Return to Transcripts main page
Amanpour
Interview with Former CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry; Interview with "The Time Tax" Author Annie Lowrey; Interview with "The Breakup: A Novel" Author Kurt Andersen. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired September 01, 2026 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
A major departure at the Pentagon. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigns after months of clashes with Pete Hegseth. We'll have the details.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary: What is the cure for measles? The cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- a disease America once declared eliminated is back. As cases surge and vaccination rates fall, I speak to the CDC's former chief medical
officer about a public health system in crisis.
Plus, the U.S. government promises support, but what does it cost to get it? Journalist Annie Lowrey discusses her new book, "The Time Tax," which
exposes the bureaucratic barriers facing those who need help most.
Also, ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KURT ANDERSEN, AUTHOR, "THE BREAKUP: A NOVEL": It's harder than ever for me to imagine how we get back to normal, in the sense of not -- without
some radical transformation of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- a cautionary tale of a divided nation. In his new novel, "The Breakup," author Kurt Andersen imagines a near future America that
descends into civil war. He tells Walter Isaacson about blurring the line between fiction and reality.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
The vacuum of leadership at the top of the U.S. military is growing a little wider. U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has handed his resignation
to President Trump following months of clashes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Much of that friction is understood to have stemmed from Hegseth's
flashing of the Army's most senior leaders, including Chief of Staff General Randy George, who Hegseth fired in April without explanation.
For many, Driscoll's looming departure is no surprise, but it leaves the U.S. military without yet another combat-tested leader at what some see as
a time of maximum peril. Locked in a war with Iran that has no end in sight and adapting to the threat that cheap drone technology now poses to U.S.
bases in the Middle East.
Alayna Treene is following developments for us from the White House. And, Alayna, in terms of the U.S. being engaged in warfare, here we have reports
of another kinetic strike, the Strait of Hormuz, just moments ago by the United States, all of this factoring into increased concern about the lack
of leadership at the Pentagon right now. What more are we learning about the strike and the firing, or the resignation, that is, of Dan Driscoll?
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I'll start with this strike, Bianna, because we just heard from CENTCOM, they announced this,
that today, Tuesday at noon, the U.S. military carried out additional strikes on IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, targets inside Iran.
They said that was in part in response and retaliation to the IRGC attacking commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, but also, they said,
in retaliation to the Iranian strikes on U.S. military targets in Jordan and the UAE.
I'd remind you, those strikes from Iran in Jordan and UAE, all of which, I should note, were either intercepted or allowed to pass because they were
not going to be hitting their targets, came in retaliation to U.S. strikes on different launchers. We know that over Sunday night into Monday, the
U.S. military had launched strikes on different launchers that the IRGC had that they said were essentially loading sea mines onto those launchers to
then put into the Strait of Hormuz. So, a little bit of a back-and-forth there.
Now, the question, of course, is, is this escalation, is this going to be, you know, a return to a lot of strikes exchanged between these two
countries, at least from the U.S. side. And what we've heard from President Donald Trump, Bianna, he said yesterday that he believes any sort of
military action, particularly around what we saw Sunday into Monday, would be limited in scope.
And I know from my conversations with people throughout the Trump administration, they aren't expecting this major military escalation. They
do really want this war to shift from a more focused military one to one now more focused on trying to isolate Iran by hurting them as financially
possible as they can.
[13:05:00]
And so, I would argue that's what we're going to see now, no word yet, though, if, of course, there are more, if we should be anticipating any
sort of retaliation from Iran. We haven't heard that yet.
As for Driscoll, the Army secretary who announced his resignation and submitted that to the president yesterday, this something we've been
reporting on for a long time. He has clashed very heavily with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And I should note, actually, we've been covering
this for almost a year now.
At the beginning, it really was almost a one-sided clash, where Hegseth was the one who had deep distrust of Driscoll, and that's in part because of
his ties to the most senior members who work in the White House. That includes the vice president, J.D. Vance. Driscoll and Vance were classmates
at Yale. They have a very close friendship. And Driscoll would often go to him personally to tell him things.
He also had a direct line, though, to President Donald Trump. Driscoll often would go to him as well. They developed a close relationship during
the president's second term. And this something our sources have told us really frustrated Hegseth. He felt that there are many people who try to go
around him and almost at times undermine him. And so, this has been a source of tension for a long time.
We also know that Driscoll, according to one of our sources, had brought up concerns with the administration surrounding military readiness and
specifically how Hegseth at times, in Driscoll's view, was undermining readiness by getting rid of people that he did not believe were as loyal to
him as perhaps they should be. I'd remind you just earlier this year we saw John Phelan, the secretary of the Navy, kind of be ousted because of those
similar tensions.
And so, I think you're absolutely right, there is definitely concern that this leaves the U.S. military in a seemingly disadvantage when they're in
the middle of an ongoing war with Iran that does not seem to have any sort of near end here. And, you know, I think when you talk about readiness,
this just another example of a vacuum that is now going to exist in leadership during the middle of this war with the Middle East.
GOLODRYGA: And we should note the positions of Army secretary and Army chief of staff are both now empty and both require Senate confirmation.
Alayna Treen at the White House for us. Thank you so much.
We turn now to controversy, once again engulfing the CDC as America faces its worst measles outbreak in more than three decades. Two people in
Pennsylvania have died after contracting the disease, yet the CDC has chosen not to include these deaths in its national count, challenging the
state health department's conclusions.
It's an unusual decision from the agency's new director, Erica Schwartz, and the latest flashpoint in a wider battle over America's public health
policy. Just weeks ago, President Trump signed an executive order calling for fewer childhood vaccines, while Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
has overseen deep cuts to public health funding and staffing at the CDC and FDA.
Few understand the consequences better than our next guest. Dr. Debra Houry was the CDC's chief medical officer, but after the agency's director was
fired, she resigned with a warning. We don't have leadership or scientific leadership anymore.
Dr. Houry joins me now from Atlanta. Dr. Houry, good to see you. Thank you for joining the program. So, let's just pick up from what we heard at the
Senate confirmation hearing of Erica Schwartz. That is the new CDC director, and we should remind our viewers what she said at this
confirmation hearing. And she promised to always provide clear, evidence- based health guidance, and now she's ordered agency officials to exclude these two measles deaths reported by Pennsylvania from its national tally.
Has she fulfilled her promise to follow the science, or was she right to be a bit more conservative here, given that some of the details were not fully
provided by the state?
DR. DEBRA HOURY, FORMER CDC CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: You know, I'm very disappointed that we're in the middle of an outbreak. You know, they're
looking at data nuances and bickering over politics versus focusing on two tragic deaths. Cases rising in Pennsylvania, and I haven't heard from her
with back to school, that this a great time to remind everybody to get their kids vaccinated.
Pennsylvania followed the usual protocol for a state. They do the investigation. There are definitions on the CDC website for what is a
measles-associated case, and then they notify the agency who then collates and puts that data on a national dashboard. CDC doesn't adjudicate or go
back in and relook at cases unless asked by a state because they need additional expertise or a lab test.
And in this case, Pennsylvania had made the determination based on lab testing and what they knew about the cases to report them. We didn't see
this with Texas or New Mexico case last year.
GOLODRYGA: Should we have seen them reported last year with the Texas and New Mexico case, as you've noted, because there are some who are very
critical critical of the HHS secretary, but do say that Governor Shapiro perhaps spoke too soon or made this announcement too soon without
conclusive data?
[13:10:00]
DR. HOURY: So, you know, with both the Texas cases and New Mexico, there was certainly, we heard from outside organizations when I was at CDC,
questioning if measles was behind the cases. But when you look at the definition, it's a positive measles test. And that's what my understanding
is with these two cases that they had, that they followed the definition.
The governor relies on his state health officer who relies on, you know, all the wonderful state health department people to do the investigations
to look at what happened and to provide that data and that report. And that's what happened in this case. The governor certainly spoke publicly
about that and criticized the administration. And I think that's the difference. With Texas and New Mexico, they both put out media statements,
but didn't publicly criticize the administration.
GOLODRYGA: Right. And the reason that we're giving this so much urgency aside from the tragic loss of life is that this has gone beyond just a one-
off case or two, as we now speak. We've seen a huge spike in measles cases in this country and debates once again over vaccine and politics at play.
Here's how Governor Josh Shapiro described the conversation that he had with HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D-PA): I was very, very blunt with him. And I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that's coming from this
administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania. That there's real-life
consequences to spreading misinformation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Kennedy then responded in a social media post saying, the announcement appears to have been premature. The deaths may have even been
altogether fabricated by one of governor's hopeful staffers. I've already asked you your views on whether you thought the governor was premature in
that announcement. But how does this political tit-for-tat, which you just said was not the case in Texas or New Mexico last year, how is this
complicating the public health response to this growing crisis and trust in public health here in the U.S. now?
DR. HOURY: Yes. And I find it very disturbing that the Secretary said that the deaths could be fabricated. There was a report yesterday from the
parents that lost a child and are suffering and grieving their child. And to talk about a death being fabricated, as a mom myself, I can't even
imagine that that's where we're going in this day and age.
The focus should really be on what we can do to protect people and to not call measles just a harmless childhood disease, as he has, you know,
talking about chicken noodle soup being helpful. We know that 1 in 20 cases will have pneumonia. 1 in 10 can be hospitalized. And 1 to 3 out of 1,000
can die. That is not a harmless childhood disease.
We need the states to be able to report to CDC and CDC to work collaboratively. What we're seeing is now going to make states not want to
work closely with the federal government if this the backlash and the treatment that they get.
GOLODRYGA: Measles was essentially eradicated in the United States in the 1990s. Now, we are dealing with more and more cases announced. A public
health crisis. As of last month, nearly 3,000 confirmed measles cases were reported in the U.S. That's not counting these two Pennsylvania cases. It's
the worst measles outbreak since 1991.
Talk about your concerns on that level. And is the public health system equipped to deal with this now?
DR. HOURY: I would say the state and local health departments know their communities. They've got boots on the ground. What they need is the federal
government to support them and not contradict them. That will help. Otherwise, people begin to think that, you know, measles isn't an issue.
When the secretary was dealing with the Texas measles outbreak and I was at CDC, we heard about the healers.
You know, we're talking about steroids and antibiotics that weren't indicated for measles. Those aren't FDA treatments. They aren't evidence-
based. That type of information doesn't help people get better and promotes misinformation. We need to make sure that the public health system can do
its job. And, unfortunately, what we're seeing with politics, it's keeping people from doing their job.
Even within the CDC, when you saw the message that came out on Friday from the official CDC channel, it was political. It wasn't about what needs to
be done to protect communities and lives.
[13:15:00]
GOLODRYGA: When it comes to accountability, I'd like to play this exchange that got a lot of pickup between my colleague Dana Bash and HHS Secretary
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just a few weeks ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Do you accept some responsibility for this measles outbreak?
SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Absolutely not. First of all, this an international outbreak. So -- and
we're doing better at handling it than any country in the world. Mexico has 15 times the amount of measles per capita that we have. Canada has four
times the amount of measles. England has two times the amount of measles that I call those measles outbreaks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: I mean, I'm already having flashbacks to the early days of COVID and comparing the U.S. response versus global response. So, I'd like
you to react to two points. One, what did you make of his argument? And are we doing better at handling this than any of the other countries that he's
mentioned?
DR. HOURY: You know, I think for me, I look at just historical data and where we were a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, and that's what
we should be comparing is the U.S. to the U.S. versus the U.S. to other countries. Oftentimes when he's pointing to some of the outbreaks like in
Eastern Europe, they have much lower vaccination rates.
They also -- when we look at the U.S., we're seeing clusters, but continued clusters across the United States with continued transmission. We're at
high risk for losing measles elimination status, which we've had for decades. That means that we now have it endemic or regularly in the United
States. That's not something that we want. I think he needs to look at those families that have had children who died.
We need to be preventing things like that and talking about how it's under control. I would like to see the secretary talk about the importance of
vaccination. He did in that interview, but only when pushed on a regular basis. And with kids going back to school, this the time to do it. And I
haven't seen the CDC talk about the importance of flu or COVID vaccines during this fall season.
The CDC director needs to be out there publicly speaking. She said she believes in vaccines. Now, is the time for her to use her voice.
GOLODRYGA: You mentioned comparing to where things were last year. So, let's go back a year ago. Schwartz's predecessor at the time there, CDC
director Susan Monarez, was fired by Kennedy after she refused to rubber stamp vaccine recommendations made by his appointees. You resigned there
shortly after she was fired, specifically over how vaccine policy was being handled. And this was a year since now.
And let's talk about what's happened. ACIP, that is the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the CDC, has been replaced with a panel chosen
by Secretary Kennedy. The measles outbreaks, as we've been discussing throughout this interview, continues to spread. President Trump signed an
executive order calling for a revamp of childhood vaccines.
Looking back, do you feel as if resigning was the proper recourse? Was there anything, looking back now, that you think you could have done to
intervene more?
DR. HOURY: During those eight months, I intervened regularly. And it was after I left that we really saw it escalate. I did what I could to protect
the science and the data at CDC. And that's why I stayed as long as I did. When I knew we no longer had a CDC director that could uphold integrity, I
knew that my voice no longer could matter inside. It would matter more outside.
And you're right, an executive order that can't be implemented because you can't separate the MMR without different studies that need to be done. You
look at now how states are turning away from the CDC, both for data, but also developing their own vaccine recommendations and turning to medical
organizations. This not what we need from our federal government. We need it to be able to protect people, safe food and water, and certainly around
vaccinations. And this misinformation and misleading the public doesn't help anyone.
GOLODRYGA: What do you hear from your former colleagues at the CDC? How are they feeling? Are they doing their part, as you did for those eight
months prior to your resignation, to keep things from being even worse than what we see?
DR. HOURY: They are absolutely doing their best. You know, they've been providing technical assistance, boots on the ground where they can in
communities. They are raising concerns around things like withholding measles data. They speak up when and where they can, and they had hope with
the new CDC director, Dr. Schwartz, coming as she's known to be a physician and a scientist. I think from what I've heard this weekend, many are
disappointed that this has happened, and she's not using her voice publicly really to promote science-based information like vaccinations and other
health interventions.
[13:20:00]
We need those people to stay at CDC because we need that expertise and we also need to be able to rely on our state and local health departments. I
used to receive, you know, heads up phone calls all the time from health departments when things would be emerging. That's going to stop happening
after what just happened this week with withholding the Pennsylvania data. It's not going to facilitate good communication between communities and
CDC.
GOLODRYGA: You did write an op-ed where you expressed a bit of optimism just in how local, state, private sector, public sector has been working
together to sort of bypass some of the challenges at the federal level here. You're also optimistic about the role that A.I. could play in
addressing these concerns.
But in the meantime, we're just days away or much of the country has already started school. ACIP panel has yet to give its guidance on vaccine
recommendations. If a parent asks you what should they do with their children, what is your answer?
DR. HOURY: Turn to the American Academy of Pediatrics. They follow evidence-based guidance and they have been promoting it. I know many of the
medical organizations are meeting this week and recommendations will be coming and that's because there is no CDC ACIP panel to issue these
recommendations.
So, medical organizations are filling the gap. And that was one of the things I talk about giving hope is we are seeing states and regional
alliances, technology companies, using this time to fill the gap in federal government. And so, it allows for innovation and for people to really do
what's needed to protect health. But we do need that federal government, that floor to ensure that there's that glue and consistency, but we're not
going to have that under Secretary Kennedy.
GOLODRYGA: Dr. Debra Houry, former chief medical officer at the CDC. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for the time.
DR. HOURY: Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: We'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: Now, hours on hold, endless paperwork, long waits for appointments. For millions of Americans, these are everyday obstacles to
accessing the thing they're entitled to, whether it's food assistance, government benefits or even just getting a driver's license. Our next guest
calls it the time tax, the hours, effort and mental energy it takes to navigate through red tape.
It's an accepted reality here in America, but does it really need to be like this? In her new book, "The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our
Time and How to Fix It," journalist Annie Lowrey investigates why the system works this way and argues that it's often a deliberate decision by
those in power. She joins me live from New York.
Annie, good to see you again. Congratulations on your book. In 2018, you wrote a book about giving people money and making the case for universal
basic income, just giving cash, no strings attached here. Eight years later, you've written this book on the time tax, and you talk about these
being twins in a sense.
What did you learn in between this time making your last book over the course of the last eight years to where we are today?
ANNIE LOWREY, AUTHOR, "THE TIME TAX": I definitely time taxed myself by deciding to write a book. That was certainly one thing that happened. But
this book really came out of the reporting that I had done with people accessing safety net benefits. So, these are people who are generally very
low income and often at risk in multiple ways, right?
[13:25:00]
They might have a health condition or a psychiatric condition. They might not have stable housing. They might not be in a safe and a secure
partnership. And we make it so unbelievably difficult for them to get help for themselves and for their children, their children who don't get to pick
their parents and don't, you know, get to decide how much paperwork they would like to do.
But then once I saw that in the safety net, it was kind of this like Baader-Meinhof phenomenon where I started to see it everywhere, right? Like
why did I have to wait for two hours to vote? Why did it take three months to get a driver's license? Why is it so annoying to get a passport? Why are
we doing our own taxes?
And so, this isn't something -- I don't think that the burden is distributed equally among Americans. However, I think that the service
delivery is pretty bad for all of us. And that's whether you're trying to renovate your house or you're trying to vote or you're trying to deal with
the health care system or whether, yes, you need assistance.
GOLODRYGA: So, some of this can be viewed as a major inconvenience, just red tape, bureaucracy as we know it, never going to get those three hours
back. But you also make the point that's even more significant, and that is that some lives are really at stake here as well.
And you talk about the Medicaid work requirement that's now rolling out under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and that this impacts some 25 million
Americans, we should note, about a tenth of the country. And you've said that it is going to kill people. That's a pretty bold statement to make.
Just walk us through how exactly.
LOWREY: Absolutely. So, notably, Medicaid is not like cash welfare or SNAP benefits or disability payments, right? It's not cash. You can't do
anything with it except for access health insurance. So, the notion that there would be a disincentive to work once you are on Medicaid is silly,
right? It is not going to change your capacity to work. And so -- unlike, you know, with those other programs.
And so, the work requirement is not just a work requirement, it is a work reporting requirement. You will have to not only do community service,
work, or be in education for at least 80 hours a month, you have to prove it to the government monthly, often on a very, very rickety system. And
this going to apply to, you know, people with capacity, they might have a computer at home, they might have a nice smartphone, but it's also going to
apply to people who are homeless, to people who have major health conditions because they haven't proven them to the government to get a
disability exemption. It's going to apply to people who are not going to be able to simply, who don't realize that they're going to have to comply with
this, and are not going to be able to. And they're going to lose their healthcare, and they might find out when they are in the ER, or when they
have a symptom that they're trying to get checked out and they realize that they can't.
And so, there's expected to be, and it's not me, it is physicians who have said that the decline in the number of people covered will lead to a
measurable number of deaths. And it's really unfair, because why are we predicating our safety net programs on your capacity to do paperwork?
That's not one of the rules there. If we want to have an income barrier fine, or an income standard fine, or we want to have a work requirement
fine. But you know, your ability to do paperwork shouldn't matter.
GOLODRYGA: And given the thousands of words, hundreds of pages, the fact that most people would be prone to make an error or two when they're
filling out this paperwork, you talk about people whose lives are significantly impacted because of one error years ago. Tell us about
Marcella.
LOWREY: Absolutely. So, Marcella is a mom in Salt Lake City. She's a manicurist. She doesn't make a ton of money. And she takes care of, you
know, three kids. Her oldest kid just joined the army, so he's out of the house, but she has two smaller children at home.
And years ago, she had screwed something up on her taxes, in the way that a lot of us do. In fact, in the way that I have. I have actually had this
problem before, where the place that she was employed, the salon, they kind of messed up in reporting her income. And so, it ended up changing which
benefits she was supposed to be able to access. And she claims that this was the salon's fault, not hers, and that she actually had the right to
access those benefit programs. But she didn't have the money for a lawyer, and she didn't know how to argue with the state. And so, ever since then,
she's been kind of categorized as a fraud risk.
And instead of applying for SNAP benefits or food stamps or, you know, Medicaid, which covers her and her children, every six months to one year,
which is the standard, they force her to reapply every month or two. And she has been kicked off and readmitted to a government program 120 times.
It's misery.
[13:30:00]
And this a mom with a full-time job. She doesn't have a time to do this, but she doesn't have a choice, because how else is she going to get health
care for her and her kids?
GOLODRYGA: And not just a full-time job. I mean, she's really trying to build her own business. She has ideas. She'd like to get more education.
And all of this inhibiting her from doing this, because instead, she's spending more time on trying to rectify a small error from nine years ago.
She also, as you point out, doesn't even have a computer, maybe just bought her first one, was working off of her phone, had to fax information in.
Extremely archaic and unnecessary.
Another example you give is just the level of humiliation that some of these recipients have to go through, and applicants as well. You talk about
Michigan's old benefits application, which ran some 18,000 words and a thousand questions. Some of these questions were quite intrusive,
especially as it relates to their children, where they were conceived, what date they were conceived. Why, Annie?
LOWREY: The technical reason is that it has to do with cases where the state would like to contact the non-custodial parent to ensure that they're
paying child support, which they would then garnish to help pay for the benefits that the mom and the kids might -- stereotypically, the mom and
the kids would receive. That is the technical reason that we have these kinds of questions.
However, everybody, everybody in the State of Michigan, until they changed the form, was handed a form with that question on it, had to look through
it, had to think about how they might have to answer it, even decide whether they needed to answer it or not. It's absolutely humiliating.
The notion that you would give a 44-page, 18,000-word form with more than a thousand questions, including that question on it, to everybody in the
state, it was very, very humiliating. I think that this the message that the government is sending to people, is that it's shameful to be poor, that
you should be ashamed of yourself. It's not a neutral thing. We have this assistance and we would like you to have it, especially if you have kids.
It's that, you know, you better be like a lawyer and better be ready to answer all of these questions. And I really think it's inappropriate. And
there's lots of examples of things like this.
And I would note that, you know, it's very different for people who are immigrating to this country, people who are low-income than, you know,
native-born, high-income folks. If you're trying to get, you know, for instance, the home mortgage interest deduction, nobody is asking you where
your children were conceived. People wouldn't stand for it.
And so, I really do think that there's this paternalistic degrading quality that some of these forms can have, even if there is a technical reason that
you need to ask that question at some point of some people.
GOLODRYGA: You mentioned the socioeconomic factor. You also pick up on race as well. What evidence did you find on that front? Part of the reason
that we do not have universal, simple benefit systems in this country, like some of our peer countries have, is because we were creating those programs
often during Jim Crow. And we wanted to have ways to get benefits to some people, but not others.
Jim Crow, of course, was a time when we invented a huge number of administrative burdens to make sure that black folks in the South couldn't
vote, but white folks could, when we couldn't legislate a rule saying that you cannot vote if you're black. So, instead, they come up with all of
these bureaucratic procedural things to make sure that white families can vote, black families cannot, along, obviously, with a campaign of racial
terror that was occurring in the South at the time.
But now, we still have this legacy of these non-universal, very complicated systems that are meant to suss out who is deserving and who isn't deserving
because of our racial makeup. And other countries, when they're designing these systems, they often, you know, they're smaller and they're more
racially and ethnically homogenous than the United States.
And I think that diversity is obviously our strength, and we are a grand experiment in multiracial, multiethnic democracy. But it does, it affects
service delivery. And we still have a legacy of those same rules applying today.
GOLODRYGA: When you look at the scale of the fraud that this paperwork is, is at least in theory meant to prevent, you argue that it goes after the
wrong villain, that the real money is stolen by larger institutions like hospitals, nursing homes, not by a mother filling out a SNAP form. Just
explain that thesis, and then I'd like to follow up with some of the counters that have already been presented following this book.
[13:35:00]
LOWREY: Absolutely. So, generally, in dollar amounts, the most fraud is committed by institutions and criminal groups. If you are lying on your
SNAP application, realistically, how much money are you going to -- you know, are you going to steal $100, $300? It's not going to be that much
more. So, in dollar terms, the really big frauds occur at the institutional level, it's not the individual level.
And we don't have a great sense of how much fraud there is. And we also conflate fraud with what's known as improper payments, where again, we
don't have a good sense of those. This where you maybe get a little bit more or less than you should be getting. And often that's because the rules
are unclear and the paperwork itself is confusing.
So, it's hard for individuals to comply with, and it's hard for the state to suss out who should be getting what benefit and exactly what level. You
know, if programs had, you know, straightforward income standards and straightforward rules, it would be easier for the state to administer,
easier for people to apply for, and we would have lower error rates than we do now.
And, you know, this another issue with H.R. 1 and the SNAP program specifically. The Trump administration is forcing states with error rates
over 6 percent to pay for the cost of benefits, which ultimately might lead some states to drop out of the program.
GOLODRYGA: So, I guess to counter the latter part of your answer there, people point to the pandemic-era oversight that was suspended. We saw SNAP
overpayments rising by 60 percent. You sort of answered this question when you attributed that more to confusion and not malfeasance. The Wall Street
Journal says that these are excellent points that you were making. I'm just paraphrasing their response, but that this suggests that there should be
less government intervention and not more, which leads me to my final question. What is your solution here, and should we look to other countries
for that answer?
LOWREY: There is. So, first of all, I would say fraud is absolutely an issue, and we should get fraud and improper payments down. Making more
agile state systems would do that. It really would help with that.
And I think that this one of these problems that there are a thousand solutions. This not one of these issues where we don't know what to do and
we can't do it. So, something like having the IRS pre-fill your tax forms with as much information as they can, so that maybe you don't even have to
go to a tax preparer. Maybe it won't take you the 12 hours it takes the average American to do their 1040 every year.
Improving contracting such that we have more agile systems, right? Like, we have great apps on our phone. Why is it that the government stuff is so
clunky and so expensive? And I think that just doing simple things that are a little bit arcane, but simplifying the income standards across programs.
Having the government data systems talk to each other, right? This doesn't look good on a bumper sticker. It's not exciting. It's very confusing.
However, there are so many ways that the government could really, really help everybody. Every American is dealing with this, and I think that it
would, you know, just improve trust in government as well.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And you get into some of those examples in your book, including some Nordic countries, including Estonia as well and other
Baltic, former Baltic nations that could provide a pathway for us to follow. Annie Lowrey, author of "The Time Tax," good to see you again.
Congratulations on the book. Thanks for joining us.
LOWREY: Thank you so much for having me.
GOLODRYGA: And we'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:40:00]
GOLODRYGA: And now, a second American Civil War, the country fractured in two, that is the nation's imagined future, in author Kurt Andersen's new
novel, "The Breakup." Set in 2045, the story revolves around a couple dealing with their broken marriage. As America undergoes its own
unraveling. Andersen joins Walter Isaacson to discuss why he wrote it, and how it relates to our turbulent times today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Bianna. And, Kurt Andersen, welcome back to the show.
KURT ANDERSEN, AUTHOR, "THE BREAKUP: A NOVEL": Happy to be back.
ISAACSON: So, your book is called "The Breakup," it's actually about two breakups. This wonderful marriage, a couple that's a very American couple,
and the breakup of the United States. Let's start with that second one. You've been talking for a while, you wrote a New Republic piece about four
years ago, about the fact that you think the U.S. might break up. Explain that.
ANDERSEN: So, what I realized in researching -- doing research for the novel, that I had never put together, is that there are all these ways in
which the United States, in the last dozen years, has formed these kind of alternative interstate compacts and interstate governing systems,
practically, in climate, in health. Then we had sanctuary cities that wouldn't use the local police to arrest and deport illegal immigrants. Then
we had Second Amendment sanctuary counties and states, which I knew little about, actually, until I started doing research.
So, it's not as though we have -- we don't have yet, oh, two countries, but we have the sort of emergent formations of one. So -- and between all the
things that we're all familiar with, of the digital bubbles in which we live, and we live in alternate realities to a shocking degree, to me, and
the polarization that has been whipped up higher than ever, both by the words and deeds of President Trump the last year and a half, it's harder
than ever for me to imagine how we get back to normal.
In the sense of, without some radical transformation of the United States, it doesn't have to be triggered by violence, but, you know, I think it
requires some kind of radical devolution of power, the kind of federal power that now exists, or I don't see an escape from it. I mean, I hope I'm
wrong, but my story in "The Breakup" seems more plausible to me today than it did four years ago.
ISAACSON: You said something a moment ago, which is when you did your research for the novel. I love the fact that the novel actually feels like
you've thought it through. You've researched everything from robotics to how the breakup could work. One of the confusing things, though, is that
it's not, let's say our last civil war was North versus South. There are all sorts of bubbles. It's hard to know whether Knoxville, Tennessee is
going to be part of one union or another. How can you have a breakup that sort of scattershot?
ANDERSEN: Well, how it works in "The Breakup" is there is, as one character calls it, a blue archipelago across the Red Sea of America from
coast to coast, which is to say all these metropolitan areas are part of the Washington run blue United States. And that would be tricky. And you'd
have to have an interstate highway system that is binational between this new free American Republic and the old United States. The old United
States, which now has 39 states, and the new free American Republic, which has 21. So, it's complicated.
But for me, you know, just as when I write historical novels, I need to know to an extreme degree, like what was really going on on this day that
I'm writing about? Was it -- I even go to the extent of, was it a full moon that day? And I look up an old almanac to see just so I know what was real.
I need the basis of reality then to make stuff up. And that's what I did here.
ISAACSON: What went through the book are occasional references, I think, to Yates's poem, the second coming and talk about the best lacking all
conviction, that sort of thing. And the whole notion is that the center cannot hold. I mean, that's the theme of the poem. Is that the problem you
see in the United States is that we used to have a center and now it cannot hold?
ANDERSEN: First of all, there is a center. It doesn't have -- you know, we have two parties. So, it's hard SCIUTTO: - as both parties become more
what they are and speaking to their bases, it's hard to have a representation of that and have people happy in the middle with their
respective parties. You know, so there's that.
[13:45:00]
But I think the social media and its basically evil business models that encourage rage and hatred, they do, and anger, and are in, you know, linear
television now going away. But, you know, in the case of Fox News still plays a big role in these ideological alternative reality bubbles. So --
but the center not holding is part of it.
ISAACSON: Well, it's not simply in the book and not simply in America, a left and right issue, is it?
ANDERSEN: No, it isn't. And, you know, and getting less so, which are interesting ways to me. I mean, I was, of all things, on Steve Bannon's
show over the weekend. And he was -- I wasn't seeking common ground with him and he wasn't -- but we found or it emerged without even mentioning it
that like we are both highly skeptical of big tech and A.I. and unregulated social media and all so many things.
So, you know, I think the -- this binary thinking you're this tribe or you're that tribe and we only have two tribes is a kind of
misrepresentation of what America is.
ISAACSON: The parallel in your book is having the breakup of his marriage of a couple has been married. I can't remember now, 20, 25 years. Yes. And
Natalie and Asher. First of all, tell me real quickly about Natalie and then about Asher and then how they become a metaphor for the breakup of the
country.
ANDERSEN: Natalie, a little younger than him, a Gen Zer. She was born in Cuba, moved to -- ended up in East Tennessee as an immigrant with her
parents and brother. That's who she is. Working class. Finally, middle class. When she was young, smart. Went to UVA, went to Brown for graduate
school. That's who she is. She's a writer. She's a poet today. And kind of conservative or certainly compared to most poets and academics. And her
husband, for instance, who is well to do, grew up in Los Angeles show business family and now runs this big neuroscience institute in San
Francisco. So, that's who they are.
And they -- they're very different people, very different backgrounds, some different views of. Say the South and conservatives, and she got some more
slack, she grew up in East Tennessee in a trailer park, you know. And so, they're different. And they reflect the differences. He is perfectly fine
with A.I., which, as his partner at the institute says, does half our work here now. And she is -- she's not just a skeptic. She thinks it's basically
tyrannizing us all. And 19 years from now, who knows?
ISAACSON: Yes. In the novel, you have the backstory of Donald Trump dying, I think, in the 2030s. And you have your own backstories over the years
when you were creating Spy Magazine. I think you called him a short- fingered Bulgarian as a joke. Tell me about the backstory of Donald Trump and how that really plays into what's happened, or is that just sort of a
sideshow in what's happened in America?
ANDERSEN: Well, I don't think it's a -- it's not a sideshow in the long history of America at all. I think he is unquestionably an historic figure.
I mean, you know, not as he said last week, the greatest president of all time, but an historic figure. No question.
And so, in my story, "The Breakup" story, I set out not wanting him to be there that much, right. He -- it's 19 years in the future. I don't think
we'll all still be thinking every hour about Donald Trump. God wishes it. But I couldn't lose him altogether. So, as I finished the draft, I went
through and said, he's still here too much. So, I plucked him out, plucked him out. But he's there because describing what happened between 2026 and
2045 required the late 20s, right. And the -- his -- the Trump being heirs in the future, and some of my violent militias pin up his picture in their
camps, you know.
And I decided there would be one scene of Donald Trump, which is his death, which is like a TV show basically, because he has made it a TV show, as he
does everything. He's on the 20th anniversary of his first announcement for his presidential candidacy. He's coming down to be greeted by gathered
thousands in Trump Tower down the golden escalator and dies because he's 89 years old.
[13:50:00]
And that becomes a kind not exactly a spark for the uprising, but a piece of the year before the uprising. But -- and for me, you know, I don't want
to say I'm Sherlock and he's Moriarty and we've been battling for 40 years. But, you know, not entirely untrue. And so, I -- since I could -- I was
making it up, I could make up his death.
ISAACSON: You started writing this book during the Biden administration. How did it evolve when Trump gets the nomination again, comes back again?
ANDERSEN: No, that's a good question. In fact, yes, I started writing it a month before Chat GPT and what we then called generative-A.I. appeared. So,
I had to invent my near future world and how that would work. And I'm pretty happy that what I invented was not -- you know, I didn't have to do
it over, start over again once we saw these chatbots around.
Trump was a different question. I -- yes, he was out of office. And, you know, when I started, he wasn't about to like just walk into it again. He
was being prosecuted and all that. So, for that reason and others, but all kinds of reasons, I didn't want to predict what's going to happen next year
or the year after, my near future couldn't be that near.
So, he was in the background and I was vague enough about the 20s and 30s to write around it effectively like, oh, who knows. My basic story,
however, from the beginning was the Democrats have a big comeback and the right has a violent spasm of backlash against that. That wasn't changed.
What changed as this last year and a half of Trump came in was the darkness of my backstory. So, I didn't change events, really, but the -- what my
characters, Asher and Natalie, were going through in the 20s changed and their bickering over politics. Natalie says at one point, and this was new
in a subsequent draft in 2025, that we bickered less when Trump came in, because finally he was right. I was wrong. He was every -- Trump was every
bit as bad as he predicted. And I was pooh-poohing that and said, no, democracy is not under threat and all those. So, I did have to change that
and darken, if you will, those years. But -- so, you know, selfishly, I was happy that it didn't require me to do massive reengineering of this
complicated plot.
ISAACSON: Ever since you and I worked at Time magazine in the 1980s, you've been the person who's always stood at the intersection of culture,
popular culture and then politics and our society. And you did it with Studio 360. You did it with Spy magazine. What can popular culture and the
fact that we do share so much when it comes to everything from music to art to literature, how can that help bring us back together? I guess from the
scenario you've painted.
ANDERSEN: Well, you know, it's interesting. And I mentioned this to Steve Bannon the other day because he played for every break in the hour he spent
with me a video of Dolly Parton. And she was talking about how great she was. And I used the second or third of those as an opportunity to say, you
know, I agree. I interviewed her once. I adore her. I've adored her since I was a kid. And, you know, she may be the last iconic American pop cultural
figure, cultural figure to bridge all the gaps culturally, regionally, politically, everything.
And not just by being milquetoast, you know, she takes positions on gay people and trans people and all kinds of things that some people from East
Tennessee where she grew up wouldn't like. But she is an embodiment of that. And the fact that she died, again, everybody has to die, but like as
I'm -- as I had just published this book about losing exactly that kind of bonding agent or an embodiment for America. Yes, she's not blue. She's not
red. She's everybody is. It was seen metaphorically apt.
Now, we have this other issue. And I don't know -- I don't relate it to what has happened and is happening to the United States or in my story. But
the degree to which with three television networks and, you know, fewer channels of popular culture, it was easier to like everybody watch the same
stuff. Everybody listened to the same stuff, the balkanization of culture, which is not an altogether bad thing, has probably fed this sense that we
all live in our own little world, in our own tribes, in our own, you know, sub genres of culture.
[13:55:00]
ISAACSON: Kurt Andersen, thank you so much for joining us.
ANDERSEN: My complete pleasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And finally, walking 2,190 miles is no mean feat. But imagine doing it at the age of 91. That's right. This man, Dale Grey Beard Sanders,
has just reclaimed his record of being the oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail. He began the through hike early last September in West
Virginia, taking a few breaks of his journey to Mount Katahdin in Maine, where he summited.
It wasn't without challenges. Sanders fell 71 times along the way, feeling a huge difference on this attempt compared to hiking it at 82 when he first
broke the record. Still, he hopes it encourages others to give the seemingly impossible a try at any age. Kudos to him. Amazing feat.
That is it for us for now. Thank you so much for watching, and goodbye from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
