Ep 9: Matthew Cortland

Episode Transcript
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Matthew Cortland (00:00):
If anything is going to save us, if anything is still

(00:04):
capable of saving us, if it isn't ourown humanity, I don't know what it is.

Marcus Harrison Green (00:18):
Welcome back to another episode of In The
Meanwhile, I'm Marcus Harrison Green.

Nora Kenworthy (00:22):
And I'm Nora Kenworthy, and I'm also roasting.
It's really hot here

It is.
Yes, it is.
Like Satan's underwear or Satan's drawshot as my southern grandma would say.
We've got fans and AC off toensure good, sound quality.
However, so today's episodeis brought to you by what Nora
likes to call hot podcasting.

That's right.
It's like hot yoga, but withless movement and more jabbering.
We basically just podcastuntil we pass out.

Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
You gotta listen for the sounds of sweatdripping slowly onto our microphones.
If you're wondering whether the heatyou feel is from the weather are
from being inside the, this is finememe, you've come to the right place

aside from the heat.
Marcus, how are you holding up?

You know Nora, I'm hanging in there.
But speaking of heat, have, haveyou seen the news cycle lately?
Uh, it's just a nonstopinferno of the same soulless
schools clocking the airwaves.
And Nora, I gotta say, I sincerely hopethat none of these people go to hell.
You know why?
Why?
I would prefer to never seethese people again, ever.
So, yeah, I was naive enoughto think maybe just, maybe the

(01:34):
news would take a summer break.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we'll kick back.
It'll touch some grass.
Let us pretend the world isn't on firefor a minute, but No, it's the summer of
ice cream trucks and ice deportations arebarbecues, beaches, and big bad bills.
Yes.
That is still a thing, eventhough many have moved on to
the next shiny new object.

So true.
Hiking and hurricanes, treeforts and treason lemonade and.
Losing U-S-A-I-D.
I don't know if that works.

I just, I just, it sounds like a, like depressing version
of, these are a few of my favorite things.
That's so true.
Hiking
treason.
Anyway.
Anyway, I, the listeners, they getthe idea is the summer of watching
our democracy slip and slide away.

(02:24):
Oh, had to go.
One more pun, one more, one more pun.
There

we're dishing out puns today, like Trump's
budget bill dished out cuts.

But unlike our puns, Trump's bill is anything but funny.
It's economic ruin for Americans andtax breaks for billionaires all wrapped
up in one extraordinary, messy package.

So true.
And though many of us want to forgetit already, um, it's dismantling and
erecting impossible barriers to nearlyevery kind of support program that we
have in the US from food and nutritionassistance to Medicaid and Medicare.

It's also worth noting that the bill does this against the
wishes of the vast majority of Americans,whether they are Republican, Democrat.
Socialist, libertarian, whatever.
For example, earlier this year,the organization Data for Progress
found that there was not a singlecongressional district, not a single
one in the US where more than 15% ofvoters actually wanted cuts to Medicaid.

(03:22):
And nationally, only 8%of voters total support.
These cuts.
There are literally more people,more people who believe that Elvis
and Tupac are alive Nora, and wantthese cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.
I mean, my God.
So true.

So to help us make sense of all of this, we
have an amazing guest today.
Matthew Cortland is a lawyer, a disabilityrights, and public health policy advocate.
A senior resident fellow at Data forProgress and a former Director of Policy
and Legislative Affairs for Be a Hero.
They've worked on numerous policyinitiatives and have been featured
in stories in the New York Timesand PR Politico to name just a few.

(04:14):
As a person with disabilities and chronicillnesses, Matthew was alive today
because of Medicaid and in spite ofrepeated attempts by insurance companies
to deny their care, they describetheir work in the following terms.
As a chronically ill patient, I'mworking towards the recognition
of healthcare as a human right.
As a disabled lawyer, I'm workingtowards the expansion of meaningful
and enforceable disability rights.

(04:35):
And as a human being, I'm workingtowards a more just society
that leaves no one behind.

And for the past few months, Matthew has been fighting
relentlessly alongside patients anddisability advocates to preserve
access to Medicaid, Medicare, and otherlifesaving programs that were facing
enormous cuts under Trump's budget.
Reconciliation Bill as a key advisorto the group, little lobbyists,
which brings young people withdisabilities to Washington to
advocate on their own behalf.

(05:01):
Matthew has accompanied families andchildren as they put their own bodies
on the line to demand health justice.
Matthew knows firsthand both thehard fought victories and tremendous
losses of the past few years andmonths when it comes to protecting
health as a human right in the us.
And we are so excited to havethem here with us today to
talk more about that fight.
Uh, Matthew, thank youfor being here with us.

Thank you.
It is fantastic to be with both of you.

Awesome.
Well, I wanna start out by askingyou, Matthew, you've been involved
in advocacy on behalf of disabled andvery sick kids for a long time now.
Can you share a little bit abouthow you got into that work and
why it matters to you personally?

Yeah.
I started out as a very sick kid.
Um, I, I don't disclose my entire problemlist in the jargon of the biomedical
complex, industrial complex, but Ihave been public about some stuff.
Like I, I, I am, I'm very public abouthaving Crohn's disease, which is a

(06:04):
kind of inflammatory bowel disease,but there are also people who have
called up my pharmacy, called up myhospital, called up my doctor's offices.
Impersonating me using informationthey gleaned from what I had put

(06:26):
out publicly on the internet.
So I'm very careful about whatI disclose publicly these days.
But I have Crohn's disease, it's akind of inflammatory bowel disease.
I had it, I've had itsince I was a small child.
I didn't really have access to medicalcare as a child until I was 18 and

(06:46):
could make medical decisions for myself.
And I dived in, uh, to healthcare.
I, I, I feel like I really gotdumped into the deep end of the
pool as a college student whoreally didn't know anything and got.
Passed around.
Uh, you know, it was afairly complicated case.

(07:07):
Doctors didn't wanna take care of me.
Uh, I got, you know, passedup the chain in Massachusetts.
We, we say, got sent to Boston, uh,I got sent to Mass General Hospital,
MGH, which I didn't know at the time.
They refer to themselves likeit's, it's supposed to be a joke.

(07:28):
They don't mean it as a joke.
As man's greatest hospital.
Wow.
And, uh, the House of God, a, abook called The House of God is, is
largely about MGH and the type ofpeople you will still find there.
Um, but the short version is onceI was a patient of a person whose

(07:51):
full title included Professor ofMedicine at Harvard Medical School.
And attending physician atMassachusetts General Hospital,
one of the most prestigious andwell-regarded hospitals in the world,
and they prescribed treatment for me.
My insurance company triedto kill me in response.

(08:17):
This was before the Affordable Care Act.
And, you know, my, my GI Docat the time, uh, I was, uh, a,
a medication was failing me.
A medication called Remicade.
You might have seen the TV commercials.
Remicade is derived from a mouse protein.
It's, it's built on a mouseprotein to oversimplify.

(08:37):
And when you inject a mouseprotein into your body,
regularly, something can happen.
It's called immunogenicity.
Your immune system recognizesthat the mouse protein is
a thing, it should attack.
Again, I'm oversimplifying immunology.
I am not an immunologist.
But that happened.
And when that happens, themedication really stops working.

(08:57):
Uh, and so my GI doc wanted to moveme to a new medication that was on
market, meaning FDA said it's safeand effective that you can, you can
sell it, uh, to the pharmaceuticalcompany that makes it, but it wasn't
on label, meaning FDA had not approvedit for my specific kind of disease.
And so my insurance company, uh,denied the prior authorization request.

(09:22):
Prior authorization request is justa fancy way of saying when your
doctor goes and begs your insurancecompany to let them practice medicine
to help you, they denied that.
And then when you, uh, the next stepthere is that you appeal the denial.
Cigna at first said that they didn't getthe appeal via, you know, the postal mail.

(09:45):
And, and so I would, I, I like.
It got faxed into them and theysaid they didn't get the fax.
And so then I faxed in the appealpackage and the fax receipt and
they said they didn't get that.
And so I sent it USPS certified mailreturn receipt requested the green card
that used to be, uh, in more post offices.
I am dating myself with reference to thegreen card, but someone in the mail room

(10:08):
actually has to sign a physical piece ofcard from USPS and send it back to you.
And it's, it's proof of deliveryin including in a court of law.
And at that point, they acknowledged thatthey got the appeal package, but then
they said my doctor wasn't authorizedto submit an appeal on my behalf.
And so, again, I am not alawyer at this point in time.

(10:30):
I have no formal training in any ofthis stuff, but I'm reading through
the handbook from Cigna and it saysin plain text in black and white, your
doctor is presumptively, you know,authorized to appeal on your behalf.
You don't need to providespecial permission.
So I. Copied that and sent it into Cigna,and then they pretended not to get that.
So this went on, this campaign ofstonewalling went on for two and a

(10:53):
half months, and I was very sick.
Uh, I had lost somewherebetween 40 and 50 pounds.
I was not able to eat food.
I was vomiting constantly.
I was in incredible pain.
And someone got me a lawyer.
I don't even remember how that happened.
My, my memory of that is, is fuzzy.

(11:13):
I was just in so muchpain all of the time.
And I told my story to that lawyer andthe next day he sent a demand letter
of, uh, he faxed to Cigna a letterthat said, unless you approve Matthew's
medication, which has been prescribedby a professor of medicine at Harvard

(11:35):
Medical School, and an attending physicianat MGH Man's Greatest Hospital, I will
file suit on the following grounds.
And then the following day after he sentthat in, by the close of business, they
had approved the prior authorization.
So that changed the course of my life.

(11:55):
And I realized that if I was goingto survive, I needed to understand
both the healthcare, service anddelivery system much better than I did.
'cause I didn't really understandhow any of it worked, and I needed to
know how to sue insurance companies.
So I,

(12:18):
I almost said I abandonedmy graduate program.
I, I was at teacher's collegeat Columbia doing developmental
psychology, which had been my dream.
Uh, I was doing graduateschool in dev psych, and.
I was forced, essentially toleave that by the insurance
shenanigans and, and, and so on.

(12:40):
Um, and I went to Boston University'sGraduate School of Public Health, uh, for
a few years, and then I went to law schoolat what was then called the George Mason
University School of Law and has sincebeen rebranded the Scalia School of Law.
Ooh,

that's a rough one to have on the cv.

My CV still says George Mason University School of Law.
Uh, it will never say, uh, the nameof the hateful, vile, despicable.
Racist, eugenicist Coward, whosename now Graces that institution.

Yeah.
I, I am all for dead namingin that particular sense.
Yes.

It's a limited exception to my personal policy as well.
It sounds like we're on the same page.
I went through that and I was, I wasin law school and, um, looking at what
I wanted to do next, and two thingsbecame really clear to me really quickly.

(13:49):
It was going to be really hard for me topractice law in a traditional career path
just because of my chronic illnesses.
And there were a lot of people, youknow, it's not a scalable solution to
send everyone with a chronic illnessto public health school and law
school, just as a societal solution.

(14:11):
It doesn't scale.
Uh, right.
And so I, I thought, well.
If I can work on these problemsat a higher, you know, 40,000 foot
overview on a policy level, um,that's where I eventually arrived.
I, I did some retail advocacy, uh, sortof lawyer client helping individual
disabled folks navigate the system, tryingto get SNAP benefits, uh, WIC benefits,

(14:37):
S-S-I-S-S-D-I, these are the programsthat we sort of laughingly call in this
country the safety net, uh, which impliesthat they provide safety or that they form
an actual net, neither of which are true.
But
I, I realized after a little whileof doing that work, there were too

(15:01):
many starfish on, on the beach.
Right?
It's that old story.
Kid picks up a starfish, the beach,throws it back into the water, old guy
approaches and says, what are you doing?
There are too many starfish.
And kid said, well, I, I madea difference to that starfish.
Um, for me, the knowledge thatthere were all these other starfish,

(15:26):
that by helping one person I didn'thave the capacity to help, couldn't
help weigh too heavily on me.
Uh, and that's, that's why Igot into the sort of policy
advocacy you're talking about.

Yeah, I think that's something that really
resonates with all of us.
I mean, you've said in the past that, um,policy for disabled people in particular
is largely a life and death issue.
Um, and I think we're seeing thatunfold in front of our eyes in
particularly acute ways right now.

(15:59):
Um.
With so many folks who are alreadynavigating economic precarity and
racism and environmental harm,how do you see disability justice
intersecting with broader movementsfor racial and economic justice?
Um, and in these policy arenas?

I do not know everything is on fire.
We are losing, it feels like acrossthe board and in a country that was
founded on the genocide of, in indigenouspeoples and the enslavement of people's

(16:40):
kidnapped from another continentand forcibly transported here in a
country built on those foundations.
It's never fully a surprisewhen everything is on fire, but
the magnitude, the sheer scopeand scale of what is happening.

(17:01):
Means, you know, a few things.
One, I'm out of the prediction business.
I, I, uh, I realized I don't have amental model that is sufficiently both
random and pessimistic enough Yeah.
To account for what is likely tohappen in this country these days.
Right.
Like, uh, it,

(17:23):
you know, I, I don't expect good things.
I expect bad things and, andI, I've gotten some of it.
Right.
Right.
Like we, you know, vaccines forexample, uh, it became pretty clear
when the regime announced Robert F.Kennedy Jr. As their pick for HHS
Secretary, that vaccine availability was

(17:45):
in

trouble.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, but
I don't know where we go.
What happens next?
I know.
That there are powerful, deep pocketed.
I mean, not just millions, butbillions of dollars available to them.

(18:08):
Players who don't wanna see
people who are interested in a betterworld for the most of us, as opposed
to this current system that we areaccelerating where wealth and privilege
in, in, in like life itself is accreted tothe top 1% transferred from, you know, the

(18:33):
99% of us to a handful of billionaires.
Um, but given the pace and scale and scopeand also the structural and advantages
that they've built for themselves,I'm not sure where we're going.

(18:56):
I know.
We can't keep doing what we've beendoing 'cause we've been losing.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.
Um, well onto a cheerier, uh, topic here.
Uh, no, no.
Um, I mean, you said that you,you know, you don't expect good
things here in the near future.
So what do you want families whorely on Medicaid and Medicare to
know in the months and years tocome in terms of what's important

(19:31):
in the fight going forward?

We have lost a number of big fights badly, and
the Trump regime and MAGA and Maha
is an explicitly eugenicist,explicitly white supremacist
project that has, as its aim.

(19:57):
The death, the murder of people whodon't fit their very narrow conception,
white, wealthy, some flavor, some versionof what they call Christianity, uh,

(20:19):
is sort of a, a Christian nationalism.
Um, people who don't fit into that box
are being targeted by policies, bypronouncements, by a public narrative

(20:44):
that really devalues our lives.
And, you know, I if you're listening tothis, I'm a, a pollster, it's my day job.
I work at a, a, a progressive publicopinion research firm and think
tank called Data for Progress.
And I see a lot of public opinion data.

(21:05):
And I don't have polling specific to youraudience, but I am guessing if you are
listening to me talk right now, you aremore informed about what is happening
in the United States politically,economically, socially, than the vast,
vast, vast majority of Americans.
And

(21:27):
so part of this is there'sa education deficit.
People don't know what's happening.
My inbox today, we are talking on July15th, the vote on Trump's, I call it a
murder budget 'cause I don't believe inadopting the propaganda of my enemies.

(21:47):
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Harrison Green: The appropriate title, (21:48):
undefined

right?
Trump's murder budget.
It's already been voted on andpassed and signed into law.
My inbox today has interview requests.
Hey, do you have anyone who can explainwhat this bill means for Medicaid?
Right.
The time for those discussions wasbefore federal legislation was approved

(22:14):
out of the house in the Senate, andthen signed by the, the, the regime
cutting a trillion dollars for Medicaid.
Mm-hmm.
What I will say is we have anopportunity right now to inform people.
And so if you were, if you were someonelistening to this and you know what's
happening with Medicaid, if you knowthat Medicare is also in jeopardy,

(22:37):
if you know that Snap has been cut,and please, dear God call it snap.
Don't call it food stamps.
That's the pollster in me.
Uh, we, we, um.
Snap, uh, supplemental NutritionAssistance program is, is the
rebranded renamed program thatused to be called Food Stamps.

(22:58):
It was officially renamed infederal law in the year 2008.
And there are still people, stillorganizations, still leaders, still
elected officials calling it food stamps.
And what I can tell you is more voterssupport snap than support food stamps.

(23:22):
'cause I did the polling.
Oh my gosh.
Data for progress.
We did that polling, I

gotta, I gotta ask you, is it, is it similar to how
more people support the AffordableCare Act than support Obamacare is?
It's that stark of a contrast or,

so what I will, I was going there.
You're just too quick for me.
Okay.
Okay.
You, you, you, you, you're,you're, you're, you're telegraphed,
you're predicting my moves.
Uh, you know, what we see is.
How we talk about this stuff reallymatters, to your point, right?
How we talk about this stuff really,really, really, really matters.

(24:01):
So with, you know, and this is data thatwe first ran in 2023 in March of 2023.
It was a survey that was fieldedfrom March 10th to March 12th,
survey of 1,208 likely voters.
And we did a, a split test.
Um, we asked folks, half the, the folkswere randomly assigned to be asked if

(24:24):
they supported increasing SNAP benefits.
The other half were randomly assignedto being asked whether or not they
supported increasing food stamps benefits.
And we found a 19 point advantagefor snap framing over food stamps.
19 points.
It is really hard to find anythingthat has a 19 point swing now.

(24:45):
To your Marcus, your, your fantasticpoint about Obamacare and the a
CA In the same vein, a thing we'vebeen struggling with during this
fight is, what the hell is Medicaid

called?
Mm-hmm.

Because states have different names for Medicaid.
I am alive because of a programthat Massachusetts calls Mass
Health, M-A-S-S-H-E-A-L, health,H-E-A-L-T-H-I can totally spell.
Uh, but other states call it other things.

(25:20):
Badger Care.
Badger Care is whatWisconsin calls Medicaid.
Uh, and so we looked at,at Data for Progress.
Um, you know, we did a lot ofpolling that was specifically
geared towards Medicaid defense.
'cause we could see the attacks coming.

(25:43):
And really try to figure out how totalk about Medicaid in a way that
normal folks who don't listen tothis podcast and who haven't read
your amazing work, don't understand,don't, don't have any context for it.
Don't, they're not familiar with it.
And so how do you talk about thisstuff in a way that gets through?

(26:08):
Um, and you know, what we, what we foundis that voters in every congressional
district, according to a DFP model inthis country, oppose Medicaid cuts because
I am deeply familiar with Medicaid.
We also asked about home care, which wasa topic that was neglected by some of the

(26:28):
other public opinion research out there.
People don't know that.
Mm-hmm.
Medicaid pays for home care, basically.
No other insurance company, includingMedicare, will pay for home care
over any significant length of time.
When you're on Medicare.
You're on home care, you have aclock, it's much less than a year
and you're burning through days.

(26:48):
And when you get to thelast day, that's it.
Uh, Medicare won't pay anymore.
Medicaid will pay for home care.
And
when we asked likely voters, uh, ifthey opposed, cuts to home care, you
know, you see even less support forhome care cuts than you do for Medicaid

(27:12):
cuts because people understand evenif they're not policy wonks, that it
is better to live in your own homewith your own family, your own spouse,
your own kid, with your own mom or dad
than it is to live in a nursinghome or a long-term hospital.

(27:36):
And so.
The part of the, part of theproblem though is people don't know.
People don't know that Medicaidis what's providing their
healthcare in the same way.
A lot of folks don't know that Obamacareis the Affordable Care Act, which

(28:00):
is what's providing them healthcare.
And I think, you know, if I'm, ifI'm honest with you, if I'm truly
honest with you, I think partof this confusion is by design.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
In the same way that there aretwo similarly named programs
administered by the Social SecurityAdministration for disability.

(28:23):
There's SSDI and there's SSIand they are different programs.
And even people who are on one orthe other often don't know which one.
Right.
Because they are deliberatelyconfusingly named, in my opinion.
Uh, they like.

Or like Medicare and Medicaid being quite
similar in how they're named.

Absolutely.
And I will tell you one of the thingsthat was really eyeopening for me
is going to Congress to advocate andtalking to staffers who did not know the
difference between Medicaid and Medicare.

(29:05):
And these weren't, you know,it wasn't like I was talking
to the foreign affairs staffer.
I was talking to the personwhose portfolio included
Medicaid and or Medicare.
Usually they go together, healthcare,you know, sort of the entire sector.
And that was truly mind blowing for me.

(29:29):
Um, you know about.
I guess I shouldn't have been surprisedat the time I didn't have this data.
Uh, but you know, when we looked in Aprilof 2025, in states whose Medicaid program
is not called Medicaid, 'cause there arestates that do just call it Medicaid.

(29:49):
But in states that call it somethingelse, about six in 10 voters correctly
identify that it is a Medicaid program.
38% of likely voters are unable to do so.
And that's a, like asignificant chunk of people.
Um, so we have, we havea branding problem.

(30:12):
It's, it's a crass way to think aboutit, but, and if you were someone who
is familiar with this stuff, partof what you can do is talk to your
people about it, talk to your friends.
Talk to your family, talk to youknow, your community, whatever

(30:34):
that community looks like for you.
Because another thing that we findat Data For Progress, when, when we
ask people about this, you know, whodo you trust to give you information?
What sources of information do youconsider to be, you know, trustworthy?

(30:55):
We also ask like, where arethey getting their information?
Uh, and in 2025, you know, that's.
That list is sort ofpersonally terrifying for me.
Yeah.
Um, yeah,

I'm, I'm a member of the media and
I, I, oh, I, I feel your pain.

Do, do you work for Facebook now?
Because I, I thought we allworked for, for Meta now.

Geez, I that's, that's too close to home.
Um, I will ma Matthew, I wannaask you this 'cause I've, uh, you
know, listeners of our podcast knowthat I'm a non-religious person.
I, I do not believe in some, some deity.
I believe when, whenwe're dead, we're done.
But I gotta say, like, meeting you,talking with you, like you, you're, you
are maybe making me a believer that,that God, that, that, that maybe they do

(31:44):
exist in the sense that I used to pray.
That the left would have its ownversion of Frank Lutz, you know,
the, uh, Republican pollsterand communications personnel.
And my, my God that you,

man, are you available, man?
Are from heaven?
Are you hireable?

Marcus Harrison Green: We'll talk after the show. (32:01):
undefined
We'll talk after the show, but I have,

oh my God, no, you're, you, have you, do you
have like, are are you bugging me?
Are you secretly in NSA ops,like what's happening here?
I,

you know, I just do my research.
I don't do the, you know, andvery intuitive, but Yeah, no,

you know, for, for folks who don't know Frank lz, and there
is so much on YouTube, there's a PBSdocumentary that focuses on his work.
Frank LZ is a Republican operativewho uses public opinion research
data to rebrand things like what.

(32:45):
The estate tax, which is the tax.
Wealthy estates pay upon the death of thatperson before the money moves on to the
next generation or wherever it's going.
He rebranded it as the death tax.
Mm-hmm.
Brilliant.
Simple, effective, and for atime because he rebranded at
that the death tax was repealed.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it was a, a bit of a budget IME trick, and
it it, it created an opportunityfor billionaires to move money
while it was, was, was phased out.
He rebranded globalwarming as climate change.
He rebranded oil drillingas energy exploration.
He is responsible, culpable morallyfor the deaths of untold hundreds,

(33:34):
millions of people on this planet and.
We need to be better.
Like, it's, it, the, it it's like you are,I, I don't even have a sports analogy.
I, I just, it's like youare showing up to play.

(33:57):
I, I, my brain is breaking, it'slike a major league baseball
team versus little leaguers.
Yeah.
Right.
Like in terms of messaging,that's the disparity.
And you know, there are people onour side, I'm hand waving our side.
There are people who have tried academics.
There's a guy named George Lakoff.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, who wrote a book called,don't Think of an Elephant.

(34:17):
Also wrote a longer bookcalled Moral Politics.
Right.
Who has said this sort of cognitivelinguistic framing stuff is really
important in Democrats, liberals,progressives, people who don't
believe in things like a murderbudget need to be much better at it.
And I.

(34:37):
I shouldn't say this on apodcast, I'm gonna do it anyway.
Fuck it.
Uh, I begged the field, begged the fieldto not call it the one big beautiful bill.
Mm-hmm.
Because I think it's a bad idea to a, tolike adopt the propaganda of the enemies

(34:59):
who are trying to kill our people.
I begged, begged people to stopcalling them, quote unquote work
requirements, either in the Medicaidcontext or the snap context and, you
know, what do we call it instead?
Call it a job loss penalty.
Because what they wanna do is if youlose medic, if you lose your job,

(35:21):
they wanna take your healthcare away.
If you lose your job,you lose your Medicaid.
Mm-hmm.
Tap into, tap into loss aversion.
Tap into the common experiencethat people all over this
country have of getting laid off.
Or you know, something happens thatthe plant shuts down, the bakery
closes, they get that letter in themail that says it's a Cobra letter.

(35:45):
Mm-hmm.
And it says, for the low, low costof four gajillion dollars a month out
of your own pocket, you can keep theshitty healthcare coverage you've had.
Tap into that.
And I tried, we pulled on it that thejob loss framing is superior to work
requirement framing and in the field andelecteds and staffers just didn't do it.

(36:13):
They kept repeating work requirementand they fail to understand.
They fail to look at the data.
Data's quite clear on this.
They also fail to understandthat there is something.
Deeply profoundly ableist in thefabric of this country where work,

(36:34):
if you are in a work frame, if thatis the, the, the border in which
you are operating work is popular.
It is virtuous.
Good people work, bad peopledon't work, layabouts don't work.
Uh, you hear politicians who haveenormous wealth from investments

(36:57):
and inheritances who aren't, youknow, working a, a, you know, 6:00
AM to 6:00 PM as a ditch digger.
You hear them talking aboutstuff like, well, idle hands.
You know what they say aboutidle hands and the devil, right?
Like, so, so we're just really bad.

(37:18):
At messaging and we need to get betterat it because people are counting on us.
There are lives on.
Yeah.
It matters whether or not people canhave health and healthcare cover.

And what's so striking to me in the data that you have been
working with at Data for Progress isjust how strong the consensus is, even
in a highly polarized society like oursaround protecting programs like Medicare
and Medicaid, if not expanding them.
And so while people may not understandright now that, you know, the big murder

(37:55):
bill has taken those things away fromthem, I do think they're gonna understand
it when it, when it happens to them.
Um, and, and so I guess I'm wonderinglike, do you think Republicans in the
House and the Senate are going to faceconsequences for this from voters?
And if not, why?

You're one of my heroes in the academy, and I
hesitate to disagree with you, butI don't share your confidence that
people are gonna figure it out.
Okay.

God.

Um, the, I know I am just, I am a, uh, I'm a happy go lucky.
Good news them, they today.
And I, I'm sorry.
Um, one of my favorite senators,um, is Elizabeth Warren, and I'm
choking up a little bit becausewe were recently in her office.

(38:46):
Uh, I was with families who came toWashington, dc Uh, these are families
with medically complex and disabledchildren, the kind of children who are
alive because of the fantastic advances inbiomedical sciences that have happened in

(39:10):
the last 20 to 30 years in this country.
These are children whoget to live at home.
If you have children, just imaginefor a moment someone comes to you
and says, your kid has this disease.
They can't live with you anymore.
They're going to a hospital.
Maybe it's an hour away,maybe it's two hours away.
You can visit whenever you want.

(39:33):
They'll never be coming home.
Like just put yourself into that.
Like imagine that for a moment.
And so these families, knowing thatthat is what they face, made the trek
to DC with their kids and spent timebegging and pleading and advocating and

(40:00):
being a visible presence in making them.
Making the people who would go to thefloor of the house and the Senate to
vote, making them look at their kids,even if it was just in the hallways.
Which, by the way, is a strategydeliberately employed because some
of these people wouldn't give us

meetings.
Mm-hmm.

And
we met with Senator Warren and she cameout into her, uh, the front room of
her office to, to just greet everyoneand, and say hi to the kids and say
hi to the parents and thank you.
And then she did an interviewwith, um, one of the, one of the

(40:42):
kids, one of the families, and
seeing a sitting United States senatorwhen there are no cameras on, when there
is no audience, it's just staff cryingbecause she's scared for medically

(41:05):
complex and disabled kids and is one ofthe smartest policy minds I've ever met.
Um.
It's terrifying in her auto, heroffice, uh, yesterday put out, it's
on Instagram on the Send Warrenaccount, a little timeline of when
will Donald Trump's quote, big,beautiful bill and quote go into effect.

Mm-hmm.

And what they've done is actually quite clever.
If your goal is to murder people,they have front loaded the tax cuts
so that those will kick in already.
They've already kicked in.
Mm-hmm.
They've started, um, in November,when people do open enrollment
for the Affordable Care Act orObamacare, uh, or the a CA, that

(41:51):
bill has way too many names.
Uh, the premiums will, will behigher, um, at the end of this year.
Clean energy tax credits go away.
So if you want solar on your roof,uh, call your solar installer now.
'cause they, they'vegot, they've got a line.

(42:12):
So on January one, January 1st,2027, Medicaid starts getting
hit really significantly.
Um, you'll see those jobloss penalties instituted.
You'll see a bunch of other stuffthat will disproportionately
hit the disability community.

(42:33):
So if you're in two different states,computer systems for Medicaid,
you're gonna get kicked off.
Uh, it doesn't like, there's, it,it's just gratuitously cruel stuff.
It's not like people aredouble dipping by the way.
Mm-hmm.
It's like if you, if you are theparent of a kid in Maryland and you.

(42:56):
On a waiver service because allof the home care stuff we're
talking about, it's optional.
It's not required to be paid forby law states don't have to do it.
States do have to pay for nursing facilitycare, which is one of the most messed
up public policy choices I've ever seen.
Right.
Like we will force a state to pay fora Medicaid, Medicaid force, a state's

(43:20):
Medicaid plan to pay for keepinga child away from their families
in a oftentimes filthy, dangerous
unloving.
It's like something out of
a wire monkey experimentfrom the sixties, right?

(43:42):
Like it's, it's, it's, it's awful.
Um, we'll force states to pay for that wewon't force 'em to pay for, for home care.
Home care is an optional service.
And so to your question to.
One thing is we have a littlebit of time to try to educate the
public now that the bill is real andthey can't lie about what's in it.

(44:08):
Well, let me rephrase that.
'cause that's not true.
They absolutely willlie about what's in it.
Uh, we can point to the legislativetax to the extent that truth matters
anymore and say, no, actually,here's what you've done to Medicaid.
Here are the ways you've harmed Medicaid.
Um, and we will see before thoseMedicaid cuts really kick in, we'll

(44:30):
see the healthcare service and deliverysystem that I and so many other
Americans rely on to quite literallystay alive, degrade even further.
Mm-hmm.
And so
I do not live in hope anymore.
Um, what I say I.

(44:52):
To families is what I say to anyonewho relies on Medicaid is I am not done
fighting and I have absolutely no right,none whatsoever to ask you to not give
up, to ask you to stay in the fight.
But I'm gonna do it anyway

(45:15):
because there is too much at stake.
Because we need you.
You deserve to be here.
And also we need you, like yourcommunity needs you, your friends,
your family, your neighbors.
We need you in this country.
And so the immediate messages,please don't give up.
Please stay in fight if you can.

(45:36):
And we have midterm elections coming up.
I know that there are otherfights that are important.
I am not someone who believes thatthe only fight that matters is
on election day, but we have anelection coming up and we also have.
We are going to have state-basedfights because this is going to be
a massive problem for the states.

(45:57):
To be perfectly blunt, Medicare has astronger, more politically powerful lobby.
Old people vote is what it comes down to.
Old people vote.
Politicians know that.
And so on Medicaid, you know, you get,you get to teach people what Medicaid is.

(46:17):
You get to tell them why it's importantto you, why it could be important to them.
If they don't care about you,if they do care about you,
it should be pretty obvious.
And then we have to, we have to, we haveto, we have to get better at messaging.
We have to get better at, to put itbluntly, not buying into their propaganda,
to putting out a clear explanationof why this stuff matters to people.

(46:41):
Other people know we have to stayin the face of state representatives
and governors so that they.
When they're, they're making thedraconian budget cuts that they're
gonna be forced to make, they harmMedicaid as little as possible.
And we have to try as, as quicklyas possible, if possible, to win

(47:07):
the, the midterm elections and thenreverse rescind, pass a new piece of
legislation, whatever that mechanismlooks like based on the numbers.
Uh,
you know, Duy like CommandZI, I wanna undo the bill.
Right.
And we're not, it's, it's morecomplicated than that, but we have a

(47:27):
chance to minimize the harm mm-hmm.
If we win the midterms.

Yeah.
I I want to go back quickly 'causeyou talked about not buying into the
propaganda and, um, to put a fine point onFrank, Frank Lutz, I remember a, a former
partner of mine used to say that, uh, youknow, that guy rebranded bad sex into 60
seconds of meditation every other Tuesday.

(47:52):
Um, but I had, I had a lot of stressin my life in my thirties, man.
Had a lot of stress inmy life in my thirties.
But any
to the, to the story you told earlierabout being in, um, you know, Senator
Warren's, uh, you know, SenatorWarren's office and, you know.

(48:16):
Witnessing an elected officialactually display empathy, which
seems to be in short supply fromelected officials these days.
I'm wondering how can members of themedia and how you define that, whether
it's traditional legacy, um, niche oreven, you know, podcasters such as,
such as we are, how can we help totruly illuminate true narratives, uh,

(48:42):
you know, of the disability communityas, as well as, um, you know, better
narratives around healthcare and so forth.
So we're not buying into the whole framingof, oh, this is, you know, these are
entitlements that, um, you know, needto be, be cut as, as, you know, large
as from our, uh, from our budget here.

I do not know, and at the risk of sounding
arrogant, that should be terrifying.
I do this for a living andI'm really fucking good at it.
And, and maybe there are other peoplewho do know the answer to that, but what
I see right now is when I'm scrollingYouTube shorts, 'cause I, I try to take

(49:24):
in, uh, a deliberate, mindful, sortof stratified, uh, intake of, of, of
content across platforms and niches andgenres to, to try to be good at my job.
And what I'm seeing now is YouTube shortsthat are completely ai The script is

(49:45):
written by chat, GPT, the video, it'snot even pulled from a stock, uh, a
stock video site like story, story, um,story blocks or whatever it's called.
It's now just generated by AI models.
The video is AI generated and

(50:08):
the effect.
Of AI produced content text,but more importantly, photos.
And even more importantly,video is, I think, existential.
I don't know how a democracy survives.

(50:29):
I, I, I worked for a while for a guynamed Adi Barkin, who co-founded a
organization called To Be a Hero.
Adi was diagnosed with aLS, he knew he was dying.
He wanted to spend his remainingprofessional time fighting for, uh,
Medicare for all, for healthcareas a human right in this country.
And Adi

(50:53):
a LS took ATI's voice and he wasusing eye gaze technology to type and
then a standard synthetic voice and aRepublican member of Congress was able to.
Um, manipulate somevideo and audio of Adi.

(51:14):
So it, uh, it, he, he, they had,they, they put words into his mouth.
He was saying something,he, he didn't say.
And at that point Iknew we were in trouble.
Um, because the technology was rapidlyand it, I think it now is at the
point where you can fool a large,I don't have data on this, but a, a

(51:35):
non-trivial portion of the populationusing commonly available AI tools.
This stuff may not fool you right now,give it another year, but it's fooling
a non-trivial number of people now.

Mm-hmm.

And.
I don't know what to do about that.
I, we are in a crisis.
Yeah.

I mean, it reminds me of what, uh, the tech expert Alandra
Nelson has been saying about howwe need a whole new fetal field of
study and how ignorance is actuallyactively produced by these systems.
Um, that it's not just that people don'tknow, it's that they are being made
to not know and that the informationsystem itself is being polluted.

Dr. Nelson was for a little while running the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policyand, uh, wrote her byline appeared over
a post that was published@whitehouse.govcalling for clean air interventions.
At a time when the rest of thefederal government was ignoring it.

(52:39):
I am a huge fan of Dr. Nelson, and Ithink her take is exactly right and
also if she had been in charge ofscience policy in the administration,
the Biden administration, a lotmore Americans would be alive.
Right now.

Throughout this conversation, it strikes me that one
of the defining sort of successfulstrategies of a lot of your work and the
work of health advocates more broadlyover the last decade has been to really
surface the actual stories of patientsand bring those into the halls of power.
Um, you know, I think about theincredible organized fight against

(53:19):
repealing Obamacare in 20 17, 20 18in this kind of media environment.
Do you think that those truly personal,like real human stories still hold.
Value and still have a possibilityof advancing this agenda?
Or do we need new tools,

if anything is going to save us, if anything is still
capable of saving us, if it isn't ourown humanity, I don't know what it is.
And so I made the decision in 2017to trade away my personal privacy.
I wasn't open about being chronicallyill, I was told it was bad for my career.

(54:04):
I was told, et cetera, et cetera.
Um, I might not be admitted to the bar.
I
made the decision to trade awaymy privacy on all of that in order
to be a more effective advocate.
When Mike Pence said that healthcarewas a matter of personal responsibility

(54:25):
and I stayed up all night and Imade a video that was basically.
Like, what the fuck did I do whenI was eight years old that was
personally irresponsible to getmyself to like have Crohn's disease?
Um, I think it is unfair toask people to make that trade.

(54:45):
We do it anyway 'causeit's the best tool we have.
I would not be comfortable asking people
to trade away their privacy, tradeaway the privacy of their kid.

(55:05):
Like where, you know, we can getdeep into the bioethics weeds here,
going back to my roots as a, youknow, in public health school.
But, uh.
You have parents who are essentiallyforced to make the decision to trade away
the privacy of their medically complexchildren in order to try to save the

(55:26):
lives of their medically complex children.
It's a horrible, horrible thingwe've done in this country.
Yeah.
Uh, no one should have to do it.
And to be incredibly clear, my criticismis not of the parents, it's not of
the families, it's not of myself.
I've done it too.
It's of a system that says, wewill not recognize your humanity.

(55:46):
We will not recognize your, your now it's,we will literally not recognize your,
your right to continue to life mm-hmm.
Your existence unless youengage in this kind of advocacy.
But to your point, it is some of themost effective advocacy I know of, and
I think we have an obligation, a dutyto be as effective as we possibly can.

(56:17):
With the sacrificesbecause it is a sacrifice.
Mm-hmm.
That chronically ill disabled,medically complex people throughout
this country are making and being public
with their own
stuff, their own story, their ownexperiences, their own diagnoses.

(56:42):
And I think oftentimes we fall short,we, uh, collectively the field.
Um, I have been deeply frustratedto see organizations that reach out
into chronic illness communities,reach out to disabled folks, you know,

(57:03):
send out blasts, Facebook, all thatsort of stuff to recruit storytellers.
Then using.
Trump talking points, like callingit the one big beautiful bill,
calling it work requirements.
Um, I think we owe people who engage inthat kind of advocacy better than that.

(57:23):
I think we owe people
more than an allegiance to a gerontocracy,to politicians who wouldn't know a TikTok.
Uh, it, the, it,

(57:45):
I am, I am walking a very fine linein what I'm saying publicly right now.
Um, we appreciate

Marcus Harrison Green: your raw honesty today. (57:51):
undefined

We do.
I, I, you know, one of the mostimportant people on the Senate side
for Democrats use as a flip phone.
It's not a gimmick.
He genuinely uses a, a flip phone.
The senator from the great stateof New York and the minority

(58:15):
leader uses a flip phone.
And it's not like there's a, a hiddeniPhone and it's for folksy charm.
He's using a flip phone and he's alsowalking around imagining a family
in Long Island, not a real family.
He's imagining them and that'scontrolling his policy decisions.

(58:36):
So against that backdrop, againstthat backdrop, I think it's
maybe the only chance we have ispeople who rely on healthcare.
People who have a chronic illness,who maybe have multiple sclerosis or
rheumatoid arthritis who maybe havediabetes, who maybe have COPD, who

(59:00):
maybe have sickle cell, whatever it is.
I think one of our best hopes, our onlyhopes is people overcoming Wait for it.
I'm not doing what you think.
The stigma

(59:22):
and the, the, the stigma that ableism putson talking about having a chronic illness
and talking to friends, talkingto family, talking to coworkers,
talking to your faith community
because one in four adults, accordingto the Centers for Disease Control,

(59:44):
before it was taken over in thiscountry, has a disability, one in four.
And you know, 25% of the population is anon-trivial percentage of the population.
Uh, and if we are public about it.

(01:00:05):
If we are public and we demand,because this is all happening
against a, it's not a backdrop.
It's happening againstwatching the federal government
become explicitly eugenics.
If you are, if you are listening to thisand you are not chronically ill, if you
are not disabled, you should know rightnow, it is the official policy of this

(01:00:26):
regime that people who are chronicallyill or disabled are fundamentally less
worthy of life than people who are notdisabled, who are not chronically ill.
And you can see that policy alignment,that value, you can see that value
play out in policy decision afterpolicy decision after policy decision.

(01:00:48):
And so unfortunately, we don'thave much of a choice right now.
So the plea is.
If this is something you care about,if it touches you, if it touches your
family, you gotta get in the game.
I'm sorry, I don't like I am genuinely,you have no idea how sorry I am,
but you gotta get in the game.

(01:01:09):
We need you like you haveto help save yourself.
Other people can't do it without you.
There aren't enough of us if it's onlythe people who are on the field right now.
We need more people to get engaged,get involved, and it doesn't
need to be a full-time job.
It doesn't need to be your whole identity.
I don't need you to make TikTokcontent every single day, right?

(01:01:33):
I just need you to talk to people tofind an organization to connect with.
There are a lot of greatorganizations out there.
Do not email me saying,Matthew, I can't go anywhere.
I fucking know until three weeksago I couldn't leave my house
until I got a new medication.
I get that.
There are people who can't do it.

(01:01:53):
If that is you, I am not talking to you.
But if you can, if you can be a person whogoes to the town hall, that your member
of congress, that United States senator,that your state representative, that
your state senator, that your governor ishaving, if you can go to the town hall and
stand up at the mic and with your voice,quavering in, in, in just tunnel vision,

(01:02:18):
in the blood pounding in your head.
'cause that's how it still feels for me.
If you can say, I need Medicaid.
How are we gonna keepme from getting killed?
What are we going to do?
What's the game plan to keepour local hospital from closing?
If you can be someone whoshows up in public and has
that message, inputs a face.

(01:02:40):
So that your neighbors, your, your cocitizens, the people who are in your
voting districts and your electedofficials know, Hey, that's Steve.
Like, we're not just talking aboutthe, the hospital closing and like, oh,
what are we gonna do with the property?
It's like, what is Steve gonna do?
Or Steve's kid has asthma andsometimes needs to be intubated.

(01:03:08):
'cause the, you know, over the,the, the inhaler doesn't work.
And like if that local hospital closesout in rural Vermont, out in rural
Ohio, out in rural North Dakota, ifthe local hospital closes, the rural
hospital closes, Steve either has tosell the farm and move closer to a
hospital, or Steve has to take the risk

(01:03:31):
that while speeding to the hospital twohours away in his F-150, he's going to.
Watch his daughter die in his arms.
Hmm.
That is where we are in this country.
And I hate it.
It's not the, the, the, thereality I would choose for any

(01:03:53):
of us, but it is, please believeme when I tell you where we are.
And so the more people who get inthe game who talk about this stuff
publicly, not just on social media,but who show up to the town halls, who
show up to your local city council.
If you are in a city that hashospitals that are in danger of closing

(01:04:15):
your city council ought to care.
Oftentimes they do.
You can be a voice that says, Iwant you as a voter, I want you
to prioritize saving the hospital.
'cause that keeps me, my family alive.
Right?
Like, you've gotta, we.
Need more people.
We need more people whoare actively engaged.
And it sucks that in order to stay alive,you have to bully and conjole and beg.

(01:04:38):
But that is the timelinewe are in in 2025.
You can connect with nationalorganizations, get on some mailing lists.
They send out alerts foractions that are happening.
See if there's anorganization in your state.
I don't have a directory, but youknow, there, there are oftentimes in
a state, there will be an organizationthat advocates for healthcare.

(01:05:01):
See if they've got a mailing list,see if they're, you know, putting
out blasts about calls to action.
Uh, and then see what sorts ofevents your electeds are are holding.
And go and be an example, be thefirst person who gets up and talks
about healthcare because you arecreating a permission structure.

(01:05:22):
You are giving other people in that room.
Who feel like you do the permissionto get up at the mic and say,
yeah, actually, you know what?
My mom has ms and I don't know what'sgoing to happen if the hospital closes.
'cause that's where she seesDr. Smith every other month.
And I'm sorry that thisis the timeline we are in.

(01:05:46):
I really, I hate it so much, butit is the timeline we are in.

Nora Kenworthy (01:05:51):
Well, I can't think of a better place to end it than there.
And I wanna thank you for makingsuch a clear ask at a time when
it's really hard to make those.
And thank you for all that you do.

Marcus Harrison Green (01:06:03):
Yeah, tremendous pleasure meeting you
and tremendous conversation.
Matthew.
Thank you so much.

Matthew Cortland (01:06:08):
I am always happy, always genuinely ecstatic
to run into someone else.
Who understands that a non-trivialproportion of the problems
the world deals with today aredue to one man named Frank lz.
And,
uh, I am also, I will leaveyou with this thought.

(01:06:31):
You are creating media.
You are, this is gonna soundhackney and cliched, but you are
being the change we need to see,and I am deeply grateful for that.
You, you, you were bothtrustworthy, reliable, not AI
generated, uh, and able to provide.

(01:06:56):
Meaningful, accurate informationto people and the work you're doing
is deeply, deeply appreciated.

Oh, thank you.

Matthew Cortland (01:07:06):
Yeah, thank you for saying,

I am so thankful to Matthew for joining
us for that conversation.
Um, although really heavy, I feel likeit's such a call to all of us about
what we need to be doing in this moment.
As scary it as it did is.

Yeah.
I think, you know, when I was.
Listening to, to them speak.
What I kept thinking about was the factthat it hope truly is a discipline.
It, it's kind of likein, in sports, right?
We're the greatest, like AsiaWilson, I'm thinking, you know,
she's the, uh, best player in theWNBA, sorry, Caitlyn Clark fans.

(01:07:52):
But anyway, how she talks about how,you know, there's, you know, everybody
is, is always talking about motivation.
I need to be motivated.
I need to be motivated.
But what.
What allows for greatness, what allows thepathway to greatness, I should say, is,
you know, discipline, day in and day out.
And I think that's thesame with hope, right?
It's, you know, treated as adiscipline very similar to what,

(01:08:14):
you know, what Matthew was saying.
It's, it's not necessarily, they certainlydon't appear like they're like cheery
with platitudes every single day, right?
Mm-hmm.
They're just waking up every day anddoing the work day in and day out, day
in and day out with the hope, right?
That eventually this workwill cascade into something
that leads to transformation.

(01:08:36):
And I think that's the importantthing, particularly for, you
know, listeners of this podcast.
It isn't that, you know, uh, oneparticular action is, is going to, you
know, get us to the point of where we wantto be as a society, but it's the every
little day things that we do collectivelyas well as individually that get us there.

Mm-hmm.
And that we can keep doing iteven when we acknowledge how much.
Everything sucks.

Yes, absolutely.
We can, we can hold multiplethings at, at the same time, right?

Yeah.
We

can walk and chew gum at the same time.
So

yeah.
It also reminds me of our recentconversation with Gabriel Teros,
who is kind of talking about thisidea that it would be less hard
to stand up and say these thingsif more people said them, right?
Mm-hmm.
And, and so it's necessary for all ofus to stand up and say those things
so that we can make it a little biteasier for everyone else to do it too.

(01:09:32):
Right.
To take that load and make it alittle bit lighter for everyone else.

Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Well, speaking of, of, of disciplineand, and people saying things that,
that need to be said, Nora, let,why don't we move into our eight
ounces of joy for this episode?
Would you, would you like to gofirst, or, or, or last, sure.
Where would.
Go ahead and go first.
Yeah.

Mine is very small this week, but, um, I, I have a kid who's,
who's eight and who is a, a big reader,which is just a joy in and of itself.
But this week we started reading myfavorite kid's book, um, which is Haroon
in the Sea of Stories by Summon Rushdi.
Um, and I feel like I've been waitinglike a decade to read this book with

(01:10:17):
them, and it's just, it's so cool.
I love those milestones that youdon't expect to happen and then
you look up and you're sitting inbed with your kid and like reading
words that meant so much to you.
And yeah.
Small choice.

Yeah.
It, it is also good to knowthat you are adding to the
literacy of this, this country.
It seems like it's, I'm trying time.

It's hard to compete with YouTube.
One,

one person at a time, one soul at a time.
Okay.
Um, mine is, it's kind of similarlysmall, I suppose, in terms of
it's, it's a interpersonal thing.
Um.
The other day, my partner had a friendover and, and her friend's partner
and, uh, you know, we were sittingdown talking and you know, this guy is
like to the left of, of Pluto, right?

(01:11:03):
He's, he's, you know, he's like, he makesBernie Sanders looks like an, you know, an
intern in Reaganomics or something, right?
And, um, you know, he, we get donetalking and we have this, this wonderful
conversation that, and we're not justtalking about politics, but we're talking
about just life and goals and, um, youknow, sharing about our childhood and,
you know, the next day, um, you know,he communicates that, you know, that

(01:11:27):
that was just such a great experience inthe sense that he's a 42-year-old man,
doesn't have a, a, a ton of, of friends.
And was just recognizing that even atthis age, right, you can open up and have
conversations and be vulnerable, right?
Mm-hmm.
And be and welcome.
Other people into their li into newpeople, I should say, into your life

(01:11:51):
particularly, you know, in a timeperiod where even right folks who
are very much situated on the left,I think we still, as, you know, those
who are identify as men, you know, westill have this conditioning, right?
Where even though our politics may be, youknow, again, to the left of Pluto, right?
We, we still sort of many times fallunder the spell of, oh, you know, you,

(01:12:13):
you have to be hardened and there arethings that you can't talk about, right?
Mm-hmm.
And, and I think, again, I meanwe, we talked earlier about this on
another episode, but you know, thesort of crisis of, of friendship
and of the false narrative, ifyou will, of what masculinity is.
And I just thought it was such ahardening thing to see, you know,
somebody even at, you know, Ibelieve he's maybe a year older than

(01:12:35):
me, so 45 come to this realizationthat it's never too late Right?
To, yeah.
To be able to open yourself andlearn new things and, um, and,
um, have a new friend in life.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
And

bravo you for making that space for him.

You know, it, it helps with the little, you
know, parrot bay room, I gotta say.
But, uh, you know, anyhow, um, withthat being said, um, and no, that was
not a product placement, um, well that

we get no endorsement.

With that being said, let me go ahead and read us out.
Um, we want to of course, thankyou audience for joining us for
another week of, in the meanwhile,a huge thanks to our patient and
perceptive producer Jessica Park.
Now look at all that alliterationthat was written by Nora.
I'll have you know, our music is from theamazing Aha alu you can find and follow

(01:13:33):
us on your favorite podcast platform.
R on YouTube, Instagram are blue sky.
New episodes drop every Friday,and until then, we'll see you.
In the meanwhile.

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