LA will host the 2028 Olympics, the International Committee announced yesterday - we speak with Mayor Eric Garcetti about what this will mean for the city, and to listeners about their thoughts on hosting the games. We also explore a Broadway casting controversy; debate the ethical implications of diagnosing the president; and more.
AirTalk politics: Scaramucci resigns, possible ACA cuts and bipartisan tax reform?
Another whirlwind week at the White House is in motion with the resignation of Anthony Scaramucci, whose tenure as communications director lasted little more than a week.
The decision to fire Scaramucci came from another new name to Trump’s Administration, Chief of Staff John Kelly. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who replaced Reince Priebus, is tasked with restoring order in the Administration. At a press briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders mentioned Scaramucci’s unconventional comments as part of the reason for his removal. The bombastic former communications director had some controversial interview moments last week, including comments that he would fire whoever leaked information to the press.
In other news, on the heels of a failed repeal and replacement for the Affordable Care Act, Trump is considering cuts to subsidies for the ACA. Stopping these federal payments, which are owed to insurers, could spell trouble for the ACA and private insurance marketplaces.
So would the cuts be constitutional? And Democrats are offering help with a bipartisan tax reform plan to the GOP. But not without conditions. All this and more on today’s AirTalk political roundup.
Guests:
Scott Horsley, NPR White House reporter; he tweets
Lisa Mascaro, congressional reporter for the Los Angeles Times; she tweets
Scaramucci lasted 11 days. What’s the shortest amount of time you’ve had a job?
After less than two weeks on the job as White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci was shown the door, which makes us wonder – what’s the shortest amount of time you’ve held a job and why?
That’s the gist of this
In honor of Anthony Scaramucci, what's the shortest amount of time you've spent on a job and why?
— Nubyjas Wilborn (@nwilborn19) July 31, 2017
, and was also a topic of conversation at our morning meeting, where an AirTalk producer told us about being fired from a brief gig at an undisclosed pita shop for “putting too much cheese on a pita.”
We want to hear from you. Tells us about your overqualified or underqualified stints with unsatisfied employers, your bummer summer jobs and your dramatic or anti-climactic resignations and firings. Call us at 866-893-5722.
Mandy Patinkin and the Broadway diversity casting controversy
The push for diversity casting has been front and center in Hollywood.
It’s a conversation that Broadway is finding itself having, after controversy erupted over the casting of Mandy Patinkin to replace African American actor Okieriete “Oak” Onaodowan as one of the leads in the musical “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.”
Onaodowan was himself brought in to replace white actor Josh Groban, who left the show in early July. Ticket sales plummeted after Groban’s departure, leading producers of “The Great Comet” to seek out a bigger name in Patinkin to revive the struggling production.
Backlash to the casting decision started soon after the Patinkin news came out, with critics characterizing the move as racially insensitive. Patinkin has since announced his withdrawal from the production in a series of tweets.
I hear what members of the community have said and I agree with them. (3/4)
— Mandy Patinkin (@PatinkinMandy)
I hear what members of the community have said and I agree with them. (3/4)
— Mandy Patinkin (@PatinkinMandy) July 28, 2017
How might the controversy impact casting on Broadway? For example, will producers now be more resistant to casting leads of color for non-ethnic-specific roles, fearing backlash if they later want to hire a white star for the role?
Guest:
Gordon Cox, New York-based editor who covers theater for Variety; he tweets
and he’s been following the story
Mayor Eric Garcetti on Olympics 2028, plus AirTalk listeners weigh in on games coming to LA
After a long wait and plenty of speculation over whether Los Angeles would get the 2024 or 2028 Olympics, a deal has finally been reached for L.A. to host the Summer Games in 2028.
The arrangement with the International Olympic Committee means that Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Reactions across the city have been mixed. Mayor Eric Garcetti, bid chairman Casey Wasserman and L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson have been celebrating the news after a multi-year campaign to draw the 2024 Summer Games to Southern California saw two other potential host cities fall out of the running. Others have concerns that the city made the deal too hastily just to keep up with the IOC’s timeline.
What do you think about the deal the city of L.A. made for the Olympics?
For more from KPCC on the Olympics, click here.
Guests:
Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles
Ed Hula, editor in chief of "Around The Rings," a publication dedicated to covering the Olympics
Zev Yaroslavsky, former Los Angeles County Supervisor now affiliated with UCLA’s history department and its Luskin School of Public affairs; he tweets
Covered California releases rates amid health care market uncertainty
Californians will learn Tuesday how much health insurance will cost in 2018.
And for the 9 percent of Californians who buy health insurance through Covered California, rates could be to be up to 17 percent higher, according to officials with the state exchange.
Covered California’s rate release comes just after multiple attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed in Washington, and the president calling to "let Obamacare fail." Obamacare supporters are celebrating the U.S. Senate’s failure to repeal the law, but they’re still concerned about the future of the state’s marketplace.
Guest:
Michelle Faust, KPCC’s health care reporter who’s been covering the story; she tweets
The life of a US Army ‘Drone Warrior’
For years, terrorists have been hunted and killed by one small group of elite U.S. Army soldiers by way of drones.
Brett Velicovich was once a member of the special operations task force, which killed the original leader of ISIS in 2010. In the new book, “Drone Warrior: An Elite Soldier’s Inside Account of the Hunt for America’s Most Dangerous Enemies,” the Wall Street Journal’s Christopher S. Stewart tells the untold story of Velicovich, which details the experience of the team’s counter-terrorism efforts. Additional details include government drone technology, developing technology and how it’s saving civilian lives.
Guest:
Brett Velicovich, U.S. Army veteran, former Delta Force intelligence analyst and co-author of “Drone Warrior: An Elite Soldier's Inside Account of the Hunt for America's Most Dangerous Enemies”
The ethics of calling Trump crazy
The diagnoses seem to come as frequently as his tweets — narcissistic personality disorder, dementia or simply “he must be crazy.”
But for the people who actually study these disorders, what are the consequences of diagnosing the leader of the free world?
It’s a question psychiatry experts have been debating since before the November election. Recently, 35 psychiatrists met at Yale to discuss Trump's mental health, concluding that he is “paranoid and delusional.” Though they argued that it was their “ethical responsibility” to warn the country that the president is unstable, others in the field, including the American Psychiatric Association, consider such diagnoses an “ethical misstep.” These opponents point to the Goldwater Rule spelled out in the American Psychiatry Association code of ethics, which came about after 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater won a libel suit against a magazine that had deemed him “psychologically unfit” to be president. It stipulates that it is unethical for psychiatrists to give a professional opinion about someone they have not met.
Is Trump an exception to this rule? Is there greater risk in breaking the rule or in following it? What role does partisanship play in such diagnoses?
Guests:
John Gartner, a psychologist in private practice, and former assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and founder of Duty to Warn, an organization of mental health professionals who think Trump is mentally unfit for office
Renee Binder, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine