Speaker Nancy Pelosi in San Diego, Meet America’s ‘Homewreckers,’ Housing Homeless Cuts Health Care Costs, California’s Teen Birth Rate Hits Historic Low And More

Speaker 1: 00:00 And Oceanside political forum got some high profile buzz Monday with a visit from house speaker Nancy Pelosi, the speaker attended the meeting with Oceanside Congressman Mike Levin build as a community meeting. The topics at the event ranged from campaign finance reform to climate change, but even though the house only last week voted to approve and impeachment inquiry against president Trump, that was not the focus of Pelosi's remarks in Oceanside journey me by Skype is UC San Diego political science professor Thad [inaudible] who moderated the event and Thad. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Maureen, did you expect that much of the conversation at this forum would be about impeachment? Speaker 2: 00:43 Well, I knew that would be the topic on everyone's mind for the questioning afterwards during forum, a speaker Pelosi and representative Leben really focused on campaign finance reform and redistricting and ethics and all the provisions of this bill. Though the speaker did make sure to get in and note, uh, that soliciting foreign interference in U S elections was actually already against the law. Speaker 1: 01:05 Now, KPBS reporter Shalina chat, Lani did manage to get Pelosi to say a few words about the impeachment inquiry and why white house witnesses are not testifying. Speaker 3: 01:16 Any of the people who do not respond to a request from Congress, uh, maybe engaging in obstruction of justice so they're not making their case any clear. They all have the opportunity to present information that might be favorable to them. So if they don't show up, we wonder why they didn't show up. If this is their chance to give their best side of the story. Speaker 1: 01:39 That speaker Nancy Pelosi in Oceanside yesterday, and as you mentioned that she did seem to touch on the subject of impeachment when she spoke about that legislation, which tightens the rules against foreign interference in elections. Tell us about that. Speaker 2: 01:54 Well, I think one of the issues that came up was that this bill, I think, believe has a provision that says, if you find out about foreign interference in elections, you actually have to affirmatively report that. And so on. Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats have made the case that even with the collusion with Russia, there was no, the Mueller report found evidence that the Trump campaign was aware of it and didn't report it to the FBI, to the CIA, any relevant authorities. I think they were trying to use this conversation about this legislation to make the point that that was wrong. And if you pass our bill, it'll be illegal. But then pivot very quickly to Ukraine, which I think has gathered much more steam. Uh, and, and it's clearly driven the impeachment discussion and make the point that what happened in Ukraine, at least as they charge, was already unlawful. Speaker 1: 02:41 That as you were preparing your questions for this forum, what did you want to hear from the speaker? Speaker 2: 02:47 Well, I wanted to hear really what her vision was with this set of reforms. So this HR one is a big, a Christmas tree of a bill that has every thing in it that's political reformers have asked for for generation. So I wanted to hear what her overall vision was and also with, with both her and Mike Levin. Okay. The house is controlled by Democrats. You've passed this out of the house already. It's sitting on Mitch McConnell's desk in the Senate. What's your strategy for advancing this? Are there, are there places where you can find bipartisan compromise now? Is there a longterm strategy for from moving this set of ideas forward Speaker 1: 03:23 now? Did she address that issue? I heard a lot of talk about the fact that the Congress that you'd democratic Congress has passed a large number of bills that are now sitting on of Senate leader Mitch McConnell's desk in the Senate. But I didn't hear any strategies. Did you? Speaker 2: 03:41 Yeah, I think Mitch McConnell's desk has become a talking point for Democrats to try to make the argument that at the same time that they're moving forward with an impeachment inquiry. They're also passing lots of legislation and hundreds of bills that have been passed by the house are waiting there. And so I think, look, realistically in this session, nothing's going to happen. We aren't, we aren't going to see these bills move to and, and so the, so the question is who's going to control the Senate and the Senate's agenda next session? So I think really she was using this to, to lay out the case that this is not a do nothing Congress, that they're passing lots of things, that this is a do nothing Senate. And if you don't like that, maybe you should change, change the hands of the Senate. I think that was, that was the focus of her, of her strategy yesterday. Speaker 1: 04:23 Now this political forum in Oceanside was streamed live on CNN. Did you know that was going to happen? Ah, no I didn't. I didn't know that until you told me. Okay. Well it gave me a chance to watch. And one thing I was impressed with was the energy and the depth of knowledge speaker Polosi displayed. Did she come across that way with you? Speaker 2: 04:42 Absolutely. Shit. You know, I hadn't seen her in person before. Right. You just see clips of her on, uh, you know, in the news media. And I think she was clearly very much at home talking about getting into the weeds of this legislation and then pulling back and talking about what her vision was for America, why this was going to make the political system a fair place for her children and why, uh, and, and everyone's children and why getting reformed could unleash all of the other policies that she, she and my club and talked about climate change. They talked about gun control. Uh, they, they talked about a range of policy issues. And the idea was that that the advancing reform will unlock progress on all these policy issues. So I thought she was, you know, she came across not as a striking partisan but fairly moderate. So there's a reason she speaker and I think she showed that, uh, in this form. Speaker 1: 05:30 And what political reason do you think is behind Pelosi being at this meeting with Mike Levin? Speaker 2: 05:35 You know, I think she is outworking to defend her caucus in the, in the seats where they're most vulnerable. So this is a district, uh, you know, Mike Levin won a big victory at 13 percentage point victory in, in 2018. But because it's still a district where there are more registered, at least as that last election, there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. This is a deeply purple district and the speaker, like all good legislative leaders is out on essentially, you know, on the campaign trail working to shore up support for her most vulnerable members to make sure that the house, the Democrats back in 2018 she wants to keep it. She wants to keep the gabble after the 2020 elections and not turn it over two years later like she did, uh, like she had to in 2010 Speaker 1: 06:21 then. What were some of the other big takeaways you had from this forum? Speaker 2: 06:24 Well, I think the conversation on impeachment is really the most that's clear. Clearly the historic moment that we're in American politics. And I think that phase of the impeachment that we moved into last week, uh, that speaker Pelosi decided to move into is really the most interesting thing. She is taking a gamble by calling Republicans bluff. Uh, Republicans have been talking about the process, talking about how the [inaudible] doesn't have, didn't have a public vote, didn't have public hearings, and they weren't allowed to call their witnesses. So she's essentially saying, okay, I'll give you the vote, I'll give you the public hearings, I'll give you, I'll let you call witnesses. And now you've got to make a substantive defense and the president. So she's doing that. But she's taking a risk that these hearings will turn up new information that'll further move public support that she's always governed by towards impeachment and create that groundswell that would need to be created for, for any Republicans to, to flip and support this in the Senate. So she's taking a big gamble that these hearings can actually be, be lively, be entertaining in this 24 hour news cycle and advance her cause. And, and she was defending that decision after this forum. Speaker 1: 07:30 I've been speaking with UC San Diego political science professor Thad Cassar that thanks a lot. Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: 00:00 It's been 10 years since the great recession. Workers were losing jobs, bad loans led to foreclosures, and by the end of it, up to 10 million Americans lost their homes. That's the part of this story of the housing collapse we're familiar with. The other is about the people who profited from it. A new book calls them home wreckers, author Aaron Glantz, senior investigative reporter with reveal with the center for investigative reporting and Pulitzer prize finalist is author of home Rutgers, how a gang of wall street King pinned hedge fund magnates, crooked banks and vulture capitalists suckered millions out of their homes and demolish the American dream. He joins us now. Aaron, welcome. Thank you for having me on the cover of your book are some of the people you refer to as the biggest Homewreckers. There's president Trump, treasury secretary Steve Minutian holding a briefcase full of cash on a wrecking ball along with secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross and Trump ally Thomas Barrick. What did you uncover about their role in the housing collapse? Speaker 2: 01:01 These men who are now running the country, they're the people who stepped in after the crash and made a tremendous amount of money off our pain. And I wanted to know, you know, when all of us lost, who benefited? And the answer is the Homewreckers. Speaker 1: 01:19 So how did they do it? How were they able to make their profits? Speaker 2: 01:23 Right? So, uh, Steve Minutian is at that point, 10 years ago, uh, going back just a little bit farther to 2008, he buys indie Mac, which was the first big failure of the financial crisis, uh, based in Pasedena, a bank that specialized in Ninja loans. No income, no job, no assets, no problem, uh, specialized in reverse mortgages. Uh, these loans where you never have to pay it back, but the interest in fees just keep adding up and adding up. And then when you die, the bank takes the house. Uh, that bank failed in July, 2008 and [inaudible] leads a group that includes George Soros, John Paulson, Michael Dell of Dell computer, and he buys it off the government for $0 million. And then the government agrees to subsidize his foreclosures and then he expands his banking empire by doing it again by all the buying the failed LA Jolla bank in your neck of the woods and rolling it into his new one West bank empire. And through this whole process, um, we, the taxpayers end up paying his group more than a billion dollars as he forecloses on 100,000 families, including 23,000 seniors. Speaker 1: 02:43 You know, what were the mechanisms that enabled them to do this and make money in the process? Was this even legal? Speaker 2: 02:49 It was not only illegal, but it was government supported. The government was so desperate to get these banks off its hands that it gave sweetheart deals to people like Minutian and Ross who, um, you know, were just basically interested in making as much money as possible. Speaker 1: 03:10 Recently, San Diego mayoral candidate Barbara Brie cited your book in a debate. Here's a clip. And what happened during the great recession is that wall street came, bought hundreds of thousands of single family homes across the United States, tens of thousands in California. And many families are very sadly renting back a house they used to own with no control over their rent. So what kind of impact did these practices have on homeowners and home ownership rates in places like San Diego? Speaker 2: 03:41 The homeownership rate in San Diego and across California was especially hard hit and although it's recovered now to about 60%, uh, it was only recently that we were looking at, you know, almost half of all families, uh, in San Diego, uh, renting. And you know, this is Southern California, right? This is, this is the place where we close our eyes and we imagined the house with the lawn in the suburbs and San Diego is still a place where a lot of people live in houses, in lawns, in the suburbs. It's just that now they're living in a house with a lawn in the suburbs and paying rent to a far away landlord. Speaker 1: 04:20 How have communities of color been impacted by this? Speaker 2: 04:24 This is a crisis that has hit communities of color especially hard. What we saw during the bubble was banks marketing some of their most predatory products to black and Brown people. At Wells Fargo. Uh, there were memos circulated inside of the bank about offering quote unquote ghetto loans to Mudd people. This resulted in those communities facing some of the highest rates of foreclosure. And then as I mentioned, banks did not lend to these communities. I mean, Steve Motrin's bank, uh, which was a Southern California bank, made only three loans to African American families to help them buy homes and 11 to Hispanics. So people of color were disproportionately repossessed then the banks wouldn't give them the good loan products when the economy recovered. And so now we have a wealth gap between the white community and people of color that is worse in many ways than before the civil rights movement. Speaker 1: 05:33 So now that some of those home records are part of the Trump administration, how are they influencing current policy? Speaker 2: 05:39 Constantly, they are constantly influencing current policy. The easiest way to see it is in something like the tax bill where there was a giant tax deduction introduced for companies that collect rent through shell corporations. So if you make your money collecting through an LLC lop or LP shell company, you get a gigantic tax cut right off the top, a tax cut that you don't get if you work for a living. So step-by-step there, changing the incentive system of our economy to make it more advantageous for the corporate owners of rental property and less advantageous for individual homeowners. And what about solutions? What types of reforms would you like to see enacted to keep this from happening again? During the great depression, the government created its own bank. It was called the home owners' loan corporation. It helped a million Americans stay in their homes. It refinanced one out of every five mortgages in urban America. Speaker 2: 06:40 And importantly, it made money for the taxpayers because when you bet on the American family, um, we pay back our, our loans. Um, after world war II, the GI bill helped 4 million American veterans buy homes. It broke even. We can afford to make major investments in economic equity in this country because when we do, they're financially prudent. These were arguments that were made in 2008 by former members of the federal reserve board, by even conservatives at groups like the American enterprise Institute, former advisors to president Reagan. And, uh, the government under the presidencies of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama decided to bail out the banks instead of American families. Now we have a period of time when the Homewreckers are in power in the white house, in circling around our president. Uh, but we also have an election underway. Uh, we have a lot of candidates who are putting forward a pretty innovative plans. And, uh, you know, I've offered one solution from the past, and what I would hope in writing this book and talking to you now is that these issues start to be debated and discussed on some of the biggest stages in America. Uh, so we can move towards a solution. I've been speaking with Aaron glance, author of Homewreckers and senior investigative reporter with reveal what the center for investigative reporting. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. [inaudible]. Speaker 1: 00:00 Over the last 20 years, teen birth rates across the nation have declined. And across the state of California teen birth rates between females aged 15 to 19 have hit record lows according to the most recent 2017 data. But there are some counties in the state where teen birth rates are soaring. Elizabeth Castillo has been covering this story for Cal matters and joins us to explain. Elizabeth, welcome. Hi there. Thanks for having me. So teen birth rates in California have hit a record low. How much of a decrease has the state seen? So the state has seen quite the decrease. Um, currently we're at, um, nearly 14 bursts per 1000 females ages 15 to 19, and it's kind of just been a dribble, um, a downward trend ever since, uh, in 2000. Let's see. Yeah, it was closer to 46 births per 1000. So it's definitely been declining. Speaker 1: 00:59 So what do officials attribute the decline to? So first off, teens are waiting longer to have sex and that's according to the department of public health in California. And if they are having sex, more teens have reported using more than one form of contraception. Um, more than half of California high-schoolers reported using a condom the last time they had sex and more female teenagers have also taken advantage of long acting reversible contraceptives, which include, um, IUD is, and, um, the contraceptive implant. And there was a sex ed update, right? Yeah. Yeah. So California has had, um, sex ed since 2003, um, schools were required to teach HIV and AIDS prevention. But, um, in 2016, the California healthy youth act went into effect and that requires more comprehensive sexual sexual education and schools can tell teens how to access community services. So [inaudible] a lot more comprehensive. More recently there was some criticism, even outrage over the sex ed update. Speaker 1: 02:04 You mentioned there called the California healthy youth act. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, so I'm, you know, there's still some people who think that maybe this isn't a school's place to be telling, um, teenagers where to go get birth control and where, you know, you know, where they can access the morning after pill. Um, somebody I spoke to, she was saying that, you know, she kind of sees in 10 years that teen birth rates will go up because this is a how to, on how to have sex. Um, she also called it pornography wrapped up in a bow and, and some, some people thought the new sex ed requirements would actually raise teen birth rates. Did their concerns pan out at all? That hasn't been seen yet. Um, you know, who I've spoken to, she was kind of saying that, um, in the next 10 years, that's kind of her prediction. Speaker 1: 02:53 But really it's, it's been declining everywhere. Um, even counties that have had, um, higher teen birth rates. So that brings me to my next question. While the state overall has seen a drop in teen pregnancies, when we look at the statistics by County, there are some areas that have not seen that decline. Imperial County has the highest rate in the state. Our officials able to pinpoint why there's wide variations throughout the state. Yeah. So I'm in places like Imperial County, this has definitely been a battle, you know, for well over a decade. In 2006, Imperial County had a rate of nearly 75 births per 1000 females, ages 15 to nine, and that's gone down dramatically. Um, now it's closer to 33 bursts per 1000 females. Um, so one thing that plays a role is definitely poverty. Um, access to service and education, especially in rural counties, there isn't as much access to health care. Speaker 1: 03:52 Um, in Kern County for instance, and some of it's more rural areas, there might not even be a community clinic. So what their department of public health has launched is a mobile health unit. And so that offers, you know, people birth control and sexual health services. And in your article you really went in depth about some of those commonalities, um, shared by counties with the highest teen birth rates. Can you tell me a bit more about that? So I'm right. There's income inequality. Um, so specifically, um, Latinos tend to have a higher poverty rate in California and similarly, um, Latinas actually represent the highest ethnic group of teen birth rates. They have a rate of 21 burst per 1000. Um, while, uh, for, for white folks, it's just six per 1000. So there's definitely a big disparity there. You mentioned that many of the counties where they're our highest birth rates, uh, are rural. Speaker 1: 04:47 We're you able to explore it all, how exposure to career opportunities and life planning impacts teen birth rates. You know, I do think that's a big issue. I'm obviously, if someone has access to something, their life outcomes might not work out as well. So that's actually another thing that the state has kind of been working on. Um, in counties with higher teen birth rates. There's the adolescent family life program and what that does is that connects, um, teen parents to resources and case workers. And, um, I actually spoke to someone who used this service and she said that it actually changed her life. Um, she had her daughter when she was 16 and um, the services really helped her battle her depression while she was finishing high school as a teen mom. Currently she's working full time and going to college full time while also taking care of her daughter. Speaker 1: 05:36 So I think, you know, with programs like that, it's really trying to, um, change life outcomes. Um, it's also been shown that children of teen parents tend to become teen parents themselves. So this is an example of something to kind of end that cycle. And are there other programs out there that are working and effective in some of these counties with high birth rates? Another program that's also available across the state is the family pact program. What this does is this, um, goes, uh, birth control and reproductive health services and counseling to low income people in the state. And for teens specifically, they can also sign up for it as an independent. So they're, they're given, you know, this option for birth control and they can do it confidentially. So if they're on, you know, their parents' health insurance, for instance, they can, um, use the family pact program and sign up for birth control confidentially and independently. I've been speaking with Elizabeth Castillo, a reporter with Cal matters. Elizabeth, thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Speaker 2: 06:43 [inaudible]. Speaker 1: 00:00 Director, tequila T T's new film. Jojo rabbit is being billed as an anti hate satire. The film is based on the 2004 novel by Christine Noonans and follows a young boy in Nazi Germany who idolizes adult Fiddler and makes Hitler his imaginary friend, actor Stephen merchant, one of the creative forces behind the British sitcom the office plays a Nazi officer in the film. He recently spoke with KPBS arts reporter Beth HOK Amando for her cinema junky podcast about finding humor in difficult subjects. Here's an excerpt of that interview Speaker 2: 00:39 to begin with. Stephen, this film is not a film that fits neatly into a box, which is one of the things I love about it. If you were trying to get somebody to come to see your film and they were a little bit like, I'm not sure what it is, what would you tell them? Speaker 3: 00:52 Well, firstly I would, I would tell them that for me it fits into a, a tradition of movies that I've always really loved, which use humor to deal with, with big or difficult subjects. It puts me in mind to films. I booked her strange love, you know, there's no more Bleeker subject than you can, or apocalypse, but dealt with such irreverence and humor that obviously famously became a classic. I think Monte Python's life of Brian did something similar with religion and in this case we're dealing with Hitler. We're dealing with prejudice, uh, and the way that sort of, I suppose people can become and get swept up in a particular ideology, particularly children. And so in that regard, it fits into an even longer tradition of, of movies that satirized and mocked Hitler right back to the night before is when he was still in power. Speaker 3: 01:40 Obviously a chaplain's, the great dictator of being a kind of prime example, but also earn its Lubitsch did it with, to be or not to be late to Mel Brooks in the 60s. And certainly in the UK where I'm from, there was a long tradition of sort of people mocking Hitler. Even. I remember on talk shows people would come on sort of dressed as heaven and goof around and, and so, um, I suppose for me that's what kind of appeals to me about the film is it's, it's, it's very comic, but I think it deals with big ideas and I think also by the end it's very moving and I think it takes you on an emotional journey, which in, in a, in a climate of movies where there's a lot of, you know, and nothing wrong with it, but a lot of the superhero movies and we make, it's quite brave I think to make a film in which a young boy has hitting her as an imaginary friend. Speaker 2: 02:24 Well, you've written and directed a lot of comedy yourself. And so looking at the film that Tyco YTD has created, what are the, the challenges or how do you actually kind of make it work when you're kind of going from slapstick to pathos? Like sometimes within seconds of each other? Speaker 3: 02:44 Well, I have to say, you know, I've tried to juggle, you know, humor and emotion and pathos in the work I've done. But it wasn't until I sold the finished version of this that I was amazed at sort of how he had managed to pull it off because you know, even in the making of it, I sort of admired Tycho's ambition, but I couldn't quite see how those two things were going to match up. I really was, I was thinking, wow, this is going to be, this is going to be a sort of all day, just roll the dice and, and somehow, you know, in seeing the finished film, I think he starts with, with humor, sometimes quite broad, sometimes even surreally that in a multi-play fun way. And then somewhere in the mid point of the film you're starting to really invest in these people. Speaker 3: 03:27 And by the end I think it's very emotional and very heartfelt. And that's, that's a Testament to him that I am genuinely, I just don't know quite how he did it. I, it's some kind of slight of hand that that is very impressive. And I think in part it's because Tyco is just very instinctive. Yeah. I think he just, he, he just goes with his gut and I think he feels, whereas perhaps I would have overanalyzed it. I think he's just gone with, I'm going to make you laugh and now I'm going to make you cry. And I think he just goes with his instinct and I think he pulls it off magnificently. I really was dazzled when I, when I saw the finished film. Speaker 2: 04:02 Well, and you're seeing in particular too, he seemed to have a lot of fun with the physicality of you being very tall and exaggerating possibly. But you being very tall and Sam Rockwell being much shorter. Speaker 3: 04:14 Well, I sort of was towering above Sam in a very deliberate way to seem like this intimidating you stop officer. And then it's like, I just thought that was funny and so then put me on a ball to make me even told her again. And I'm already six foot seven. It's rare that people make me stand on a box in a movie that nobody want me to cry or bend down. So, um, yes. Uh, but yes, there's a kind of subtle ways of using sort of physical humor, which, which I always love as a very tall English person with blondish hair. It was inevitable to me one day I would get the phone call, we wanted to play a Nazi. It feels like every English actor plays a Nazi at some point. But I just picked it. I was able to do it for Tyco. Speaker 2: 04:57 And how do you tackle a role like that? Speaker 3: 04:59 Well, to me, I was put in mind of the sample officers you saw in movies like ah, the great escape or uh, even Raiders of the lost arc in which there's something sort of, it's, it always felt very bureaucratic and it's something about that which made them all the more chilling for me. They always seemed like petty men, men have no of no significance in, you know, in life who had sort of somehow been given the power of life and death over people. And so they were sorts of, they were characters like, like type before dirty guys, insecure people who have suddenly been given this power. And sometimes for me, they're the scariest people because, because they don't wheel the gun, you know, they make other people do that dirty work. And so for us, for me it would start trying to be sort of both slightly buffoonish likely kind of nerdy bureaucrat who then can suddenly turn on a diamond B eerie and, and have a can, a creepy smile. And that was what we were shooting for. And again, as you said before, just trying to get that balance of, of humor with hopefully something more real or sincere or in this case, chilling. Speaker 2: 06:09 I recently had the opportunity to, um, interview, uh, Armando Iannucci about his films and work. And one of the things you mentioned is that he said our real world and our real politics have become so absurd that like he felt he had to quit Veep because he couldn't, as a comedy writer, he couldn't come up with anything more absurd. And then he turned to Soviet Russia to make a film. So as someone who does deal with a lot of comedy, I mean, is there that sense that sometimes the real world gets so absurd? It's, it's hard to find comedy, like contemporary stuff. You have to go back in time to, Speaker 3: 06:45 well, yeah, I mean I think that, I think that's true. I feel like we are living in an age in which the rules that used to exist, particularly politics sort of no longer do. And it seemed like the rules was what you could mock and, and you could, you know, for instance, you know the classic, the rule used to be, you've lied. Oh no, I'm human. I did ashamed, I better resign. But if you just say, no, I didn't lie, you're sort of invincible. And it does make satire and comedy much harder because you used to try and expose that hypocrisy. You played that hypocrisy for last, but that policy is just worn as a badge of honor name. So it is, it is somehow, you know, you, you go back as Armando did to style in this Russia where you go back as we have to world war II and, and, and yes, at least, at least somehow the rules were clearer. And so, yeah, it is, it is difficult. It's very, it's, it's, it's also, I think always slightly depressing that no matter how many times a late night talk show host or a Saturday night live sketch mocks the current political climate, it makes no real impact. And he starts to feel a little bit like you're just, um, again, without wishing to be vulgar. As we were saying to England, you're pissing into the wind. Speaker 1: 07:58 That was KPBS arts reporter Beth Huck Amando speaking with actor Stephen merchant, who plays a Nazi in the new film, Jojo rabbit. You can hear the full interview on the latest episode of Beth's cinema junkie podcast.