No In-Person Schooling For A While, More Children Sickened By Coronavirus, Using Tech To Confront Census Obstacles, College Sports On Hold, And New Book On Stephen Miller

Speaker 1: 00:00 It will be months before classroom learning resumed at San Diego unified. The district is really trying to come up with sort of a customized plan for me, opening I'm Mark Sauer with Maureen Kavanaugh. This is KPBS mid day edition. A remarkable number of kids have tested positive for COVID-19. Certainly we know that children carry the virus. In fact, one study showed that young kid children had even more virus in their nose and throat than adults. Whereas census takers begin their door to door counting today and colleges here and across America canceled football season due to the pandemic that's ahead on mid day edition, Speaker 1: 01:01 Vexing dilemma, unprecedented, no win, uncertain, lesser evil. There are many ways to describe the decisions faced by school districts. In this era of COVID-19 San Diego unified had already decided to begin the new school year. Online now comes word that it may be months not weeks before it's decided to let kids and teachers return to campuses. Joining me is KPBS education reporter Joe Hong. Thanks for joining us, Joe. Thanks for having me. Well, San Diego unified is adopting a stricter standard than the state is calling for. What's the basis for this decision, what went into it to keep students and teachers away from schools this fall? Yeah, so I think the district is really trying to come up with sort of a customized plan for me, opening, you know, you have these larger, broader County and statewide guidances, but San Diego unified teamed up with these researchers from UCFC to come up with a more hyper local solution for each of its schools and each of its sort of clusters, because, you know, it does cover a pretty big area of the city, but also these different communities in San Diego unified look different. Speaker 1: 02:08 Um, so I think it's trying to be flexible and adapt to each of its individual sort of neighborhoods. So tell us a bit more about the difference between the UCS D report and the state's criteria on reopening schools. Yeah, so the state has its own sort of, uh, criteria for reopening schools and counties. So accounting needs to have a 14 day case rate of fewer than a hundred positive cases per a hundred thousand residents and a positivity rate of less than 8% over seven days. The district has sort of come up with its own criteria on top of the state criteria, which are there needs to be fewer than seven outbreaks over a seven day period in the County and, um, much sort of stricter and more expedited contact tracing measures. And what do you expect Speaker 2: 03:00 It to look like when the schools do start to reopen in San Diego? It's going to be kind of baby steps, right? Speaker 1: 03:05 Yeah. So when school starts, there are going to be three key components. One is going to be a personal protective equipment, meaning face masks, a social distancing and better ventilation. So every student is going to be, uh, asked to wear a mask at all times. Um, teachers will also be wearing masks at all times, teachers in special education who need to work more closely with students in more close physical contact with students, or might wear even more, uh, protective equipment. And on top of that, students will be sitting farther apart when possible. And if students do need to sit closer together, there will be sort of, um, plastic dividers between desks. Speaker 2: 03:52 So it's going to look a lot different obviously than, than a normal school situation. Many parents rely on schools for daycare, essentially allowing them to go to work. I know that fact is being considered. Um, it's just gotta be tough this fall with so many, uh, kids just not going to be at school. Speaker 1: 04:08 Yeah. Yeah. I know the, the district did say yesterday during, uh, the virtual press conference that it's looking at more vulnerable students, uh, let's say students in special education students who might need additional services, um, bring those students in earlier than, than the, uh, sort of the mainstream population sorta help with that childcare element. Speaker 2: 04:32 And based on the experience so far with remote learning, are there changes the district is making to improve things. So nobody was too happy about distance learning and how it works so far in the spring. Right, Speaker 1: 04:43 Right. Yeah. Um, I think everyone will sort of admit that this incident did not go well back in March and April and may. And you know, even when the school year starts up again, district administrators will be the first to say that it won't be ideal. It's, there's no comparison to in person learning. But that being said this time around there will be grading. There will be a required attendance to sort of keep students accountable, keep them motivated. There will be required. Uh, what's called synchronous learning, which is live sort of interaction on online between teachers and students. And there will be a sort of time for one on one sort of more, um, I guess more time for teachers to give students more focused attention. Speaker 2: 05:30 Yeah. You, you mentioned the tests and the learning and all I'm wondering about high school seniors trying to get into colleges. Might we see some options like to repeat grades for kids who are struggling? It just seems like it's such, such an influx situation right now, Speaker 1: 05:45 To be honest, I think with those questions, we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves. I think we're S districts are still trying to figure out the, just sort of the foundations of re opening schools. Um, it's hard to say what, what the next Speaker 3: 05:58 Year will look like for seniors applying to college, um, and getting ready to graduate. Yeah. We're just not really there yet. As far as you know, we'll other districts in San Diego County be opening schools at least to some degree. Yeah. I th I think that's the plan, right? So right now the districts in San Diego County are just waiting to get off the state's monitoring list. Um, and from there, uh, districts will maybe bring back elementary school students first, uh, to sort of a pilot program with their sort of new pandemic learning situations. Um, but, uh, but yeah, I, I think the goal for all San Diego County districts is to bring students back to campus. I've been speaking with KPBS education reporter Joe Hong. Thanks, Joe. Thanks for having me. Speaker 4: 06:57 The UC San Diego experts advising San Diego unified to delay in school classes are just part of a worldwide effort by scientists to discover more about how COVID-19 infects and is transmitted by children. The American Academy of pediatrics released a report this week that finds more than 97,000 children tested positive for the virus in the last two weeks of July. That's more than 25% of all us kids testing positive for COVID since March joining me is dr. Mark Sawyer and infectious disease specialist with Rady children's hospital and UC San Diego. Dr. Sawyer is also a member of the American Academy of pediatrics, the organization that released the study and dr. Sawyer welcome to the, Speaker 3: 07:45 So I was good to join you, Maureen. Speaker 4: 07:47 Now we keep hearing that kids are virtually immune from Corona virus. How vulnerable are children to getting this virus? Speaker 3: 07:55 The good news is most children. The vast majority of children do not get significantly ill, but they're certainly not immune. And the numbers released by the Academy of pediatrics show that children get infected just like adults do, but fortunately they don't end up in the hospital as often Speaker 4: 08:13 Do the increases that were reported that we're seeing in children testing positive. Do those increases come from more testing being done on asymptomatic children going back to school? Speaker 3: 08:24 That's a very good question. I was a little surprised by the increased rate of cases in children. And I'm wondered if it was partly for more testing, but it seemed to have occurred quite suddenly. I think another possible explanation is that because of the relaxation of controls that many communities have implemented, we're now catching up and seeing children affected by the same spread of disease that we've seen in adults in recent weeks. Speaker 4: 08:51 Do most children who get COVID show any symptoms? No, the majority actually Speaker 3: 08:56 Have no symptoms or very mild symptoms. So to the parent, it's going to look like a cold, a little runny nose, a little cough maybe, or no symptoms at all. And that of course is one of the challenges when it comes to getting back to school is it's going to be very hard to know which children might be infected on any given day. Speaker 4: 09:13 I know about children's ability to spread the virus about the amount of viral load they can carry. Speaker 3: 09:20 Yeah. Well, there have been several studies in the last few weeks that have informed us better about that. Certainly we know that children carry the virus. In fact, one study showed that young children had even more virus in their nose and throat than adults. On the other hand, they don't seem to transmit it as well. At least children under 10 years of age, clearly don't transmit the infection to those around them, as well as older children or adults. And it may have to do with, they don't cough as forcefully or, or they're not in as close contact with as many people. I'm not exactly sure why that is. Speaker 4: 09:55 Is there a difference in spreading ability based on the age of the children? Speaker 3: 10:00 Yes, we, we, it does seem that young children are less likely to spread, but older children that is 10 and above spread at least as frequently as adults do. So when it comes to school entry advice, you know, that may translate into kindergarten and elementary students starting first because they're less likely to spread it among themselves. And then once we get that underway, uh, opening up middle schools and high schools Speaker 4: 10:26 Now in those rare instances where children do get a more serious case of Corona virus, what happens do they, do they have the same kinds of symptoms that adults, Speaker 3: 10:39 The disease in children is a little bit different than adults, but certainly children can be hospitalized and even require intensive care unit care for COVID infection. But if the new phenomenon over the, that we've understood over the last few months is called MIFC, which is an inflammatory reaction that the body undertakes several weeks after initial infection. And that seems to be unique to children. And we've seen several of those here in San Diego. Speaker 4: 11:09 That was my next question as, so has radios as, have you had any bad cases of children with COVID now? Or how many have you seen? Speaker 3: 11:18 Well, we've seen only a handful in the hospital and maybe only one or two in the intensive care unit, but we have seen of those, the MIFC form of the disease has been more frequent recently and has led to several children getting put into the hospital. Speaker 4: 11:35 There seems to be a lot of conflicting information about children and COVID is that because, Oh, well, I mean, researchers just don't know what the effects really are. Speaker 3: 11:46 Yeah. So I think we have to say that about COVID in general that we're on a very steep learning curve and learning more and more about and aerosol transmission and the effect of masks and all of the things that people are hearing more recently from public health officials. And I think everybody just has to realize that we're, we're learning on the go here and each, each new study informs us a little bit more about how we can protect ourselves from this infection. Speaker 4: 12:13 Well, considering the, the bulk of things that we really aren't sure of when it comes to kids and COVID some schools in San Diego and other counties across California are suing over the governor's order that most counties conduct only online classes this fall. So my question is, do you think in-person classes can be safely conducted at this time? Speaker 3: 12:36 I think it depends very much on the community you are in. I think in San Diego right now, it would not be a good idea to open schools right now because our level of disease in the community over the last month or six weeks has gone up to a point where I think if we opened schools, we would see transmission and schools having said that I do think the school systems have thought very carefully about how to control the spread of COVID in schools. And once the community burden of disease drops back down, I do think schools can reopen and as long as they're following guidelines. Speaker 4: 13:13 So it all depends in your opinion, on how much virus there is in the larger community as to whether it's going to be safe or not for schools to open with their own safety precautions in place. Speaker 3: 13:27 Exactly. I think the first thing we have to look at is the burden of disease in the entire community. And when that's at a reasonably low level, then schools can look at reopening, but they certainly have to follow all of the guidelines, which include children wearing masks and spacing children apart in school. And there are lots of strategies about how to do that. And again, the school systems have been planning all summer about how they can reopen and putting things in place to make it safe. Speaker 4: 13:55 Just finally, what do you think about the idea of trying to conduct some classes out in the open? Speaker 3: 14:01 I think the more things that can happen outdoors, the better with that is one of the things we have learned about COVID that air circulation is very important. And if you're in a closed space without good air circulation, you're much more likely to get infected. So eating outdoors, even classes outdoors, I think it's a great idea. And we're lucky that we live in San Diego where that's going to be feasible for a lot of the year. Okay. Speaker 4: 14:26 I've been speaking with dr. Mark Sawyer and infectious disease specialists with Rady children's hospital and UC San Diego, dr. Sawyer, as always, thank you so much. Speaker 3: 14:36 Thank you, Maureen. Speaker 4: 14:47 This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Cavenaugh with Sauer census counters sent by the government began knocking on doors across the country. Today. They're going to homes that haven't yet filled out the census KPBS reporter. Max Rivlin Nadler tells us how community organizations have tried to make their job easier by boosting San Diego self response rate. Despite the pandemic, Speaker 5: 15:12 It really impacts if a hospital gets built or a freelancer gets paid, or Speaker 6: 15:17 It's true. And field's third go round with the census after helping the county's efforts in 2020 10, she's an organizer on Asian and Pacific Islander issues and has working with a variety of community groups in San Diego to boost census responses for this year's count. After each decade, she sees how the census directly translates to vital infrastructure for San Diego's neighborhoods. Speaker 5: 15:39 Again, in national city, we have a new urgent care why it's because they're serving more people in national city in Southeastern San Diego. Speaker 6: 15:49 She sees this year's count as vital to focusing the government's recovery efforts from the coronavirus pandemic. For example, she says federal cares act funding was tied directly to the previous census. Speaker 5: 16:00 So again, that's where the census comes into play. Speaker 6: 16:04 This has been like no other census in American history because of the pandemic efforts by local organizations to go door to door, to get people to respond to the census, had to be put on hold. This spring mail delivery has been slowed and a lot of residents, especially those important neighborhoods have had a lot of other things on their minds, but there've been some things working for the census this year. Like seemingly everything else. The census has gone online and it's shorter. Speaker 5: 16:31 Well, we have technology on our side this time around this is the first time we can complete the census online. And there's only nine questions. Speaker 6: 16:39 That means efforts like County 20, 20 San Diego and Imperial counties. Official census coalition can track in real time where people are answering the census and which areas need more outreach for neighborhoods like city Heights, which relies heavily on government support for better education, housing and healthcare organizations can pinpoint where to focus their efforts. Speaker 5: 17:00 We'll have to switch our strategy. And so currently right now we're dropping off literature at least in some way, right? Reach out to our community to make sure that they're they're counted. Speaker 6: 17:11 Brenda Diaz is the civic engagement coordinator at mid city community advocacy network. Her organization has been spearheading census efforts in city Heights where non English speakers, refugees and immigrants have been hit hard by both the adverse health impact and the economic followup from the pandemic. She explains that makes the census less of a priority while at the same time, that much more important, Speaker 5: 17:34 Understood, and still understand that the science is very important, but again, it's not a priority in our community. And so my first addressing the issues that they're concerned about kind of giving them some ease and some sort of relief, then they're able to take in our messaging is, well, this Speaker 7: 17:50 Is why you should participate in the center. Speaker 6: 17:52 In addition to reaching people where they are census organizers have had to get a bit creative in the past few weeks. They've launched car caravans around neighborhoods in San Diego and Imperial counties, encouraging people to participate in the census. These efforts have been paying off right now. San Diego County has their past its final 2010 self response rate was 69.2% of households in the County responding. But that still means that government workers will have to visit over 382,000 homes because of a decision by the census Bureau. Last week, they'll have one less month to do that. The count will now end September 30th and neighborhoods like city Heights are still lagging behind the final push to get an accurate count is where city Heights leaders like Mikael Hussein are stepping up. He's the head of the United taxi workers of San Diego whose members are from the immigrant communities that are the hardest account. Over a hundred of their drivers are being paid this week to put a large magnet on their taxis, promoting the census in several languages. Speaker 7: 18:49 Is there a visual community here? There wasn't a few things in order to do something, you know, Speaker 6: 18:56 Hussein believes that messengers from their own communities and not the government will help alleviate any concerns they might have about the information they're sharing. Speaker 7: 19:05 They can relate. In other words, something they know, what does that mean? What's, what's the benefit Speaker 6: 19:12 With the clock ticking and with even less time than organizers expected, San Diego has under two months left to get it census count, right? And the next 10 years are riding on it. Max woven Adler KPBS news Speaker 7: 19:28 In a decision that is controversial, but not surprising. Fall sports at San Diego state university are canceled, perhaps postpone till spring. UC San Diego has also made a cancellation announcement as has USD. This includes of course football. And the decision goes for all colleges in both the mountain West conference where SDSU plays and the big West conference for UCS D school presidents and athletic directors decided to pull the plug because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Joining me to discuss this as veteran San Diego sports commentator, Lee hacks, all Hamilton league. Welcome back to midday edition. Yeah. Nice to chat with you again, Mark. And obviously this is a very tough emotional time for everybody at San Diego state at USG at UC SD. And obviously this is spreading around the country. Cause every conference in the nation is having to make very, very tough decisions. And that's one of the things that's popping up in these stories about this as possible long term heart effects that could be linked to the Corona virus, big factor here. Speaker 7: 20:28 What's known about that. Well, there's a whole number of things that have to be considered here. I think the cancellations have to occur because of the explosiveness of the outbreaks in the far West, in addition to what's happening in other parts of the country had to occur. Cause I think the NCAA has done a terrible job and egregious job and not putting in a nationwide testing program for all the division one conferences around the country. And I think as we've gathered more information on a week by week basis, there's more medical data that's coming available that is scaring the daylights out of these athletic directors and these presidents and the stuff that is just spilled out in the last 72 hours about side effects and bobbing inflammation to the heart of athletes has to really send a red flag up the pole. We've already seen the number one picture of the Boston red Sox baseball team, go to the hospital and been ruled out for the whole season. He was the first one that went public with this inflammation in the heart. And it's very serious and we'd have at least five other players in the big 10 conference right now who got the disease. They have heart inflammation problems. So all of this has just exploded on the scene. I use the term very fluid, but the longer we go, the more information we get and I think the more scared people are, Speaker 2: 21:47 And we should note it. Football is the thing that a lot of people talk about we're talking about, but it affects several other women's and men's sports in the fall. Uh, getting back to football, how big is football when it comes to the athletic program at say, San Diego state university, how much revenue are we talking about? Speaker 7: 22:03 Well, they asked tech football contract with the new deal they're going to put in place with CVS would get them. I believe $3.1 million per year in TV revenue. That that would be for football as well as Aztec basketball. Uh, now if there is no football ever played this year, then they're going to lose a chunk of that money. If that money is deferred, because they're going to go to a spring schedule, they'll still get that money. I asked specifics about dollar values have not gotten a response yet in terms of what Aztec football breeze in on a Saturday, by Saturday night gate receipt, I have gotten, gotten those totals. There was a revenue sharing plan that the mountain West conference splits with each of the schools by virtue of the TV contract. Uh, we don't have the dollar value of that yet, but a football everywhere is fueled the rest of the athletic department. So everybody's taken a huge financial hit on this. Speaker 2: 22:53 Now SDSU says, they'll continue to practice this fall based on NCAA guidance. What is that guidance? Speaker 7: 22:59 They don't have that blueprint put in place yet, but there's plenty of time to do that. I think the big issue for Mark Emmert and the NCAA is you've got to come into agreement on a national testing program and they never did. I mean, we're five months into this crisis and they don't have a national testing program. I was appalled this past week when I found out that the NCAA said, test 20 point players a week, you got 85 players in camp. How can you test just 25? What about your coaches? What about your staff? It all spins back obviously to the plus factor of doing this massive testing in terms of scheduling. You got plenty of time. It is mid August. You can shut everything down right now and you can then put together a blueprint in which we're going to hold off season. Speaker 7: 23:45 We're going to take what would normally be spring practice. And we'll let you do it in October, November in December, take a break, come back in January open camp. Let's go play a spring schedule in March. So I think they've got a lot of breathing room to Dubai's off season regimen. Now we have an odd situation where the old stadium and mission Valley, they're going to have a new football stadium. They're wondering about a demolition timetables on that. Do you think this affects that at all? Not having a fall football schedule, did they start demo there, then they don't have a place to play if they do want to come back, it's a kind of a mess. Well, at this point in time, the stadium is not going to be torn down. They haven't even turned the first shovel of dirt in the corner of the Milan it's SDCU stadium. Speaker 7: 24:33 Uh, I asked that question to J D Wicker weeks ago and he said, no, the state funds and the purchase of that land and the blueprint for the construction of the stadium is full speed. Go. This is not going to happen overnight. This is going to take a long period of time. So I don't think what's happening with our athletic world right now impacts what they're going to do on the corner piece of property off friars road. I've been speaking with veterans San Diego sports commentator Lee Hacksaw, Hamilton, whose blog is Lee hacks, all hamilton.com. Thanks very much Lee. My pleasure, glad to do it. Speaker 5: 25:12 [inaudible] Speaker 7: 25:13 We have grown used to the idea that water is a precious commodity in California. One that we risk running out of. If we do not conserve a new report out of the Pacific Institute, suggest we have learned to conserve so well that water forecasters need to rethink their approach to future water supplies. Alison st. John spoke to Pacific Institute researcher, Sarah Deringer about the findings of the report. Here's that interview? Speaker 5: 25:40 Oh, you've done many studies in the past warning that we risk running out of water here in California, but this one is different. You say, agencies are overestimating, how much water we actually need? Why is that? Well? So what we did was we looked at the 10 largest water utilities in California and found that water demand between 2020 15, actually declined by 18%, which means that even with population growth, we're using less water per person than we used to. And a lot of what that comes from is increasing number of water, efficient devices. So our toilets use less water to flush clothes, washers, use less water, but we're still estimating that our future demands will come from these high water use devices. And so we're overestimating how much water we may need in the future. You say the full cost dramatically overestimated by how much were they wrong? It varied from water utility to water utility, but on average, they were consistently over by 20% or more on future water demand. Some of them up to 30 plus percent and how much was expected to be needed in 2015 compared to what we actually needed. Speaker 8: 26:47 You sight washing machines and toilets, low flow toilets, things like that. Is it only residential water use that has dropped more due to conservation or are businesses also saving more water than we can Speaker 5: 26:58 Expected? It's been a mixture. Most of what we looked at was total water demand, mostly for residential, but there are similar trends in, um, in businesses and commercial spaces. Um, and the other thing I should say is that while a lot of it is from these devices, there also has been some changing, uh, water use and conservation and how we think about using water. And what do you mean by that? As you know, we had a pretty big drought, um, during the two thousands. And that really changed how people started to think about the importance of water and what it might look like. Not to have enough. And so Californians really spent a lot of time and energy thinking about how do we make conservation a way of life. And so during that time period, um, people started to change out some of their landscapes, less water use on their lawns, thinking about whether they needed to wash their cars as frequently. Those sorts of things. The other piece is that there just continues to be better and better technology that helps us to save water even while we do all of the things we need and want to do around our homes. Speaker 8: 28:00 So what is the implication of these findings that people have been forecasting water use much too high? Speaker 5: 28:06 It's a great question. So overestimating demand can mean that we're investing in bigger and more expensive water supplies that we may not need in the future. So for example, if a forecast is saying that 20 years from now, we're going to need 20% more water. The water agencies are likely to start investing now in infrastructure that can help us to meet that demand. But if that demand never comes to be, we ended up having assets. We may not need, it's very expensive to plan for infrastructure that way. Speaker 8: 28:38 So it could be affecting our present water bills, right. It could be, do you have any examples of water investments that have already been made that are in excess of what will be needed Speaker 5: 28:47 Hard to say, because we never quite know what the future will look like. So it's hard to know right now, what will end up being investments that we don't need in the future. Speaker 8: 28:57 Does this mean that we can see population growth and more housing density without fear of running out of water? Speaker 5: 29:03 There is going to be a challenge throughout the world and certainly in California of having increasing population and needing water to support those populations. But I think it's more of a question of growing in a smart way and growing in a water efficient way so that we can make sure we're supporting our communities as they grow. Speaker 8: 29:21 Now. What about climate change? Could that derail all our forecasts? Speaker 5: 29:25 Absolutely. There's, there's no question that climate change is really going to disrupt forecasts in general and also our ability to make good forecasts. And I think that highlights even more, the importance of bringing in information that we do have. So we have a lot of information on how people are using water now that we could be bringing into forecasts to be doing a better job so that when these climate impacts continue to exacerbate challenges, that we're a little bit more capable of figuring out what we need in the future. What are you recommending as a result of your findings? Well, one of the big recommendations is really around evaluating water use trends. And so it's really about taking note of what's happening around us and using that to improve the accuracy of these forecasts. And we also recommended that there should be more helpful state guidelines and resources for improving these forecasts throughout the state and making sure that we're really projecting out how much water we'll need in a more accurate way. Speaker 9: 30:24 I assume that your conclusions do not imply that we should stop trying to conserve water, right? Speaker 5: 30:30 Oh, absolutely. I think in some ways it shows the opposite that we, if we continue to conserve water, that we actually can bring down the future water demand even further and make our water bills even less in the future that we won't need to be investing in large infrastructure. Um, and it also shows that we have a lot of capacity within our homes and within our businesses to be conserving more water than we even expected. That was Sarah Derringer, senior researcher. Speaker 9: 30:57 Sure. With the Pacific Institute speaking with KPBS host, Alison st. Joan, Speaker 5: 31:07 This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Cavenaugh with Mark Sauer, from promises to build the wall to a ban on immigrants from Muslim nations to a policy of family separation that ended in some children being housed in cages at the us Mexico border. We've seen Donald Trump make a crack down on immigration and immigrants, a central issue in his presidency, but it seems he has had help and encouragement on that issue. A new book makes the case that Trump advisor, Stephen Miller has realized his lifelong ambition to limit immigration and diversity in America by working in the Trump white house. And it reveals through reporting and email correspondence, the close ties between Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric and Miller's connections with members of the right wing media, former KPBS border reporter. Gene Guerrero is author of the new book, hate monger, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the white nationalist agenda. And Jeanne, welcome back to the program. It's nice to say hello to you. Hey Maureen, great to be here. Now, one of the things that got you interested in writing this book is the fact that you and Steven Miller have some things in common. Tell us about that. I, Speaker 9: 32:23 I first became really fascinated by the story of Stephen Miller when I realized that he grew up in Southern California at the same time that I did, I'm just a couple yeah. Speaker 5: 32:33 Years younger than him and grew up in Speaker 9: 32:35 San Diego, a couple hours South of where he grew up in Santa Monica. And this was during the nineties when California was seeing this unprecedented anti-immigrant hostility. You had governor Pete Wilson talking about the migrant invasion and, and, you know, blaming all of the state's fiscal problems on migrants. And there were unprecedented attacks on bilingual education and on social services for children of undocumented migrants on affirmative action. There was just a lot of hostility against immigrants. And so I realized that I haven't grown up in that same environment. And as a, as a kid have having internalized some of that same, you know, white supremacy and internalized racism, there was a lot of shame associated with being Mexican in California at the time until that, you know, until there was this huge mobilization of the Latin X community. And we saw people starting to really embrace diversity and in California became a deeply blue state, but I thought that I could bring a unique perspective having grown up in the same environment as Steven Miller and also having, you know, covered, uh, the immigration issue from day one of the Trump administration and, and, you know, the, the human cost of his policies. Speaker 4: 33:57 So beyond that general context, were you able to find out why Miller's aversion toward immigrants began, especially Mexican immigrants? Yeah, Speaker 9: 34:07 I mean, I, I truly see Stephen Miller as a case study in radicalization and my book hate monger. I trace what happens when someone is consumed by an extremist ideology at a very young age and, and ends up the most powerful adviser in the white house. You know, for my reporting, I found that from the time that he was a teenager, Stephen Miller, uh, was, was being exposed to white supremacist and white nationalist literature through his mentor, David Horowitz, a conservative writer who Stephen Miller met through his high school. And David Horowitz introduced Stephen Miller to this fantasy that he had to save the United States from certain destruction in the form of multiculturalism. So the idea that too many Brown and black people in the United States poses an existential threat to civilization, as we know it, and, you know, introducing him to white supremacist literature that paints Brown and black people as more innately, violent than white people. Speaker 9: 35:16 And, you know, so Horwitz becomes like a father figure to Stephen Miller during a very vulnerable time. And Stephen Miller's life, he had his family had just had to move from a very affluent part of Santa Monica to a less affluent part. And, you know, he had to start at a very diverse public high school of, you know, a wider private high school that he would have attended otherwise. And this is when you see Stephen Miller start to really express his racist viewpoints at a very early age, you know, breaking up with a Mexican friend because of his Latino heritage, going to school board meetings to argue against measures, to improve racial equity, you know, just very passionately going around his school and talent, telling his Mexican classmates to speak English and to go back to their countries if they can't learn the American way. And this is really from my reporting and the Boca, I believe it is a result of his relationships with people like David Horowitz, who found Stephen Miller at this very young and vulnerable age. And, you know, for the book I obtained private correspondence between Horowitz and Stephen Miller showing Horowitz, you know, shaping his career, getting him his first jobs in Congress, and then eventually dictating Trump's rhetoric and policies directly through Miller. This is a man who believes that the only real racism is racism against whites and with his help Miller learned how to launder white supremacist ideas through the language of heritage and the language of economics and the language of national security in order to make it palatable to the mainstream. Speaker 4: 37:01 Now, as you write, and as you just mentioned, Miller went on to work in government, notably for anti-immigration activists, then Senator Jeff sessions. But apparently it was hearing candidate Donald Trump that really set fire to Stephen Miller's political ambitions. What were you able to find out about how these two men have bonded? Speaker 9: 37:22 Stephen Miller is the longest lasting advisor in the white house outside of the president's family. And this is because Stephen Miller gets Donald Trump. So part of Stephen Miller's relationship with Trump has to do with the fact that they grew up in very similar families. And the other thing about Stephen Miller is he played a key role in, you know, once he joined, once he convinced Trump to hire him on the campaign, he, he played a key role in, in Trump's popularity. Um, you know, initially Trump's only proposal for immigration was the border wall and immigration restrictionist hardliners who had been following the immigration issue for a long time, kind of rolled their eyes at that. They knew that there's, you know, hundreds of border barriers already, and they've done very little to stop immigration overall, which is what a lot of restrictionist want. And so it wasn't until Steven Miller came onto the campaign and started pulling policies directly from think tanks that were funded by white supremacists, who believe in population control for non white people, that people really started to take Trump seriously, as someone who is serious about limiting legal immigration as well, which has been Stephen Miller's obsession. Speaker 9: 38:35 Um, and the final thing I'll say about their relationship is Stephen Miller consistently pushes Trump in the most aggressive direction when it comes to his rhetoric, you know, saying the most incendiary things possible, things like far left fascism, an unhinged left wing mob, uh, demonizing immigrants. And as far as immigration policies and Trump appreciates this harshness because he wants to be seen as a, as a killer. You know, Trump's repeatedly said this. He, he, he, he wants to be seen as, as a killer and Stephen Miller shares Trump's instincts for violence and has his hands on the pulse of his most violent voting base because of his familiarity with white supremacist and white nationalist literature. Um, and Trump has found that whenever he listens to a more moderate adviser, he ends up getting ridiculed as weak. So he he's found that whenever he listens to Stephen Miller, his, his really hardcore base is satisfied. Speaker 9: 39:33 Now, during the writing of hate monger, I understand that you were not able to speak with Stephen Miller or interview him, but if you had, what would you have asked him? The first question that I would ask him? And I've just been thinking about for awhile now is I'd want to know what Stephen Miller thinks about his grandmother, Ruth Glasser's, you know, her a document that she left for him, which I talk about in the book. She, she spent her retirement investigating the family history and recording it so that her grandchildren would never forget the value of people who come to this country with nothing but the clothes on their back. And, you know, speaking no English, the way that Stephen Miller, his great grandparents came to this country from Eastern Europe as Jewish refugees, fleeing persecution, she, she wanted, she stood for the importance of remembering and I, I would love to know what Stephen Miller thinks about, you know, Ruth and, and what she stood for because clearly he, these lessons that she tried to immortalize for him, he directly ignored. Speaker 9: 40:46 And, and in fact, assaulted these ideas throughout his life. Now, uh, some might see Eugene as a Latino reporter eager to write a hit piece on anti-immigration Stephen Miller, even the title of the book hate monger might seem over the top. How do you respond to that kind of criticism? You know, I, I approached the writing of this book with a completely open mind, you know, in part, because a part of me, you know, empathized with the young Steven Miller, who, who had internalized this white supremacy, that was so pervasive in the culture when we were growing up in California. Um, you know, my mom used to tell me, you're, you're American. You're not Mexican, you're not Puerto Rican, you're American. And it's because of the discrimination that she faced as a Puerto Rican woman with her accent. She wanted me to feel a sense of belonging and to be seen as belonging. Speaker 9: 41:42 And so I, I understand Stephen Miller in his desire to be seen as American with all of the privileges that that is supposed to guarantee. The problem is that Steven Miller sounds the same today as he did at the age of 16. And I, I truly believe, you know, from having interviewed more than a hundred people who knew Stephen Miller and, you know, gone through hundreds of pages of documents, including private correspondence, this is much bigger than the immigration issue. And whether you care about the Latin American community or not, Stephen Miller is a public relations flack, and idealogue who at the age of 31, without any policy experience was put in charge of policies for the United States, just, you know, despite that lack of experience. And from day one of his time in the white house, really focused on narrowing narrowing the agenda of the department of Homeland security from its broad mandate to protect the American people from everything, from terrorism to the, you know, public health crises into something that was laser focused on, on re-engineering the demographics and to this country and targeting mostly people who had not broken any laws, asylum seekers, you know, obliterating the asylum system at the us Mexico border slashing refugee admissions to new historic lows every year. Speaker 9: 43:09 So this has been about families, not criminals and cartels, but regardless of whether you care about these families, you know, Stephen Miller repeatedly disregarded the input of national security ex experts to push through his white nationalist agenda. And from my conversations with white house officials for the book, as they say that as a result of this Americans have been left vulnerable to a range of real threats, including the pandemic that we see today, instead of being focused on distributing masks and medical equipment, the administration has been focused on suspending green cards, you know, scapegoating immigrants for the job situation, uh, you know, shutting down the us Mexico border targeting international students. It's, you know, it's been really focused on Steven Miller's demonization and white nationalist agenda rather than on protecting the American people. Well for everyone who's heard and admired your reporting over the years at KPBS gene. Congratulations on the book. Thank you so much, Maureen. I've been speaking with investigative reporter, gene Guerrero, author of hate monger.