise revenue — and to be clear, our models say that this one will not — but that revenue has to be balanced against the damage to the economy that the tax will do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So to take an example, a policy that brings in an extra dollar of revenue for the state but destroys 100,000 jobs, that would be a bad policy because you have to believe that the well-being the state can create with an extra dollar of revenue is so great as to offset the pain from losing the job.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So the billionaires who are leaving have created tens to hundreds of thousands of jobs in California, and while those jobs won’t go away overnight, if the founders are gone, the billionaire tax will accelerate the shift of jobs to other states that we’re already seeing. And it’s not just companies already here. If the wealth tax passes, then founders will increasingly choose one of the other emerging ecosystems around the U.S., Austin, Miami, Nashville. And already we have investors saying they won’t invest in startup companies in California if the founders are in California. Notably, Mark Cuban has said that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So whether or not billionaire wealth concentration is a problem or not, whether you think that or not, that’s actually not relevant for what we should do on Prop 40. The question is, do you think it’s going to bring in money for the state? I do not think it will. And second, do you believe that on balance it will be good for the people of California? And I think given all the losses in economic activity we’re seeing here already as a result of this and what we will see if the billionaire tax passes, it will not be for the people of California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s Josh Rauh, an economist and professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. We’re also joined by Gabriel Zucman, an economist and professor at Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics, helped to develop Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’d love to get your opinions on what you think about the tax. 866-733-6786, \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> at kqed.org. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Josh, I want to stay with you here. What you’re saying is that even just the threat of this tax is causing people to leave and maybe hurting the dynamism of Silicon Valley. And at the same time, we’re experiencing this massive boom in San Francisco of AI company wealth creation and new jobs and businesses that are being created at the time. So it’s one factor, right, in the way where companies decide to locate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> That’s correct. It’s one factor, and investors have been clear about what’s going to happen if the tax passes. You have to realize California companies, the amount of money they receive from venture capitalists from across the state, country and world is a staggering amount of money itself. It is $360 billion. That’s very comparable in a year to the amount of money that the government of California spends.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This ecosystem is fragile. We have people leaving. We have investors saying they’re not going to invest in California if this passes. And it’s interesting to consider the reason why people are saying they won’t invest in that if this passes. You know, Dr. Zucman and you in your intro were clear that this was gonna be a one-time tax. That’s how it’s pitched, but Dr. Zucman has admitted that it’s probably not going to be one time. In fact, I’ll quote from an interview he did on the Capital & Main website. He said, quote, “California could absolutely implement an annual wealth tax,” said Zucman. “This one-time tax is just the starting point of what it could be.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so now that he is admitting that, and people are starting to think, what happens if this wealth tax passes? Investors are beginning to think, wow, this could be really bad, and it could be very harmful to the economy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The discussion has changed since the ballot proposition was made. “One time, one time, one time” kept being repeated, and now the tone of the architects has changed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Gabriel, what do you think? On the one-time issue specifically.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> So, a few things. So first of all, this line of reasoning on how the tax is going to hurt the economy is, of course, a very classic argument, which makes sense in the abstract, but you have to look at the numbers. And if you look, for instance, at the flow of venture capital funding —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I might actually cut you off here only because we’re gonna have to go to a break in a second, and I really want you to be able to get to the full set of numbers. You guys can go back and forth a little bit on this. So let me let me throw to a break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Of course, we’re talking about Prop 40, California’s billionaire tax, with, you know, on the pro side, Gabriel Zucman, who helped design it, and Josh Rauh, who has authored a study about the potential effects of the wealth tax. Way back, more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>California voters will decide this fall whether the state should impose a one-time 5 percent tax on billionaires, with much of the revenue going toward health care amid federal funding cuts. Supporters say Proposition 40 could raise tens of billions of dollars while also helping to address the growing wealth inequality in the state. Opponents argue the tax could drive billionaires out of California, shrinking the state’s income tax base and ultimately costing more than it raises. We talk to two leading economists: Gabriel Zucman, who helped develop the measure, and Joshua Rauh, one of its most vocal critics, about whether the billionaire tax would help California’s economy – or hurt it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>California voters will decide this fall whether the state should impose a one-time 5 percent tax on billionaires, with much of the revenue going toward health care amid federal funding cuts. Supporters say Proposition 40 could raise tens of billions of dollars while also helping to address the growing wealth inequality in the state. Opponents argue the tax could drive billionaires out of California, shrinking the state’s income tax base and ultimately costing more than it raises. We talk to two leading economists: Gabriel Zucman, who helped develop the measure, and Joshua Rauh, one of its most vocal critics, about whether the billionaire tax would help California’s economy – or hurt it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman,\u003c/strong> professor of economics, UC Berkeley; Paris School of Economics – author of “We Need to Tax Billionaires”; helped develop Prop 40\u003c/li>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Alexis Madrigal. Proposition 40 is one of the most contentious and intriguing propositions of recent years. It’s a one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires. It would raise a substantial amount of money, though there are questions about how much net revenue it could pour into state coffers, and those dollars would mostly be used to fund health care.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Alexis Madrigal. Proposition 40 is one of the most contentious and intriguing propositions of recent years. It’s a one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires. It would raise a substantial amount of money, though there are questions about how much net revenue it could pour into state coffers, and those dollars would mostly be used to fund health care.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Our first guest is Gabriel Zucman. He is a UC Berkeley economist and author of the admirably straightforwardly named book, \u003cem>We Need to Tax Billionaires\u003c/em>. He helped to develop the proposition. Welcome, Gabriel.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Our first guest is Gabriel Zucman. He is a UC Berkeley economist and author of the admirably straightforwardly named book, \u003cem>We Need to Tax Billionaires\u003c/em>. He helped to develop the proposition. Welcome, Gabriel.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Our second guest is Joshua Rauh, an economist and professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He authored a study about the potential effects of the wealth tax and has emerged as perhaps the leading economist voice opposing Prop 40. Welcome, Josh.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Our second guest is Joshua Rauh, an economist and professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He authored a study about the potential effects of the wealth tax and has emerged as perhaps the leading economist voice opposing Prop 40. Welcome, Josh.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> Good to be on the show.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, you guys ready? Ready to fight? Gabriel, let’s start with you. You did help develop this proposition. So let’s just start with the basics. What’s the measure do? Who’s subject to the tax, where does the money go?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, you guys ready? Ready to fight? Gabriel, let’s start with you. You did help develop this proposition. So let’s just start with the basics. What’s the measure do? Who’s subject to the tax, where does the money go?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> So this would be a one-time tax on billionaires. Only people who have more than $1 billion of net wealth would be affected. We’re talking about roughly 250 people in California, mostly Silicon Valley tech billionaires who would have to pay a one-time tax equal to 5% of their wealth. For context, their wealth has grown by 170% since 2023, and they would have to pay just 5%.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> So this would be a one-time tax on billionaires. Only people who have more than $1 billion of net wealth would be affected. We’re talking about roughly 250 people in California, mostly Silicon Valley tech billionaires who would have to pay a one-time tax equal to 5% of their wealth. For context, their wealth has grown by 170% since 2023, and they would have to pay just 5%.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We can expect about $100 billion in tax revenue for the state with this tax. Ninety percent of the money would go to health care. And California needs this money because the big budget bill that was passed last year by Congress has defunded Medicaid. And if nothing is done, two million people in California are going to lose their health insurance. The fraction of uninsured individuals will increase from 6% to 10%.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We can expect about $100 billion in tax revenue for the state with this tax. Ninety percent of the money would go to health care. And California needs this money because the big budget bill that was passed last year by Congress has defunded Medicaid. And if nothing is done, two million people in California are going to lose their health insurance. The fraction of uninsured individuals will increase from 6% to 10%.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The California governor, Gavin Newsom, or the California legislature haven’t proposed any solution. So voters can solve this problem by themselves with Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m curious, just like, is this for you primarily a fiscal measure about the state’s budget, or is it more of a moral one about the way that you think the state should be approaching billionaire wealth?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> Well, it is a budget fiscal issue. There’s a major shortfall of revenue for Medicaid. And the question is, where do we find the money? Now you have essentially two big levers. There is the California income tax, and there is this potential wealth tax on billionaires.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> Well, it is a budget fiscal issue. There’s a major shortfall of revenue for Medicaid. And the question is, where do we find the money? Now you have essentially two big levers. There is the California income tax, and there is this potential wealth tax on billionaires.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What’s really important to understand is this. And when I first realized that, it blew my mind. If you look at the total wealth of California’s 250 billionaires, we’re talking about $2.3 trillion today. This is as big as the total income of all Californian families. Their total taxable income, AGI, is also $2.3 trillion.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What’s really important to understand is this. And when I first realized that, it blew my mind. If you look at the total wealth of California’s 250 billionaires, we’re talking about $2.3 trillion today. This is as big as the total income of all Californian families. Their total taxable income, AGI, is also $2.3 trillion.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So essentially, if you want to get $100 billion in revenue for the state, you can do it in two ways. Either with a 5% tax on the wealth of 250 billionaires or with an increase in the income tax of five percentage points for all Californian taxpayers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So essentially, if you want to get $100 billion in revenue for the state, you can do it in two ways. Either with a 5% tax on the wealth of 250 billionaires or with an increase in the income tax of five percentage points for all Californian taxpayers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And so, in answer to the question of why target wealth specifically rather than income, that’s where the money is. It represents this massive sum. But is it also that billionaires don’t have traditional income as their core component of how they make money?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And so, in answer to the question of why target wealth specifically rather than income, that’s where the money is. It represents this massive sum. But is it also that billionaires don’t have traditional income as their core component of how they make money?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> True. The current tax system fails at taxing billionaires. This is true in California. This is true in the U.S. more broadly. This is all over the world. And the reason is that when you’re extremely rich, it’s very easy to organize your wealth such that this wealth will generate no or very little taxable income.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> True. The current tax system fails at taxing billionaires. This is true in California. This is true in the U.S. more broadly. This is all over the world. And the reason is that when you’re extremely rich, it’s very easy to organize your wealth such that this wealth will generate no or very little taxable income.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s how, in 2019, in 2022, in 2023, the two worthiest billionaires in California, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, essentially paid no income tax. They didn’t pay themselves any wage from Google. Google didn’t distribute any dividend. They didn’t sell shares in the company, so they didn’t realize any capital gains.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s how, in 2019, in 2022, in 2023, the two worthiest billionaires in California, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, essentially paid no income tax. They didn’t pay themselves any wage from Google. Google didn’t distribute any dividend. They didn’t sell shares in the company, so they didn’t realize any capital gains.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So their taxable income, what is subject to the income tax, was zero or close to zero, extremely low, so that no matter the rate that you apply to that income, you are not going to be able to make billionaires pay more tax just by changing the income tax. This is why the proper way to tax the super rich is with a tax directly on their wealth.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So their taxable income, what is subject to the income tax, was zero or close to zero, extremely low, so that no matter the rate that you apply to that income, you are not going to be able to make billionaires pay more tax just by changing the income tax. This is why the proper way to tax the super rich is with a tax directly on their wealth.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Josh, let’s bring you in here to a two-part question here. Do you agree that wealth concentration in billionaires is a problem generally? And then more specifically, do you agree that billionaire taxation is also a problem?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Josh, let’s bring you in here to a two-part question here. Do you agree that wealth concentration in billionaires is a problem generally? And then more specifically, do you agree that billionaire taxation is also a problem?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> Well, I’d like to begin with just the premise that you have to support anyone who votes for Prop 40, for the Billionaire Tax Act, has got to support — first, you have to believe that it will raise revenue, not lose revenue for the state. And I think this is one of the key points of difference between myself and Gabriel Zucman, which is that they say it will raise $100 billion for the state. We say it will lose $25 to $38 billion for this state.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> Well, I’d like to begin with just the premise that you have to support anyone who votes for Prop 40, for the Billionaire Tax Act, has got to support — first, you have to believe that it will raise revenue, not lose revenue for the state. And I think this is one of the key points of difference between myself and Gabriel Zucman, which is that they say it will raise $100 billion for the state. We say it will lose $25 to $38 billion for this state.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And why the difference? It’s because of the losses to the state coffers that will be caused by these high-net-worth individuals who are leaving in response to the tax. The state won’t collect the wealth tax from the billionaires who have left in response to the tax, and it won’t collect any more income taxes from the billionaires who have left in response to the tax.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And why the difference? It’s because of the losses to the state coffers that will be caused by these high-net-worth individuals who are leaving in response to the tax. The state won’t collect the wealth tax from the billionaires who have left in response to the tax, and it won’t collect any more income taxes from the billionaires who have left in response to the tax.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so Dr. Zucman and his colleagues have assumed 10% losses when they arrived at their $100 billion estimate, but going through person by person, we find that public announcements have shown that already 30% of the wealth tax base has left. Half a trillion dollars of wealth has left California. So this is gonna lose money for the state government. Those people, their wealth isn’t gonna be collected by the Billionaire Tax Act, and their income taxes will no longer be collected.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so Dr. Zucman and his colleagues have assumed 10% losses when they arrived at their $100 billion estimate, but going through person by person, we find that public announcements have shown that already 30% of the wealth tax base has left. Half a trillion dollars of wealth has left California. So this is gonna lose money for the state government. Those people, their wealth isn’t gonna be collected by the Billionaire Tax Act, and their income taxes will no longer be collected.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Secondly, you have to believe, if you support this proposition, that on balance the tax will be good for the people of California. And that’s a different question from whether the tax is going to raise revenue or not. I mean, even if the tax were gonna raise revenue — and to be clear, our models say that this one will not — but that revenue has to be balanced against the damage to the economy that the tax will do.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Secondly, you have to believe, if you support this proposition, that on balance the tax will be good for the people of California. And that’s a different question from whether the tax is going to raise revenue or not. I mean, even if the tax were gonna raise revenue — and to be clear, our models say that this one will not — but that revenue has to be balanced against the damage to the economy that the tax will do.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So to take an example, a policy that brings in an extra dollar of revenue for the state but destroys 100,000 jobs, that would be a bad policy because you have to believe that the well-being the state can create with an extra dollar of revenue is so great as to offset the pain from losing the job.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So to take an example, a policy that brings in an extra dollar of revenue for the state but destroys 100,000 jobs, that would be a bad policy because you have to believe that the well-being the state can create with an extra dollar of revenue is so great as to offset the pain from losing the job.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So the billionaires who are leaving have created tens to hundreds of thousands of jobs in California, and while those jobs won’t go away overnight, if the founders are gone, the billionaire tax will accelerate the shift of jobs to other states that we’re already seeing. And it’s not just companies already here. If the wealth tax passes, then founders will increasingly choose one of the other emerging ecosystems around the U.S., Austin, Miami, Nashville. And already we have investors saying they won’t invest in startup companies in California if the founders are in California. Notably, Mark Cuban has said that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So the billionaires who are leaving have created tens to hundreds of thousands of jobs in California, and while those jobs won’t go away overnight, if the founders are gone, the billionaire tax will accelerate the shift of jobs to other states that we’re already seeing. And it’s not just companies already here. If the wealth tax passes, then founders will increasingly choose one of the other emerging ecosystems around the U.S., Austin, Miami, Nashville. And already we have investors saying they won’t invest in startup companies in California if the founders are in California. Notably, Mark Cuban has said that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So whether or not billionaire wealth concentration is a problem or not, whether you think that or not, that’s actually not relevant for what we should do on Prop 40. The question is, do you think it’s going to bring in money for the state? I do not think it will. And second, do you believe that on balance it will be good for the people of California? And I think given all the losses in economic activity we’re seeing here already as a result of this and what we will see if the billionaire tax passes, it will not be for the people of California.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So whether or not billionaire wealth concentration is a problem or not, whether you think that or not, that’s actually not relevant for what we should do on Prop 40. The question is, do you think it’s going to bring in money for the state? I do not think it will. And second, do you believe that on balance it will be good for the people of California? And I think given all the losses in economic activity we’re seeing here already as a result of this and what we will see if the billionaire tax passes, it will not be for the people of California.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s Josh Rauh, an economist and professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. We’re also joined by Gabriel Zucman, an economist and professor at Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics, helped to develop Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s Josh Rauh, an economist and professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. We’re also joined by Gabriel Zucman, an economist and professor at Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics, helped to develop Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’d love to get your opinions on what you think about the tax. 866-733-6786, \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> at kqed.org. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’d love to get your opinions on what you think about the tax. 866-733-6786, \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> at kqed.org. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Josh, I want to stay with you here. What you’re saying is that even just the threat of this tax is causing people to leave and maybe hurting the dynamism of Silicon Valley. And at the same time, we’re experiencing this massive boom in San Francisco of AI company wealth creation and new jobs and businesses that are being created at the time. So it’s one factor, right, in the way where companies decide to locate.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Josh, I want to stay with you here. What you’re saying is that even just the threat of this tax is causing people to leave and maybe hurting the dynamism of Silicon Valley. And at the same time, we’re experiencing this massive boom in San Francisco of AI company wealth creation and new jobs and businesses that are being created at the time. So it’s one factor, right, in the way where companies decide to locate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> That’s correct. It’s one factor, and investors have been clear about what’s going to happen if the tax passes. You have to realize California companies, the amount of money they receive from venture capitalists from across the state, country and world is a staggering amount of money itself. It is $360 billion. That’s very comparable in a year to the amount of money that the government of California spends.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> That’s correct. It’s one factor, and investors have been clear about what’s going to happen if the tax passes. You have to realize California companies, the amount of money they receive from venture capitalists from across the state, country and world is a staggering amount of money itself. It is $360 billion. That’s very comparable in a year to the amount of money that the government of California spends.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This ecosystem is fragile. We have people leaving. We have investors saying they’re not going to invest in California if this passes. And it’s interesting to consider the reason why people are saying they won’t invest in that if this passes. You know, Dr. Zucman and you in your intro were clear that this was gonna be a one-time tax. That’s how it’s pitched, but Dr. Zucman has admitted that it’s probably not going to be one time. In fact, I’ll quote from an interview he did on the Capital & Main website. He said, quote, “California could absolutely implement an annual wealth tax,” said Zucman. “This one-time tax is just the starting point of what it could be.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This ecosystem is fragile. We have people leaving. We have investors saying they’re not going to invest in California if this passes. And it’s interesting to consider the reason why people are saying they won’t invest in that if this passes. You know, Dr. Zucman and you in your intro were clear that this was gonna be a one-time tax. That’s how it’s pitched, but Dr. Zucman has admitted that it’s probably not going to be one time. In fact, I’ll quote from an interview he did on the Capital & Main website. He said, quote, “California could absolutely implement an annual wealth tax,” said Zucman. “This one-time tax is just the starting point of what it could be.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so now that he is admitting that, and people are starting to think, what happens if this wealth tax passes? Investors are beginning to think, wow, this could be really bad, and it could be very harmful to the economy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so now that he is admitting that, and people are starting to think, what happens if this wealth tax passes? Investors are beginning to think, wow, this could be really bad, and it could be very harmful to the economy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The discussion has changed since the ballot proposition was made. “One time, one time, one time” kept being repeated, and now the tone of the architects has changed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The discussion has changed since the ballot proposition was made. “One time, one time, one time” kept being repeated, and now the tone of the architects has changed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Gabriel, what do you think? On the one-time issue specifically.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Gabriel, what do you think? On the one-time issue specifically.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> So, a few things. So first of all, this line of reasoning on how the tax is going to hurt the economy is, of course, a very classic argument, which makes sense in the abstract, but you have to look at the numbers. And if you look, for instance, at the flow of venture capital funding —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> So, a few things. So first of all, this line of reasoning on how the tax is going to hurt the economy is, of course, a very classic argument, which makes sense in the abstract, but you have to look at the numbers. And if you look, for instance, at the flow of venture capital funding —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I might actually cut you off here only because we’re gonna have to go to a break in a second, and I really want you to be able to get to the full set of numbers. You guys can go back and forth a little bit on this. So let me let me throw to a break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I might actually cut you off here only because we’re gonna have to go to a break in a second, and I really want you to be able to get to the full set of numbers. You guys can go back and forth a little bit on this. So let me let me throw to a break.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Of course, we’re talking about Prop 40, California’s billionaire tax, with, you know, on the pro side, Gabriel Zucman, who helped design it, and Josh Rauh, who has authored a study about the potential effects of the wealth tax. Way back, more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Of course, we’re talking about Prop 40, California’s billionaire tax, with, you know, on the pro side, Gabriel Zucman, who helped design it, and Josh Rauh, who has authored a study about the potential effects of the wealth tax. Way back, more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Monday, September 14, 2026\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>California voters will decide this fall whether the state should impose a one-time 5 percent tax on billionaires, with much of the revenue going toward health care amid federal funding cuts. Supporters say Proposition 40 could raise tens of billions of dollars while also helping to address the growing wealth inequality in the state. Opponents argue the tax could drive billionaires out of California, shrinking the state’s income tax base and ultimately costing more than it raises. We talk to two leading economists: Gabriel Zucman, who helped develop the measure, and Joshua Rauh, one of its most vocal critics, about whether the billionaire tax would help California’s economy – or hurt it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman,\u003c/strong> professor of economics, UC Berkeley; Paris School of Economics – author of “We Need to Tax Billionaires”; helped develop Prop 40\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh,\u003c/strong> economist and professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business – senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; opposes CA Prop 40\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Alexis Madrigal. Proposition 40 is one of the most contentious and intriguing propositions of recent years. It’s a one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires. It would raise a substantial amount of money, though there are questions about how much net revenue it could pour into state coffers, and those dollars would mostly be used to fund health care.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Our first guest is Gabriel Zucman. He is a UC Berkeley economist and author of the admirably straightforwardly named book, \u003cem>We Need to Tax Billionaires\u003c/em>. He helped to develop the proposition. Welcome, Gabriel.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Our second guest is Joshua Rauh, an economist and professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He authored a study about the potential effects of the wealth tax and has emerged as perhaps the leading economist voice opposing Prop 40. Welcome, Josh.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> Good to be on the show.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Okay, you guys ready? Ready to fight? Gabriel, let’s start with you. You did help develop this proposition. So let’s just start with the basics. What’s the measure do? Who’s subject to the tax, where does the money go?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> So this would be a one-time tax on billionaires. Only people who have more than $1 billion of net wealth would be affected. We’re talking about roughly 250 people in California, mostly Silicon Valley tech billionaires who would have to pay a one-time tax equal to 5% of their wealth. For context, their wealth has grown by 170% since 2023, and they would have to pay just 5%.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We can expect about $100 billion in tax revenue for the state with this tax. Ninety percent of the money would go to health care. And California needs this money because the big budget bill that was passed last year by Congress has defunded Medicaid. And if nothing is done, two million people in California are going to lose their health insurance. The fraction of uninsured individuals will increase from 6% to 10%.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The California governor, Gavin Newsom, or the California legislature haven’t proposed any solution. So voters can solve this problem by themselves with Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m curious, just like, is this for you primarily a fiscal measure about the state’s budget, or is it more of a moral one about the way that you think the state should be approaching billionaire wealth?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> Well, it is a budget fiscal issue. There’s a major shortfall of revenue for Medicaid. And the question is, where do we find the money? Now you have essentially two big levers. There is the California income tax, and there is this potential wealth tax on billionaires.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What’s really important to understand is this. And when I first realized that, it blew my mind. If you look at the total wealth of California’s 250 billionaires, we’re talking about $2.3 trillion today. This is as big as the total income of all Californian families. Their total taxable income, AGI, is also $2.3 trillion.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So essentially, if you want to get $100 billion in revenue for the state, you can do it in two ways. Either with a 5% tax on the wealth of 250 billionaires or with an increase in the income tax of five percentage points for all Californian taxpayers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And so, in answer to the question of why target wealth specifically rather than income, that’s where the money is. It represents this massive sum. But is it also that billionaires don’t have traditional income as their core component of how they make money?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> True. The current tax system fails at taxing billionaires. This is true in California. This is true in the U.S. more broadly. This is all over the world. And the reason is that when you’re extremely rich, it’s very easy to organize your wealth such that this wealth will generate no or very little taxable income.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s how, in 2019, in 2022, in 2023, the two worthiest billionaires in California, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, essentially paid no income tax. They didn’t pay themselves any wage from Google. Google didn’t distribute any dividend. They didn’t sell shares in the company, so they didn’t realize any capital gains.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So their taxable income, what is subject to the income tax, was zero or close to zero, extremely low, so that no matter the rate that you apply to that income, you are not going to be able to make billionaires pay more tax just by changing the income tax. This is why the proper way to tax the super rich is with a tax directly on their wealth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Josh, let’s bring you in here to a two-part question here. Do you agree that wealth concentration in billionaires is a problem generally? And then more specifically, do you agree that billionaire taxation is also a problem?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> Well, I’d like to begin with just the premise that you have to support anyone who votes for Prop 40, for the Billionaire Tax Act, has got to support — first, you have to believe that it will raise revenue, not lose revenue for the state. And I think this is one of the key points of difference between myself and Gabriel Zucman, which is that they say it will raise $100 billion for the state. We say it will lose $25 to $38 billion for this state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And why the difference? It’s because of the losses to the state coffers that will be caused by these high-net-worth individuals who are leaving in response to the tax. The state won’t collect the wealth tax from the billionaires who have left in response to the tax, and it won’t collect any more income taxes from the billionaires who have left in response to the tax.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so Dr. Zucman and his colleagues have assumed 10% losses when they arrived at their $100 billion estimate, but going through person by person, we find that public announcements have shown that already 30% of the wealth tax base has left. Half a trillion dollars of wealth has left California. So this is gonna lose money for the state government. Those people, their wealth isn’t gonna be collected by the Billionaire Tax Act, and their income taxes will no longer be collected.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Secondly, you have to believe, if you support this proposition, that on balance the tax will be good for the people of California. And that’s a different question from whether the tax is going to raise revenue or not. I mean, even if the tax were gonna raise revenue — and to be clear, our models say that this one will not — but that revenue has to be balanced against the damage to the economy that the tax will do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So to take an example, a policy that brings in an extra dollar of revenue for the state but destroys 100,000 jobs, that would be a bad policy because you have to believe that the well-being the state can create with an extra dollar of revenue is so great as to offset the pain from losing the job.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So the billionaires who are leaving have created tens to hundreds of thousands of jobs in California, and while those jobs won’t go away overnight, if the founders are gone, the billionaire tax will accelerate the shift of jobs to other states that we’re already seeing. And it’s not just companies already here. If the wealth tax passes, then founders will increasingly choose one of the other emerging ecosystems around the U.S., Austin, Miami, Nashville. And already we have investors saying they won’t invest in startup companies in California if the founders are in California. Notably, Mark Cuban has said that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So whether or not billionaire wealth concentration is a problem or not, whether you think that or not, that’s actually not relevant for what we should do on Prop 40. The question is, do you think it’s going to bring in money for the state? I do not think it will. And second, do you believe that on balance it will be good for the people of California? And I think given all the losses in economic activity we’re seeing here already as a result of this and what we will see if the billionaire tax passes, it will not be for the people of California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s Josh Rauh, an economist and professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. We’re also joined by Gabriel Zucman, an economist and professor at Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics, helped to develop Prop 40.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’d love to get your opinions on what you think about the tax. 866-733-6786, \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> at kqed.org. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Josh, I want to stay with you here. What you’re saying is that even just the threat of this tax is causing people to leave and maybe hurting the dynamism of Silicon Valley. And at the same time, we’re experiencing this massive boom in San Francisco of AI company wealth creation and new jobs and businesses that are being created at the time. So it’s one factor, right, in the way where companies decide to locate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Rauh:\u003c/strong> That’s correct. It’s one factor, and investors have been clear about what’s going to happen if the tax passes. You have to realize California companies, the amount of money they receive from venture capitalists from across the state, country and world is a staggering amount of money itself. It is $360 billion. That’s very comparable in a year to the amount of money that the government of California spends.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This ecosystem is fragile. We have people leaving. We have investors saying they’re not going to invest in California if this passes. And it’s interesting to consider the reason why people are saying they won’t invest in that if this passes. You know, Dr. Zucman and you in your intro were clear that this was gonna be a one-time tax. That’s how it’s pitched, but Dr. Zucman has admitted that it’s probably not going to be one time. In fact, I’ll quote from an interview he did on the Capital & Main website. He said, quote, “California could absolutely implement an annual wealth tax,” said Zucman. “This one-time tax is just the starting point of what it could be.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so now that he is admitting that, and people are starting to think, what happens if this wealth tax passes? Investors are beginning to think, wow, this could be really bad, and it could be very harmful to the economy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The discussion has changed since the ballot proposition was made. “One time, one time, one time” kept being repeated, and now the tone of the architects has changed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Gabriel, what do you think? On the one-time issue specifically.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriel Zucman:\u003c/strong> So, a few things. So first of all, this line of reasoning on how the tax is going to hurt the economy is, of course, a very classic argument, which makes sense in the abstract, but you have to look at the numbers. And if you look, for instance, at the flow of venture capital funding —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I might actually cut you off here only because we’re gonna have to go to a break in a second, and I really want you to be able to get to the full set of numbers. You guys can go back and forth a little bit on this. So let me let me throw to a break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Of course, we’re talking about Prop 40, California’s billionaire tax, with, you know, on the pro side, Gabriel Zucman, who helped design it, and Josh Rauh, who has authored a study about the potential effects of the wealth tax. Way back, more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Thursday, September 10, 2026 at 9am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Acclaimed poet and essayist Claudia Rankine’s new book, “Triage,” follows the turbulent, decades long friendship between a Black woman and a nonbinary Palestinian who meet in college and invent a ritual of collapsing to the ground whenever they see each other. Over time, that act of collapse comes to hold new meaning as they reckon with wounded histories, political violence and the strain of loving someone who can also unsettle you. Blending memoir, criticism, essay and visual art, “Triage” is Rankine’s first book after her celebrated American trilogy and some of her most personal writing yet. Rankine joins us to talk about friendship, grieving, and what it means to keep acting – and relating – in a time of relentless personal and global loss.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine,\u003c/strong> poet, playwright and author, her new book is “Triage”, professor of Creative Writing at NYU; a MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Alexis Madrigal here. As you probably know, this is the first day of our membership drive, our pledge drive during this time of the year. We’re not gonna be doing One Good Things, these little things that I read, these little odes to different parts of the Bay Area every single day. However, today we are, in fact, going to do one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This actually came from my newsletter, which is also called One Good Thing, which you can subscribe to at kqed.org/onegoodthing. And it’s about a tree in my neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This tree is monumental. I’m standing at its base, redwood bark seeming to flow down, down until it finally gets to ground, where I can’t help but see something elephantine in the way it bulges where it touches earth. I don’t have to imagine the roots. The infrastructure of this place has had to accommodate itself to this tree. The sidewalk is covered in a spongy material to prevent the inevitable cracking of concrete by root.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Strange to think that concrete, which, if you’ve ever hit a slab of it with a sledgehammer, feels adamantine and everlasting, will always yield to the redwood root. The asphalt of the road beyond the sidewalk knows, too. It’s cracked along a line that suggests the tree below.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This tree has no name that I know of, though stay tuned because I found out the tree’s name. It stands on a small side street in Berkeley near the Claremont neighborhood. Lovely area, trees abound, including a smattering of other redwoods. But none of the other redwoods are like this one, which feels out of scale for a neighborhood of single-family homes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m filled with wonder and envy that someone lives with this tree in their front yard. Every day they go about their business in the understory of this remarkable living creature, forgetting their keys in the glory of creation, telling a kid to hurry if they’ll be late under the majestic branches.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I don’t know much about the tree. Must be old, but how old? Was it here in 1926, 1776? Before, could Indigenous residents have known this tree when it was a small sapling? No. In the presence of a giant like this, the brain can get scrambled. I know better.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Uplands neighborhood nearby was created in the early 20th century out of ranch land. And it seems unlikely that there were huge numbers of redwoods on or near that ranch. The house that shares the redwood’s property was built in 1906, which probably means it was planted around then. Just guessing here. Could it be just 120 years old? Guess that’s not so young.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On the outside, maybe it settled into ranch land in the decades before the subdivision. But regardless of the precise history, this redwood, as grand and majestic as it is, is a planting. It’s a co-creation of the people who have lived on that street and its own magnificent possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Somehow it feels weirder to think that someone’s lovingly tended this tree. They could not have known they’d picked the very perfect spot for a redwood. And yet they did.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This magnificent tree is not a remnant or an area of preservation, but an attempt at repair. People have worked to keep it here, despite the complexities it must introduce into life in an American house.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This tree is grown up in this neighborhood. Same as my kids.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This week, I’m gonna send out a follow-up with the tree’s name.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. One thing I love about Claudia Rankine’s books, and this new book, \u003cem>Triage\u003c/em>, in particular, is that each one seems to create its own genre.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Triage\u003c/em> reads kind of like an experimental novel or long poem or an essay or a memoir. What is this thing between the two covers of the book? Without a doubt, it does what a book should do, refine and press a generous span of thinking. But it isn’t quite like anything I’ve read before.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Triage\u003c/em> is a book for confronting the self in a time of global cruelty and tragedy. In a very rough sense, it’s a novelistic book about friendship and grief and the state of the world. And this work asks, how do our own personal losses grind us into the particular shape that we use to confront the world and its endless variations of loss?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And also, maybe its author, Claudia Rankine, winner of myriad awards, a certified MacArthur genius, also an NYU professor, joins us this morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, Claudia.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Alexis. It’s so good to have you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As we’re settling in here, I want you to maybe confront the sort of basics of this book, which has a quite complicated form. It’s quite very interesting. But our book opens with our narrator watching their old friend, referred to in the book as the theorist, deliver a lecture. And it’s the narrator’s 60th birthday. It’s a friend from college who they haven’t seen in a long time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And during a Q&A, someone asked the theorist how they feel, given all that’s going on in the world today. You can even see them, like, doing that thing with their hands we all do. And the theorist pauses and says, “Sometimes I want to throw myself in front of a speeding car.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So this book really is responding to that feeling in the world right now. How do you see it showing up for you, that sense of too much?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> Well, yeah, I think it is a moment when everything is happening and nothing is happening. And we’re caught in this sort of liminal space where we see what should be done, but we cannot do it. And it’s a strange dynamic, I think, to understand that things are happening and we have no control to stop them, things that are impossible, that you have lived your life thinking, “This is not possible,” and yet it is possible, and it is now happening, and it’s now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s a repeated line in the book which I found quite chilling: “The choices are not choices.” This sense that the political and even personal possibility for things has shrunk to the point where the choices are not choices.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> You know, I don’t know about you, but we all grew up with Anne Frank and thinking, if this ever happened, if we were ever in this place, we are very clear about what we would do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, man.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> And suddenly we are just watching disaster after disaster. There are wars, there is genocide, there’s climate change. And we’re just continuing on as if we stay quiet, it will reverse things. And I don’t think that has ever been the way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One of the sort of wonders and the mechanism of this book for me is that in this book, the narrator comes across as a version of you. Maybe not exactly, maybe not fully, but like in the multiverse, some Rankine out there. And yet it’s really that character who’s sort of paralyzed, who is not doing the things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So you’ve kind of taken the person that we want to identify with as, you know, oh, this is whose consciousness we’re with, and given her the difficult task of not doing the things that we wish we would do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> I know. I think some people are disappointed. They think I’ve tricked them somehow. They’re like, “Gotcha!” But it is the dynamic I personally found myself in, where I have one idea about what is right and what my moral stance is and who I am, and then the reality is there in front of us, that there is little we can do, or at least so we think.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then you see what’s happening in Minnesota, and you’re like, oh, okay, there are other ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, there was a line, I think the review in \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em> pulled it out, too. It struck me as well, that people find themselves in a state where, quote, “nothing else functions but one’s grief.” And it does feel like part of this book is trying to somehow maybe get to the end of that grief, get to, what does it mean to feel it all the way, to somehow move past it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> And move through it. And also, you know, there’s a sense that you can’t get past it. We’re in a dynamic now —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> — where there is no end. And so, you know, let’s take climate change. We, I guess, we are now, the U.S. is now reclassified as a tropical climate, which, you know, September in the 80s, you kind of believe it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So whatever the trajectory is, it’s happening. So the new question is, the new way of being is, how do you live within it? What are your responsibilities to the moment when you know that there is no end to it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> So, and that’s, you know, that’s hard to hold in terms of not having a plan that has a solution. You need a plan, but it might not be a solution.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, the theorist in this book has an answer, which is essentially sort of action first, right? That’s kind of the theorist’s answer is, well, we gotta do something. What’s the sort of narrator’s position on that position?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> Well, Daenerys’ position on that position, I believe, is maybe you’re right, but am I the one to do it? And that’s the other thing. Is it our job to police the actions of others rather than to do what each of us can do to the point that we can do it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> The phrase that kept occurring to me — there’s regular listeners of this program who will wonder why I’ve brought up many times Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish philosopher, who has this amazing line about our times, that anything can happen, but nothing can be done. And that’s sort of the state of power in the world, what he calls liquid modernity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And that line really resonated throughout this book for me, this sense of that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’re talking with poet, playwright, and essayist Claudia Rankine about her new book, \u003cem>Triage\u003c/em>. She is, of course, also the author of the American Trilogy, including \u003cem>Citizen\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Just Us\u003c/em>, professor of creative writing at NYU and a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I want to hear from you. Can you relate to the feeling of too-muchness in the world today, or the kind of only mechanism that’s working in being your grief? How are you responding to those feelings or trying to move through them?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can give us a call, 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email is forum@kqed.org. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Alexis Madrigal here. As you probably know, this is the first day of our membership drive, our pledge drive during this time of the year. We’re not gonna be doing One Good Things, these little things that I read, these little odes to different parts of the Bay Area every single day. However, today we are, in fact, going to do one.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Alexis Madrigal here. As you probably know, this is the first day of our membership drive, our pledge drive during this time of the year. We’re not gonna be doing One Good Things, these little things that I read, these little odes to different parts of the Bay Area every single day. However, today we are, in fact, going to do one.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This actually came from my newsletter, which is also called One Good Thing, which you can subscribe to at kqed.org/onegoodthing. And it’s about a tree in my neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This actually came from my newsletter, which is also called One Good Thing, which you can subscribe to at kqed.org/onegoodthing. And it’s about a tree in my neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This tree is monumental. I’m standing at its base, redwood bark seeming to flow down, down until it finally gets to ground, where I can’t help but see something elephantine in the way it bulges where it touches earth. I don’t have to imagine the roots. The infrastructure of this place has had to accommodate itself to this tree. The sidewalk is covered in a spongy material to prevent the inevitable cracking of concrete by root.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This tree is monumental. I’m standing at its base, redwood bark seeming to flow down, down until it finally gets to ground, where I can’t help but see something elephantine in the way it bulges where it touches earth. I don’t have to imagine the roots. The infrastructure of this place has had to accommodate itself to this tree. The sidewalk is covered in a spongy material to prevent the inevitable cracking of concrete by root.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Strange to think that concrete, which, if you’ve ever hit a slab of it with a sledgehammer, feels adamantine and everlasting, will always yield to the redwood root. The asphalt of the road beyond the sidewalk knows, too. It’s cracked along a line that suggests the tree below.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Strange to think that concrete, which, if you’ve ever hit a slab of it with a sledgehammer, feels adamantine and everlasting, will always yield to the redwood root. The asphalt of the road beyond the sidewalk knows, too. It’s cracked along a line that suggests the tree below.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This tree has no name that I know of, though stay tuned because I found out the tree’s name. It stands on a small side street in Berkeley near the Claremont neighborhood. Lovely area, trees abound, including a smattering of other redwoods. But none of the other redwoods are like this one, which feels out of scale for a neighborhood of single-family homes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This tree has no name that I know of, though stay tuned because I found out the tree’s name. It stands on a small side street in Berkeley near the Claremont neighborhood. Lovely area, trees abound, including a smattering of other redwoods. But none of the other redwoods are like this one, which feels out of scale for a neighborhood of single-family homes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m filled with wonder and envy that someone lives with this tree in their front yard. Every day they go about their business in the understory of this remarkable living creature, forgetting their keys in the glory of creation, telling a kid to hurry if they’ll be late under the majestic branches.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m filled with wonder and envy that someone lives with this tree in their front yard. Every day they go about their business in the understory of this remarkable living creature, forgetting their keys in the glory of creation, telling a kid to hurry if they’ll be late under the majestic branches.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I don’t know much about the tree. Must be old, but how old? Was it here in 1926, 1776? Before, could Indigenous residents have known this tree when it was a small sapling? No. In the presence of a giant like this, the brain can get scrambled. I know better.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I don’t know much about the tree. Must be old, but how old? Was it here in 1926, 1776? Before, could Indigenous residents have known this tree when it was a small sapling? No. In the presence of a giant like this, the brain can get scrambled. I know better.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Uplands neighborhood nearby was created in the early 20th century out of ranch land. And it seems unlikely that there were huge numbers of redwoods on or near that ranch. The house that shares the redwood’s property was built in 1906, which probably means it was planted around then. Just guessing here. Could it be just 120 years old? Guess that’s not so young.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The Uplands neighborhood nearby was created in the early 20th century out of ranch land. And it seems unlikely that there were huge numbers of redwoods on or near that ranch. The house that shares the redwood’s property was built in 1906, which probably means it was planted around then. Just guessing here. Could it be just 120 years old? Guess that’s not so young.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>On the outside, maybe it settled into ranch land in the decades before the subdivision. But regardless of the precise history, this redwood, as grand and majestic as it is, is a planting. It’s a co-creation of the people who have lived on that street and its own magnificent possibilities.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>On the outside, maybe it settled into ranch land in the decades before the subdivision. But regardless of the precise history, this redwood, as grand and majestic as it is, is a planting. It’s a co-creation of the people who have lived on that street and its own magnificent possibilities.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Somehow it feels weirder to think that someone’s lovingly tended this tree. They could not have known they’d picked the very perfect spot for a redwood. And yet they did.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Somehow it feels weirder to think that someone’s lovingly tended this tree. They could not have known they’d picked the very perfect spot for a redwood. And yet they did.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This magnificent tree is not a remnant or an area of preservation, but an attempt at repair. People have worked to keep it here, despite the complexities it must introduce into life in an American house.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This magnificent tree is not a remnant or an area of preservation, but an attempt at repair. People have worked to keep it here, despite the complexities it must introduce into life in an American house.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This tree is grown up in this neighborhood. Same as my kids.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This tree is grown up in this neighborhood. Same as my kids.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This week, I’m gonna send out a follow-up with the tree’s name.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This week, I’m gonna send out a follow-up with the tree’s name.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. One thing I love about Claudia Rankine’s books, and this new book, \u003cem>Triage\u003c/em>, in particular, is that each one seems to create its own genre.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. One thing I love about Claudia Rankine’s books, and this new book, \u003cem>Triage\u003c/em>, in particular, is that each one seems to create its own genre.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Triage\u003c/em> reads kind of like an experimental novel or long poem or an essay or a memoir. What is this thing between the two covers of the book? Without a doubt, it does what a book should do, refine and press a generous span of thinking. But it isn’t quite like anything I’ve read before.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Triage\u003c/em> reads kind of like an experimental novel or long poem or an essay or a memoir. What is this thing between the two covers of the book? Without a doubt, it does what a book should do, refine and press a generous span of thinking. But it isn’t quite like anything I’ve read before.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Triage\u003c/em> is a book for confronting the self in a time of global cruelty and tragedy. In a very rough sense, it’s a novelistic book about friendship and grief and the state of the world. And this work asks, how do our own personal losses grind us into the particular shape that we use to confront the world and its endless variations of loss?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Triage\u003c/em> is a book for confronting the self in a time of global cruelty and tragedy. In a very rough sense, it’s a novelistic book about friendship and grief and the state of the world. And this work asks, how do our own personal losses grind us into the particular shape that we use to confront the world and its endless variations of loss?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And also, maybe its author, Claudia Rankine, winner of myriad awards, a certified MacArthur genius, also an NYU professor, joins us this morning.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And also, maybe its author, Claudia Rankine, winner of myriad awards, a certified MacArthur genius, also an NYU professor, joins us this morning.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, Claudia.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, Claudia.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Alexis. It’s so good to have you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Alexis. It’s so good to have you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As we’re settling in here, I want you to maybe confront the sort of basics of this book, which has a quite complicated form. It’s quite very interesting. But our book opens with our narrator watching their old friend, referred to in the book as the theorist, deliver a lecture. And it’s the narrator’s 60th birthday. It’s a friend from college who they haven’t seen in a long time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As we’re settling in here, I want you to maybe confront the sort of basics of this book, which has a quite complicated form. It’s quite very interesting. But our book opens with our narrator watching their old friend, referred to in the book as the theorist, deliver a lecture. And it’s the narrator’s 60th birthday. It’s a friend from college who they haven’t seen in a long time.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And during a Q&A, someone asked the theorist how they feel, given all that’s going on in the world today. You can even see them, like, doing that thing with their hands we all do. And the theorist pauses and says, “Sometimes I want to throw myself in front of a speeding car.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And during a Q&A, someone asked the theorist how they feel, given all that’s going on in the world today. You can even see them, like, doing that thing with their hands we all do. And the theorist pauses and says, “Sometimes I want to throw myself in front of a speeding car.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So this book really is responding to that feeling in the world right now. How do you see it showing up for you, that sense of too much?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So this book really is responding to that feeling in the world right now. How do you see it showing up for you, that sense of too much?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> Well, yeah, I think it is a moment when everything is happening and nothing is happening. And we’re caught in this sort of liminal space where we see what should be done, but we cannot do it. And it’s a strange dynamic, I think, to understand that things are happening and we have no control to stop them, things that are impossible, that you have lived your life thinking, “This is not possible,” and yet it is possible, and it is now happening, and it’s now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> Well, yeah, I think it is a moment when everything is happening and nothing is happening. And we’re caught in this sort of liminal space where we see what should be done, but we cannot do it. And it’s a strange dynamic, I think, to understand that things are happening and we have no control to stop them, things that are impossible, that you have lived your life thinking, “This is not possible,” and yet it is possible, and it is now happening, and it’s now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s a repeated line in the book which I found quite chilling: “The choices are not choices.” This sense that the political and even personal possibility for things has shrunk to the point where the choices are not choices.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s a repeated line in the book which I found quite chilling: “The choices are not choices.” This sense that the political and even personal possibility for things has shrunk to the point where the choices are not choices.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> You know, I don’t know about you, but we all grew up with Anne Frank and thinking, if this ever happened, if we were ever in this place, we are very clear about what we would do.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> You know, I don’t know about you, but we all grew up with Anne Frank and thinking, if this ever happened, if we were ever in this place, we are very clear about what we would do.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, man.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, man.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> And suddenly we are just watching disaster after disaster. There are wars, there is genocide, there’s climate change. And we’re just continuing on as if we stay quiet, it will reverse things. And I don’t think that has ever been the way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> And suddenly we are just watching disaster after disaster. There are wars, there is genocide, there’s climate change. And we’re just continuing on as if we stay quiet, it will reverse things. And I don’t think that has ever been the way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One of the sort of wonders and the mechanism of this book for me is that in this book, the narrator comes across as a version of you. Maybe not exactly, maybe not fully, but like in the multiverse, some Rankine out there. And yet it’s really that character who’s sort of paralyzed, who is not doing the things.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One of the sort of wonders and the mechanism of this book for me is that in this book, the narrator comes across as a version of you. Maybe not exactly, maybe not fully, but like in the multiverse, some Rankine out there. And yet it’s really that character who’s sort of paralyzed, who is not doing the things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So you’ve kind of taken the person that we want to identify with as, you know, oh, this is whose consciousness we’re with, and given her the difficult task of not doing the things that we wish we would do.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So you’ve kind of taken the person that we want to identify with as, you know, oh, this is whose consciousness we’re with, and given her the difficult task of not doing the things that we wish we would do.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> I know. I think some people are disappointed. They think I’ve tricked them somehow. They’re like, “Gotcha!” But it is the dynamic I personally found myself in, where I have one idea about what is right and what my moral stance is and who I am, and then the reality is there in front of us, that there is little we can do, or at least so we think.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> I know. I think some people are disappointed. They think I’ve tricked them somehow. They’re like, “Gotcha!” But it is the dynamic I personally found myself in, where I have one idea about what is right and what my moral stance is and who I am, and then the reality is there in front of us, that there is little we can do, or at least so we think.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then you see what’s happening in Minnesota, and you’re like, oh, okay, there are other ways.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then you see what’s happening in Minnesota, and you’re like, oh, okay, there are other ways.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, there was a line, I think the review in \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em> pulled it out, too. It struck me as well, that people find themselves in a state where, quote, “nothing else functions but one’s grief.” And it does feel like part of this book is trying to somehow maybe get to the end of that grief, get to, what does it mean to feel it all the way, to somehow move past it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, there was a line, I think the review in \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em> pulled it out, too. It struck me as well, that people find themselves in a state where, quote, “nothing else functions but one’s grief.” And it does feel like part of this book is trying to somehow maybe get to the end of that grief, get to, what does it mean to feel it all the way, to somehow move past it?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> And move through it. And also, you know, there’s a sense that you can’t get past it. We’re in a dynamic now —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> And move through it. And also, you know, there’s a sense that you can’t get past it. We’re in a dynamic now —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> — where there is no end. And so, you know, let’s take climate change. We, I guess, we are now, the U.S. is now reclassified as a tropical climate, which, you know, September in the 80s, you kind of believe it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> — where there is no end. And so, you know, let’s take climate change. We, I guess, we are now, the U.S. is now reclassified as a tropical climate, which, you know, September in the 80s, you kind of believe it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So whatever the trajectory is, it’s happening. So the new question is, the new way of being is, how do you live within it? What are your responsibilities to the moment when you know that there is no end to it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So whatever the trajectory is, it’s happening. So the new question is, the new way of being is, how do you live within it? What are your responsibilities to the moment when you know that there is no end to it?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> So, and that’s, you know, that’s hard to hold in terms of not having a plan that has a solution. You need a plan, but it might not be a solution.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> So, and that’s, you know, that’s hard to hold in terms of not having a plan that has a solution. You need a plan, but it might not be a solution.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, the theorist in this book has an answer, which is essentially sort of action first, right? That’s kind of the theorist’s answer is, well, we gotta do something. What’s the sort of narrator’s position on that position?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, the theorist in this book has an answer, which is essentially sort of action first, right? That’s kind of the theorist’s answer is, well, we gotta do something. What’s the sort of narrator’s position on that position?\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Thursday, September 10, 2026 at 9am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Acclaimed poet and essayist Claudia Rankine’s new book, “Triage,” follows the turbulent, decades long friendship between a Black woman and a nonbinary Palestinian who meet in college and invent a ritual of collapsing to the ground whenever they see each other. Over time, that act of collapse comes to hold new meaning as they reckon with wounded histories, political violence and the strain of loving someone who can also unsettle you. Blending memoir, criticism, essay and visual art, “Triage” is Rankine’s first book after her celebrated American trilogy and some of her most personal writing yet. Rankine joins us to talk about friendship, grieving, and what it means to keep acting – and relating – in a time of relentless personal and global loss.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine,\u003c/strong> poet, playwright and author, her new book is “Triage”, professor of Creative Writing at NYU; a MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Alexis Madrigal here. As you probably know, this is the first day of our membership drive, our pledge drive during this time of the year. We’re not gonna be doing One Good Things, these little things that I read, these little odes to different parts of the Bay Area every single day. However, today we are, in fact, going to do one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This actually came from my newsletter, which is also called One Good Thing, which you can subscribe to at kqed.org/onegoodthing. And it’s about a tree in my neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This tree is monumental. I’m standing at its base, redwood bark seeming to flow down, down until it finally gets to ground, where I can’t help but see something elephantine in the way it bulges where it touches earth. I don’t have to imagine the roots. The infrastructure of this place has had to accommodate itself to this tree. The sidewalk is covered in a spongy material to prevent the inevitable cracking of concrete by root.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Strange to think that concrete, which, if you’ve ever hit a slab of it with a sledgehammer, feels adamantine and everlasting, will always yield to the redwood root. The asphalt of the road beyond the sidewalk knows, too. It’s cracked along a line that suggests the tree below.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This tree has no name that I know of, though stay tuned because I found out the tree’s name. It stands on a small side street in Berkeley near the Claremont neighborhood. Lovely area, trees abound, including a smattering of other redwoods. But none of the other redwoods are like this one, which feels out of scale for a neighborhood of single-family homes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m filled with wonder and envy that someone lives with this tree in their front yard. Every day they go about their business in the understory of this remarkable living creature, forgetting their keys in the glory of creation, telling a kid to hurry if they’ll be late under the majestic branches.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I don’t know much about the tree. Must be old, but how old? Was it here in 1926, 1776? Before, could Indigenous residents have known this tree when it was a small sapling? No. In the presence of a giant like this, the brain can get scrambled. I know better.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Uplands neighborhood nearby was created in the early 20th century out of ranch land. And it seems unlikely that there were huge numbers of redwoods on or near that ranch. The house that shares the redwood’s property was built in 1906, which probably means it was planted around then. Just guessing here. Could it be just 120 years old? Guess that’s not so young.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On the outside, maybe it settled into ranch land in the decades before the subdivision. But regardless of the precise history, this redwood, as grand and majestic as it is, is a planting. It’s a co-creation of the people who have lived on that street and its own magnificent possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Somehow it feels weirder to think that someone’s lovingly tended this tree. They could not have known they’d picked the very perfect spot for a redwood. And yet they did.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This magnificent tree is not a remnant or an area of preservation, but an attempt at repair. People have worked to keep it here, despite the complexities it must introduce into life in an American house.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This tree is grown up in this neighborhood. Same as my kids.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This week, I’m gonna send out a follow-up with the tree’s name.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. One thing I love about Claudia Rankine’s books, and this new book, \u003cem>Triage\u003c/em>, in particular, is that each one seems to create its own genre.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Triage\u003c/em> reads kind of like an experimental novel or long poem or an essay or a memoir. What is this thing between the two covers of the book? Without a doubt, it does what a book should do, refine and press a generous span of thinking. But it isn’t quite like anything I’ve read before.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Triage\u003c/em> is a book for confronting the self in a time of global cruelty and tragedy. In a very rough sense, it’s a novelistic book about friendship and grief and the state of the world. And this work asks, how do our own personal losses grind us into the particular shape that we use to confront the world and its endless variations of loss?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And also, maybe its author, Claudia Rankine, winner of myriad awards, a certified MacArthur genius, also an NYU professor, joins us this morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, Claudia.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Alexis. It’s so good to have you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> As we’re settling in here, I want you to maybe confront the sort of basics of this book, which has a quite complicated form. It’s quite very interesting. But our book opens with our narrator watching their old friend, referred to in the book as the theorist, deliver a lecture. And it’s the narrator’s 60th birthday. It’s a friend from college who they haven’t seen in a long time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And during a Q&A, someone asked the theorist how they feel, given all that’s going on in the world today. You can even see them, like, doing that thing with their hands we all do. And the theorist pauses and says, “Sometimes I want to throw myself in front of a speeding car.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So this book really is responding to that feeling in the world right now. How do you see it showing up for you, that sense of too much?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> Well, yeah, I think it is a moment when everything is happening and nothing is happening. And we’re caught in this sort of liminal space where we see what should be done, but we cannot do it. And it’s a strange dynamic, I think, to understand that things are happening and we have no control to stop them, things that are impossible, that you have lived your life thinking, “This is not possible,” and yet it is possible, and it is now happening, and it’s now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> There’s a repeated line in the book which I found quite chilling: “The choices are not choices.” This sense that the political and even personal possibility for things has shrunk to the point where the choices are not choices.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> You know, I don’t know about you, but we all grew up with Anne Frank and thinking, if this ever happened, if we were ever in this place, we are very clear about what we would do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, man.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> And suddenly we are just watching disaster after disaster. There are wars, there is genocide, there’s climate change. And we’re just continuing on as if we stay quiet, it will reverse things. And I don’t think that has ever been the way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One of the sort of wonders and the mechanism of this book for me is that in this book, the narrator comes across as a version of you. Maybe not exactly, maybe not fully, but like in the multiverse, some Rankine out there. And yet it’s really that character who’s sort of paralyzed, who is not doing the things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So you’ve kind of taken the person that we want to identify with as, you know, oh, this is whose consciousness we’re with, and given her the difficult task of not doing the things that we wish we would do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> I know. I think some people are disappointed. They think I’ve tricked them somehow. They’re like, “Gotcha!” But it is the dynamic I personally found myself in, where I have one idea about what is right and what my moral stance is and who I am, and then the reality is there in front of us, that there is little we can do, or at least so we think.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then you see what’s happening in Minnesota, and you’re like, oh, okay, there are other ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, there was a line, I think the review in \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em> pulled it out, too. It struck me as well, that people find themselves in a state where, quote, “nothing else functions but one’s grief.” And it does feel like part of this book is trying to somehow maybe get to the end of that grief, get to, what does it mean to feel it all the way, to somehow move past it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> And move through it. And also, you know, there’s a sense that you can’t get past it. We’re in a dynamic now —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> — where there is no end. And so, you know, let’s take climate change. We, I guess, we are now, the U.S. is now reclassified as a tropical climate, which, you know, September in the 80s, you kind of believe it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So whatever the trajectory is, it’s happening. So the new question is, the new way of being is, how do you live within it? What are your responsibilities to the moment when you know that there is no end to it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> So, and that’s, you know, that’s hard to hold in terms of not having a plan that has a solution. You need a plan, but it might not be a solution.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, the theorist in this book has an answer, which is essentially sort of action first, right? That’s kind of the theorist’s answer is, well, we gotta do something. What’s the sort of narrator’s position on that position?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Claudia Rankine:\u003c/strong> Well, Daenerys’ position on that position, I believe, is maybe you’re right, but am I the one to do it? And that’s the other thing. Is it our job to police the actions of others rather than to do what each of us can do to the point that we can do it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> The phrase that kept occurring to me — there’s regular listeners of this program who will wonder why I’ve brought up many times Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish philosopher, who has this amazing line about our times, that anything can happen, but nothing can be done. And that’s sort of the state of power in the world, what he calls liquid modernity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And that line really resonated throughout this book for me, this sense of that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’re talking with poet, playwright, and essayist Claudia Rankine about her new book, \u003cem>Triage\u003c/em>. She is, of course, also the author of the American Trilogy, including \u003cem>Citizen\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Just Us\u003c/em>, professor of creative writing at NYU and a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I want to hear from you. Can you relate to the feeling of too-muchness in the world today, or the kind of only mechanism that’s working in being your grief? How are you responding to those feelings or trying to move through them?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can give us a call, 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. The email is forum@kqed.org. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Friday, September 4, 2026 at 9am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Fall is one of the most exciting times of year for arts and culture. To celebrate the start of the season, we’ve invited KQED’s Arts & Culture team to share their picks for the Bay Area’s best concerts, theater, exhibitions and local festivals. From major headliners and Broadway hits to neighborhood gatherings, local artists and up-and-coming gems, we’ll talk about what stands out on this fall’s calendar. We’ll also take the temperature of the Bay Area arts scene – what’s changing, what’s challenging and what’s giving our critics plenty to look forward to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Gabe Meline,\u003c/strong> senior editor, KQED Arts & Culture\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Sarah Hotchkiss,\u003c/strong> senior editor, KQED Arts & Culture\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Nastia Voynovskaya,\u003c/strong> editor and reporter, KQED Arts\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>David John Chávez,\u003c/strong> theatre critic, KQED\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n",
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"content": "\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Tuesday, August 25, 2026 at 10 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’ve all done it: put off that email, project… or even something we genuinely want to do. But why do we procrastinate? Researcher Itamar Schatz says it’s not that we’re just lazy, distracted or bad at managing our time, but that often procrastinators care more rather than less about what they’re doing and fear the possibility of failure. We’ll look at new research that explores the hidden psychology behind why we delay — and tools to finally get moving.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz,\u003c/strong> affiliated lecturer, Cambridge University; author, \u003cem>Solving Procrastination The Science of Why We Put Things Off and How to (Finally!) Stop\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. Itamar Shatz says the reason solving procrastination is so hard is because what we’ve often been told about it is wrong — like the common misconception that it’s simply a matter of willpower. This leads us to tackle procrastination with approaches that don’t work, causing frustration, stress and guilt that can even make us defer our dreams. But Shatz says ending the cycle of procrastination is entirely possible. And this hour, we’ll hear what he’s learned from his research into this complex phenomenon.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are you or someone you know a procrastinator, listeners? How does it affect you? You can post your comments on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook or Instagram. We’re @KQEDForum. You can email forum@kqed.org or call 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Itamar Shatz is a researcher and lecturer at Cambridge University, where he teaches quantitative and computational research. I want to ask you, actually, because as I was reading your title, I was struck by the fact that if you teach quantitative research methods at Cambridge, how did you end up wanting to study procrastination?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Well, as all great stories begin, by procrastinating to myself. So, in school, when I was in high school, I was a huge procrastinator. And I mean the typical stay-up — you know, you have a semester-long project and then you keep saying, okay, I’ll do it tomorrow, I’ll do it next week, I’ll do it next week, and suddenly it’s the end of the semester tomorrow and the project is due and I haven’t started yet. Then I would stay up all night. I would get away with doing that, but it was never a good experience, and I think it never ended well in terms of performance either.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I could get away with good grades, but not as much as I could if I’d actually done the work well. So I was really familiar with how frustrating procrastination is and how kind of insane it is, in the sense that you know you shouldn’t be doing it, but you still find yourself doing it again and again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then, when I was a bit older and was doing my master’s, I started wanting to do things better. I wanted to be productive, make better decisions, communicate better. And I figured, okay, let’s go to science to figure out how to do that. And I started reading about things like cognitive biases and communication techniques and things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I figured, okay, if doing this is useful for me, it will probably also be useful for other people. And I started writing these notes up and publishing them as articles. And at a certain point I said, you know what I haven’t covered so far? Procrastination. And I decided to write an article about procrastination. And then, as I was going into it, I realized this is way too big of a problem. It’s too common, it’s too painful, it’s too frustrating. I can’t cover everything I need to say about it in a single article.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I said, let’s do two articles. Let’s do a series. Let’s go a whole website. And from there, I just realized there’s so much that needs to be said about it and so much I could help people that it just grew and grew and eventually became the book that I’m publishing today.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it is really common. You write that one in five adults procrastinate. So when you’re talking about procrastination, what do you mean exactly?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> So, what if I was procrastinating chronically, which means they do it very often and for very long, but pretty much all of us procrastinate. And when this happens, basically we put off something that we know we should do, even though we know it would be better for us to do it, and usually despite our best intentions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So when we tell ourselves, I’m gonna study for this test, or I’m going to write this email, I’m going to make this phone call, I’m going to start writing my book, I’m going to change my habits and start exercising. I’m going to talk to this person I’m interested in, and then we keep finding reasons to do it tomorrow instead, or to do it soon, or in five minutes, or just after this one more video. And when this happens again and again, we’re basically procrastinating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, one of the myths you debunk right away is that procrastinators, you know, don’t care. In fact, you say that we care so much that it becomes paralyzing. Tell us about this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. So there is this misconception where people think about procrastination as sort of equivalent to laziness. And under this conceptualization of procrastination, it’s basically, okay, people procrastinate because they don’t care enough. But what actually happens usually is that people care too much. And by that I mean, maybe they want to write a book, for example, and it’s something they’re really excited about. They’re very, very enthusiastic. Inside their brain is shouting, just do it already. But the problem is they’re too afraid that it’ll go wrong, they’ll be criticized, that their writing won’t be good enough, that they won’t be good enough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the more you care about these things, and the more these mental obstacles like anxiety and perfectionism get in the way, the harder it is to take action when you need to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, the other thing that you bring up is the misconception that addressing procrastination is just a matter of willpower. What effect does this misconception have?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so there’s something I call the self-control fallacy. And that’s basically the idea that if we just try harder, we’ll be able to do what we need to when we need to. And the problem with this, it’s very tempting because it offers a sort of silver bullet where, okay, I just need to turn up the dial for willpower and then I’ll be able to do it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it makes sense when you think about it because, again, procrastination is irrational. There’s no reason we should do it. So when we’re sitting there and thinking about something that we’ll do later, it’s easy and very comforting to tell ourselves, okay, we’ll be able to do it because we’ll try harder and I’m not going to be irrational again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The problem with this is that it fails. And it fails again and again. And every time we keep believing that it’s going to be different next time because there are lots of cognitive biases that kind of trick our minds into thinking that’s going to be the case.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, for example, there is the bias blind spot, which makes us really good at noticing when other people are irrational and really bad at noticing when we’re doing it. And there’s also something called the empathy gap, when we’re sitting there and we’re in a cool emotional state, so we’re rational. We’re not facing something scary at the moment. We’re not facing any temptation at the moment. It’s very easy to think of ourselves as rational beings, but that’s very different from what happens when we’re actually facing, okay, now we need to sit down and write this thing that I’m scared of writing, or make this call that I am afraid of making, or maybe I’m sitting in front of social media and that’s actually drawing my attention, and now my brain is trying to, on the one hand, focus and, on the other hand, deal with this temptation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And what all this means is that when we think that our willpower will be enough, that our self-control will be, we end up not preparing for the actual obstacles we’ll face. And that causes us to keep getting trapped in the procrastination cycle, where we procrastinate again and again, and we’re not actually trying to solve it the right way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And these misconceptions, you know, laziness, a lack of willpower, they sound like, you know, procrastination has essentially been treated as a character flaw, which I imagine can make us judge ourselves negatively for procrastinating, which, I’m sure, doesn’t help at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s not only wrong, it is also unproductive and it’s unconstructive. And the problem is that when people are told, okay, if you procrastinate, that means that you’re not trying hard enough, or that means you’re just lazy, again, it basically means that they’re not actually trying to solve the problem using solutions that address the issues they’re facing. So they’re actually not trying to solve their anxiety or their perfectionism or the distraction or whatever it is because they think, okay, I’ll just exert more willpower and that will get me to do the things that I need to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And beyond that, it also causes a lot of pain. It causes shame, it causes guilt, it increases the frustration when people are already frustrated because they know they should be doing things and they’re not. And usually what that does is it shuts us down because then whatever it is we need to do becomes even more painful. It becomes more aversive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So let’s say we have a task that we’ve been putting off. Like maybe, let’s say, we want to change our habits. You want to start exercising. And then somebody tells us, okay, if you haven’t started doing it yet, you’re lazy. And now in our mind, whenever we think about exercising, we have this light bulb going up that says, wait, I’m lazy. I’m a lazy person. I should be ashamed of myself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then even though engaging in exercising, engaging in the behavior we’re trying to do, would make us feel better, we associate even more negative emotions with it now because of all the criticism and the judgment. That makes us even less likely to actually do it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the most painful thing here is that this can cause a sort of vicious cycle where we want to do something, we get negative feedback whenever we think about it, whenever we want to engage with it, so we put it off, then we feel worse, we put off more, and that basically feeds on itself. It makes it harder and harder for us to do what we need to unless we find ways to break the cycle.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with Itamar Shatz, a researcher and lecturer at Cambridge University, about the psychology behind why we procrastinate. And you, our listeners, are sharing your thoughts, questions and your own experiences around this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eloise in Oakland writes, “I find that I procrastinate on things that are important but not urgent until I take care of things that are urgent. And then I run out of time to do the important thing.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And Jenny writes, “Oh my God, this episode is a story of my life. I have a PhD in procrastinating. And I know that my biggest related culprit is perfectionism.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll dig into that after the break. Stay with us. I’m Mina Kim. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then, when I was a bit older and was doing my master’s, I started wanting to do things better. I wanted to be productive, make better decisions, communicate better. And I figured, okay, let’s go to science to figure out how to do that. And I started reading about things like cognitive biases and communication techniques and things like that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I figured, okay, if doing this is useful for me, it will probably also be useful for other people. And I started writing these notes up and publishing them as articles. And at a certain point I said, you know what I haven’t covered so far? Procrastination. And I decided to write an article about procrastination. And then, as I was going into it, I realized this is way too big of a problem. It’s too common, it’s too painful, it’s too frustrating. I can’t cover everything I need to say about it in a single article.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I figured, okay, if doing this is useful for me, it will probably also be useful for other people. And I started writing these notes up and publishing them as articles. And at a certain point I said, you know what I haven’t covered so far? Procrastination. And I decided to write an article about procrastination. And then, as I was going into it, I realized this is way too big of a problem. It’s too common, it’s too painful, it’s too frustrating. I can’t cover everything I need to say about it in a single article.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I said, let’s do two articles. Let’s do a series. Let’s go a whole website. And from there, I just realized there’s so much that needs to be said about it and so much I could help people that it just grew and grew and eventually became the book that I’m publishing today.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I said, let’s do two articles. Let’s do a series. Let’s go a whole website. And from there, I just realized there’s so much that needs to be said about it and so much I could help people that it just grew and grew and eventually became the book that I’m publishing today.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it is really common. You write that one in five adults procrastinate. So when you’re talking about procrastination, what do you mean exactly?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it is really common. You write that one in five adults procrastinate. So when you’re talking about procrastination, what do you mean exactly?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> So, what if I was procrastinating chronically, which means they do it very often and for very long, but pretty much all of us procrastinate. And when this happens, basically we put off something that we know we should do, even though we know it would be better for us to do it, and usually despite our best intentions.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> So, what if I was procrastinating chronically, which means they do it very often and for very long, but pretty much all of us procrastinate. And when this happens, basically we put off something that we know we should do, even though we know it would be better for us to do it, and usually despite our best intentions.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So when we tell ourselves, I’m gonna study for this test, or I’m going to write this email, I’m going to make this phone call, I’m going to start writing my book, I’m going to change my habits and start exercising. I’m going to talk to this person I’m interested in, and then we keep finding reasons to do it tomorrow instead, or to do it soon, or in five minutes, or just after this one more video. And when this happens again and again, we’re basically procrastinating.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So when we tell ourselves, I’m gonna study for this test, or I’m going to write this email, I’m going to make this phone call, I’m going to start writing my book, I’m going to change my habits and start exercising. I’m going to talk to this person I’m interested in, and then we keep finding reasons to do it tomorrow instead, or to do it soon, or in five minutes, or just after this one more video. And when this happens again and again, we’re basically procrastinating.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, one of the myths you debunk right away is that procrastinators, you know, don’t care. In fact, you say that we care so much that it becomes paralyzing. Tell us about this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, one of the myths you debunk right away is that procrastinators, you know, don’t care. In fact, you say that we care so much that it becomes paralyzing. Tell us about this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. So there is this misconception where people think about procrastination as sort of equivalent to laziness. And under this conceptualization of procrastination, it’s basically, okay, people procrastinate because they don’t care enough. But what actually happens usually is that people care too much. And by that I mean, maybe they want to write a book, for example, and it’s something they’re really excited about. They’re very, very enthusiastic. Inside their brain is shouting, just do it already. But the problem is they’re too afraid that it’ll go wrong, they’ll be criticized, that their writing won’t be good enough, that they won’t be good enough.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. So there is this misconception where people think about procrastination as sort of equivalent to laziness. And under this conceptualization of procrastination, it’s basically, okay, people procrastinate because they don’t care enough. But what actually happens usually is that people care too much. And by that I mean, maybe they want to write a book, for example, and it’s something they’re really excited about. They’re very, very enthusiastic. Inside their brain is shouting, just do it already. But the problem is they’re too afraid that it’ll go wrong, they’ll be criticized, that their writing won’t be good enough, that they won’t be good enough.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the more you care about these things, and the more these mental obstacles like anxiety and perfectionism get in the way, the harder it is to take action when you need to.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the more you care about these things, and the more these mental obstacles like anxiety and perfectionism get in the way, the harder it is to take action when you need to.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, the other thing that you bring up is the misconception that addressing procrastination is just a matter of willpower. What effect does this misconception have?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, the other thing that you bring up is the misconception that addressing procrastination is just a matter of willpower. What effect does this misconception have?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so there’s something I call the self-control fallacy. And that’s basically the idea that if we just try harder, we’ll be able to do what we need to when we need to. And the problem with this, it’s very tempting because it offers a sort of silver bullet where, okay, I just need to turn up the dial for willpower and then I’ll be able to do it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so there’s something I call the self-control fallacy. And that’s basically the idea that if we just try harder, we’ll be able to do what we need to when we need to. And the problem with this, it’s very tempting because it offers a sort of silver bullet where, okay, I just need to turn up the dial for willpower and then I’ll be able to do it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it makes sense when you think about it because, again, procrastination is irrational. There’s no reason we should do it. So when we’re sitting there and thinking about something that we’ll do later, it’s easy and very comforting to tell ourselves, okay, we’ll be able to do it because we’ll try harder and I’m not going to be irrational again.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it makes sense when you think about it because, again, procrastination is irrational. There’s no reason we should do it. So when we’re sitting there and thinking about something that we’ll do later, it’s easy and very comforting to tell ourselves, okay, we’ll be able to do it because we’ll try harder and I’m not going to be irrational again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The problem with this is that it fails. And it fails again and again. And every time we keep believing that it’s going to be different next time because there are lots of cognitive biases that kind of trick our minds into thinking that’s going to be the case.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The problem with this is that it fails. And it fails again and again. And every time we keep believing that it’s going to be different next time because there are lots of cognitive biases that kind of trick our minds into thinking that’s going to be the case.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, for example, there is the bias blind spot, which makes us really good at noticing when other people are irrational and really bad at noticing when we’re doing it. And there’s also something called the empathy gap, when we’re sitting there and we’re in a cool emotional state, so we’re rational. We’re not facing something scary at the moment. We’re not facing any temptation at the moment. It’s very easy to think of ourselves as rational beings, but that’s very different from what happens when we’re actually facing, okay, now we need to sit down and write this thing that I’m scared of writing, or make this call that I am afraid of making, or maybe I’m sitting in front of social media and that’s actually drawing my attention, and now my brain is trying to, on the one hand, focus and, on the other hand, deal with this temptation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, for example, there is the bias blind spot, which makes us really good at noticing when other people are irrational and really bad at noticing when we’re doing it. And there’s also something called the empathy gap, when we’re sitting there and we’re in a cool emotional state, so we’re rational. We’re not facing something scary at the moment. We’re not facing any temptation at the moment. It’s very easy to think of ourselves as rational beings, but that’s very different from what happens when we’re actually facing, okay, now we need to sit down and write this thing that I’m scared of writing, or make this call that I am afraid of making, or maybe I’m sitting in front of social media and that’s actually drawing my attention, and now my brain is trying to, on the one hand, focus and, on the other hand, deal with this temptation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And what all this means is that when we think that our willpower will be enough, that our self-control will be, we end up not preparing for the actual obstacles we’ll face. And that causes us to keep getting trapped in the procrastination cycle, where we procrastinate again and again, and we’re not actually trying to solve it the right way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And what all this means is that when we think that our willpower will be enough, that our self-control will be, we end up not preparing for the actual obstacles we’ll face. And that causes us to keep getting trapped in the procrastination cycle, where we procrastinate again and again, and we’re not actually trying to solve it the right way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And these misconceptions, you know, laziness, a lack of willpower, they sound like, you know, procrastination has essentially been treated as a character flaw, which I imagine can make us judge ourselves negatively for procrastinating, which, I’m sure, doesn’t help at all.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And these misconceptions, you know, laziness, a lack of willpower, they sound like, you know, procrastination has essentially been treated as a character flaw, which I imagine can make us judge ourselves negatively for procrastinating, which, I’m sure, doesn’t help at all.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s not only wrong, it is also unproductive and it’s unconstructive. And the problem is that when people are told, okay, if you procrastinate, that means that you’re not trying hard enough, or that means you’re just lazy, again, it basically means that they’re not actually trying to solve the problem using solutions that address the issues they’re facing. So they’re actually not trying to solve their anxiety or their perfectionism or the distraction or whatever it is because they think, okay, I’ll just exert more willpower and that will get me to do the things that I need to.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s not only wrong, it is also unproductive and it’s unconstructive. And the problem is that when people are told, okay, if you procrastinate, that means that you’re not trying hard enough, or that means you’re just lazy, again, it basically means that they’re not actually trying to solve the problem using solutions that address the issues they’re facing. So they’re actually not trying to solve their anxiety or their perfectionism or the distraction or whatever it is because they think, okay, I’ll just exert more willpower and that will get me to do the things that I need to.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And beyond that, it also causes a lot of pain. It causes shame, it causes guilt, it increases the frustration when people are already frustrated because they know they should be doing things and they’re not. And usually what that does is it shuts us down because then whatever it is we need to do becomes even more painful. It becomes more aversive.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And beyond that, it also causes a lot of pain. It causes shame, it causes guilt, it increases the frustration when people are already frustrated because they know they should be doing things and they’re not. And usually what that does is it shuts us down because then whatever it is we need to do becomes even more painful. It becomes more aversive.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So let’s say we have a task that we’ve been putting off. Like maybe, let’s say, we want to change our habits. You want to start exercising. And then somebody tells us, okay, if you haven’t started doing it yet, you’re lazy. And now in our mind, whenever we think about exercising, we have this light bulb going up that says, wait, I’m lazy. I’m a lazy person. I should be ashamed of myself.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So let’s say we have a task that we’ve been putting off. Like maybe, let’s say, we want to change our habits. You want to start exercising. And then somebody tells us, okay, if you haven’t started doing it yet, you’re lazy. And now in our mind, whenever we think about exercising, we have this light bulb going up that says, wait, I’m lazy. I’m a lazy person. I should be ashamed of myself.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then even though engaging in exercising, engaging in the behavior we’re trying to do, would make us feel better, we associate even more negative emotions with it now because of all the criticism and the judgment. That makes us even less likely to actually do it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then even though engaging in exercising, engaging in the behavior we’re trying to do, would make us feel better, we associate even more negative emotions with it now because of all the criticism and the judgment. That makes us even less likely to actually do it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the most painful thing here is that this can cause a sort of vicious cycle where we want to do something, we get negative feedback whenever we think about it, whenever we want to engage with it, so we put it off, then we feel worse, we put off more, and that basically feeds on itself. It makes it harder and harder for us to do what we need to unless we find ways to break the cycle.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the most painful thing here is that this can cause a sort of vicious cycle where we want to do something, we get negative feedback whenever we think about it, whenever we want to engage with it, so we put it off, then we feel worse, we put off more, and that basically feeds on itself. It makes it harder and harder for us to do what we need to unless we find ways to break the cycle.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with Itamar Shatz, a researcher and lecturer at Cambridge University, about the psychology behind why we procrastinate. And you, our listeners, are sharing your thoughts, questions and your own experiences around this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with Itamar Shatz, a researcher and lecturer at Cambridge University, about the psychology behind why we procrastinate. And you, our listeners, are sharing your thoughts, questions and your own experiences around this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Eloise in Oakland writes, “I find that I procrastinate on things that are important but not urgent until I take care of things that are urgent. And then I run out of time to do the important thing.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And Jenny writes, “Oh my God, this episode is a story of my life. I have a PhD in procrastinating. And I know that my biggest related culprit is perfectionism.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’ll dig into that after the break. Stay with us. I’m Mina Kim. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Tuesday, August 25, 2026 at 10 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’ve all done it: put off that email, project… or even something we genuinely want to do. But why do we procrastinate? Researcher Itamar Schatz says it’s not that we’re just lazy, distracted or bad at managing our time, but that often procrastinators care more rather than less about what they’re doing and fear the possibility of failure. We’ll look at new research that explores the hidden psychology behind why we delay — and tools to finally get moving.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz,\u003c/strong> affiliated lecturer, Cambridge University; author, \u003cem>Solving Procrastination The Science of Why We Put Things Off and How to (Finally!) Stop\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. Itamar Shatz says the reason solving procrastination is so hard is because what we’ve often been told about it is wrong — like the common misconception that it’s simply a matter of willpower. This leads us to tackle procrastination with approaches that don’t work, causing frustration, stress and guilt that can even make us defer our dreams. But Shatz says ending the cycle of procrastination is entirely possible. And this hour, we’ll hear what he’s learned from his research into this complex phenomenon.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are you or someone you know a procrastinator, listeners? How does it affect you? You can post your comments on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook or Instagram. We’re @KQEDForum. You can email forum@kqed.org or call 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Itamar Shatz is a researcher and lecturer at Cambridge University, where he teaches quantitative and computational research. I want to ask you, actually, because as I was reading your title, I was struck by the fact that if you teach quantitative research methods at Cambridge, how did you end up wanting to study procrastination?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Well, as all great stories begin, by procrastinating to myself. So, in school, when I was in high school, I was a huge procrastinator. And I mean the typical stay-up — you know, you have a semester-long project and then you keep saying, okay, I’ll do it tomorrow, I’ll do it next week, I’ll do it next week, and suddenly it’s the end of the semester tomorrow and the project is due and I haven’t started yet. Then I would stay up all night. I would get away with doing that, but it was never a good experience, and I think it never ended well in terms of performance either.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I could get away with good grades, but not as much as I could if I’d actually done the work well. So I was really familiar with how frustrating procrastination is and how kind of insane it is, in the sense that you know you shouldn’t be doing it, but you still find yourself doing it again and again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then, when I was a bit older and was doing my master’s, I started wanting to do things better. I wanted to be productive, make better decisions, communicate better. And I figured, okay, let’s go to science to figure out how to do that. And I started reading about things like cognitive biases and communication techniques and things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I figured, okay, if doing this is useful for me, it will probably also be useful for other people. And I started writing these notes up and publishing them as articles. And at a certain point I said, you know what I haven’t covered so far? Procrastination. And I decided to write an article about procrastination. And then, as I was going into it, I realized this is way too big of a problem. It’s too common, it’s too painful, it’s too frustrating. I can’t cover everything I need to say about it in a single article.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I said, let’s do two articles. Let’s do a series. Let’s go a whole website. And from there, I just realized there’s so much that needs to be said about it and so much I could help people that it just grew and grew and eventually became the book that I’m publishing today.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it is really common. You write that one in five adults procrastinate. So when you’re talking about procrastination, what do you mean exactly?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> So, what if I was procrastinating chronically, which means they do it very often and for very long, but pretty much all of us procrastinate. And when this happens, basically we put off something that we know we should do, even though we know it would be better for us to do it, and usually despite our best intentions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So when we tell ourselves, I’m gonna study for this test, or I’m going to write this email, I’m going to make this phone call, I’m going to start writing my book, I’m going to change my habits and start exercising. I’m going to talk to this person I’m interested in, and then we keep finding reasons to do it tomorrow instead, or to do it soon, or in five minutes, or just after this one more video. And when this happens again and again, we’re basically procrastinating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, one of the myths you debunk right away is that procrastinators, you know, don’t care. In fact, you say that we care so much that it becomes paralyzing. Tell us about this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. So there is this misconception where people think about procrastination as sort of equivalent to laziness. And under this conceptualization of procrastination, it’s basically, okay, people procrastinate because they don’t care enough. But what actually happens usually is that people care too much. And by that I mean, maybe they want to write a book, for example, and it’s something they’re really excited about. They’re very, very enthusiastic. Inside their brain is shouting, just do it already. But the problem is they’re too afraid that it’ll go wrong, they’ll be criticized, that their writing won’t be good enough, that they won’t be good enough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the more you care about these things, and the more these mental obstacles like anxiety and perfectionism get in the way, the harder it is to take action when you need to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, the other thing that you bring up is the misconception that addressing procrastination is just a matter of willpower. What effect does this misconception have?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so there’s something I call the self-control fallacy. And that’s basically the idea that if we just try harder, we’ll be able to do what we need to when we need to. And the problem with this, it’s very tempting because it offers a sort of silver bullet where, okay, I just need to turn up the dial for willpower and then I’ll be able to do it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it makes sense when you think about it because, again, procrastination is irrational. There’s no reason we should do it. So when we’re sitting there and thinking about something that we’ll do later, it’s easy and very comforting to tell ourselves, okay, we’ll be able to do it because we’ll try harder and I’m not going to be irrational again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The problem with this is that it fails. And it fails again and again. And every time we keep believing that it’s going to be different next time because there are lots of cognitive biases that kind of trick our minds into thinking that’s going to be the case.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, for example, there is the bias blind spot, which makes us really good at noticing when other people are irrational and really bad at noticing when we’re doing it. And there’s also something called the empathy gap, when we’re sitting there and we’re in a cool emotional state, so we’re rational. We’re not facing something scary at the moment. We’re not facing any temptation at the moment. It’s very easy to think of ourselves as rational beings, but that’s very different from what happens when we’re actually facing, okay, now we need to sit down and write this thing that I’m scared of writing, or make this call that I am afraid of making, or maybe I’m sitting in front of social media and that’s actually drawing my attention, and now my brain is trying to, on the one hand, focus and, on the other hand, deal with this temptation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And what all this means is that when we think that our willpower will be enough, that our self-control will be, we end up not preparing for the actual obstacles we’ll face. And that causes us to keep getting trapped in the procrastination cycle, where we procrastinate again and again, and we’re not actually trying to solve it the right way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And these misconceptions, you know, laziness, a lack of willpower, they sound like, you know, procrastination has essentially been treated as a character flaw, which I imagine can make us judge ourselves negatively for procrastinating, which, I’m sure, doesn’t help at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Itamar Shatz:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’s not only wrong, it is also unproductive and it’s unconstructive. And the problem is that when people are told, okay, if you procrastinate, that means that you’re not trying hard enough, or that means you’re just lazy, again, it basically means that they’re not actually trying to solve the problem using solutions that address the issues they’re facing. So they’re actually not trying to solve their anxiety or their perfectionism or the distraction or whatever it is because they think, okay, I’ll just exert more willpower and that will get me to do the things that I need to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And beyond that, it also causes a lot of pain. It causes shame, it causes guilt, it increases the frustration when people are already frustrated because they know they should be doing things and they’re not. And usually what that does is it shuts us down because then whatever it is we need to do becomes even more painful. It becomes more aversive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So let’s say we have a task that we’ve been putting off. Like maybe, let’s say, we want to change our habits. You want to start exercising. And then somebody tells us, okay, if you haven’t started doing it yet, you’re lazy. And now in our mind, whenever we think about exercising, we have this light bulb going up that says, wait, I’m lazy. I’m a lazy person. I should be ashamed of myself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then even though engaging in exercising, engaging in the behavior we’re trying to do, would make us feel better, we associate even more negative emotions with it now because of all the criticism and the judgment. That makes us even less likely to actually do it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the most painful thing here is that this can cause a sort of vicious cycle where we want to do something, we get negative feedback whenever we think about it, whenever we want to engage with it, so we put it off, then we feel worse, we put off more, and that basically feeds on itself. It makes it harder and harder for us to do what we need to unless we find ways to break the cycle.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with Itamar Shatz, a researcher and lecturer at Cambridge University, about the psychology behind why we procrastinate. And you, our listeners, are sharing your thoughts, questions and your own experiences around this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eloise in Oakland writes, “I find that I procrastinate on things that are important but not urgent until I take care of things that are urgent. And then I run out of time to do the important thing.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And Jenny writes, “Oh my God, this episode is a story of my life. I have a PhD in procrastinating. And I know that my biggest related culprit is perfectionism.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll dig into that after the break. Stay with us. I’m Mina Kim. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Thursday, August 20, 2026 at 10 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The San Diego-based naval carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed to the Middle East to support Iran war operations for nearly nine months. The ship has not stopped at port since\u003cbr>December 2025, setting a record for the most consecutive days at sea without a port call. Sailors aboard the Lincoln and their families are now sounding the alarm, reporting food shortages, sanitation issues and deteriorating mental health among personnel. One crew member was rescued after going overboard. We look at what the Lincoln’s historic deployment reveals about the demands of the war in Iran — and the military’s ability to protect service members.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>John Ismay\u003c/strong>, reporter, The New York Times; former naval officer\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Kate Kuzminski\u003c/strong>, Director of Studies, Center for a New American Security\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath, \u003c/strong>covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Alex Padilla, \u003c/strong>U.S. Senator representing California\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. Sailors and their family members say service members aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have endured food and water shortages, disruptions in mail and communication with family, and long workdays without a port stop for a record length of time, when sailors can get off the ship for a couple of days. The Lincoln left San Diego in November of last year for a Pacific deployment that was expected to end in May, when it was redirected to the Middle East with still no announced end date.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This hour, we take a closer look at why this is happening and the toll it’s taking. And joining me first is Alison Bath, who covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes. Alison, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here today.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So you’ve been in touch with sailors on the Lincoln, as well as their family members. What have they told you about the mental and physical toll this is taking?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> What they told me was that they had endured food shortages, that there had been problems on the ship with water, specifically having hot water for showers, and that they had a stretch — about a 10-day stretch — where they had not been able to do any laundry.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They had also told me about concerns about mental health. And these were reports that we were getting in July and earlier this month: concerns about mental health, concerns that some sailors may be thinking about harming themselves, those type of things. And that was very disturbing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we’ve heard very disturbing reports about sailors attempting to jump overboard or expressing a desire to. What were some of these messages that family members were receiving or even sailors were communicating?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I think about some of the ones that we received. And one of the first ones I received was from a family member who reached out to us because their sailor asked them to. And their sailor had expressed the fact that they were under physical and mental strain and that they really needed help.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And what was very heartbreaking, if you will, was the family member’s reaction when I was speaking with them. They mentioned that they were very concerned because this sailor had said that there were sailors who were thinking about self-harm, and this family member was concerned that their sailor was one of them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I also went to a meeting earlier this month that the Navy had with spouses and a board that have sailors aboard the ship. And one of the poignant things that was shared with me by another spouse was that there was a spouse there who told officials that she had heard from her husband that very day a message that said he hoped he didn’t wake up the next day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that, again, was a very profound moment and very hard to hear. And I also think about the mother who wrote us and told us that it was very difficult for her to hear her son, who was a sailor, and his fellow sailors talking about jumping off the ship just for relief.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes. What has the Navy and administration said in response to these reports, these stories of deteriorating mental health?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> When I reported my story at that meeting earlier this month, they told the spouses that they had mental health resources on the ship. That they had counselors, that they had doctors, that they had chaplains, and that they were working to get more there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since then, the Navy has come out and said that they have these resources on this ship. Also, that the ship has among the lowest rates of mental health cases among all carriers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They did also say that there had been a sailor that had fallen overboard earlier this month, but that was not the case that I discovered when sailors told me that a few months prior to this, that a sailor had been talked out of jumping off the ship by watchstanders, and that that event was announced via the ship’s system to say that that sailor had been stopped and that sailor was getting the resources that they needed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So I also heard Admiral Brad Cooper state that the USS Abraham Lincoln currently has among the lowest number of mental health cases. So, Alison, is that a reliable reflection of what’s happening on the ship, the case numbers?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I do not have the case numbers. I’ve asked the Navy for them, and I have not received a response to that yet. I don’t know that it is a reliable reflection, mainly because we need the numbers to know that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think that, you know, it is important to recognize that the Navy is taking actions to address mental health among sailors. And I think one of the things that can point to this is Admiral Cottle’s order about this time last year that no sailors should have to live on ships unless they wanted to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so the Navy has moved thousands of junior sailors that were assigned to live on ships off of those ships. So, for example, here in Naples, where I am, the command and control ship, Mount Whitney, had about 54 junior sailors that were recently moved off of that ship.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that was really important, that they weren’t living on the ship day in and day out, and they now are in private housing. So the Navy is making efforts to address mental health and the well-being of its sailors. What those numbers mean and what Admiral Cooper was talking about, I don’t know yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’ve been hearing reports that sailors are saying that the hardest part of all, among the many difficulties that they’ve experienced with regard to conditions, is the open-ended nature of the deployment, Alison.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> Yes, absolutely. They wanted, when I spoke with them, and I have spoken with them since my story published, they wanted an end date. They want to know, you know, that date. I had a sailor explain to me that that date is everything, whether that date that you’re going to go home or it’s the date that you’re going to make a port call.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s the day that you hold on to. It’s the date that makes everything seem, you know, that there’s something to look forward to. And then when that date either doesn’t come, as in the case of having regular port calls, or you don’t know exactly, your deployment is open-ended, it can really play havoc with a sailor and their sense, their morale.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. And what kind of toll is this taking on the families who’ve been absorbing messages from the sailors, the media reports that are saying that, you know, the president and the defense secretary have been somewhat dismissive of their concerns and, of course, the fact that they just have not seen their sailors for nine months, have no clear idea when they will?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> What the families told me is that they were very concerned. They were very worried. And they wanted to know that their sailors were being well taken care of, that their sailors were eating, that their sailors had mail, another important thing for sailors to have when they’re deployed or at sea, and that their mental health issues were being addressed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That’s what I was hearing repeatedly from the families. And the families wanted them to come home, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Alison, there was a line in one of your pieces where a family member said, “I’m just actively watching my sailor kind of break down.” I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your reporting with us. Alison, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> It’s my pleasure. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Alison Bath is a reporter who covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes. And listeners, join the conversation with your questions and reactions to all this at 866-733-6786, by posting on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook or Instagram, or by emailing \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I want to bring John Ismay into the conversation now. New York Times reporter covering the Pentagon and a naval officer. John, thank you so much for being with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>John Ismay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So you were deployed on the USS Nimitz for 239 days between 2009 and 2010. Help us understand the environment these Navy officers are in. What’s it like on an aircraft carrier?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>John Ismay:\u003c/strong> Well, life is a lot different on a carrier than it is on a smaller ship, like a destroyer, which is what I deployed on my first time in 2000.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On an aircraft carrier, you often don’t really have a sense of relative motion from the sea, whereas on a small ship like a destroyer, if the seas are rough, you will definitely feel it. There’s definitely more room on a carrier than a smaller combatant.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But this type of situation that Lincoln has been in certainly presents a profound leadership challenge all up and down the chain of command on that ship, from the commanding officer, through the wardroom of officers to the chiefs’ mess, where the chief petty officers lead enlisted sailors.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so I don’t think any of them are super happy about the length of time that they’ve been out. And they’re doing their best to keep everyone going and keep the ship going so that it can accomplish its mission. But it is challenging.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I’ve heard you compare it to, you know, being in your office, unable to leave it, or the floor that your office is on, you know, for almost a year and not being able to take any weekends off. So is that what it’s like, just a series of small rooms?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>John Ismay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, of varying sizes, but certainly where sailors sleep, it’s pretty close quarters. For a junior enlisted sailor, you might be in a single space with 70 or 80 other sailors, whereas if you’re a junior officer like I was, I was fortunate enough to have my living quarters just shared with one other person.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So you’re seeing the same people day after day after day, and the routine can feel the same, too. I think on my last deployment, we were officially banned from using the term Groundhog Day to describe it, an allusion to that Bill Murray movie where it’s the same day every day when he wakes up. But that’s honestly how it felt a lot of the time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One thing about a carrier versus a smaller ship is that the carriers tend to deploy for slightly longer periods of time. And they often spend much longer stretches of time at sea between ports, whereas, you know, say, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer might have to pull into port far more frequently, you know, just because of the wear and tear on the crew.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with John Ismay, New York Times reporter covering the Pentagon and naval officer, who also knows what it’s like to be deployed on an aircraft carrier like the USS Lincoln. And we’ll have more with him and with you, our listeners, after the break. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The San Diego-based naval carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed to the Middle East to support Iran war operations for nearly nine months. The ship has not stopped at port since\u003cbr>December 2025, setting a record for the most consecutive days at sea without a port call. Sailors aboard the Lincoln and their families are now sounding the alarm, reporting food shortages, sanitation issues and deteriorating mental health among personnel. One crew member was rescued after going overboard. We look at what the Lincoln’s historic deployment reveals about the demands of the war in Iran — and the military’s ability to protect service members.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The San Diego-based naval carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed to the Middle East to support Iran war operations for nearly nine months. The ship has not stopped at port since\u003cbr>December 2025, setting a record for the most consecutive days at sea without a port call. Sailors aboard the Lincoln and their families are now sounding the alarm, reporting food shortages, sanitation issues and deteriorating mental health among personnel. One crew member was rescued after going overboard. We look at what the Lincoln’s historic deployment reveals about the demands of the war in Iran — and the military’s ability to protect service members.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>John Ismay\u003c/strong>, reporter, The New York Times; former naval officer\u003c/li>\n",
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"\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>John Ismay\u003c/strong>, reporter, The New York Times; former naval officer\u003c/li>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Kate Kuzminski\u003c/strong>, Director of Studies, Center for a New American Security\u003c/li>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath, \u003c/strong>covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes\u003c/li>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Alex Padilla, \u003c/strong>U.S. Senator representing California\u003c/li>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. Sailors and their family members say service members aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have endured food and water shortages, disruptions in mail and communication with family, and long workdays without a port stop for a record length of time, when sailors can get off the ship for a couple of days. The Lincoln left San Diego in November of last year for a Pacific deployment that was expected to end in May, when it was redirected to the Middle East with still no announced end date.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. Sailors and their family members say service members aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have endured food and water shortages, disruptions in mail and communication with family, and long workdays without a port stop for a record length of time, when sailors can get off the ship for a couple of days. The Lincoln left San Diego in November of last year for a Pacific deployment that was expected to end in May, when it was redirected to the Middle East with still no announced end date.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This hour, we take a closer look at why this is happening and the toll it’s taking. And joining me first is Alison Bath, who covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes. Alison, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This hour, we take a closer look at why this is happening and the toll it’s taking. And joining me first is Alison Bath, who covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes. Alison, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here today.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So you’ve been in touch with sailors on the Lincoln, as well as their family members. What have they told you about the mental and physical toll this is taking?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So you’ve been in touch with sailors on the Lincoln, as well as their family members. What have they told you about the mental and physical toll this is taking?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> What they told me was that they had endured food shortages, that there had been problems on the ship with water, specifically having hot water for showers, and that they had a stretch — about a 10-day stretch — where they had not been able to do any laundry.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> What they told me was that they had endured food shortages, that there had been problems on the ship with water, specifically having hot water for showers, and that they had a stretch — about a 10-day stretch — where they had not been able to do any laundry.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They had also told me about concerns about mental health. And these were reports that we were getting in July and earlier this month: concerns about mental health, concerns that some sailors may be thinking about harming themselves, those type of things. And that was very disturbing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They had also told me about concerns about mental health. And these were reports that we were getting in July and earlier this month: concerns about mental health, concerns that some sailors may be thinking about harming themselves, those type of things. And that was very disturbing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we’ve heard very disturbing reports about sailors attempting to jump overboard or expressing a desire to. What were some of these messages that family members were receiving or even sailors were communicating?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we’ve heard very disturbing reports about sailors attempting to jump overboard or expressing a desire to. What were some of these messages that family members were receiving or even sailors were communicating?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I think about some of the ones that we received. And one of the first ones I received was from a family member who reached out to us because their sailor asked them to. And their sailor had expressed the fact that they were under physical and mental strain and that they really needed help.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I think about some of the ones that we received. And one of the first ones I received was from a family member who reached out to us because their sailor asked them to. And their sailor had expressed the fact that they were under physical and mental strain and that they really needed help.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And what was very heartbreaking, if you will, was the family member’s reaction when I was speaking with them. They mentioned that they were very concerned because this sailor had said that there were sailors who were thinking about self-harm, and this family member was concerned that their sailor was one of them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And what was very heartbreaking, if you will, was the family member’s reaction when I was speaking with them. They mentioned that they were very concerned because this sailor had said that there were sailors who were thinking about self-harm, and this family member was concerned that their sailor was one of them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I also went to a meeting earlier this month that the Navy had with spouses and a board that have sailors aboard the ship. And one of the poignant things that was shared with me by another spouse was that there was a spouse there who told officials that she had heard from her husband that very day a message that said he hoped he didn’t wake up the next day.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I also went to a meeting earlier this month that the Navy had with spouses and a board that have sailors aboard the ship. And one of the poignant things that was shared with me by another spouse was that there was a spouse there who told officials that she had heard from her husband that very day a message that said he hoped he didn’t wake up the next day.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And that, again, was a very profound moment and very hard to hear. And I also think about the mother who wrote us and told us that it was very difficult for her to hear her son, who was a sailor, and his fellow sailors talking about jumping off the ship just for relief.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And that, again, was a very profound moment and very hard to hear. And I also think about the mother who wrote us and told us that it was very difficult for her to hear her son, who was a sailor, and his fellow sailors talking about jumping off the ship just for relief.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes. What has the Navy and administration said in response to these reports, these stories of deteriorating mental health?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> When I reported my story at that meeting earlier this month, they told the spouses that they had mental health resources on the ship. That they had counselors, that they had doctors, that they had chaplains, and that they were working to get more there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> When I reported my story at that meeting earlier this month, they told the spouses that they had mental health resources on the ship. That they had counselors, that they had doctors, that they had chaplains, and that they were working to get more there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Since then, the Navy has come out and said that they have these resources on this ship. Also, that the ship has among the lowest rates of mental health cases among all carriers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Since then, the Navy has come out and said that they have these resources on this ship. Also, that the ship has among the lowest rates of mental health cases among all carriers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They did also say that there had been a sailor that had fallen overboard earlier this month, but that was not the case that I discovered when sailors told me that a few months prior to this, that a sailor had been talked out of jumping off the ship by watchstanders, and that that event was announced via the ship’s system to say that that sailor had been stopped and that sailor was getting the resources that they needed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They did also say that there had been a sailor that had fallen overboard earlier this month, but that was not the case that I discovered when sailors told me that a few months prior to this, that a sailor had been talked out of jumping off the ship by watchstanders, and that that event was announced via the ship’s system to say that that sailor had been stopped and that sailor was getting the resources that they needed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So I also heard Admiral Brad Cooper state that the USS Abraham Lincoln currently has among the lowest number of mental health cases. So, Alison, is that a reliable reflection of what’s happening on the ship, the case numbers?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So I also heard Admiral Brad Cooper state that the USS Abraham Lincoln currently has among the lowest number of mental health cases. So, Alison, is that a reliable reflection of what’s happening on the ship, the case numbers?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I do not have the case numbers. I’ve asked the Navy for them, and I have not received a response to that yet. I don’t know that it is a reliable reflection, mainly because we need the numbers to know that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I do not have the case numbers. I’ve asked the Navy for them, and I have not received a response to that yet. I don’t know that it is a reliable reflection, mainly because we need the numbers to know that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think that, you know, it is important to recognize that the Navy is taking actions to address mental health among sailors. And I think one of the things that can point to this is Admiral Cottle’s order about this time last year that no sailors should have to live on ships unless they wanted to.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think that, you know, it is important to recognize that the Navy is taking actions to address mental health among sailors. And I think one of the things that can point to this is Admiral Cottle’s order about this time last year that no sailors should have to live on ships unless they wanted to.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so the Navy has moved thousands of junior sailors that were assigned to live on ships off of those ships. So, for example, here in Naples, where I am, the command and control ship, Mount Whitney, had about 54 junior sailors that were recently moved off of that ship.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so the Navy has moved thousands of junior sailors that were assigned to live on ships off of those ships. So, for example, here in Naples, where I am, the command and control ship, Mount Whitney, had about 54 junior sailors that were recently moved off of that ship.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And that was really important, that they weren’t living on the ship day in and day out, and they now are in private housing. So the Navy is making efforts to address mental health and the well-being of its sailors. What those numbers mean and what Admiral Cooper was talking about, I don’t know yet.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And that was really important, that they weren’t living on the ship day in and day out, and they now are in private housing. So the Navy is making efforts to address mental health and the well-being of its sailors. What those numbers mean and what Admiral Cooper was talking about, I don’t know yet.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’ve been hearing reports that sailors are saying that the hardest part of all, among the many difficulties that they’ve experienced with regard to conditions, is the open-ended nature of the deployment, Alison.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’ve been hearing reports that sailors are saying that the hardest part of all, among the many difficulties that they’ve experienced with regard to conditions, is the open-ended nature of the deployment, Alison.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> Yes, absolutely. They wanted, when I spoke with them, and I have spoken with them since my story published, they wanted an end date. They want to know, you know, that date. I had a sailor explain to me that that date is everything, whether that date that you’re going to go home or it’s the date that you’re going to make a port call.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> Yes, absolutely. They wanted, when I spoke with them, and I have spoken with them since my story published, they wanted an end date. They want to know, you know, that date. I had a sailor explain to me that that date is everything, whether that date that you’re going to go home or it’s the date that you’re going to make a port call.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s the day that you hold on to. It’s the date that makes everything seem, you know, that there’s something to look forward to. And then when that date either doesn’t come, as in the case of having regular port calls, or you don’t know exactly, your deployment is open-ended, it can really play havoc with a sailor and their sense, their morale.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s the day that you hold on to. It’s the date that makes everything seem, you know, that there’s something to look forward to. And then when that date either doesn’t come, as in the case of having regular port calls, or you don’t know exactly, your deployment is open-ended, it can really play havoc with a sailor and their sense, their morale.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. And what kind of toll is this taking on the families who’ve been absorbing messages from the sailors, the media reports that are saying that, you know, the president and the defense secretary have been somewhat dismissive of their concerns and, of course, the fact that they just have not seen their sailors for nine months, have no clear idea when they will?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. And what kind of toll is this taking on the families who’ve been absorbing messages from the sailors, the media reports that are saying that, you know, the president and the defense secretary have been somewhat dismissive of their concerns and, of course, the fact that they just have not seen their sailors for nine months, have no clear idea when they will?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> What the families told me is that they were very concerned. They were very worried. And they wanted to know that their sailors were being well taken care of, that their sailors were eating, that their sailors had mail, another important thing for sailors to have when they’re deployed or at sea, and that their mental health issues were being addressed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> What the families told me is that they were very concerned. They were very worried. And they wanted to know that their sailors were being well taken care of, that their sailors were eating, that their sailors had mail, another important thing for sailors to have when they’re deployed or at sea, and that their mental health issues were being addressed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s what I was hearing repeatedly from the families. And the families wanted them to come home, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s what I was hearing repeatedly from the families. And the families wanted them to come home, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Alison, there was a line in one of your pieces where a family member said, “I’m just actively watching my sailor kind of break down.” I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your reporting with us. Alison, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Alison, there was a line in one of your pieces where a family member said, “I’m just actively watching my sailor kind of break down.” I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your reporting with us. Alison, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> It’s my pleasure. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> It’s my pleasure. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Alison Bath is a reporter who covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes. And listeners, join the conversation with your questions and reactions to all this at 866-733-6786, by posting on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook or Instagram, or by emailing \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Alison Bath is a reporter who covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes. And listeners, join the conversation with your questions and reactions to all this at 866-733-6786, by posting on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook or Instagram, or by emailing \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I want to bring John Ismay into the conversation now. New York Times reporter covering the Pentagon and a naval officer. John, thank you so much for being with us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I want to bring John Ismay into the conversation now. New York Times reporter covering the Pentagon and a naval officer. John, thank you so much for being with us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>John Ismay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So you were deployed on the USS Nimitz for 239 days between 2009 and 2010. Help us understand the environment these Navy officers are in. What’s it like on an aircraft carrier?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>John Ismay:\u003c/strong> Well, life is a lot different on a carrier than it is on a smaller ship, like a destroyer, which is what I deployed on my first time in 2000.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>On an aircraft carrier, you often don’t really have a sense of relative motion from the sea, whereas on a small ship like a destroyer, if the seas are rough, you will definitely feel it. There’s definitely more room on a carrier than a smaller combatant.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But this type of situation that Lincoln has been in certainly presents a profound leadership challenge all up and down the chain of command on that ship, from the commanding officer, through the wardroom of officers to the chiefs’ mess, where the chief petty officers lead enlisted sailors.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so I don’t think any of them are super happy about the length of time that they’ve been out. And they’re doing their best to keep everyone going and keep the ship going so that it can accomplish its mission. But it is challenging.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I’ve heard you compare it to, you know, being in your office, unable to leave it, or the floor that your office is on, you know, for almost a year and not being able to take any weekends off. So is that what it’s like, just a series of small rooms?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>John Ismay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, of varying sizes, but certainly where sailors sleep, it’s pretty close quarters. For a junior enlisted sailor, you might be in a single space with 70 or 80 other sailors, whereas if you’re a junior officer like I was, I was fortunate enough to have my living quarters just shared with one other person.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So you’re seeing the same people day after day after day, and the routine can feel the same, too. I think on my last deployment, we were officially banned from using the term Groundhog Day to describe it, an allusion to that Bill Murray movie where it’s the same day every day when he wakes up. But that’s honestly how it felt a lot of the time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One thing about a carrier versus a smaller ship is that the carriers tend to deploy for slightly longer periods of time. And they often spend much longer stretches of time at sea between ports, whereas, you know, say, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer might have to pull into port far more frequently, you know, just because of the wear and tear on the crew.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with John Ismay, New York Times reporter covering the Pentagon and naval officer, who also knows what it’s like to be deployed on an aircraft carrier like the USS Lincoln. And we’ll have more with him and with you, our listeners, after the break. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Thursday, August 20, 2026 at 10 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The San Diego-based naval carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed to the Middle East to support Iran war operations for nearly nine months. The ship has not stopped at port since\u003cbr>December 2025, setting a record for the most consecutive days at sea without a port call. Sailors aboard the Lincoln and their families are now sounding the alarm, reporting food shortages, sanitation issues and deteriorating mental health among personnel. One crew member was rescued after going overboard. We look at what the Lincoln’s historic deployment reveals about the demands of the war in Iran — and the military’s ability to protect service members.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>John Ismay\u003c/strong>, reporter, The New York Times; former naval officer\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Kate Kuzminski\u003c/strong>, Director of Studies, Center for a New American Security\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Alison Bath, \u003c/strong>covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Alex Padilla, \u003c/strong>U.S. Senator representing California\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. Sailors and their family members say service members aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have endured food and water shortages, disruptions in mail and communication with family, and long workdays without a port stop for a record length of time, when sailors can get off the ship for a couple of days. The Lincoln left San Diego in November of last year for a Pacific deployment that was expected to end in May, when it was redirected to the Middle East with still no announced end date.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This hour, we take a closer look at why this is happening and the toll it’s taking. And joining me first is Alison Bath, who covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes. Alison, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here today.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So you’ve been in touch with sailors on the Lincoln, as well as their family members. What have they told you about the mental and physical toll this is taking?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> What they told me was that they had endured food shortages, that there had been problems on the ship with water, specifically having hot water for showers, and that they had a stretch — about a 10-day stretch — where they had not been able to do any laundry.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They had also told me about concerns about mental health. And these were reports that we were getting in July and earlier this month: concerns about mental health, concerns that some sailors may be thinking about harming themselves, those type of things. And that was very disturbing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, we’ve heard very disturbing reports about sailors attempting to jump overboard or expressing a desire to. What were some of these messages that family members were receiving or even sailors were communicating?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I think about some of the ones that we received. And one of the first ones I received was from a family member who reached out to us because their sailor asked them to. And their sailor had expressed the fact that they were under physical and mental strain and that they really needed help.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And what was very heartbreaking, if you will, was the family member’s reaction when I was speaking with them. They mentioned that they were very concerned because this sailor had said that there were sailors who were thinking about self-harm, and this family member was concerned that their sailor was one of them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I also went to a meeting earlier this month that the Navy had with spouses and a board that have sailors aboard the ship. And one of the poignant things that was shared with me by another spouse was that there was a spouse there who told officials that she had heard from her husband that very day a message that said he hoped he didn’t wake up the next day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that, again, was a very profound moment and very hard to hear. And I also think about the mother who wrote us and told us that it was very difficult for her to hear her son, who was a sailor, and his fellow sailors talking about jumping off the ship just for relief.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes. What has the Navy and administration said in response to these reports, these stories of deteriorating mental health?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> When I reported my story at that meeting earlier this month, they told the spouses that they had mental health resources on the ship. That they had counselors, that they had doctors, that they had chaplains, and that they were working to get more there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since then, the Navy has come out and said that they have these resources on this ship. Also, that the ship has among the lowest rates of mental health cases among all carriers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They did also say that there had been a sailor that had fallen overboard earlier this month, but that was not the case that I discovered when sailors told me that a few months prior to this, that a sailor had been talked out of jumping off the ship by watchstanders, and that that event was announced via the ship’s system to say that that sailor had been stopped and that sailor was getting the resources that they needed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So I also heard Admiral Brad Cooper state that the USS Abraham Lincoln currently has among the lowest number of mental health cases. So, Alison, is that a reliable reflection of what’s happening on the ship, the case numbers?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> I do not have the case numbers. I’ve asked the Navy for them, and I have not received a response to that yet. I don’t know that it is a reliable reflection, mainly because we need the numbers to know that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think that, you know, it is important to recognize that the Navy is taking actions to address mental health among sailors. And I think one of the things that can point to this is Admiral Cottle’s order about this time last year that no sailors should have to live on ships unless they wanted to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so the Navy has moved thousands of junior sailors that were assigned to live on ships off of those ships. So, for example, here in Naples, where I am, the command and control ship, Mount Whitney, had about 54 junior sailors that were recently moved off of that ship.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that was really important, that they weren’t living on the ship day in and day out, and they now are in private housing. So the Navy is making efforts to address mental health and the well-being of its sailors. What those numbers mean and what Admiral Cooper was talking about, I don’t know yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’ve been hearing reports that sailors are saying that the hardest part of all, among the many difficulties that they’ve experienced with regard to conditions, is the open-ended nature of the deployment, Alison.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> Yes, absolutely. They wanted, when I spoke with them, and I have spoken with them since my story published, they wanted an end date. They want to know, you know, that date. I had a sailor explain to me that that date is everything, whether that date that you’re going to go home or it’s the date that you’re going to make a port call.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s the day that you hold on to. It’s the date that makes everything seem, you know, that there’s something to look forward to. And then when that date either doesn’t come, as in the case of having regular port calls, or you don’t know exactly, your deployment is open-ended, it can really play havoc with a sailor and their sense, their morale.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. And what kind of toll is this taking on the families who’ve been absorbing messages from the sailors, the media reports that are saying that, you know, the president and the defense secretary have been somewhat dismissive of their concerns and, of course, the fact that they just have not seen their sailors for nine months, have no clear idea when they will?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> What the families told me is that they were very concerned. They were very worried. And they wanted to know that their sailors were being well taken care of, that their sailors were eating, that their sailors had mail, another important thing for sailors to have when they’re deployed or at sea, and that their mental health issues were being addressed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That’s what I was hearing repeatedly from the families. And the families wanted them to come home, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Alison, there was a line in one of your pieces where a family member said, “I’m just actively watching my sailor kind of break down.” I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your reporting with us. Alison, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alison Bath:\u003c/strong> It’s my pleasure. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Alison Bath is a reporter who covers the Navy for Stars and Stripes. And listeners, join the conversation with your questions and reactions to all this at 866-733-6786, by posting on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook or Instagram, or by emailing \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I want to bring John Ismay into the conversation now. New York Times reporter covering the Pentagon and a naval officer. John, thank you so much for being with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>John Ismay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So you were deployed on the USS Nimitz for 239 days between 2009 and 2010. Help us understand the environment these Navy officers are in. What’s it like on an aircraft carrier?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>John Ismay:\u003c/strong> Well, life is a lot different on a carrier than it is on a smaller ship, like a destroyer, which is what I deployed on my first time in 2000.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On an aircraft carrier, you often don’t really have a sense of relative motion from the sea, whereas on a small ship like a destroyer, if the seas are rough, you will definitely feel it. There’s definitely more room on a carrier than a smaller combatant.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But this type of situation that Lincoln has been in certainly presents a profound leadership challenge all up and down the chain of command on that ship, from the commanding officer, through the wardroom of officers to the chiefs’ mess, where the chief petty officers lead enlisted sailors.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so I don’t think any of them are super happy about the length of time that they’ve been out. And they’re doing their best to keep everyone going and keep the ship going so that it can accomplish its mission. But it is challenging.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I’ve heard you compare it to, you know, being in your office, unable to leave it, or the floor that your office is on, you know, for almost a year and not being able to take any weekends off. So is that what it’s like, just a series of small rooms?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>John Ismay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, of varying sizes, but certainly where sailors sleep, it’s pretty close quarters. For a junior enlisted sailor, you might be in a single space with 70 or 80 other sailors, whereas if you’re a junior officer like I was, I was fortunate enough to have my living quarters just shared with one other person.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So you’re seeing the same people day after day after day, and the routine can feel the same, too. I think on my last deployment, we were officially banned from using the term Groundhog Day to describe it, an allusion to that Bill Murray movie where it’s the same day every day when he wakes up. But that’s honestly how it felt a lot of the time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One thing about a carrier versus a smaller ship is that the carriers tend to deploy for slightly longer periods of time. And they often spend much longer stretches of time at sea between ports, whereas, you know, say, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer might have to pull into port far more frequently, you know, just because of the wear and tear on the crew.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with John Ismay, New York Times reporter covering the Pentagon and naval officer, who also knows what it’s like to be deployed on an aircraft carrier like the USS Lincoln. And we’ll have more with him and with you, our listeners, after the break. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Friday, August 14, 2026 at 10 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What are this century’s best thriller novels? That’s the question the New York Times posed this summer to renowned authors and critics, and now the Times is out with a list of the top 50 thrillers released since 2000. We’ll talk to the list’s editors about how it came together, what makes a great thriller, and why these books — including the number one pick, Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” — are so irresistible to readers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Gilbert Cruz, \u003c/strong>Canon editor, The New York Times\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Tina Jordan, \u003c/strong>Book Review deputy editor, The New York Times\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"radiolab": {
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},
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"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
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"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
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