in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the death. or a mate in the shallowest. he won a government about its lack of preparedness for a coronavirus fan demick even a decade and a half ago east former senate majority leader and medical doctor bill frist and he's here with his take on donald trump's response to code 19 as on this edition. of the politicking on larry king in 2005 send a bill 1st will post a 6 part pandemic preparedness plan for the u.s. government it was instrumental in helping to pass president george w. bush's 80000000000 dollars package to combat aids in africa and he's now one of 16

leading out the experts calling on congress to fund billions of dollars in kokomo team testing before it can safely reopen the country for bursts stormy and i say senate majority leader republican from tennessee and a host of the proud pass a 2nd opinion rethinking american health is bill frist he joins us from his art farm in virginia god it's good to see you again good larry great to be with you appreciate the chance to have this conversation my pleasure tell me about this solo you and 16 other help the actual what do you want the government to do. well the letter the letter went out last monday and went to the president of the united states and to the united states congress and it basically has 3 parts all of which center on the really critical failure that this country has had in the last month but also the opportunity that it's all built around testing we have this enemy the

us but right now a lot less you have an s.t.d. you have don't who has it and who doesn't but it does infect people even if they sometimes and so what this letter does it basically says testing testing testing at the federal government through our request. it should step or make it the number one priority and it puts or takes a contact tracings if you test positive if you get in touch with 8 or 9 or 10 other people somebody needs to pick up the phone or identify them through technology to keep them ice to let it just stop the spread that this. is in too soon to reopen the economy now. i don't think so and i spend a lot of time i'm with there in nashville but are not going or in tennessee states it is on track to open in back next week and i think there's

a balance we're moving today from this global mitigation where you shut everything down and we're making that transition in to that individual containment that local containment and it's not a matter of looking at public health in lives saved versus opening the economy that's the false choice the real choice is how do we open this account of me with what we call affordable containment and that is to like an accord begin to go out open it up you know if the virus is unleashed at all to close it back then and the time is right to do it now because people now are about 6 weeks into hunkering down without jobs people pressed into poverty people losing their mortgages and there's a very real cost in terms of debt in terms of quality of life in terms of morbidity of having people without jobs with unemployment going to at highs 30 percent higher

than in any time since the great depression so now is the time to begin based on science careful attention to analytics and data because of the bias raises it ted we are like a settlement according to slow things back now but now is the time to begin now not for everywhere so in some places the bars are still increasing needs to be measured in the bars increasing they should not open if you stay shut down did you see this coming. yes sadly you and i have talks really for 30 years and before coming to the senate i was in medicine and did heart transplants every week and the enemy there was the virus the virus is smarter than us it moves faster than a this and the enemy there because i do a transplant i would give my patients medicines to push your mutant system down and the barristers would attack so for the last really 35 years i've been biting their

asses i went to the senate and we took on the hiv aids virus in a bipartisan way with 3000000 people dying every year we went after it aggressively again bipartisan addressed it and now 20000000 people are alive so we can beat these viruses after we did that in 2003 and i worked with at that time with president bush i worked with the leadership on the other side of the aisle to work with tony felt like we are today we started looking at pandemics and in 2005 when in your opening you mentioned it i gave about 30 speeches around the country predicting a pandemic coming out of asia sometime in 10 to 15 years and i did that and put a plan on the table at that point in time because it's inevitable in even today 15 years from now we're going to have another pandemic equal to the size of this one a less we act in the things that we can do so i'm very hopeful that we didn't act last time the last 15 years now is the time to act and have our federal government

come together with the very best science so we can preempt these pandemics of the future and frankly bill how how are we doing how's a federal government doing. well it. really encouraged in certain ways in the discouraged we were late at the starting block and we could have if we'd had our global surveillance intact if we had listened 15 years ago to the proposals that i and others put on the table we would have been able to identify this virus earlier the doubling time of this virus is just 3 days and so if you have $100.00 cases out there today in 3 days it'll be 200 and it just grows exponentially over time so number one i think the president has done very well the 1st point i always mention in my original plan from the from 2005 was communication and they president every day has been out there talking air and now we're come to

the negatives but i think that's very positive number 2 i think having the experts up there people like tony who has been adequate 30 years he's been the head of the allergy is to to the national institute of allergy since 1984 and he's done a great job dr burke so i applaud the president having them up on the stage that the negative side of it i think is we've seen it recently with these hypotheticals are put out the other conferences go on way to a lot of people people are suffering and they are there and they are anxious and their lives are at stake and they don't need anybody on that stage putting hypothetical things out there that have not been proven and sometimes dangerous things and also the communications is minimal to a lot of our biggest failure that's the president our biggest failure has been this lack of testing the lack of impresses on testing the enemy is out there we know it

grows exponentially if we don't slow it down we know what slows it down we know we can't tolerate a total shutdown of this country for a year until we have a back same. and so what we need to do is test test test on it who has it who does not the people who have it do this contact tracing quine team them and then we will beat this basques mitch mcconnell who now holds the posts you once held some majority of you here publicly stated his reluctance for economically packages going directly to the states you agree with that. well i've heard him say and i heard the press present it but i haven't talked to him about it i didn't think the states are going to need direct shell unlike the federal government then we've spent 2 trillion dollars in the initial bill 3 weeks ago another half a trillion dollars last week and will probably think spend another trillion dollars

i think as we do this is not stimulus money because the experiment can't be stimulative got is not open today quietly why did you leave the same ole area if you recall when i came into the senate i spent 20 years in medicine and health and healing and doing the heart transplants and i came to serve 12 years as an legislate or so coming in i basically said i'm going to take for 12 years i'm going to do my best to represent the people of tennessee i didn't know it and at that majority leader at the time but represent the people of this country and after that 12 years go back home and live under the laws that that i pastor helped to past and then work as a private citizen and do the sort of things we're doing now in trying to help policy makers of the future of love love the opportunity to serve and appreciate that and it's such a great noble profession but i didn't want to do it forever do you miss it.

you know i miss it but i've been able to do some extraordinary things because. when i was there as majority leader it was a lot of the politics it was a lot of taking care of and working with 99 other united states senators and since i left i've been able to help start companies that address things like hospice and end of life and palliative health care companies built around telemedicine and tele health and some of that still state in the united states senate would have loved it i'm sure but it would have the opportunity to contribute in ways that regular citizens and business people and philanthropist. as an aside and you certainly joe biden did you not at dead and if we were on the foreign relations committee as majority leader during the time that he chaired that committee. what do you think of him and what do you think of his chance. joe had given an

a plus to. do you know him very well i know his wife very well. travel with his wife to africa and she wanted to learn more about africa when he was vice president. respects for his intellect i owned a great respect from the opposite party as you well know but joe would do well as a president it will be interesting to see the election and as we all know elections in large part are determined by the economy and if you look over the last 110 years of 10 times that we have not had a recession the president who is up for reelection would be reelected and of the times in the last 110 years if there's been a recession 4 of those 5 times that president has lost reelection so it looks like we're going to be in a recession we are going to be in

a recession during this period of time and unemployment is going to higher than it's been since the great depression because of this and demi so i think it'll be tough at least based on history or for president to be reelected and there's a good candidate across the aisle so you know i would say 5050 at this point but give me shit if you look back in history you would say that president trump has an uphill battle. we'll take a break and come right back with former senator bill frist we'll talk about his far right after this.

we go to work. straight home. 30 years ago the berlin wall fell the cold war had essentially come to an end the fall of this cold war symbol was heralded as a new spring of nations and the end of communism decades on what is the legacy of this historic event the promises of 1909 been fulfilled. yes. before. he can prove. shit out. here are definitely walking into the word don't you know we no longer know what we're walking into. march. what she needs to break she.

who shakes but also sensible so. thousands of american men and women choose to serve in the country's military and the decision little sheltered lives every song came to a complete. the day that i was raped to be instructed here you know told to shut up what they kill me and i see how it destroyed my life any screamed at me and he made me come in and he grabbed my arm and he write me with his berthing area if you take into account that women don't report because of the extreme retaliation and it's probably somewhere near about half a 1000000 women have now been sexually assaulted in the us military rape is a very very traumatizing thing tat happen but i've never seen trauma like i've seen from women who are veterans who have suffered military sexual trauma reporting rape

is more likely to get the victim punished don't be offended i had an almost 10 year career or chose very invested in and i gave a sex offender who was not even going to justice or put on the registry this is simply an issue of tower and violence male sexual predators for the large part of target whoever is there to prey upon whether that's a man or when. it . comes to your hand. welcome back to the politicking we're talking with bill frist former u.s. senate majority leader host of the 5 casts a 2nd opinion rethinking american health tell me about your part cash out when you are now does it work that bypass is really interesting larry and it's really in the feel that you're in but it was clear to me after i left the united states senate

people are getting their information in different ways i've been on the speaking circuit talking health care and hope in the healing and transplants and washington and then a year ago started about a cast which is on every week it's called a 2nd opinion with bill frist you can get it where people get their pot test and we spent 30 to 45 minutes once a week for the last year and we will over the next year talking to people with a very specific interest in the interest at the intersection of health and healing and medicine all the things that we talked about today in terms of health and that intersection with policy issues and how policy can address them and the 3rd big component is innovation so we look at innovative thought creative thought of entrepreneurs people starting businesses and so something like the pandemic which we're talking a lot of bell will bring policymakers and like lamar alexander will bring in tom

friedman former head of the c.d.c. or jeff copeland former head of state he said he and it will be talking to health specialists in the scientists like marty berry from johns hopkins who you see a lot on the code virus or because were oh we ran the cleveland clinic and then we bring in elevators to sort of people who are like making back scenes and look looking to make those any and so it's on every week a 2nd opinion podcast dot com you can go there and look at it as well. what do you think few more questions what do you think of obama's affordable care act well i thought it was really interesting because when he was campaigning he was campaigning on the cost of health care because that's what really people care about and cared about time and then once he got into office he switched to the access if you will get you a huge issue in this country that 20 percent of people don't have care maybe 30000000 people 1215 percent only care today they don't get the care but they don't

have the insurance but people care about cost they will care act is an access bill cover more people did not address cost some people say it a little bit it really didn't so it did a pretty good job out there and the uninsured went from 30000000 down to about 15000000 people but it cost as you know a lot of money and everybody's prices that they had a prick health care went up to get the 1st 1000000 people a horrible access to insurance it's good in that part the fact it did not direct did not address cost at all couple but the fact that it was passed in a partisan way and there was no piece of legislation social legislation during my time as majority leader or when i was in the united states senate was passed in a participant way without any democrat but you put those 2 things together is why it is in the big picture his bail but there are some really good things and there are vulnerable populations who have access today that they did not have before. you

miss doing medicine. now you're getting close to my heart. the 1st time he. approached him it was in 1087 and at that time never thought about going into politics and the show that you did was on the heart transplant patient and the the shortage of organ donors and that little 2 year old boy we talked about is now 32 years old and doing well through this miracle of transplantation so yes i miss the opportunity to be able to be a vehicle to bring in life very directly to the individuals. i can't go back to and i continue to have met a commission work for now 20 years after that and i'm not operating now but at huge respect to those people on the frontline today who are doing lifesaving work so that you and i can sit here and have this conversation you're such a great guest and you come back soon i mean you are about to let it. go you in as

a guy but. now your great quote of my all time favorites one thing i want to ask there are people who was thinking that a lot of people may have heart problems and other things are afraid of or a hospital course in a pandemic what he say to the. 1st of all there you're right remember for the last 5 weeks the hospitals of essentially been closed down except for emergencies no elective procedures doctors' appointments not not cancel or cancelled not people not even seeing their doctors except to tell a medicine which has been very you know what that means is that people because they don't want to get sick and part are staying home with chest pain and they're having little minutes or to call and not being treated and having heart disease maybe even heart attacks at home so what i do want to say is that hospitals are back on line in tennessee elective surgery yan's this week and people can come to hospitals they are safe places to come to now unlike 2 or 3 weeks ago there's enough of that

protective equipment you'll go to isolated wards you go to isolated doors so you'll be very safe in going back to these hospitals today and i encourage you to do so because the doctors are there to get the preventive care and the nurses and the ancillary personnel and just because we have this virus it doesn't mean people stop having a heart attacks and asthma and respiratory disease and so they do need to get treated very important thank you bill a see again real soon thank you larry president trunk continues to say that he inherited a broken response system to pandemics from the obama administration dr bob kojo who served in that administration a special assistant to the president for health care and economic policy on the national economic council joins me for reaction or what do you make of trump's taken on. the world health organization. i think there are various nation is

doing its best to help the world endemic and every country america is trying to figure out how to respond to temper 19 out of 5 nerves and how we can work together to make a vaccine does the w.h.o. have a bias toward china. i don't think they have a masters in country what do you make of the president's claim those previous administrations live up to this i think he's out to lunch on that idea. our ministration. respond to the h one n one outbreak skillfully and created a vaccine to protect the millions of people around the world we set up our parents council in the white house that was working on pandemic preparation which they shut down. and so i'm not sure what he's referring to what what have we done right. i think we've done a good job in america at having the right to lead and aggressively move

faster better government to bow shot down high risk activity used at all the last repair and also to develop testing capacity sero in california where i'm sitting some of our hospitals actually have created really effective tests for. our manufacturing testing supply reagents the sample collection kits we have built our own distribution systems to to ramp up these efforts and many states are now in much better positions what we think that. testing re should have been doing really a grappa set of testing earlier and the c.d.c. should have used the past we're already about it from around the world to make sure to bring this test to america and get going if we contained the impact and more skillfully we wouldn't have as much of the country that shut down as much as it is

we know that there was really. were there could this year in america well before the national reports and that we now know that after the act because people. can't you test negative one day and then positive the next. like anything in life the way you catch it can be a lot of the fact that. what's great about coming n.t.'s think is that p.c.r. test that we use actually term positive really quickly and so they're quite good and sensitive it figuring out who's in fact it and give us good information about one wish that people say oh. i can the united states open safely sometime soon i think so i think we have all learned a lot about how we can take precautions to be safer in a world with this virus that's. the way i think about it is that your risk of in

fact it is proportional to the number of people pretty that you come into contact with so workers you know have more contacts we have think about how to protect them and how we should test them to make sure that they're also not spreading the disease but i think we've learned a lot now about how we can more safely reopen the economy based on the history of viruses should some our help. we don't really know or viruses are different and some barristers are seasonal we don't know yet and this virus will behave differently in the summer we can say in a lot of hot humid because there's lots of outbreaks of. but i'm not very confident as some are going to make it better not to fall gee for dixon returned in the fall do you. i think it's unlikely that they'll be more infections in the fall permanently because the main thing we know is that this virus is a very in action and if you're around people with it you'll probably catch it and

the more we make the economy more like it was before with more people interacting with more other people the odds are that it will begin to salary and when you do things to continue to suppress it was a worse case scenario for the summer. that stage for a wax there guidelines too soon and not have great testing in place and so you have brakes and a bunch of places where we haven't seen covered before as people travel more widely if they're infected they can bring that problem to wherever they're going and in the summer we travel a lot in america and so i'm worried that it will spread this disease and we're going to tap in a place that will really take hold in a bunch of communities that far haven't been affected so i gotta say we should keep stan all in the summer. i think we should give advice to people about how far to travel. it would be better for people to be closer to their homes and in the regions they live in taman of the virus perspective i think it's not possible to

stay home to the degree we are today and so we should make some accommodations so people can enjoy more freedom and have the economy to be. heard again will we attend sporting events this summer i don't think so i think i'd be very hard to create safe conditions and practice bases so you break my heart here no baseball. they might play baseball and idioms they're doing that in taiwan and so i hope that there is baseball in that there's other activities entertain ourselves but if we watching them remotely. that's sad bob thanks so much great having you with us. thank you for having me and wish you good health. you do and thank you audience for joining me on this edition of politicking member you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget to use the politic hashtag and that's all for this edition of politicking.

you've heard me often speak of the black hole of debt that is where all the debt the universe ends up after it leaves a central bank balance sheet and it's a cosmic force calling the g.d.p. of the world down now or at the white call of debt as i am a fellow straining with this white piece of cardboard the white ball of debt is on the other side of the black hole of debt and in an era of negative interest rates and negative oil prices we have to colorize our concept to debt hole from black to white makes sense and of course not. business like a horse race it's like a marathon there are $200.00. countries more than 200 participants

in this marathon and the question is which take me place out to save most lives and companies because the 2 matter of saving both. time of the time corporations repeat the same mantra sustainability it's very important to accelerate the transition to sustainable transport sustainability space where man a more equitable and sustainable world. they claim their production is completely hama's. because. it does not the companies want to. to feel good about products while the damage is being done far away this is something else this we don't even and i mean look. this is the movie. on disc.

live from the world headquarters of r t america in our nation's capital this is the news with rick sanchez kind of everybody i'm rick sanchez to all of you who are watching us from all over the world rather you're watching on regular t.v. or on on the app that's becoming so popular portable t.v. we are so glad you are there the friction between the united states and china has just reached another milestone in this one is much more tangible than the accusations that have been going back and forth about who's to blame for the coronavirus let me tell you what's going on for the 1st time.