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A growing number of Republicans are speaking out against Donald Trump's dinner with a white nationalist, including his former vice president, now in a rare interview yesterday, Mike Pence denounced Trump's meal last week with the Holocaust and I'm Nicholas Fuentes and disgraced rapper Kanye West wrong to uh give a seat at the table to a white nationalist, an anti-Semite, and a Holocaust denier, and I think he should apologize for it and he should wholeheartedly denounce those individuals for their hateful rhetoric. . I think the president demonstrated profoundly poor judgment in giving those people a seat at the table, so it was actually a forceful and strong response, yes, when you ask the president, former president, to apologize for what he's done, it's very different than saying yes, maybe I would have done something differently or I would have done it.

I haven't, and in some ways, hemming and hawing, Mike Pence is lining up right, I mean, he's doing what he should be doing, it should have been something that some would say, but we're not, we're not doing it again. I know they play Just As I Am Mike is walking up to the front and we're just going to accept the invitation, he was his vice president, he wasn't going to ask, but we're happy, he's really good, we're happy he's going. to work you're not happy that he didn't I'm glad but yeah, but he did it well, well, he did it, he did it, he did it.

Mark that, one step forward, one step forward, and Willie did it, how? What are you doing? I'm fine, he did it without reservation. He said that Trump should apologize unreservedly and at least in that clip we heard that there was no qualification, there was no coverage, none of that, so I mean he's going against it. It's funny, I mean we can't do shows for 80 weeks, people must say this and then they say yes, but he said it's a positive step forward, of course, we've talked every day ad nauseum about what you're doing. people have not done it in the last six years and for good reason, but it is happening, let's celebrate the Mike Pence said he needed to apologize unreservedly, he said it and he is not the only one who says it, we are also together, we do not say that the Republican Party is completely turning its back on Donald Trump, we've been through a lot, we know better, but right now they're saying it now with that caveat, we can say yes, this is easy, right, Donald Trump sat down with a denier of the holocaust. and a white supremacist, that should be an easy thing to condemn, and Mike Pence said later in that interview that he doesn't believe Donald Trump is an anti-Semi, in part because his grandchildren are Jewish.

Trump is also facing backlash, as I said, from Republicans in the Senate along with Mike Pence here are some of their responses when reporters asked them about the former president's dinner with the white supremacist in the Holocaust denier meeting was bad , you shouldn't have done it but, again, you know there's a double standard about this kind of thing and I don't think it matters in terms of his political future, but I do think we need to

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who we meet. I wouldn't want to have dinner with any of those guys or I wouldn't meet with any of those guys that you take full advantage of and that you want I would surely disavow any of those things, most would, uh, how did a meeting take place.

I don't know, there's no place in the Republican Party for white supremacist anti-Semitism, so it's wrong. I think it's ridiculous that he had that meeting it's just ridiculous and that's all I'm going to say about it I just think it's disgusting to invite people like that to meet with the former president of the United States um I think this has been It's clear that there is no bottom to the degree to which President Trump will demean himself and the nation. John, you can almost hear it in the voices of those senators. I don't want to answer questions about Donald Trump for the next two to six years.

You can see the tiredness on their faces that said if he becomes the nominee it could be another story, we also see the beginning of a beard on Mitt Romney's face, which both of us were surprised when we saw it, but putting that aside, yeah, these are the Senators, some of whom Ronnie in particular and blood occasionally spoke out against Trump even when Trump was in office uh, Lindsey Graham is a different story, some of even Trump's allies are saying look, this it's a bridge too far but as we know this is a layup and this too we'll see how fleeting it is this is just the latest Trump controversy that was supplanted by another Trump controversy in a matter of days and we all move on but I think The most important point is the word exhaustion, there are many Republicans who are simply tired of Trump, they recognize it.

Look, we're not saying they're turning the page on this. We've done it too many times. We all know that no one should bury Trump as the head of the political future until he puts a bit of the leader of the political party that is the Republican Party until he is really gone, but right now there is a feeling that it is just the past and it is exhausting and more Republicans are suggesting that we're tired of talking about 2020. If we're tired of getting swept up in whatever nonsense you create from Mar-A-Lago, the question will be: Is a DeSantis or other Republican figure no good? standout to face him in 2024, maybe it will be Mike Pence, although I don't think many?

They seem to view him as a serious contender for the Republican nominee. Do they completely break with him and rally his supporters to finally leave Trump? So far they have no polls to suggest that Trump is still the candidate, but this is clearly wearing down the party leaders if not one more, well, again, he just has to be constantly answering questions about Donald Trump, um, of course, some people say, oh you in the media, no, no, don't try to give us the anti-anti-Trumpism nonsense when the guy sits down with a Neo-Nazi, uh, who says that the Jews who died in the Holocaust compared them to cookies burned, uh, and said extraordinarily atrocious things not only not only about Jews but also about many other Americans, um, but I thought it was interesting that there was a sliding scale there.

You could almost hear Lindsey Graham say yeah, I'm not meeting him, it's bad, but it's okay, so that wasn't unequivocal. I'll certainly admit to you that some of the others seemed lukewarm. He's answering that Rick Scott was pretty direct. Joni. Johnny was very harsh, Senator Ernst, very harsh, calling him ridiculous, disgusting, disgusting, Mitt Romney, too, very harsh about it and the interesting thing is that we are hearing Republican senators criticizing Donald Trump, which sort of feeds the which we've been saying here for quite some time now it's three parties, there's the Democratic Party, there's the Senate Republican Party and there's a Republican Party in the House of Representatives, uh, interesting, it's not surprising, unfortunately, uh, and it's sad and pathetic that we haven't listened to Kevin McCarthy, we haven't listened to other leaders of the House Republicans come out and criticize Donald Trump because they don't become president unless certain people who have actually spoken have spoken at conventions white nationalists with this guy there, running them, I think, without their support, so Kevin McCarthy thinks his support. uh it depends on white nationalists and neo-Nazi supporters voting for him for House Speaker, where does that put the House GOP in 2023?

Yeah, I mean, it's certainly not the party of Mitt Romney and Joni Ernst, is that what they were? very clear in their condemnation and you probably wouldn't find them in the House of Representatives. I mean, there are some moderate Republicans in the House of Representatives, they're just not the ones with the loudest megaphones and they're not the people that right now Kevin McCarthy feels he needs to win over if he wants to get that speakership though, to be honest , that speaker position is going to be an incredible job, God knows why you might want it, because if you're going to have to continually be in contact with Marjorie Taylor June Green and Matt Gates and the others in that wing and Jim Jordan and the others in that wing in the very Trumpian wing of his party, his job is going to be a nightmare and it's almost impossible to do it, so he may reconsider those years of longing for that job because I just don't see what's in it for him.

Beyond pure ambition, it is not clear, he knows which way the votes are and in what direction. I'm not in the moderates of the party right now and it's a very different Republican party, although I would say yes, we've heard these senators come out, but as Mika said, it's pretty clear, I mean, this was, you know. This was a pretty clear moment for condemnation and Lindsey Graham a little "well, someone on staff should be fired," but what he said wasn't exactly a mass repudiation of Donald Trump's own decisions this

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, a new piece on financial times are taking a A serious look at loneliness in our society is titled Are We Prepared for the Coming Loneliness Epidemic? and the author of the article Federica Coco joins us now at Federica thank you for joining us, you are a statistical journalist in financial times and you address this topic with a lot of data you highlight several statistics in your new quote written in developed countries the proportion of people who report having friends or family they can count on has been steadily declining over the past 15 years older people are consistently more affected on average 53 percent of Americans over 65 spend more than eight waking hours alone every day , based on my analysis of US Time Use Survey data, and if we look at other things like the increase in single-person households, they tell us what?

Well, one surprising thing I found is that the proportion of young people who spend more than eight hours of their waking time alone has increased quite noticeably since 2011, so in the last 10 years, for women, for example, young women only seven percent. In 2011 I used to dedicate eight more than eight hours a day alone and now the proportion has effectively doubled, it is more than 14 and a similar dynamic has happened. Is it happening with men? And I also looked at a separate survey. because there's a big difference between spending time alone and feeling lonely, yes, and a survey in the UK has shown that in terms of feeling lonely, young women are much more likely to feel lonely, 40 percent do. says, 22 percent of men and the proportion in comparison.

Older people are actually much taller, yes, you know, Frederica. What's so fascinating is that even before the pandemic we had been talking about an epidemic, a mental health epidemic in this country, especially among younger Americans, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, all of this. This all seemed to be brewing before the pandemic and I think it's very easy for people to look at the pandemic and say "well, that's a problem, no, that was just an accelerant." Can you tell me what has caused this movement toward isolation? In the last decade, yeah, I mean, there was that famous book Bowling Alone by Robert Putman that came out in 2000, so it's been going on for centuries and it has to do with urbanization, the decline of fertility rights, the income of women into the workforce, education and Delaying marriage and motherhood, as I mentioned in the article, is also a mark of a wealthy society after I received many messages and emails and some of them said, "Well, actually "I'm quite happy living alone.

I'm independent." I have my freedom and communities can be really stifling in a sense and young people feel that too, but that doesn't mean that there are also some people who would rather not be alone and who don't suffer the health consequences as you say. because people, when living together, were in each other's companies, they called each other responsible. If you live alone or spend a lot of time alone, you are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, so you may smoke more. If you eat unhealthy foods, you may become more stressed because you have no one to comfort and support you, which leads to higher rates of insomnia or heart disease as well.

Federica, this is such a fascinating topic as you say it has been going on for a long time. For a long time some people say look, this is the way the world is going, especially young people, they say my social relationships are here on my phone. I don't really need to come to the office anymore, it's a waste of time coming and going. but for many of us, the community of being here, the community of being with friends is what makes life worth living. Do you think this will change in any way or is this just the direction we're headed as a culture? more insular that we are more alone I think what can change is that people cannot be forced to be in the company of other people, true, but what can change is the support that is offered when you go to a doctor, they will ask you if you smoke or How many drinks?

How many glasses of alcohol do you drink? They never ask you.You feel lonely? And those community services that come from health services doctors can help. For example, there is a small town of Fume in England that has been experimenting with certain services, so there is a conversation bench so that if someone is lonely they can sit on this bench and there will be community nurses who will go and chat with these people or Taxi drivers and cafe owners will be informed about those services so that they can Tell your customers that you know if they have an idea why people say certain things when they feel lonely, when they feel isolated, so that they can offer those services, but definitely something needs to be done.

Because high rates of loneliness correlate with more aggressive behavior, more paranoid behavior, they are also linked to buying extremism, so it is something that needs to be addressed from a certain level from society and we're going to go to Mike Barnacle in a second with a question, I just want you to follow up because one of the things that I thought was so fascinating about your article was that some people may say oh, that sounds silly, wait, you're going to have places where people You can go speak in the banks. with others you will have a taxi driver but actually in that city you talk because this is one of the reasons we wanted to have you because people say oh there is nothing we can do.

Your article provides hope because you actually spoke in that city. on how it made a difference, yes, hospitalization rates decreased noticeably in Froome, while in Somerset County they increased by 28, so it definitely had an effect. Federica, the loneliness of older people aged 65 to 70 or older is sad, but it is understandable that their partners die, their friends die and that is why loneliness takes over many of them, but what do we do with the loneliness of the young teenagers in their 20s whose best friend is an iPhone? Yeah, well, someone suggested that maybe they both should do it. we would get together so for example I used to do this lunch club for widows or men who were recently widowed who never learned to cook and I used to go to this community center and cook with them and we learn together so something like that could possibly be another solution, it was a lot of fun for me and I met a lot of very interesting people there.

The new piece is in line for the financial times. It's worth it. This is very important. Federica Coco. Thank you so much. For being on the program. This

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we really appreciate it, see you soon, so why should you care what happens in the Philippines? We spend the most time on the internet, more than 10 hours a day, we spend the most time on social media globally and as we discovered, lies mixed with anger and hate spread faster when you just look at the content. . It's a game of whack-a-mole. I want to find out what the LIE is.

Then look at the network that spreads lives. That's the nervous system. I started looking at an account. who attacked all journalists are corrupt. An account that had 25 followers, they all followed each other. Check each item. They were all fake accounts. We started counting and discovered that 26 fake accounts can influence up to 3 million other accounts. Three million. A clip from a 2020 PBS documentary about Filipino-American journalist Maria Ressa as co-founder of the Philippines' largest digital news company. Resa has spent years reporting on government corruption in the spread of disinformation on social media, although her work has earned her global recognition, including a Nobel Peace Prize, standing up to those in power, came at a cost: in 2020, she was arrested and later convicted on cyber libel charges and could now spend the rest of her life in prison and Maria joins us now as CEO and co-founder and president of Rappler and author of the new Memoir titled How to Face a dictator, the fight for our future Maria, it's great to have you with us, fellow New Jerseyans, and I was glad to hear it for people who don't.

They don't know your story, they know you won the Nobel Peace Prize, they know you're the person of the year of Time in 2018. Just tell us a little bit about your fight for the truth in the Philippines and the pressure you put on former President Duterte and what that has cost you I think it's you know this is my 36th year as a journalist and I have observed how technology has changed everything. I created the Manila Bureau, the Jakarta Bureau for a network and suddenly the facts became It's arguable, this is the big change in how technology, when it took control as gatekeepers of news organizations' journalists , how he essentially abdicated responsibility for the safety of users and here's the weird thing, right?

Rappler, which is the company I created in 2012. uh, I was the true believer in social media. I thought technology could help drive development in our country and I thought we could have participatory media and help build institutions from the bottom up, all of that of course went downhill when information operations started. in 2014 and then the political dominoes began to fall in 2016. Starting with the election of Rodrigo Duterte, then what is the nexus between social media and authoritarianism, not only in the Philippines but around the world? Oh man, thanks for asking. First of all, by Design and we know this from a 2018 MIT study.

Lies spread faster than facts. Facts are really boring. You know, we spend our lives trying to keep your attention to tell you compelling stories, but because the point of this is to keep you. By moving around essentially our biology is used against us, right? change your worldview that goes directly to your right to vote, so, for example, it is no coincidence that sixty percent of the world today is under authoritarian government. We have rolled back democracy globally to 1989 levels and we continue to democratically elect illiberal leaders who will tear down institutions in their own country and then end up allying themselves by changing geopolitical power sorry that's a lot all in one so obviously one of those illiberal leaders was Rodrigo Duterte, tell us about your clashes with him and the legal danger you face now, oh, it's weaponry. from social media you know you tell a lie a million times it becomes a fact in our case he was attacking journalists journalist equals criminal a year later in 2017, President Duterte says the same thing about me and Rappler a week later we received our first subpoena 14 investigations, so the use of social media as a weapon was followed from the top down by the use of the law as a weapon.

I continue to fight in 2019. There was just a six-week period where I was arrested twice. The Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against me in less than two. years I'm out on bail thank you for having me here I have to ask the Court for permission even up to the Supreme Court to be able to travel you really don't know how much you value your freedom until you start losing it like this you you rapless started in 2012 10 years ago for the longest time part of the 10 years that Duterte had in 2016. Yes, six, yes, a murderer, a murderer, and he proudly says yes, so my question to you is we talked about it before briefly.

Have you ever felt like your life was in danger? I mean, let's say that once online violence is violence in the real world, impunity online is impunity offline, then when the threat started to come and there, this is not like one or two death threats for breakfast. 90 hate messages an hour and when that happened it wasn't just against me and my company too. We had to increase security six times in less than a year and we're still looking at this, so yeah, I'm scared. It's not the right word when it's like pollution, it's part of the air that you breathe, so you get used to it and what the government is, it's like a short reach from your head and it becomes effective if you let it stop you, so.

I've been trying really hard to keep going, that's what we're trying to do in Rattler, maybe it's New Jersey, I think you're hanging in there. Maria, uh, BBC caddy K has a question for you, caddy Maria, it's nice to meet you. We're all journalists, we've all been, you know, we're in awe and

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ing what you've been doing for years and praying every day for your safety as well and thank you for the efforts that you've been leading. We have also come up with a sort of roadmap on how we can counter this because it's not just in the Philippines of course, it's everywhere where there are social media threats and what you say about once something is posted becomes a fact. now we have all employed disinformation correspondents we have one at the BBC every news organization has one what else works to counter this what are the bright spots or the road map we can all try to follow thank you thank you very much for asking well, firstly, if we were marginalized in the real world before being even more marginalized today, women, for example, as of 2017 in the Philippines were attacked at least 10 times more than men.

There's a book that just came out that was written by The International Ice Center for journalists and UNESCO called The Chilling Right. 60 of the attacks against me were aimed at tearing down my credibility. 40 percent of almost half a million social media taxes were meant to bring down my spirit, so how can we move forward properly? um, in September of this year, Dimitri Moratov, the Russian Nobel-winning journalist, we won the Nobel Peace Prize together in 2021. We put together roughly a 10-point action plan with 10 other Nobel laureates and about a hundred different groups. working. on disinformation, very specifically, information operations and the goal of this 10-point action plan is actually three groups, you know, the first stop is for-profit surveillance, it all starts with data privacy, it starts with cloning each of us and then using that to micro target our weakest. point out a message that is the first, the second is to stop codified bias, but that this technology that was prepared in Silicon Valley but has now moved to tick, extremely rids inequality and finally, the third is journalism as antidote to tyranny. the three large groups that is more or less at the constitutional level, but there is a lot of work to do.

I'm part of these UN Internet governance forums and we're trying to do this, it's time to intervene and there are some lessons. We can also take you here in the United States. Certainly the new book is titled Standing Up to a Dictator, the Fight for Our Future Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Maria Ressa, and the Pride of Toms River, New Jersey, thank you for being with us this morning. I appreciate it, thank you for inviting me. It was a pleasure to see you as a very special guest. Now the NATO chief says Ukraine will eventually become a member of the security organization and reaffirm the alliance's commitment to the war-torn country.

Those comments come as US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is meeting with other NATO leaders this morning in Romania to hammer out a substantial aid plan for Ukraine to combat the country's energy crisis. while this week in Washington French President Emmanuel Macron will be at the White House for his first state visit of Joe Biden's presidency, officials say. Topics of discussion Thursday will include global aid to Ukraine, Iran's nuclear program and China's aggression in the Indo-Pacific region, among other topics. Joining us now is French Ambassador to the United States, Felipe Etienne, it's great to have you back on the show.

This week it's great to have you here, let's talk about what's pressing you the most right now, the French national team, are they going to go all the way and win it again? Oh wow, I can't say what we should humbly say, but first, thank you, Mickey and Joe, for having me. I know that soccer is a passion even in the USA. I see that we were the winners last time, right, but we are all happy and proud of the first two games of the French team, but every game is a news, a new story and all the teams are very motivated, very good, so far, so good and we look at this with hope, but also, yes, being humble, a very, very diplomatic answer, please, Mr.

Ambassador, so what do you think was the key that we were? Speaking of energy this morning, maybe there are some differences between President Macron and President Biden, what do you think? What are the key topics you are going to discuss this week? Well, for sure, the confirmation of our strong unity in the face of Russian aggression and supporting Ukraine and its people is a very important issue, including the fact that, together with President Zelinsky, our president decided to organize, with the support of the United States United, a conference in Paris on December 13 to support this Ukrainian resilience during the winter despite the brutal bombings from Russia, but Of course, also this unity meansavoid any divergence in the economy, in economic development, to remain united, we must maintain the support of all our peoples at home and mitigate economic developments that could be negative and, finally, also convince the rest of the world. to support us so that this whole conundrum, including the global dimension of the world, is, I am sure, a very important item on the agenda, yes, and as you and the two leaders discussed, that is the expectation as the winter progresses, that even if more support is needed for there to be unity in that well.

I think it's the message we need. And we need to support Ukraine not only militarily, which of course is essential, but also to maintain or repair its infrastructure and then our own. Other countries also have problems with energy with the other consequences of the war and also with the consequences of the sanctions that we have taken against Russia, so we have to mitigate this as well and on all these fronts to remain united as we have been since the The beginning of this aggression on February 24, this unity is really important, it is an asset, Mr. Ambassador, one of the things in which perhaps France and the United States are not so united is the inflation reduction law, which the European countries basically see it as a subsidy to American manufacturers at a time when you have already mentioned that European industries are suffering due to the energy crisis, war and inflation in Europe itself.

How are you going to address this with the White House? What can you say to President Biden? This is a done deal. Here in the United States it is a popular policy that the Biden administration has implemented for American producers, how can you what influence do you have over the United States to try to get some relief from what you see as a subsidy to American producers? Well, the first subsidies are fine to promote our political goals, such as carbon reduction. neutrality we welcome the ambition of the US in this regard we try to do the same in the EU the EU has been a leader in the fight against climate change through active industrial policies the need is perhaps better coordination between these policies on both sides of the Atlantic and furthermore, the problem is not the inflation reduction law or its political objectives as such, but some of its provisions, they are not just subsidies, but there are some provisions that discriminate against our companies and This is the problem that trying to solve it not only with France but with the European Union as such, it is a discussion between the EU and the USA, of course, our leaders can do it, we will discuss the entire context, including this law and the how we can mitigate these effects, but the discussion is taking place. also with the European Union as such and with a working group that has been created to try, as you said, whether the change cannot happen at the level of the law itself or of the legislation in the implementing provisions on how to implement this new legislation in a way that does not discriminate against European companies Mr.

Ambassador here in the United States, almost a year ago, the will of the people, the will of our Administration, the will of the government to support Ukraine against Russia remains Quite adamantly, there are some Republican members of Congress who have said it's time for Dale to scale back that support and focus on domestic issues. It has been argued that both can be done at the same time, but I am curious about the will of the French people. Behind this war behind the people of Ukraine and how long do you think Europe lasts, the Europeans in general, the French, of course, are closer to the war, but I see the same kind of discussions in Europe and in the United States, um too. about how long it will last and can we support this? and the answer from a government on both sides of the Atlantic is yes, we must continue to support Ukraine at some point we must have a political agreement when the Ukrainians are ready to do so. decide that it is time to negotiate, but for the moment we have to support Ukraine and we have to support them at all the different levels where they need support and then the support of our public opinion, I think also in the United States, but certainly in En Europe also depends on the efficiency of our policies to mitigate the economic effects on the price of energy inflation.

This is also why I said that all these aspects come together and must be at the center of our unity, our determination to remain. United between America and Europe Francisco ambassador to the United States Philippe Etienne thank you very much for being on the program this morning see you soon