April 10, 2020 • 10 mins
Tom discusses the big difference between the corona virus and other big enemies our country has faced throughout history: because this one is unseen, it will more deeply and forever change us all moving forward.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I heard Radio presents Tom Broke Off now here. This Hello,
my fellow Americans. We're all in us together, and we're
not all poised between anxiety and hope. Wherever we live,
wherever we came from, however much money we have or
don't have, it is a place that none of us
(00:21):
expected to be. But here we are. We're anxious about
the reality. We're hoping that it is beginning to level off,
and that that's real. This nightmare is another test of
American fortitude and genius, and it is historic and unprecedented.
We had the Great flu epidemic of eighteen but nothing
(00:43):
compared to this. And unfortunately, this will be part of
our future because of the way these kinds of viruses
travel around an ever more crowded world. The main land
of America was invaded by a vicious enemy, not visible,
deadly damage will be lasting. For all of President Trump's
(01:05):
bombastic claims, we were caught off guard, and it's very
hard to know clearly at this point just what our
future will be. Some biologists did know that, but mostly
we were celebrating the economy, the Democratic contest for a
nomination for president. Major League Baseball was coming up. Kids
(01:25):
will be out of school for the summer. We did
have a scandal that in some ways was so symbolic
of where we are in our lives. Very wealthy and
very entitled people in their own eyes, were cheating to
get their kids into good colleges, spending whatever it took
to have them skip the rules that apply to everybody else,
(01:47):
buy your way in. How symbolic was that? And then
wham that scandal came apart and c V arrived. It
began to ravage the country almost immediately, especially in their
crowded cities, especially in New York City. We had more
deaths than we could count for a while. We went
(02:07):
from boom to bust overnight. It was not just that
it was a virus. It was also a psychological dagger
aimed right at all of us. How could you feel secure,
however much money you may have wherever you lived, with
this unseen villain out there, ready to attack at a
moment's notice. How long it will be here we don't know.
(02:32):
There is now some belief that it is beginning to
flatten out. But what would keep it from coming back again?
Those fighting back, the first responders, all of them, the orderlies,
the nurses, the doctors, of people in the hospital system,
the ambulance drivers, the cops, the fireman, and the people
who are volunteering. Those are the symbolic Americans of our time,
(02:56):
and they represent what this country has always been. We
began with nothing in a great wilderness. Founding fathers had
a brilliant idea about how to organize us. And then
for the rest of our country, and then for the
rest of our time, people from all over the world
came because there was no greater prize than being an
American citizen, whatever the test may be. And now this
(03:21):
test is profound. At the center of it all at
the moment our hospitals and healthcare. Of course, just before
this all broke out, I was back in the hospital
again for cancer treatment and also because I busted up
my back in a biking accident. The overnight nurses were unbelievable. Hispanic.
One was a Vietnam boat refugee. Another one came from
(03:42):
Uzbeka's fan very funnily told me I spoke no English
when I got here, so I went to a meeting.
I had no idea what they were talking about. Somebody said,
does anybody know anything about a wheelchair. She said, I
raised my hand, yes I do, and then turned to
apprentice said what is wheelchair. She's now one the primary
nurses in one of the principal hospitals in New York City.
(04:04):
Another one escaped from the towers. She was working in
finance when even happened, and she decided she would change
her life and become a nurse because it was more
gratifying and more fulfilling. And now this, and she's on
the front lines of this. Now what Bill Gates knows
more about this than almost anyone else. You can imagine.
(04:26):
He and Melinda have been traveling the world dealing with
just these kinds of issues. We've been exchanging notes, and
he believes that he has to have the political process
play its way out first. Then he'll lead its hask
force with a leading biologist, with a new economy, with
dealing with the immediate challenges of how we work our
way out of this. And it won't happen overnight, despite
(04:49):
what the President says. Some people who could be on
that task force, for example, Fred Smith of FedEx, Jay
z Tim Cook of Microsoft, all those Billians, young people
who are working right now in the laboratories across America,
men and women from here and from abroad. Put them
on that big task force as well. Private and corporate
(05:11):
wealth is stepping up. There will be no shortage of money.
What we need to do is decide how we're going
to use it. The best recent example, of course, is
Jack Dorsey, the man who invented Twitter and building devices.
I've known Jack for a long time. He is typical
of that culture. When I first met him, he was
in black blue jeans and a black T shirt and
(05:32):
a snake was tattooed on his arm. Then he began
to move up to much better suits and I said,
still have a sneak, Jack, And he laughed and said yes.
Now he's prepared to give away one third of his
fortune of billion dollars to help and the participation of
fighting against this egregious invasion that we're all trying to
(05:54):
deal with. He'll remain quiet, his money will talk for him,
and the campaign will be about this in every corner
of America, not just in the big cities, but in
my home state of South Dakota now where it's beginning
to show up in other places and nooks and crannies
that we can't imagine how it happened, how to avoid
(06:15):
it for the future, how to recover. From now on,
we'll be dividing our history for before coronavirus and post coronavirus.
We'll also know that we'll all have a role, and,
as we often do, most recently in nine eleven, the
country will rally around each other and hope. We can
(06:35):
only hope that will find a way to get beyond
where we are and carve out a new future, which
will mean profound changes in our society and our politics
and our economy. Make no mistake about it. The past
is now past. We have to worry about the future.
If you want to be inspired, go pick up a
(06:57):
book about Winston Churchill and if they are at the
beginning of World War Two. There are several good ones out.
Rick Rick Atkinson, an American historian, and Eric Lawson, who
has a new book called The Splendid and the Vial,
have written brilliantly about how FDR and Churchill, especially rallied
(07:18):
the West to defeat the Nazi Empire. The Nazi Empire,
you could see, you knew we were up against. In
this case, we don't necessarily, but we have a new
generation of biologists and other specialists who are work even
as we speak, in laboratories dark at night, early in
the morning, trying to find a way out of this.
(07:40):
It won't happen kind of in a overnight fashion in
which somebody will suddenly say, eureka, we've got it. That's
not how it is in biolo sciences. And for the
President to go before the American press every night and
talk about how we're gonna get this like before too
long is unrealistic in my judge it. I think he
(08:01):
needs to keep the spirits of America up, but he
also needs to be realistic, and he must be not
afraid to spread the credit across party lines. It would
be helpful if he turned more often to the specialists
on his staff and gave them, in fact, more credit.
But that's just how I feel. I know that he
(08:22):
is the commander in chief. He feels he has to
take charge, and that is his prerogative. But in the meantime,
we're all in this army as American citizens, wherever we live,
whatever we do, however much money we may or have
or not have. This is the greatest test of my lifetime. Frankly,
(08:43):
in some ways, it's greater than World War Two because
we knew in a conventional sense that we had the
armament to deal with the Nazi empire. Here we're fighting
the unseen enemy, and we don't know even if we
knock it down this time, whether it will come back again,
and what the lasting damage will be. This is a
(09:03):
change in the life and the culture, the science of
not just America, but of the world. I recently turned eighty.
I was looking forward to a kind of leisurely post
a d period, a little more fishing, a little more writing,
a little more time with my grandchildren. I now am
(09:24):
consumed by what we're going through, and I know so
many of you are as well. We just have to
find ways that we can weave ourselves together to take
this on and be tolerant of the differences that we
may have in other areas. That will be the greatest
legacy that an American citizen or even a visitor can
(09:48):
leave behind. There is maybe a faint light at the
end of this tunnel. That's probably an overstatement, but we
have miles to go before we can sleep. Good luck,
every one, and probably to be a citizen with you.
We're all in this together. I'm Tom Broke off her
(10:08):
I Heart Radio. Now hear this
I heard Radio presents Tom Broke Off now here. This Hello,
my fellow Americans. We're all in us together, and we're
not all poised between anxiety and hope. Wherever we live,
wherever we came from, however much money we have or
don't have, it is a place that none of us
(00:21):
expected to be. But here we are. We're anxious about
the reality. We're hoping that it is beginning to level off,
and that that's real. This nightmare is another test of
American fortitude and genius, and it is historic and unprecedented.
We had the Great flu epidemic of eighteen but nothing
(00:43):
compared to this. And unfortunately, this will be part of
our future because of the way these kinds of viruses
travel around an ever more crowded world. The main land
of America was invaded by a vicious enemy, not visible,
deadly damage will be lasting. For all of President Trump's
(01:05):
bombastic claims, we were caught off guard, and it's very
hard to know clearly at this point just what our
future will be. Some biologists did know that, but mostly
we were celebrating the economy, the Democratic contest for a
nomination for president. Major League Baseball was coming up. Kids
(01:25):
will be out of school for the summer. We did
have a scandal that in some ways was so symbolic
of where we are in our lives. Very wealthy and
very entitled people in their own eyes, were cheating to
get their kids into good colleges, spending whatever it took
to have them skip the rules that apply to everybody else,
(01:47):
buy your way in. How symbolic was that? And then
wham that scandal came apart and c V arrived. It
began to ravage the country almost immediately, especially in their
crowded cities, especially in New York City. We had more
deaths than we could count for a while. We went
(02:07):
from boom to bust overnight. It was not just that
it was a virus. It was also a psychological dagger
aimed right at all of us. How could you feel secure,
however much money you may have wherever you lived, with
this unseen villain out there, ready to attack at a
moment's notice. How long it will be here we don't know.
(02:32):
There is now some belief that it is beginning to
flatten out. But what would keep it from coming back again?
Those fighting back, the first responders, all of them, the orderlies,
the nurses, the doctors, of people in the hospital system,
the ambulance drivers, the cops, the fireman, and the people
who are volunteering. Those are the symbolic Americans of our time,
(02:56):
and they represent what this country has always been. We
began with nothing in a great wilderness. Founding fathers had
a brilliant idea about how to organize us. And then
for the rest of our country, and then for the
rest of our time, people from all over the world
came because there was no greater prize than being an
American citizen, whatever the test may be. And now this
(03:21):
test is profound. At the center of it all at
the moment our hospitals and healthcare. Of course, just before
this all broke out, I was back in the hospital
again for cancer treatment and also because I busted up
my back in a biking accident. The overnight nurses were unbelievable. Hispanic.
One was a Vietnam boat refugee. Another one came from
(03:42):
Uzbeka's fan very funnily told me I spoke no English
when I got here, so I went to a meeting.
I had no idea what they were talking about. Somebody said,
does anybody know anything about a wheelchair. She said, I
raised my hand, yes I do, and then turned to
apprentice said what is wheelchair. She's now one the primary
nurses in one of the principal hospitals in New York City.
(04:04):
Another one escaped from the towers. She was working in
finance when even happened, and she decided she would change
her life and become a nurse because it was more
gratifying and more fulfilling. And now this, and she's on
the front lines of this. Now what Bill Gates knows
more about this than almost anyone else. You can imagine.
(04:26):
He and Melinda have been traveling the world dealing with
just these kinds of issues. We've been exchanging notes, and
he believes that he has to have the political process
play its way out first. Then he'll lead its hask
force with a leading biologist, with a new economy, with
dealing with the immediate challenges of how we work our
way out of this. And it won't happen overnight, despite
(04:49):
what the President says. Some people who could be on
that task force, for example, Fred Smith of FedEx, Jay
z Tim Cook of Microsoft, all those Billians, young people
who are working right now in the laboratories across America,
men and women from here and from abroad. Put them
on that big task force as well. Private and corporate
(05:11):
wealth is stepping up. There will be no shortage of money.
What we need to do is decide how we're going
to use it. The best recent example, of course, is
Jack Dorsey, the man who invented Twitter and building devices.
I've known Jack for a long time. He is typical
of that culture. When I first met him, he was
in black blue jeans and a black T shirt and
(05:32):
a snake was tattooed on his arm. Then he began
to move up to much better suits and I said,
still have a sneak, Jack, And he laughed and said yes.
Now he's prepared to give away one third of his
fortune of billion dollars to help and the participation of
fighting against this egregious invasion that we're all trying to
(05:54):
deal with. He'll remain quiet, his money will talk for him,
and the campaign will be about this in every corner
of America, not just in the big cities, but in
my home state of South Dakota now where it's beginning
to show up in other places and nooks and crannies
that we can't imagine how it happened, how to avoid
(06:15):
it for the future, how to recover. From now on,
we'll be dividing our history for before coronavirus and post coronavirus.
We'll also know that we'll all have a role, and,
as we often do, most recently in nine eleven, the
country will rally around each other and hope. We can
(06:35):
only hope that will find a way to get beyond
where we are and carve out a new future, which
will mean profound changes in our society and our politics
and our economy. Make no mistake about it. The past
is now past. We have to worry about the future.
If you want to be inspired, go pick up a
(06:57):
book about Winston Churchill and if they are at the
beginning of World War Two. There are several good ones out.
Rick Rick Atkinson, an American historian, and Eric Lawson, who
has a new book called The Splendid and the Vial,
have written brilliantly about how FDR and Churchill, especially rallied
(07:18):
the West to defeat the Nazi Empire. The Nazi Empire,
you could see, you knew we were up against. In
this case, we don't necessarily, but we have a new
generation of biologists and other specialists who are work even
as we speak, in laboratories dark at night, early in
the morning, trying to find a way out of this.
(07:40):
It won't happen kind of in a overnight fashion in
which somebody will suddenly say, eureka, we've got it. That's
not how it is in biolo sciences. And for the
President to go before the American press every night and
talk about how we're gonna get this like before too
long is unrealistic in my judge it. I think he
(08:01):
needs to keep the spirits of America up, but he
also needs to be realistic, and he must be not
afraid to spread the credit across party lines. It would
be helpful if he turned more often to the specialists
on his staff and gave them, in fact, more credit.
But that's just how I feel. I know that he
(08:22):
is the commander in chief. He feels he has to
take charge, and that is his prerogative. But in the meantime,
we're all in this army as American citizens, wherever we live,
whatever we do, however much money we may or have
or not have. This is the greatest test of my lifetime. Frankly,
(08:43):
in some ways, it's greater than World War Two because
we knew in a conventional sense that we had the
armament to deal with the Nazi empire. Here we're fighting
the unseen enemy, and we don't know even if we
knock it down this time, whether it will come back again,
and what the lasting damage will be. This is a
(09:03):
change in the life and the culture, the science of
not just America, but of the world. I recently turned eighty.
I was looking forward to a kind of leisurely post
a d period, a little more fishing, a little more writing,
a little more time with my grandchildren. I now am
(09:24):
consumed by what we're going through, and I know so
many of you are as well. We just have to
find ways that we can weave ourselves together to take
this on and be tolerant of the differences that we
may have in other areas. That will be the greatest
legacy that an American citizen or even a visitor can
(09:48):
leave behind. There is maybe a faint light at the
end of this tunnel. That's probably an overstatement, but we
have miles to go before we can sleep. Good luck,
every one, and probably to be a citizen with you.
We're all in this together. I'm Tom Broke off her
(10:08):
I Heart Radio. Now hear this
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