Axios (2018) s04e15 Episode Script

Ironton, LA - Senator Cassidy.
- Good seein' you, brother.
How you doin'? A good 20-mile stretch has been totally destroyed.
The people from here is resilient.
But my people are tired.
We need help, Senator.
AXIOS WHAT MATTERS 1.
Senator Bill Cassidy, R-LA / an interview So Senator Dr.
Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana.
You're a physician in the middle of the pandemic.
You're one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict President Trump right before he left office.
And you're a Republican senator who voted for the Biden infrastructure program.
Is it hot enough for you? I would say it was the bipartisan infrastructure bill, not the Biden infrastructure bill.
I'm a conservative who happens to be a senator.
And I have a job to do and I take an oath to support and defend it- But not all your colleagues see it that way.
Like that's a rare view.
You were one of 19 Senate Republicans out of 50 who voted for President Biden's infrastructure plan.
Why can't you convince your Republican colleagues? Well, I can't speak for my Republican colleagues, but I can speak of the positiveness of the bill.
There's $65 billion so that every American has access to high-speed internet.
Now, there is a hopefulness for rural America that they can catch up with suburban and urban America through this package.
We're in a courthouse that was built in 1939.
It was under President FDR's Public Works Administration.
It was the Build Back Better of its time.
- 1939, now.
It shows what can be done.
- It does show us what's gonna be done.
Now, there's some distinctions that we have to draw there, by the way.
Remember, we got two bills we're considering now.
One bill is the infrastructure bill.
So what they call the "hard infrastructure.
" That's roads, bridges, ports, broadband.
The other is a $3.
5 trillion amorphous reconciliation bill.
- So that's human infrastructure.
- Which we have not had a single- We've not had a single substantive committee hearing in the Senate on.
In real dollars, it spends more than the New Deal.
Wait.
We're gonna spend more than the New Deal, and we've not had a single Senate committee hearing on? This is the classic backroom where not even the American people have insight into it.
Senator, it's very possible there will be zero Republicans who are for that.
Well, that's true.
But if you've never had a single, single public hearing on it in the Senate, how could you even know? This morning, you met with some of your constituents.
A lot of them, their neighbors, they would benefit from pre-kindergarten.
They would benefit from subsidized childcare.
They would benefit from free community college.
Is it harder to be against that when you're here than it is when you're in Washington? If you're speaking about the 3.
5 reconciliation bill.
Which'll be less.
That's over ten years.
It'll come down to $2 trillion.
That's what the president is hoping Do you know the details of any of those? I'm asking you a question that I know the answer.
Of course you don't know the details.
Well, you're asking for the American people to endorse something for which there's not been a single Senate hearing.
- I think that would be irresponsible.
- But, Senator, listen to yourself.
Does that sound very Beltway to be talking about a hearing when you look at your constituents who could really use some of what's in there? No, it doesn't sound Beltway to say, "I have to know facts.
" You cannot judge something unless you study it.
When you talk to your constituents, as you did today, about flooding, do you feel like you need to talk to them about climate and climate change? I've had multiple conversations already.
Started off my day speaking to folks about the need to lower carbon intensity.
And in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, there's multiple provisions that will lower carbon intensity and that will preserve the jobs that families such as I was meeting with depend upon for their livelihood.
I hear you saying there is a way for a Republican and conservative to talk to their constituents about climate change.
Of course.
For the people that say, "We're gonna decrease emissions by leaving it in the ground," I can tell you Europe is still gonna buy natural gas.
Our environmental standards are much better than Russia's.
And so if Russia is supplyin' all their gas and we're not, then there's gonna be greater greenhouse gas emissions, we strengthen their economy, we lose jobs here, and we weaken our economy.
Now, that's a second- and third-order argument, which is the right argument.
Senator, Dr.
Cassidy, you are a physician.
In your home state of Louisiana has been one of the slowest to vaccinate.
It's always in the bottom ten.
57% of America vaccinated, about ten points less here in Louisiana.
- What is wrong? - Well, first, we're recovering.
The incidence of Delta is coming down dramatically.
But vaccination rate is still ten points beneath the national average.
Yeah, there's been a lot of skepticism about the way that the federal government has rolled out their pronouncements.
Believe me there could not have been a worse messaging job in Washington about this illness.
President Biden's mandate that anybody who employs 100 or more people or does business with the government, you are against that.
That's total overreach of what the federal government should be doing.
But it's gonna encourage some vaccinations, maybe a lot.
That will save some lives, maybe a lot.
Is that worth it? We are always balancing personal freedom with a nanny state and we're lining up somewhere along the way.
You were one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict President Trump right before he left office.
Right after that, the Republican Party of Louisiana censured you.
You are a sitting Republican senator from Louisiana.
What the hell? They just chose to censure.
But that's I slept very well that night.
And you gave a very simple reason, a very clear reason for voting the way you did.
You said he was guilty.
I take an oath to support and defend the Constitution.
And when there was a pattern of behavior that culminated as it did on January the 6th, and we've had revelations since, that just led me to that decision.
You assume President Trump runs in 2024? He's certainly saying he's going to.
Whether he does or not, we don't know.
- If he runs, he wins the nomination.
- I don't know that.
President Trump is the first president in the Republican side at least to lose the House, the Senate, and the presidency in four years.
- Elections are about winning.
So.
- That's super interesting.
You think that if he ran, he could lose the nomination.
Well, if you want to win the presidency, and hopefully that's what voters are thinkin' about, I think he might.
- It's clear you ain't votin' for him.
- I'm not.
The speaker of the House is 81.
Wisdom comes with age.
But the science is also clear that we aren't who we were, that we do lose things with age.
As a medical professional, is that something we should be thinking about? Of course.
Medicine lets us live longer and lead the country at 78 or 81.
What concerns do you have about that? I'll just speak in general, not to the particular.
At some point, and statistically it's in the 80s, you begin a more rapid decline.
It's usually noticeable.
So anybody in a position of responsibility who may potentially be on that slope, that is of concern.
And I'm saying this as a doctor.
And so just to be practical, should there be limits? This is difficult to speak of because people assume you're bein' political about the current president, whomever.
But I'm told that there have been senators in the past who at the end of their Senate term were senile.
I'm told that was true of senators of both parties.
Now, you can argue, "Well, they were elected.
So who cares?" But would it reasonable to have for Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, and leadership positions in the executive branch an annual sort of evaluation in which they would have to establish, "Yes, I'm doin' okay"? - You would be for that? - I think that's a reasonable plan.
Would you put senators, and presidents, and House speakers on that? We each have a sacred responsibility to the people of the United States.
It is not about me.
It is about my ability to serve the people whom I have the privilege to.
- You'd be for it for those leaders? - Of course.
Yeah.
2.
Miguel Cardona, EdD / United States Secretary of Education Good morning, Locust Lane Leopards.
Locust Lane Elementary School EAU CLAIRE, WI We're going to schools where we know students are doing the right thing to stay safe by making sure you have your mask on when you're in school.
So when I say, "Are we gonna have a great year?" you're gonna say Give me a try one more time a little louder, okay? - Are you gonna have a great year? - Yeah! This fall, U.
S.
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona went on a "Return to School Road Trip" to promote the safe resumption of in-person learning.
Fifteen states have enacted universal mask mandates for schools.
Nine states have pursued a ban on mask mandates in schools.
U.
S.
Department of Education Washington, D.
C.
So, Secretary, last time I saw you, you were touring the Midwest celebrating the school openings.
How do you think the schools openings across the country have gone so far? 50 million students have access to in-person learning full time across the country.
And for many of them, it's the first time in a year and a half that they've been back.
So I'd say it's going well.
The Biden administration recommended universal masking in schools but more than 30 governors are refusing to implement statewide mask mandates.
- What do you plan to do about that? - We're working closely with states.
Promoting the science where people need to hear it.
But 30 governors are ignoring you.
Well, unfortunately in those states there are issues about mask mandates.
But the superintendents and the boards are often protecting the students by requiring universal masking.
Are you considering denying funding or rewarding states that abide by the guidelines? I don't know that holding funds from students is the best approach.
Ultimately, the students need more support, not less.
But we're working with our districts.
And thankfully the superintendents, who are educators, are working closely with health experts to keep their children safe.
Are you saying the only power that you are willing to use is your voice? Department of Education doesn't mandate masks, nor does it mandate vaccines.
What we do is work closely with states and with local leaders But you have the money.
And boards of education to support the effective use of mitigation strategies.
COVID spread in communities is greater than schools.
And in places where we feel that policies are being put in place that are preventing students from accessing education, we are having our Office for Civil Rights investigate that.
California is the first state to mandate vaccines for all students K-12 once the shots are approved.
Surveys show 30-45% of parents who have children aged 5-11 do not want to vaccinate their child.
Aren't you worried that vaccine mandates for kids have the potential to fuel an exodus from traditional public schools? Parent involvement is critical in the process.
But I do believe as educators and policy makers we have the responsibility to protect our students and staff.
I support the decisions that are being made at the local level.
The places that have lower vaccination rates are more likely to have interrupted learning, children in the hospital, and sadly children dying of COVID.
If 30-45% percent of parents are saying they don't of five- to 11-year-old kids say they don't want their kids to get the vaccine, is that something that you're worried about? It is something that we would be looking at.
But, again, it's not our role to dictate at the federal level what local and state officials do.
What I will tell you is in places that are more assertive with regard to mitigation strategies and vaccinations, schools are open without disruption more.
And that's the goal, to get kids back in the classroom.
Enrollment in traditional public schools decreased by more than 1 million students in the 2020-'21 school year.
That's a 3% drop overall.
Why do you think so many parents lost confidence in traditional public schools during the pandemic? It's a combination of things.
In many cases, there was so much fear of sending students back to school, or parents maybe were dealing with different issues at home and it impacted their ability to send their children to their traditional school.
But I'm completely confident that based on what we've seen from educators over the last year and a half, we're gonna continue to put the students first and we're gonna reopen schools that welcome students and meet not only the students' needs but the families' needs and concerns.
And we do that by ensuring that their children are safe.
I wanted to ask you a big picture question about public schooling in America.
The U.
S.
is number five in education expenditure per student among the highly developed OECD countries.
How did we get to a situation where we're number 5 in spending per student and number 31 in mathematics performance? That's a significant issue, and we're gonna address it.
And I'll tell you places that are effective at addressing those gaps are those that focus on good, strong curriculum engaging students where they feel connected to the school, making sure that we're providing extra support for students that have extra need, also addressing some of those social emotional needs that students have.
I believe this aggressive agenda in the Build Back Better Agenda has that.
A strong foundation of quality pre-kindergarten programs.
There's an increase of $30 billion for the budget this year.
And a lot of that goes to make sure that students that have greater need get more support.
So there is a plan.
But what do you say to a conservative who says, "Typical Democrat.
Let's just put more money into when clearly we're spending a lotta money anyway into a broken system"? Think we have to make sure the return on investment is great.
We have to make sure that for every ounce of support we have an ounce of accountability.
Our schools have to evolve quicker to meet the needs of our workforce.
The K12 system is too disconnected from the higher ed.
system.
And our community colleges, especially with this Build Back Better Agenda, can be a huge catalyst for continued growth.
Not only education growth, but economic growth for our country.
Let's talk about the Build Back Better Agenda, the $3.
5 trillion reconciliation bill.
There's a lot of education money riding on that bill.
You've got proposals for hundreds of billions of dollars for items like two years of free community college, universal pre-K, school infrastructure, Pell grants.
President Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer are right now figuring out how to cut at least a trillion off it.
Which of your education items in this bill have you recommended should be scrapped first? None.
I would not recommend any of them being cut.
But you have to make priorities, don't you? You're asking me, "Which one do I recommend being cut?" I don't recommend any of 'em being cut.
But you're gonna have to have a tough decision.
For far too long, it's been predictable which students are gonna be successful or not based on place and race.
The education package is an honest approach to level the playing field and lift our country.
I know that a lot of conversations are happening at the Hill.
And for me, it's critically important that we deliver on community college for all.
Community college graduates earn on average 21% more than a high school graduate.
So to me, this makes economic sense not only for the family that's gonna benefit but for the community and for our country.
Do you cut pre-K? As I said earlier in the conversation, early childhood education is a foundation.
So you are just not gonna make any recommend you're just gonna say If the time comes for me to have a conversation with the president, I will have that conversation.
What I'm telling you now as the top educator in the country: Our students have suffered enough.
And I'm not just talking about the pandemic.
We need to reimagine education.
Other countries are passing us out.
You said it.
And an investment in children is an investment in our country.
Secretary Cardona, thanks so much for having us.
We really appreciate it.
- Good to be with you.
Thank you.
- Stay safe out there.
Thank you.
3.
Chips ahoy / an interview with Intel's CEO Santa Clara, CA Intel was once the leading microchip manufacturer in the world.
Now, American manufacturers produce less than 15% of the world's chips and 75% are made in Asia.
As part of its efforts to address a global chip shortage, Intel is working to build more fabrication sites, or "fabs" in the US.
- Hey Pat.
- Hey.
So good to see you.
- Great to see you.
- There we go.
CEO Pat Gelsinger has been an ardent supporter of the CHIPS for America Act to strengthen U.
S.
semiconductor manufacturing with more than $50 billion in federal spending.
So a lot of people have heard that there's a chip shortage going on, but many may not even know what that means or why it's important.
Your chips are now permeating everything, right? And we're seeing auto manufacturers stopping manufacturing lines because they're short $2 chips.
Also, medical and distribution, supply chain, all of these things are being affected.
We were probably headed for a shortage before COVID.
And then COVID created a huge step-up, as everything became more digital.
Work from home, educate from home, health care.
What was maybe a little shortage became a pretty dramatic shortage.
One of the things that a lot of people don't seem to get about the shortage is you're short one component.
Whether it's a server or a car, you can't build the thing.
What else don't people get about the chip shortage? Any perturbation creates an imbalance.
We had a COVID outbreak in Malaysia.
Rolling power outages in China are hurting some of the factories and even like last year, the big ice storms in Texas.
The rubber band is stretched to the absolute limit and then you just get one little perturbation somewhere, everything becomes disrupted.
We've been so optimized for the last three decades on low cost supply that we've lost track of resilient supply.
How concerned are you that so much of the world's highest-end chip making capacity is basically centralized in two countries, Taiwan and Korea, and mostly Taiwan? I'm very concerned.
And I've been very clear on that.
And that's part of our job.
Some of that was created by our stumble.
So we're out to fix our piece of that.
And I think everybody who looks at the situation, you know, realizes, "Yeah, this is geopolitically unstable.
" And the best political policy is one that has less dependency, fewer areas that we're critically reliant on international efforts.
You know, if the world becomes dependent on one location, that's not politically stable, right? It also isn't practical.
We should just have fabs more places.
God decided where the oil reserves are.
We can decide where the fabs are.
Let's put them where we want them.
And as the only company that can do a lab-fab pipeline in U.
S.
with U.
S.
IP, that's the agenda, right, of building it out.
How do you pay for this really ambitious plan? We're investing $20 billion in capital this year.
So we are gonna be spending our cash flows to build labs and fabs.
But we also are looking for and seeking subsidies and support from governments.
So what we've said to our U.
S.
and European partners and political leaders is, "We can't be 30% or 40% more expensive than Asia.
So help us close that gap so that we can build bigger and faster on U.
S.
soil.
" That's the basis of the $52 billion CHIP Act, that passed the Senate and is now in the House.
But is that really enough for the U.
S.
to catch up and stay ahead? Yeah.
And I believe there will need to be a CHIPS Act 2, maybe a CHIPS Act 3 to fully realize this moonshot.
I can't imagine a higher priority for the nation than this one.
And that's why it's gotten bipartisan and bicameral support.
Every aspect of humanity is becoming digital.
And we gonna control our digital future as a nation, as a Western world versus this precarious geopolitical situation we have? Name anything that's more important than that to our nation.
Now, I've talked to people who say basically without government assistance the numbers just don't work.
Intel can't afford to build all the things that you're talking about unless it's subsidized from government.
I'm gonna fund my business.
Period.
I want to go bigger and faster, right? And bigger and faster requires support from the government.
Recently, Apple said they're moving from Intel chips on the Mac to homegrown processors.
Have you given up on the idea of the Mac running on Intel chips? I never give up on the idea of anything not running on Intel chips.
And, you know, our stumbles, Apple decided they could do a better chip themselves than we could.
And they did a pretty good job.
So what I have to do is create a better chip than they can do themselves.
I would hope to win back this piece of their business, as well as many other pieces of business over time.
And in the meantime, I gotta make sure our products are better than theirs, that my ecosystem is more open and vibrant than theirs, and we create more compelling reason for developers and users to land on Intel based products.
So I'm gonna fight hard to win Tim's business in this area.
Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, thank you so much for joining Axios on HBO.
Thank you so much, Ina.
4.
Influencing beauty / Coty's CEO Sue Y.
Nabi San Francisco, CA Ina, hi.
- Good to see you.
- Good to see you.
Hey Sara.
So Coty Of all the beauty brands in the world, Coty is the one taking a leadership role in digital.
They're investing in influencers.
They're investing in direct-to-consumer brands.
So if you think about it, brands like Kylie Cosmetics, brands like Kim Kardashian West, those are makeup brands that were born on Instagram.
They were born online.
I don't think it's blowing the concept of beauty wide open, but it does seem like it's creating room for more people, more skin tones than at least we saw pre-Instagram.
One of the most fascinating brands right now that Coty is working on is CoverGirl.
CoverGirl used to be a brand that you thought about the typical blonde-haired, blue-eyed American girl.
Today, CoverGirl is dozens of shades that are meant to cater to every sort of skin type.
By the way, Ina, that's not just women.
It could be men.
It could be people who are transgender.
It could be people who are genderless.
And it's also really interesting with Sue Nabi as a trans woman who's had this different lived experience.
It's unique to the cosmetics industry.
It's still rare in corporate America.
Coty Research and Development Center, Versoix, Switzerland - Oh, good morning.
- Good morning.
Hi.
- How are you? Hi Sara.
- Good, thank you.
Thanks so much for comin' and meetin' with us.
Long controlled by large conglomerates, beauty is a $500 billion industry that has been disrupted by social media.
In 2020, Coty took a majority stake in Kylie Jenner's cosmetic company with a $600 million investment.
I want to talk to you about TikTok and Instagram.
You have all these platforms now, and there's millions of influencers.
Like, how do you work in a world where you're putting your bets on one? In fact, what we are seeing is mogul influencers, people who are celebrities who have reach that's huge.
In parallel, you can really see the rise of what we call micro influencers.
These followers are following this person because they know this person is an expert of something.
And with this I would say new generation of influencers, that's the magic of TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, is that you can have the ability to choose who is the right person for your brand.
So for me, the marriage between Coty and Kim and Kylie is the perfect fit, the perfect ten I would say.
One of the things with online beauty, there's a lot of niche brands that focus on one very specific thing.
You're investing in some of these niche brands.
Obviously Kylie.
Yeah.
Clearly, we're going to invest behind Kylie.
She's today the most followed woman on Instagram.
She gained recently 2 million followers in one week, over 60 million in one year.
Sometimes I worry though with a lot of these opportunities on social media, we're not having enough of a conversation about the downsides: mental health, putting pressure on young women.
What is Coty doing about it? So we're really super, super cautious in this area just to make sure that the people who speak about our brands are people who are representing the diversity of the societies they are living in, make sure everything we are going to invest behind shows an inclusive vision of beauty.
All ages, all ethnicities, all genders, all body sizes.
We are making sure our brands are in a mirror of the society, rather than to show just one version of beauty.
What do you think about genderless products? Is that going to become sort of the new norm? Genderless beauty is beauty that will not use codes that are specific to what we call traditionally a feminine vision of beauty or a masculine vision of beauty.
Whatever is your choice in terms of gender, you would find that the packaging is there to speak about the product and not to send you other messages.
Aging is an $80 billion industry.
People selling products to prevent aging.
Should we be talking or thinking about it differently? I think that people are looking for options to look at their best.
And this notion of looking at your best is very, very specific to each and every individual.
And I wouldn't dare to say that this is better than this.
Probably that's the new direction.
We're moving from fighting age into a direction that's around managing age, your way with your desires and your vision of beauty.
This is where it all started, the IBM personal computer with its floppy drives, the Intel 8088 chip, if I'm not mistaken.
So there's the 486 chip that Pat helped design, along with some of the ones that came after it.
And then long before there was an Apple Watch there was the Microna.
In the '70s, Intel bought a watch company.
And then it realized that really wasn't a great business to be in and got out of the watch business.