Latest news with #ChrisHayes
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Hayes on Trump's efforts to destroy FEMA ahead of hurricane season
Chris Hayes addresses Trump's efforts to "dismantle and destroy" FEMA, despite the president's abundant campaign promises in 2024 to states ravaged by Hurricane Helene.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Chris Hayes: Trump's attacks on Harvard are part of the administration's wider war on knowledge
This is an adapted excerpt from the May 27 episode of 'All In with Chris Hayes.' The Trump administration is trying to put Harvard University, the nation's oldest college, out of business. On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the White House intends to order all government agencies to cut ties with the school, canceling federal contracts totaling an estimated $100 million. That is in addition to the billions of dollars in research funding that the administration has already frozen at the university. Last week, the White House also halted Harvard's ability to enroll international students, which The New York Times reports could affect more than a quarter of the student body. (A federal judge has since temporarily paused Trump's order.) People desperately want to come to the U.S. to study because we offer the gold standard in terms of higher education. It's one area of genuine American exceptionalism. International students are a huge boon to American universities. According to NAFSA: Association of International Educators, during the 2023–2024 academic year, 1.1 million international students at American colleges and universities contributed more than $43 billion to the U.S. economy. For all the complaints about our trade deficit with other countries, one place where we have an enormous trade surplus with the rest of the world is in higher education. But no one in this administration actually cares about that. This is all just punishment for Harvard after it rejected the White House's demands, including an order to install a third party to audit 'programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.' To be clear, antisemitism is a real and pernicious problem in America, but by now, it is painfully obvious that it is just a convenient rhetorical weapon for Donald Trump and his allies to use to gain full control of universities. They want to rewrite the school's curriculum in a way that is favorable and deferential to Trump and his worldview, and the president wants the most powerful and legendary institution in higher education to bend the knee to his whims. It can be difficult to root for an elite institution like Harvard with a $53 billion endowment, but this attack on the university isn't happening in a vacuum. It is the latest escalation in the administration's battle to destroy all independent sources of knowledge and fact-finding in our free and open society. As the writer Adam Serwer put it in his latest piece for The Atlantic, 'By destroying knowledge, Trumpists seek to make the country more amenable to their political domination, and to prevent meaningful democratic checks on their behavior. Their victory, though, would do much more than that.' 'It would annihilate some of the most effective systems for aggregating, accumulating, and applying human knowledge that have ever existed,' Serwer wrote. 'Without those systems, America could find itself plunged into a new Dark Age.' To that end, we are seeing the administration run this playbook toward any independent source of authority. For example, the White House threatened to pull $400 million in federal grants for Columbia University. The university caved to the pressure, but last week the administration announced new trumped-up charges of civil rights violations against the school stemming from campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza. In a new piece for the New Yorker, Jelani Cobb, the dean of the Columbia Journalism School, quotes one expert who taught at both Columbia and Harvard as saying, 'I've studied McCarthyism's impact on higher education for fifty years … What's happening now is worse.' Cobb adds, 'The biggest mistake that some universities have made in responding to the White House has been to presume that it is operating in good faith. It is not.' But it is not just attacks on higher education. Everywhere you look, this administration is targeting independent sources of authority that could challenge Trump. In addition to eviscerating the U.S.' best-in-the-world biomedical research, the administration is also undermining existing knowledge about public health. On Tuesday, without citing any new evidence or studies, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overrode typical procedure and announced that the government would no longer recommend annual Covid boosters for pregnant women and healthy children. In a podcast released on Tuesday, Kennedy also threatened to block government scientists from publishing their research in top medical journals, such as The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine. In addition to the moves against public health and schools, we are also seeing an escalation of Trump's attacks on news media, probably best exemplified by the president's $20 billion lawsuit against CBS News over an interview '60 Minutes' held with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. First Amendment experts have called the lawsuit meritless, but Paramount, which owns CBS, is already appearing to prepare to settle. Earlier this month, the president and CEO of CBS News, Wendy McMahon, resigned, telling staff in a memo that 'it's become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward.' The executive producer of '60 Minutes,' Bill Owens, also resigned, citing a loss of independence at the network. During a recent commencement address at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, journalist Scott Pelley, who has been at '60 Minutes' for more than two decades, delivered a warning to graduating students: Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power. First, make the truth-seekers live in fear. Sue the journalists and their companies for nothing. Then send masked agents to abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights, and send her to a prison in Louisiana, charged with nothing. Then, move to destroy law firms that stand up for the rights of others. With that done, power can rewrite history. Not every outlet is capitulating to Trump. On Tuesday, National Public Radio announced it is suing Trump over his attempts to gut funding for the independent outlet through an executive order. We are seeing this type of resistance everywhere. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who was initially elevated to that job by Trump, is fighting the president's pressure campaign to remove him from his position. In a commencement speech at Princeton University on Sunday, Powell called on the next generation to preserve our democratic institutions. The most important thing for everyone to understand about the ongoing existential battle to preserve our American birthright of a free and open society is that all these institutions — and the vast sources of independent knowledge contained within them — are more powerful than one petty, addled man. That's the real silver lining here: Trump's attacks are so reckless and transparent that they've left our independent institutions with no choice but to fight back. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Chris Hayes Says the Silver Lining in Trump's Attacks on American Institutions Is That They Have ‘No Choice but to Fight Back'
Chris Hayes opened Tuesday's episode of his MSNBC show with a bleak look Donald Trump's latest attacks on 'our American birthright of a free and open society,' including against independent universities, real science and the free press. But despite grim recent events, Hayes argued that there is a 'real silver lining' — that these institutions are being forced to fight him. Hayes began by talking about Trump's escalating war on Harvard university, which as Hayes explained, is a campaign to 'put Harvard University, nation's oldest college, out of business.' This most recently includes Trump's order to cancel all federal contracts with the university, an unprecedented move that was preceded by the equally unprecedented order to cease all foreign student admissions. 'They want to rewrite the school's curriculum in a way that is favorable and deferential to Trump and his worldview. Donald Trump wants the most powerful, legendary institution higher education in this country, arguably in the world, to bend the knee to his whims and become a kind of controlled asset of MAGA. That is the goal here,' Hayes said. Hayes noted Trump's attacks on other universities, his administration's increasingly clear opposition to vaccinations, and his attacks on media — which included a shout-out to the fiery speech '60 Minutes' reporter Scott Pelley gave last week to graduating seniors at Wake Forest University. 'Pelly, to his great credit, is not cowed, and it's true that many aren't. Not every outlet is capitulated to Trump,' Hayes said, adding a little later, 'and we're seeing this type of resistance everywhere, sometimes in sort of unexpected areas. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, I think he's a pretty conservative guy, as far as I can know. He's a guy who was initially elevated to the job of Federal Reserve Chair by a guy named Donald Trump in his first term, is fighting the President's pressure campaign to remove him from his position, calling on the next generation to preserve our democratic institutions again in another weekend commencement speech at Princeton University.' 'Here's the single most important thing for everyone to understand about this ongoing, existential battle to preserve our American birthright of a free and open society,' Hayes continued. 'All these institutions and the people that power them, and the vast sources of independent knowledge, production and authority contained within them, that form what is the kind of civil society of America altogether are more powerful than this one petty, addled man, and Donald Trump knows it, and that's why he wants to end them.' 'And the real silver lining here, and there is one, is that Trump's attacks are so reckless and so baseless and transparent, they have left our independent institutions with no choice but to fight back. Good. We need them.' Watch the whole commentary below: The post Chris Hayes Says the Silver Lining in Trump's Attacks on American Institutions Is That They Have 'No Choice but to Fight Back' | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Wrong Again, Democrats: Paying 'Influencers' Misses the Boat
When I joined the race for Democratic National Committee chair a few months ago, there was one area of consensus among all the candidates—including the eventual victor, Ken Martin. One of the big lessons of the loss from the last election cycle was that we collectively spent too much money on TV and digital ads, driven in large part by decisions of well-placed and well-heeled Democratic consultants. We're about to fall into the same trap in 2025. The new flavor of the moment, though, isn't TV ads; it's 'influencers.' According to reporting in The New York Times, liberal donors are now planning to spend ungodly amounts on creating an 'army of left-leaning' digital creators of all stripes and styles. Having realized that we're outgunned by the right in both reach and scale of conversation online, we're now doing what Democrats often resort to—spending money to try to solve the problem. This mindset masks a deeper issue: spending money to create content with no editorial vision or strategy. When we don't have organic grassroots appeal and we are not sufficiently connected to huge numbers of real Americans, we paper over that problem by trying to pay to reach people in unidirectional ways (paid ads, paid influencers, paid organizers). We need to focus less on the pipes and tactics of contacting people and put more emphasis on the content vision and ideas of what people find authentically and organically engaging. The inputs into the Democratic Party's elite have strayed from meaningful conversations that ordinary citizens find interesting. We're losing in the attention economy, as MSNBC host Chris Hayes has written. I believe a big part of the reason for that is that Democrats aren't talking about economic justice and class-based issues in compelling and interesting ways, at a time when those class-based problems are dominating the lives of everyday Americans in every possible way. These conversations are more likely to be heard on right-leaning podcasts than on left-leaning ones. But if we engage them, the conversations speak to the broadest ideological spectrum of Americans. I talk daily to candidates wanting to run for office, and I pose this simple question to them. If I dropped you into a random town hall in any city in America, and you didn't know anything about who was in the room, what would you say to them in order to get them to agree with you? Many have no idea what they'd say; others want to pander to pablum about 'Costs are high,' or 'We need to rebuild the middle class,' or 'Donald Trump is terrible.' The answer must start with the reality of what we are seeing in this economy. We know the basic story that connects with voters: Corporate CEOs, monopolists, and the passive-wealth-generating elites of America have rigged an economic and political system to prioritize their needs over ours. If we are to have any chance of creating better lives for future generations, we have to be willing to wrestle power back from them through working-class solidarity. And we need politicians who have the integrity, conviction, and knowledge to be unbought and unbossed by these powerful actors. But right now, we aren't sufficiently grounded in the lived experience and language of working Americans, who expect leaders to understand the reality of their daily struggles and own the friction with established power. To earn credibility, we have to name the culprits who deprive them of liberty. We must elevate potential solutions to give people a serious chance at a secure retirement, health care, decent wages, housing, and education in an increasingly complex and rigged economy. The consulting and funding classes are still not sure what content people actually want to consume—because they have no ways of engaging organic feedback from regular people outside of paid polls and focus groups. The social listening inputs into the left-of-center architecture are broken. If I tell a leading Democratic strategist that I want to make an ad about three global asset management companies that would help explain how they're profiting off the lives of working people, here's what I'd expect to hear in response: 'People don't know what asset managers are.' 'That's too complicated of a topic!' 'We need the financial industry's donations and support, so this is counterproductive.' I could go on. This exact video about Blackrock and other asset managers is currently the most-watched video on More Perfect Union's YouTube page, with 6.6 million views and counting, and finding great appeal with Trump voters. And it's not an anomaly for us. We're one of the fastest-growing digital media companies since the launch of Vox, and at a moment when there's lots of ink being spilled about the right model for growing the Democratic voting base and winning back working-class Americans with compelling information, we think more funders and outlets could stand to learn from an approach that is already working in speaking to people beyond their politically polarized viewpoints. The current conversations playing out on the left about culture, authenticity, and influence are illuminating a central challenge for the Democratic Party in this political moment. We've been told versions of, 'We need to be willing to go on Joe Rogan's show!' or, 'We need more Joe Rogans of our own!' or, my personal favorite, 'We used to have Joe Rogan!' All of these are missing the point. Without speaking for Rogan, let me just suggest that most leading platforms and podcasters want depth of knowledge, integrity, and conviction from guests who have something meaningful to convey. In my view, Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Lex Fridman, Andrew Schulz, and so many other prominent online influencers have hosted and liked Bernie Sanders not because he chose to go on their programs—it's because of what he had to say! Sanders has had the integrity and conviction to take on power with a meaningful message about the priorities and needs of regular people who are getting screwed—which happens to be compelling and interesting content for these shows, which the audiences want to hear more discussion about. The other side understands this proposition. The arguments that helped elect Donald Trump didn't start in consulting offices in D.C. or at exclusive donor meetings, speculating about a cultural 'vertical' to fill with poll-tested talking points. They started with the things Americans were saying to one another in their day-to-day lives—and what they were sharing in comments sections and everyday meetups. Keeping their ears to the ground, conservatives found people were fed up with masking mandates and were angry about school curricula deprioritizing basic math, English, and science skills in favor of other factors as students came back after missing a year. People were worried about the flow of illegal immigrants across the border, its impact on jobs, wages, and public investments. There were serious issues about public safety in our cities, amounting to threats to their way of life. The right created enemies in the out-of-control, out-of-touch, far-left politicians as they discussed these issues. That's not to justify any of the right's disinformation campaigns around these matters. But the feelings that their target audience had were real, and the people crafting the campaign's messaging knew it. As a result, in political terms, populism largely exists on the right. But I also want populism of the left. We need movements to be connected to the emotions of real people at scale. It's worth considering this: Would Bernie's very successful 'Fighting Oligarchy Tour'—the greatest, record-breaking-turnout events Democrats have put on this year—ever have happened if the consultant-driven language police had been in charge? They tell us, 'It's the economy, stupid.' They tell us, 'It's the authenticity, stupid.' Now, 'It's the influencers, stupid.' Next election cycle, they'll tell us it's something else, stupid. How about this? Let's first invest in getting to know people's economic lives, then create the content that evidences their pains and struggles, and finally—with policy depth—connect those struggles to tangible solutions. The voters aren't stupid, and they never have been. So let's stop treating them that way.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
How to improve safety during Distracted Driving Awareness Month
Chris Hayes, Risk Control Assistant Vice President for Workers' Compensation and Transportation for Travelers Insurance, sat down with FreightWaves' Timothy Dooner on the April 21st episode of What the Truck?!? to discuss the Distracted Driver Awareness month as well as the risks and effects of distracted driving. Distracted driving remains a prevalent safety issue, with many incidents each year caused by cell phones and other distractions. 'In bumper-to-bumper traffic the other day, I looked at the car next to me and thought, 'that's a good episode of that TV show,' and then I realized that this person was watching television on their phone while driving in traffic,' Hayes said. 'If I can recognize the show from another car, that just shows how distracting that behavior really is.' Ultimately, safety is in the hands of every driver. Until all cars are self-driving, carriers will still need drivers. Even with technology like autonomous trucks, someone will need to be present in those trucks for the foreseeable future. 'Statistic after statistic shows that drivers are the cause of roughly ninety-five percent of accidents,' Hayes said. More often than not, Hayes says, it's the passenger vehicle that's the primary cause of the accident when it comes to light vehicle/heavy vehicle collisions. 'Either way, it's still people that typically make these things happen,' he said. When it comes to safety, distracted driving compounds with every other thing that a driver is doing. 'Being distracted while you're in your sleeper doesn't matter, of course, but when you're on a crowded highway going sixty miles an hour and it's raining, every one of those factors makes it more dangerous,' Hayes said. Distraction erodes all of those skills that a driver should have, according to Hayes. 'The most important thing is to be able to see where you're going and maintain the right space between you and the vehicles around you,' he said. Every year, the CVSA hosts a program called Operation Safe Driver, which involves focused enforcement over the course of a week in July. 'Many drivers may not appreciate dealing with the extra enforcement, but it's an important cause and encourages safe driving behaviors,' Hayes said. Last year, between July 7th and July 13th, the CVSA pulled over more than 11,000 vehicles, including both commercial and passenger vehicles. The most common infraction for commercial drivers was speeding. 'Cutting down on speeding is absolutely the key to maintaining safe roads,' Hayes said. 'Close to 12,000 people die in speeding-related crashes out of the 40,000 who die on the road every year.' * Speed affects nearly every aspect of road safety – necessary following distance, a driver's ability to react in time, and the severity of an impact. 'Speed is everything, especially when you're driving a commercial vehicle,' Hayes said. Surprisingly, failure to wear a seatbelt was the second highest infraction found during 2024's Operation Safe Driver. 'A lot of people think that wearing a seatbelt only affects them and their safety,' Hayes said. 'If you're in a collision, though, the thing that keeps that collision from getting much worse is your natural reaction to grab the steering wheel and hit the brakes to get control of your vehicle, which you can't do if you get bounced into your passenger seat,' he said. 'If you've seen videos of crashes from interior cameras, you know that a driver without a seatbelt never stays in that seat,' Hayes said. 'Wearing a seatbelt is not just about your safety. It also can keep other people in your vicinity safer in the event of an accident because you can be in a better position to keep your vehicle straight, steady, and stopped.' It's also worth noting that not wearing a seatbelt is actually a bigger violation than speeding in many states. For Distracted Driving Awareness Month, Travelers wants to remind all drivers that their main job on the road is to get their vehicles to their destination safely. 'Any secondary task you have to do is well below that in importance,' Hayes said. It's vital that office staff participate in avoiding distractions too, says Hayes, because many carriers are far too apt to call drivers while on the road. 'There are many other ways to communicate safely with drivers now,' Hayes said. 'When I started in trucking, drivers would call dispatch twice a day, and somehow the economy still kept turning.' There is nothing more important than the driver's ability to stay focused on the task of driving, because otherwise too many people can be hurt. 'As an industry, we have to pull out of the sense that we need to be connected at all times,' Hayes said. From the perspective of safety professionals, according to Hayes, there is still a lot of work to be done. 'I've been trying to find ways to make telematics improve safety since 2009, and I'm still working at it,' Hayes said. For many carriers, trying to examine and respond to every single alert of a safety issue is impractical. In speaking with one customer, Hayes learned that their fleet received 3,000 alerts every morning between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. 'In a situation like that, it's difficult to know which alerts to look at,' Hayes said. Some carriers, he says, are even concerned that they may be in more trouble if they neglected to address something crucial. 'What we're helping our customers do is focus on something we call 'metrics that matter,'' Hayes said. 'With the wealth of data you get from cameras, telematics, engines and GPS, you can focus on which stats actually make the most impact in safety for you right now, and you can turn that into methods for coaching your drivers,' he said. Instead of simply reprimanding a driver for an individual incident, for instance, carriers can show them how they compare to other drivers and examine the patterns of what they do right and wrong. 'Don't forget to work with your telematics provider,' Hayes said. 'You don't want to report every minute for every driver. What would be better is to see on a regular basis who is performing and who is not so you can provide a straightforward scorecard and help drivers understand where they are.' Knowing who to coach and provide feedback to, Hayes says, is a key factor for fleets to improve their overall safety. 'It can be a huge help and a tremendous motivating factor to know that your speed is too high and that you have harsher usage of the brakes than anyone else in the fleet,' Hayes said. 'For the most part, everyone is out there trying to do a good job every day, but we just need information in order to improve sometimes,' Hayes said. Click here to learn more about Travelers Risk Control. *Source: The post How to improve safety during Distracted Driving Awareness Month appeared first on FreightWaves.
