Skip to content

Chatting with ... a U.S. Senator?

2025-04-15 · collab / interview · John, Adam Schiff · 20:49 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society (also: Global development) · mode: Q&A & conversation · tags: guest or collab, timely hook, on location, heavy topic, self promotion

After a TB-advocacy trip to Washington, John interviews Senator Adam Schiff, who argues Congress is surrendering its power of the purse to the president yet stays optimistic; they discuss USAID cuts reversing progress against tuberculosis and the meaning of The Fault in Our Stars' title.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — John's Washington trip with TB fighters (210+ meetings) and his ongoing book travel

  • ★★ John says that last week (week of 7 April 2025) he and many people from the community visited Washington, D.C., holding over 210 meetings with members of Congress and their offices to press for better TB funding. — 00:00:00 · Nerdfighteria, United States Congress, tuberculosis
  • ★ John says he has traveled nonstop since Everything Is Tuberculosis came out: Maine today, London tomorrow, then Peru, which he calls the classic reverse Paddington. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Everything Is Tuberculosis, London

00:00:34 — Schiff on the power of the purse, the Supreme Court, Congress ceding power and party discipline

  • ★★ John says that in D.C. he met and talked with Senator Adam Schiff about democracy, foreign aid and the title of The Fault in Our Stars, and shares the conversation. — 00:00:34 · The Fault in Our Stars
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, its strongest power: the president commands the military and agencies but can do nothing unless Congress appropriates money. — 00:01:03 · United States Congress
  • ★★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says that power is only as good as Congress's willingness to enforce it; by letting the president ignore its appropriations Congress gives it up, which is sadly where things are now. — 00:01:33 · United States Congress
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says the administration is breaking the law: shutting down agencies Congress established, spending money on other purposes and not spending money appropriated for fighting disease is illegal. — 00:02:02 · United States Congress
  • ★★ John notes that on the day of the conversation the Supreme Court said the president may legally fire 16,000 federal workers. — 00:02:31
  • ★★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says slow courts are not the problem, as lower courts moved quickly despite Bannon-style flooding the zone; the problem is a right-wing Supreme Court that adopted the fringe unitary-executive theory. — 00:03:08
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says the immunity ruling let a president commit crimes in office with immunity and strongly suggests broad powers to fire independent commissioners, inspectors general and federal staff. — 00:03:37
  • ★★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says the bigger problem is that Congress could stop this but won't, because its majority shares the president's party, defeating the founders' design of setting ambition against ambition. — 00:04:06 · United States Congress
  • ★★ John says that in his study of history most people do not willingly give up power, so it is very strange to see large parts of Congress doing so. — 00:04:36 · United States Congress
  • ★★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says the check broke down because the president punishes party members who step out of line, using social media to rally online supporters and primary challenges, cowing them. — 00:05:18 · Donald Trump, social media
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says both parties have marginalized moderates and made compromise a dirty word, but the problem is far worse among Republicans because the president enforces right-wing orthodoxy. — 00:06:27 · Republican Party
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Citing Will Rogers' quip, Schiff says Democrats lack a top-down hierarchy: less discipline and diverse opinion are a strength but can weaken cohesion to fight back. — 00:06:57

00:07:27 — Optimism about American democracy, the pressured press, civility and the fractured information landscape

  • ★★ John says most people he talks to are scared, freaked out and overwhelmed by a social media fire hose, and frustrated with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. — 00:07:27 · social media, United States Congress, Republican Party
  • ★ John repeats Mark Twain's quip calling Congress the country's only native criminal class, then says he probably shouldn't make that joke to a senator. (joke) — 00:07:55 · United States Congress
  • ★★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says he is broadly optimistic that the country will get through this, though he does not want to be Pollyannish about the struggle. — 00:08:24
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff cites the press being intimidated: the Washington Post changing its editorial policy, the LA Times withholding editorials, reporters kicked out of White House events over 'Gulf of America'. — 00:08:54
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says law firms are paying tens to hundreds of millions in fines and taking on the president's pet causes, unimaginable a decade ago, in only month three. — 00:09:23
  • ★★★ Adam Schiff: Taking the long view, Schiff says the country survived the Vietnam era, a civil war, world wars, a cold war and a pandemic and will survive this, though rebuilding takes time. — 00:09:52 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff is confident people will one day ask how that man ever became president; the only questions are how fast and how much damage along the way. — 00:10:21 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff recalls a Marine in an airport who asked whether Americans will ever talk to each other again and, leaving, said he didn't expect Schiff to be so nice. — 00:10:51
  • ★★★ John says social media and the fracturing of the news landscape are big forces pushing people away from civility, and he does not know how to combat that. — 00:11:42 · social media
  • ★★ John says he thinks their community is a pretty good one, which is rare amid so much online incivility. — 00:11:42 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★ John says he made the mistake of going on Twitter that day and saw things Elon Musk said that nobody should say. — 00:12:12 · Twitter
  • ★★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says the biggest, most cross-cutting challenge they face is simply where people get their information. — 00:12:12
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says in Walter Cronkite's era people shared agreed facts; now they choose their news, algorithms curate it and contrary views arrive only in obnoxious, vile forms. — 00:12:40

00:13:09 — Tuberculosis, USAID's value as diplomacy and the lasting harm of the aid freeze

  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says John's work is extraordinarily important because his viewers have broad interests and political views and can hear contrary views civilly there. — 00:13:09
  • ★★ John jokes that the only thing their viewers agree on is hating tuberculosis and other diseases of injustice; Schiff plugs John's book Everything Is Tuberculosis. (playful) — 00:13:09 · tuberculosis, Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says tuberculosis is a big part of American history: his great-uncle died of TB. — 00:13:38 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says tuberculosis caused one in seven deaths 100 or 110 years ago. — 00:13:38 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John says the world could easily return there: hundreds of thousands are having TB treatment interrupted, which will cause skyrocketing drug-resistant TB, terrifying everywhere. — 00:13:38 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff recalls a young USAID worker in Afghanistan who re-signed for a second year because development work's results cannot be seen in one year. — 00:14:08
  • ★★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says USAID fights disease and builds water systems, and people never forget a country that helped them, making it among the most effective diplomacy: an unmitigated good. — 00:15:22
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says seeing USAID disparaged as waste and its devoted staff dismissed by email is destructive and heartbreaking. — 00:15:51
  • ★★★ John cites an estimate that within two years, without restored funding, TB deaths will rise from 1.25 million to 2 million, up 750,000; TB is the deadliest infectious disease. (hedged) — 00:15:51 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John says the problem is also the chaotic way funding stopped: a sudden total freeze with no warning let no country fill gaps, so TB and HIV treatment was massively discontinued. — 00:16:21 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says it will be hard to regain the trust of people abandoned by the US government; unlike development's slow benefits, the harm will show quickly. — 00:16:50
  • ★★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says some harms are permanent: someone who gets TB because of US absence suffers an injury that can be treated but never undone, as with damaged relationships. — 00:17:37 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff is confident USAID will be fully back, but says the world will always wonder whether the US is one election away from withdrawing support again. — 00:18:10
  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says competitors stepping into the void are not acting from altruism: they use development or health assistance to gain a foothold and want payback. — 00:18:39
  • ★★ John adds that US aid is not always about altruism either. — 00:18:39
  • ★★ John says people need to understand that the harm lasts even if US aid is restored. — 00:18:39

00:19:08 — The title of The Fault in Our Stars against Shakespeare's line, applied to TB; thanks and sign-off

  • ★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff asks about The Fault in Our Stars' title, suggesting it was chosen partly because a person who gets sick is not at fault. (hedged) — 00:19:08 · The Fault in Our Stars
  • ★★★ John explains the title writes against Shakespeare's line that the fault is not in our stars: there is much fault in our stars, bad luck and structural injustice. — 00:19:38 · The Fault in Our Stars
  • ★★★ Adam Schiff: Schiff says with TB and USAID the fault is in ourselves: patients are not at fault, but since TB can be eradicated, failing to do so is all on us. — 00:20:07 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John says that because TB has been curable since the 1950s, its cause can no longer really be said to be Mycobacterium tuberculosis; on some level the cause is us. — 00:20:07 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John says TB deaths have fallen by 50% in the last 25 years, and finds it tragic that 15 years of progress will be walked back in the next year. — 00:20:36 · tuberculosis
    • a number in question (doubtful): "50%" — check against the recording

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Adam Schiff · power of the purse · tuberculosis · United States Agency for International Development · United States Congress

Also: People: Donald Trump · Elon Musk · Mark Twain · Steve Bannon · Stokes Goodrich · Walter Cronkite · Will Rogers · William Shakespeare

Projects: TBFighters

Works: Everything Is Tuberculosis · Julius Caesar (play) · The Fault in Our Stars

Organizations: Democratic Party · Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria · Los Angeles Times · Republican Party · Supreme Court of the United States · The Washington Post · Twitter · White House

Concepts: compromise · democratic backsliding · Development aid · echo chamber · flooding the zone · HIV/AIDS · Luck · multidrug-resistant tuberculosis · Mycobacterium tuberculosis · primary election · separation of powers · social media · unitary executive theory

Places: Afghanistan · London · Maine · Peru · Washington, DC

Events: American Civil War · Cold War · COVID-19 pandemic · Vietnam War · World War I · World War II

Policies: Trump v. United States

Also centred on United States Agency for International Development: Our $80,000,000 Bet · What Trump's Doing · We Will Eradicate Measles

← Previous: How Actually Crazy is This Mess? · Next → I Still Don't Have Cancer (and I'm Still Scared)