0:00

Hi, it's good to be here.

0:02

Thanks. Kimberly is out this week,

0:04

Rima Christ. The host of

0:06

our podcast, This Is Uncomfortable,

0:08

is on the line. Hi,

0:10

Rima. Hello, hi. It's good

0:13

to be here. Good to

0:15

be back. Thanks, everyone, for

0:17

joining us on this Wednesday,

0:19

March 26. We're just going to

0:21

do the usual thing. Talking

0:23

about news and then do

0:25

some smiles at the end. Do

0:27

you want to go first, Kay? What's your

0:29

attention? I will go first. Mine's a quickie,

0:31

and it's not like it's anything that anybody

0:34

hasn't really thought about, but the New York

0:36

Times did put a dollar amount to it

0:38

today, and I'm just going to say it's

0:40

a lowball figure. So as we know, foreigners,

0:42

Canadians most specifically, but lots of others as

0:45

well, are rethinking their plans to travel to

0:47

the United States. And I'm just going to

0:49

quote this from the New York Times. Here

0:51

we go. The research firm Tourism

0:53

Economics had originally forecast travel to

0:55

the United States to grow by

0:57

9% this year. But in February,

0:59

it updated its outlook, expecting inbound

1:01

travel to decline by 5.1% hotel

1:03

demand to decline by 0.8% in

1:06

2025. The equivalent of an $18

1:08

billion drop in spending. Now, $18

1:10

billion is in the very grand

1:12

scheme of the entire American economy.

1:14

Nothing. It's pocket change. But of

1:16

that $18 billion, some fraction of

1:18

it was going to go to

1:20

some small restaurant in New Orleans

1:22

or some Airbnb in like, I

1:24

don't know, Monterey, California or something,

1:26

right? And this will, number one,

1:28

that dollar amount is going to

1:30

grow. And number two, it will

1:32

trickle down to really small businesses

1:35

that need the money. And number

1:37

three, and not to be discounted

1:39

at all. It's a reflection of

1:41

our declining standing in the world

1:43

under the Trump administration. And that is

1:45

a very not good thing. That's my news.

1:47

Yeah. There's so much to be said about

1:49

this. I mean, yeah, there's the impact

1:51

on tourism. Something I've been thinking about

1:53

too is just how it affects international

1:56

students and our academic institutions, right?

1:58

You know, this is... where people

2:00

go to for people dream to

2:02

go to for school and research

2:04

and collaboration and you know it's

2:06

it's it's just making it infinitely

2:08

harder for folks and you know

2:11

I've been tracking and following all

2:13

of the updates with I don't

2:15

know if you followed this what

2:17

happened with belief her name is

2:19

Russia Oh, the woman at Tufts,

2:21

right? The PhD student? Or she

2:23

was up. Well, yeah, no, there's

2:25

someone at Tufts today, right, who

2:27

was detained by ICE. So you're

2:29

talking about a different one. There's

2:31

so many to follow, yeah. That

2:33

happened either today or yesterday. And

2:35

then, no, the person I'm referring

2:37

to, she was an assistant professor

2:39

at Brown University. And she was

2:42

deported from the US to Lebanon.

2:44

And so she, I believe she

2:46

was returning to the US from

2:48

a family visit when she got

2:50

detained at Boston's airport. Boston's airport.

2:52

and she was holding an H1B

2:54

work visa, I believe. But yeah,

2:56

it's just, it creates a chilling

2:58

effect to say the least. And

3:00

there's so many knockoff effects, yeah.

3:02

So many, anyway, what about you?

3:04

So the thing I want to

3:06

talk about today is the thing

3:08

that everyone is talking about this

3:11

week. And I know y'all chatted

3:13

about it on Monday, probably, which

3:15

is the unfolding fiasco with the

3:17

signal group chat and the Yemeni

3:19

airstrikes. The Atlantic today published a

3:21

transcript of the group chat that,

3:23

of course, the magazine's editor Jeffrey

3:25

Goldberg was mistakenly added to, where

3:27

they're talking about an eminent U.S.

3:29

attack on Huthi's in Yemen. And

3:31

have you read the transcript? Yeah,

3:33

I have. It's amazing. Everybody should.

3:35

We'll put a link on our

3:37

show page because it's the idea

3:39

that this wasn't classified as just

3:42

nonsense. Right. No. It seems pretty

3:44

classified to me. Like the messages

3:46

include details about specific times. that

3:48

the drones and the cruise missiles

3:50

would be used in the attack.

3:52

And so yeah, top intelligence officers

3:54

who are part of the group

3:56

chat, they're being questioned before the

3:58

House Intelligence Committee. But yeah, like

4:00

you said, of course, Trump officials

4:02

in the White House are arguing

4:04

that this info is not classified.

4:06

Did you see that clip? Was

4:08

it, I don't know, from today

4:11

or yesterday from Fox News of

4:13

Mike Waltz, who's, you know, of

4:15

course, the national security advisor? Somehow

4:17

this guy who has lied about

4:19

the president, who has lied to

4:21

go-star families, lied to their attorneys,

4:23

and gone to Russia hoax, just

4:25

all kinds of links. to lie

4:27

and smear the president of the

4:29

United States and he's the one

4:31

that somehow Gets on somebody's contact

4:33

and then gets sucked into this

4:35

group I mean it clearly doesn't

4:37

understand how signal works. You're like

4:39

yeah, it's not like you can

4:41

call into your signal group dude

4:43

some mysterious force vacuumed him into

4:45

this group chat Anyway, anyway, the

4:47

reason I want to talk about

4:49

this is because I mean, for

4:51

all the obvious reasons, but the

4:53

thing I actually want to focus

4:55

on is the thing that I

4:57

think not a lot of people

4:59

are talking about, which is the

5:01

actual content of the messages. And

5:03

I'm just not seeing a lot

5:05

of nuanced conversations about the actual

5:08

bombing of Yemen. And I did,

5:10

well, I saw something this morning

5:12

in the Washington Post with the

5:14

headline Beyond the Group Chat Fiesco,

5:16

Trump's Yemen Strategy, Yemen Strategy, needs

5:18

more scrutiny. And I don't want

5:20

to go so into the weeds

5:22

of this because this is not

5:24

an international affairs podcast and I'm

5:26

not an expert. But I at

5:28

least wanted to bring this up

5:30

to shed some light on what's

5:32

happening. So some context, for more

5:34

than two decades, the US has

5:36

been conducting airstrikes on Yemen, first

5:38

on Al-Qaeda and then more recently

5:40

against the Houthis. And in this

5:42

most recent episode, the US says

5:44

it's attacking the Houthis because they're

5:46

attacking ships that are going through

5:48

the Red Sea. which the Houthi

5:50

say they're doing in resistance to

5:52

Israel's deadly campaign in Gaza, which

5:54

has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians.

5:56

And it's hard to get the

5:58

exact numbers, but I saw a

6:00

couple of reports about how the

6:02

current wave of airstrikes in Yemen

6:04

has killed dozens of civilians, people

6:06

in major population centers. There was

6:08

a thing from an independent nonprofit

6:10

that recorded. 53 civilian casualties and

6:12

38 U.S.-led airstrikes from March 15th

6:14

to the 21st, which apparently was

6:17

the heaviest and deadliest week of

6:19

bombing in the last few years.

6:21

It's also worth knowing that Yemen,

6:23

there's already a lot of suffering

6:25

there. A lot of the civilian

6:27

infrastructure is destroyed. The economy is

6:29

in terrible shape. There's like a

6:31

currency crisis that has made... basic

6:33

necessities like food, water, health care,

6:35

pretty unaffordable for most Yemenies. Most

6:37

of the population's food insecure. You

6:39

know, the Trump administration, they redesignated

6:41

the Houthis as a foreign terrorist

6:43

organization, which some experts will say

6:45

has like complicated the work of

6:47

humanitarian agencies trying to help people

6:49

there. And I saw this thing

6:51

on either Twitter or whatever, on

6:53

Blue Sky, that was like someone

6:55

saying that there was a time

6:57

when the US government at least

6:59

publicly condemned airstrikes on residential areas.

7:01

That doesn't seem to be the

7:03

case now. There just isn't a

7:05

lot of regard. It's emphatically not

7:07

the case. Secretary of Defense has

7:09

said he doesn't care about civilian

7:11

casualties. Yeah. And so it's just

7:13

it's dangerous when we're at this

7:15

point, well beyond the point of

7:17

normalizing this. Just wanted to flag

7:19

this important aspect of this ongoing

7:21

story. Yeah, because there's always stuff

7:24

beyond the headlines, and that's a

7:26

classic beyond the headline story. Let's

7:28

get a smile or something in

7:30

here, Justin, shall we? Let's do

7:32

that. All right, what do you

7:34

got? What do I have? Okay,

7:36

so our producer Courtney actually shared

7:38

this article this morning and made

7:40

me smile. So as I've shared

7:42

with you, Kai, I live in

7:44

Portland, right? Portland, Oregon. And I

7:46

moved here from LA. The plan

7:48

was to be here just for

7:50

like a year. I think I'm

7:52

nearing on like three years. And

7:54

part of the reason I love

7:56

it so much is because it's

7:58

so walkable. Like I can leave

8:00

my house and go to the

8:02

grocery store 10 minutes down the

8:04

road and go the other way

8:06

and there are a bunch of

8:08

businesses businesses. restaurants. Anyway, so this

8:10

article that Courtney shared is about

8:12

how there's this community, this rental

8:14

development outside of Phoenix called cul-de-sac

8:16

tempi. And it's considered the country's

8:18

first neighborhood purposefully built to be

8:20

car-free, which is just very appealing

8:22

idea to me. It's modeled on

8:24

towns in Italy and Greece long

8:26

before cars were a thing. And

8:28

so yeah, people get around on

8:30

buses, scooters, electric bikes. It's got

8:33

a bunch of businesses, grocery stores.

8:35

It's not big. It's like 17

8:37

acres. And, you know, because there

8:39

are plenty of car-free places, like,

8:41

you know, around the country, but

8:43

in most cities, there are zoning

8:45

requirements that call for a minimum

8:47

number of parking spots for residents,

8:49

but developers in this community were

8:51

apparently given a special exemption from

8:53

the city. So most people in

8:55

this community don't. own cars don't

8:57

even have the place to put

8:59

them. Which I just think is

9:01

cool and it's refreshing. It's a

9:03

super interesting piece, you know, especially

9:05

how they built that neighborhood. They

9:07

built it with narrow alleys to

9:09

increase wind flow and shade and

9:11

it's, you know, it's in... Because

9:13

it is hot down there. It's

9:15

in Arizona and summertime and ain't

9:17

nobody having fun there, right? But

9:19

yeah, no, it's super interesting. Super

9:21

interesting. It made me think of...

9:23

Not to go ahead, but made

9:25

you think of what? We all

9:27

were talking, I think it was

9:29

last week or I don't know

9:31

when, I think a New York

9:33

Times reporter about how the pandemic

9:35

has changed us. And he said

9:37

something that kind of stuck with

9:40

me about how we've become more

9:42

isolated and less. and I really

9:44

do think these kinds of, you

9:46

know, organizing our societies in these

9:48

ways can help combat some of

9:50

that, you know, like just having

9:52

more human interactions on a day-to-day

9:54

basis can, I don't know, like,

9:56

I don't know about you, but

9:58

whenever I'm just, like, out in

10:00

the world and I'm talking to

10:02

my neighbors, even if it's, like,

10:04

the briefest exchange about how they

10:06

have somebody weeds in their backyard

10:08

or whatever, it just feels grounding.

10:10

I'm not saying something super profound,

10:12

but like it just makes you

10:14

feel a little less alone. And

10:16

so I would love if there

10:18

were more communities like this around

10:20

the country. All you property developers

10:22

out there who are listening. Are

10:24

you listening? Alright, so here's mine,

10:26

a headline in the Wall Street

10:28

Journal on this one is The

10:30

Ford executive who kept score of

10:32

colleagues' verbal floods. Michael Bryan kept

10:34

a meticulous log of mixed metaphors

10:36

and malaprops uttered in meetings over

10:38

a decade. For example, too many

10:40

cooks in the soup. I don't

10:42

want to sound like a broken

10:44

drum here. Let's not reinvent the

10:46

ocean. Which is all fun and

10:49

games until you realize that this

10:51

guy was like taking notes and

10:53

meetings of the stupid things that

10:55

you say. You're like, man. It's

10:57

like you're venting to a partner

10:59

at night and you're like, I

11:01

said something stupid. Right. No, you're

11:03

fine. No one's thinking about it.

11:05

Totally. Eventually this piece goes on.

11:07

Eventually O'Brien filled six whiteboards with

11:09

linguistic flubs. Scrawled tightly together in

11:11

a mishmash of colors. Yes. And

11:13

then so when he retired, he

11:15

sent around a spreadsheet of the

11:17

few thousand violations committed by his

11:19

co-workers over the years. I'm sure

11:21

Michael Bryan's a very nice guy.

11:23

And this is a cute idea,

11:25

but kill me. Kill me. That's

11:27

so humiliating. Could you imagine if

11:29

someone did that for all the

11:31

flubs that you've had on air?

11:33

Absolutely. Miserable. Well, it's going to

11:35

be like when I finally die

11:37

and leave marketplace, my pickup reel

11:39

is going to be just all

11:41

the stupid things I've said. There

11:43

was a time I think where

11:45

the engineers actually did that. Oh,

11:47

I guarantee they still have it

11:49

somewhere. Somewhere. Maybe they stopped keeping

11:51

track because I just refuse to

11:53

leave. Anyway, so. Maybe they still

11:56

do keep drug. I just don't

11:58

know. I mean, I'm going to

12:00

be up with Charlton. We'll figure

12:02

it out. We are back tomorrow.

12:04

More make me smart. Before we

12:06

go, all y'all know what time

12:08

of year it is, right? It

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12:12

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12:14

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12:16

the news, the head of NPR,

12:18

the head of NPR and PR

12:20

and. CBB, we're on Capital Hill

12:22

today, getting grilled by members of

12:24

Congress about, well, a lot of

12:26

things. You should check out that

12:28

hearing. But one of the things

12:30

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And it's in jeopardy, and so

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we need your help. We need

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and you can find that

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So please, help us out. We

13:00

really appreciate it. Make Me Smart

13:02

is produced by Courtney Berg, see

13:05

her. Our intern is a

13:07

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13:14

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digital. There you have

13:34

it. I don't watch it. Put

13:36

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13:39

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