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Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour & Company."
Here's what's coming up.
It's our responsibility to work not only here amongst ourselves, but across the aisle to solve these problems for the Americans.
Is the government about to reopen?
After 40 days, eight Democratic senators voted with Republicans moving towards ending the longest US government shutdown in history.
Then, a Syrian president visits the White House for the first time in history.
Former jihadist al-Shara meets with President Trump to discuss sanctions, security and regional peace.
We dissect the significance of this moment.
And misogyny in Mexico.
President Claudia Sheinbaum takes a stand after being publicly assaulted in the street.
I ask women's rights activist Gabriela Jauregui about this pervasive issue.
Also ahead.
I think food is political because these are political issues.
They're political choices.
Public health advocate Marion Nestle speaks to Hari Sreenivasan about her new book, What to eat now.
>> "Amanpour & Company" is made possible by... Committed to the Bridging Cultural Differences in Our Communities.
And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
Thank you.
And a warm welcome to the program, everyone.
I'm Paula Newton in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
A nearly six-week-long stalemate has been broken, possibly, and the longest U.S.
government shutdown ever recorded could soon be coming to an end.
Eight senators in the Democratic caucus voted with Republicans to advance a measure to reopen the government and see most federal agencies funded through January.
The move has split Senate Democrats and is strongly opposed by their leader, Chuck Schumer, as it dropped a key demand to extend health insurance subsidies.
Democrats must fight because millions of families will lose health care coverage.
We must fight because children who are dying of cancer will not get health care coverage.
We must fight because a senior citizen cannot afford to pay $25,000 a year just for health insurance.
We must fight to keep millions from financial ruin.
But for those senators who defected, the pain of the shutdown proved too much.
Now, I understand that not all of my Democratic colleagues are satisfied with this agreement.
But waiting another week or another month wouldn't deliver a better outcome.
It would only mean more harm for families in New Hampshire and all across the country.
The funding plan would secure food benefits for millions of Americans and reinstate thousands of laid-off federal workers.
Angus King is a U.S.
Senate Independent who caucuses with the Democrats and one of the eight senators who broke ranks and voted to end the shutdown.
He joins me now to discuss his decision and what happens next.
Welcome to the program, Senator.
We really appreciate it.
Well, great to be with you.
And it's an important topic.
And I hope I can sort of explain a little bit of what's going on on the inside.
Right.
Right.
So walk us through it.
You were one of the key negotiators here.
Recent polls, though, and this is key, were showing that more people saw the Republicans responsible for the shutdown.
You know, we've been looking at Trump's approval ratings.
They're falling.
To top things off, and this is the real criticism here, Senator King, that you didn't really get much in this deal.
So walk us through this decision.
Well, first let's back up and talk about why we had the shutdown in the first place.
The goal was to pressure the Republicans to negotiate an extension of those ACA health care credits, which Chuck Schumer was talking about.
By the way, one of the first bills I introduced this year was to extend those ACA credits.
The problem was the shutdown wasn't achieving that goal.
We've been at it, as you mentioned, the longest shutdown in American history, and there was no progress whatsoever on the Republicans saying, "Oh, okay, we're going to give you the ACA tax credits," and there was no likelihood of them doing so.
So the question was, was there any point in continuing with the shutdown that wasn't accomplishing anything and at the same time is harming a lot of people?
SNAP benefits, I think you mentioned, and so it wasn't getting us anywhere, so wherever we've gotten, and I believe we've got a lot in this deal, which I'll be glad to outline for you.
And we'll get to that, but we're kind of having a circular argument here, because many will say, "What was the point?
If it wasn't working, what was the point of it in the first place?"
Right?
It does lead to the conclusion with some that you caved.
Well, no.
I think the point in the first place was the Democrats thought that the pressure of the shutdown plus the impending increases or decreases in the credits, which would have increases in ACA premiums, that those two things would stimulate the Republicans to do something about these tax credits, which die automatically at the end of the year.
That was -- I thought it was not likely to happen back in early October, but we now know that it didn't happen.
We've been through six weeks, six and a half weeks.
It didn't happen.
And the Republicans' position all along was very clear.
We'll talk about health care, we'll talk about the ACA, but not until the shutdown is over.
So the question is, was the shutdown a stimulant for talks about the ACA or an impediment?
And it turned out to be an impediment.
There's no point in continuing the shutdown if it wasn't accomplishing anything.
At this point, it may not be either, right?
We have to see what actually happens with this kind of a vote or if anything happens on these health care subsidies.
And I will get to that in a moment.
But I do want to make another point of it.
That in the last few hours, you seem to be saying that standing up to Trump just didn't work.
Is that true?
Well, there were two.
I talked about the whole purpose of the shutdown was to bring forward these health care issues.
And by the way, the shutdown was a success in the sense that I think it has focused national attention on the issue of health care and the importance of these premium tax credits.
So I think in that sense, it's really talked to people about what's coming if these tax credits aren't extended and how important health care is and how expensive it is.
So that was a shutdown.
But the other point was to stand up to Trump.
OK, I get that.
Believe me, I've been to no King's rallies in Maine.
I understand.
I myself am very concerned, angry, you name it, with what this administration is doing.
The question is, does the shutdown, is the shutdown really standing up to Trump?
Because what the shutdown did, and we now know this with what they've done about SNAP, gave him more power than he had before.
And I don't understand the principle of standing up to a bully by giving him another weapon to hit you over the head.
Well, just to note that both Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate and minority leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, disagree with you.
I do want to make one other point here, though, that we're talking about a vote, right?
The compromise includes a promise from Republicans on that December vote on the Affordable Care Act.
Realistically, do you believe that vote will happen?
And even if it does, people are saying it has no hope of surviving in the House anyway.
Well, before I get to the vote, there's plenty in this bill that's also important.
There are three appropriations bills, one of which is Department of Agriculture, which means SNAP benefits will be protected until next year, until next fall, end of September.
So that was a big victory.
That wasn't on the table before these discussions began.
And so I got to talk about that.
Now let's talk about the vote.
I don't I'm not so idealistic to say oh yeah we're going to win this vote.
The Republicans are going to suddenly do what we want.
I don't think that's true.
But I do think and I know this from discussions with colleagues on the Republican side that there are members who do want to do something about the ACA tax credits and other parts of the health care issue so that I believe there is a chance that we can pass this.
And what I let's say it's 25 50 percent.
That's better than zero which is what the chance is of getting these tax credits extended through the shutdown.
Is it though Senator, some, maybe even in your own state might say that continuing with the shutdown might have led to a more tangible vote in either the Senate or the House.
I do point out that the main... There's no evidence that that's the case.
I mean if it hasn't worked in six weeks, why is it going to work in seven or eight or nine weeks?
Okay, but I am wondering if we really get down to it here in terms of these subsidies that in your own state, I looked at some of the numbers, especially seniors, people in rural areas, middle income seniors, you know, some of them are looking at an increase of $12,000 a year if these subsidies don't get through.
What are you going to go back?
Did you hear me say that I introduced a bill a year ago to extend those subsidies?
But the point is, they might say to you, Senator, why didn't you keep the shutdown going?
Because it wasn't getting us anywhere.
The chances of solving this problem through the shutdown were zero.
The chances of solving it through some kind of negotiation is more than zero.
And I don't know what it is.
I don't know whether it's 50% or 25%, but that's better than zero.
That's the big misunderstanding here, that somehow the shutdown, if it continued, was going to get us to the -- finally the Republicans were going to say, oh, yeah, we're going to fix this.
They've said continuously they're not going to even discuss it as long as we're in the shutdown, and that's what they've done.
We've done the shutdown for six and a half weeks, and the question is, okay, we go another two weeks, we go through Thanksgiving, we go into Christmas, and where are we then?
What's the end game?
And the thing we haven't discussed here is that the shutdown is hurting people.
It's hurting people.
175,000 people in Maine get SNAP benefits.
They're not going out.
That's a catastrophe.
And also, air traffic controllers are working tired.
I don't know about you, I don't want to land in an airport with a tired air traffic controller in the towel.
Indeed, and we have heard from those associations that they don't want this situation either.
It was clearly getting to the point, it was dire.
And that's why I am curious to ask you, as you've hosted so many of these bipartisan meetings, you do citizen independent even though you do caucus with the Democrats.
Can you take us through these discussions?
Because how did you end up convincing skeptical Democrats and the Republicans to say yes to even a possibility of a vote?
Really kind of take us inside the sausages it were and how it was made.
Well you flatter me by saying I convinced.
I think my colleagues that ended up voting with us last night were convinced because of what they reached the same conclusion I did.
They reached a conclusion that the shutdown wasn't helping us get the solution to the tax credits on the ACA and it was hurting a lot of people and therefore it made no sense.
And that's why they voted last night to move this bill forward that will also move the three appropriations bills forward and get us at least a shot at this vote.
Let me talk about the vote for a minute.
This is very much sort of inside, you know, the way the Senate works.
The majority leader of the Senate, who is now John Thune, the Republican leader, used to be Chuck Schumer when the Democrats had the majority.
The majority leader of the U.S.
Senate has 100 percent control over what comes to the floor of the Senate.
I can introduce a bill, and it's a great bill.
It will never get a hearing unless the majority leader decides -- I don't mean a hearing -- it will never get to the floor unless the majority leader decides that.
So for the majority leader to agree with us -- and he said this in his speech yesterday -- that he is committed to bringing a bill to the floor on the ACA and the health care issue generally, drafted by the Democrats, on a date that we chose in the first or second week of December, that's a big deal.
Will it succeed?
I don't know.
But it has a lot better chance of success than where we are now, which is no chance of success.
And given the fact that Americans are suffering here, and the majority of Americans want to see bipartisan legislation pass wherever it can, however it can, I mean, if we just take a step back here, this was record-breaking, the shutdown.
It's not technically over yet.
What does this tell you about the health of the American democracy?
This was a record and real Americans were suffering.
It shouldn't happen.
I mean, our most basic job of all is to pass a budget.
And we haven't done it.
And there's no excuse for it.
I mean, the Appropriations Committee meets, they work all these things out.
It's usually they come out with bills that are, you know, 26 to 3.
They're very much bipartisan for some reason.
They never get to the floor.
And that's one of the things that is important about this agreement.
Not only does this bill pass three appropriations bills, there are 12 altogether, but the majority leader is committed, and I believe this, to bringing four more major appropriations bills to the floor in the next month.
And that's if we can reestablish the process of passing budgets, we certainly should.
James Langford and I have a bill that got 57 votes.
We didn't quite make 60 votes.
That basically says members of Congress can't travel if they don't pass a budget.
And I think that that is notable, right?
You guys were supposed to leave on the weekend.
You did not.
The House is hopefully now returning.
I do have to leave it there.
The House?
What's that?
Did you mention, what is that?
Is that a part of the U.S.
Congress?
I've forgotten all about those guys.
And we will leave it there.
We'll check in with you again, though, after you check in with the people of Maine to see what their reaction is.
Senator Angus King for us.
Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Now, history was made at the White House today as President Trump hosted Syrian President Ahmad al-Shaddaa, the first ever visit by a Syrian head of state.
And al-Shaddaa is not just any head of state, he is a former jihadist who once had a $10 million U.S.
bounty on his head.
The 43-year-old we know came to power after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad.
Since then, he's been making the rounds, trying to end Syria's international isolation.
Just last week, the U.S.
dropped him from a list of designated terrorists.
And it is, of course, a stunning transition that almost no one could have predicted.
I want you to look at this video now, posted Saturday, of the Syrian leader playing basketball with America's top military leaders in Syria.
Think about that.
And look at it.
Apparently, he's got some game.
Reem Turkmani is director of the Syria Conflict Research Program at the London School of Economics, and Charles Lister is the Syria Program Director at the Middle East Institute.
And I want to thank both of you for joining the program.
It was something, as I said, that no one a year ago could have ever predicted that we'd be here.
It is stunning still to recount the last 11 months or so.
I do want to go to each of you to see how it feels.
Charles, I will start with you.
And just note, right, he has had more audiences, I'll call them, with people around the world than the Syrian regime had in more than half a century.
Yeah, exactly.
As you describe, it's been an extraordinary 11 months for Syria for any number of reasons, some of which you've included and many others, of course, coming out of 14 years of debilitating civil conflict and more than 50 years of Assad family tyrannical rule.
I think there is grounds for a good deal of optimism.
Hence the rush to Damascus, all of the government engagements that this new transitional government, despite its controversial history, has received.
But then, having just got back from Syria a couple of days ago myself, you know, the challenges that this government, and no matter what kind of government it was, the challenges this government face are extraordinary.
And here, the beginning of a relationship with the United States will almost certainly be crucial in determining whether or not the biggest challenges of those, particularly those focused on the economy, are surmountable or not.
And so that's why President Al-Shara's visit here to Washington is just so significant and potentially consequential.
Yeah, potentially consequential.
It kind of needs to be consequential, right?
Reema, I do want to ask you the same question, but also note that you were just in Syria for our niece's graduation.
It must have been great to be there as a family member.
You hadn't been there in 14 years.
What are your impressions in terms of where we've arrived today?
It is incredible to see that this visit is happening, the first ever for a Syrian president to the White House.
And as you said, I just came back from Syria.
It's my third visit since the fall of the Assad regime.
I haven't been able to go there for 14 years.
And every time it is an emotional roller coaster.
I mean, it's always like good news, bad news in a row.
You see things, you feel so optimistic and happy.
And then a minute later, you hear extremely bad story, you see destruction.
And it's a reflection of the reality on the ground.
People are still very polarized.
The conflict is not over.
So President al-Shara'a has a very, very complex and sticky reality to handle back in Syria.
He does need external support, external packing.
I think there's a fine balance he has to balance here between the external demands and this very complex reality with people with very different expectations, including expectations out of this visit itself.
And at this visit, Reem, I want to ask you, what does he need to get out of this visit and what do you believe his strategy is right now on that?
I think he's hoping to see an end to the U.S.
sanctions against Syria, and we just heard good news about that direction.
We're waiting to hear the details.
I think he would also like the U.S.
to pressure Israel to stop its daily attacks on Syria and to help, of course, Syria to integrate again in the international financial system.
But all these shifts he's making, I mean, to go and meet the U.S.
president, being somebody who actually fought the Americans not long ago on the ground on the other side, who has been speaking openly against the U.S.
until not very long time ago.
So if we think about his base, his loyalist base, this is a very challenging foreign policy realignment.
And I wonder whether he has strong enough internal legitimacy to support such a foreign policy shift.
Understood.
Charles, as you said, you were just back from Syria as well.
And when you look at what is in front of him today, what does he need to secure?
What kind of a strategy will you employ?
And to Reem's point, what is the political situation on the ground in Syria in terms of the way Syrians are looking at this?
Because it has been almost a year, and in some cases their situation gets more precarious.
Yeah.
Well, let me start with the last part of your question to say that I think there continues to be a really quite significant gap in terms of the messaging coming out of the Syrian government about its foreign policy successes, about the many ranges of sanctions that have been removed over the past six months or so.
And there is an expectation on the ground that the kind of rapid pace of all of those achievements should be being felt by those on the street, whether it be in more electricity coming into their homes, more affordable food around the table, higher salaries and less inflation.
And none of those things have really kicked in yet.
And that's not necessarily the failure of the government.
That is just frank reality that those things take an exceedingly long time to build up.
But there is a big gap in expectations.
And for me, I think that's one of the biggest more kind of long term concerns.
But it's also the core reason why the Caesar Act sanctions again here in Washington do need to be fully repealed.
And as Reem said, you know, we had to what at least sounds like encouraging news announced just a few minutes ago, which is that there'll be a six-month waiver or removal of those sanctions.
But frankly speaking, having spoken to, you know, major multinational banks, huge businesses keen to invest in Syria, individual entities interested in investing in Syria, a six-month waiver is just no way near enough.
There needs to be a full repeal of that legislation.
No one can transact money in large sums into the country.
I had a meeting with the central bank governor just a few days ago, and he made it very, very clear that without the full repeal of the Caesar Act, there is not going to be a significant financial investment into Syria.
It's just logistically impossible.
And so it sounds like good news, but on a practical level, it changes very little from where we were an hour ago before this announcement was made.
And there, the battle still is in the House of Representatives, where there's a small number of holdouts who are refusing that.
And, Reem, you can understand some of the reluctance, though, in some corners of the United States, including some in Congress, who look at some of the revenge attacks that have gone on in the last few months and are wondering, can this president really handle the weight of everything before him?
And I note that the UN has said that there were 1,400 civilians killed in March.
They continue to investigate these crimes.
There are communities, minority communities, that continue to live in fear in the country.
You know that the president has said that, look, he believes that all faiths should live peacefully in Syria.
But practically, what more can he do on the ground?
Because I'm sure that is what's stopping what Charles says, right, that the six-month stay, well, they need longer than that.
Sure, but first let me just comment on what Charles said about the Caesar Act.
I fully agree it needs to be fully repealed.
Whether you're with or against this government, I think we all have to be in favor of full removal of the sanctions.
I'm more on the political side of the new authority, but I'm with full support behind repealing the sanctions because they are harming the Syrian people, all the Syrian people.
Now, on the issue of minorities, I think all the security challenges, not just towards the minority in Syria, I think the solution is decentralizing the security sector.
And I think Al-Sharam, his forces are still reluctant to do that.
They still have a huge trust issue with the local communities.
They need to include the local communities to protect themselves.
There's a huge gap in trust as well from many of the local communities, whether in the coast, in Suwayda, also in the northeast, towards this government.
They're not going to build the trust overnight.
So coordinate with them, let them protect themselves, let them have their own forces, but coordinate it, make it accountable to a legal system in Damascus, and then gradually build towards a different model.
But right now, the level of fear we have in Syria, whether geographic, like in the south or the coast, or even within the cities.
I mean, I was just last month in Aleppo talking to my cousins and relatives.
They are there, outside of leaving the house.
Yesterday, our neighbor was driving her son to the nursery.
She was kidnapped.
And there's so many of these stories on a daily basis, wherever you live.
But it is struggling to get hold of the security.
And to that point, Reuven Charles, I do want you to listen to what he told CNN in December 2024, in terms of his promises to Syrians and the international community.
Listen.
Many Syrians are happy and will be happy to see the end of the Assad regime, but they're also worried about what HTS rule would mean, including minorities.
No one has the right to erase another group.
These sects have coexisted in this region for hundreds of years, and no one has the right to eliminate them.
There must be a legal framework that protects and ensures the rights of all, not a system that serves only one sect, as Assad's regime has done.
Charles, you know the criticisms within Syria is that he isn't doing as much that he should be doing at this point in time.
Well, as with all of these things, it's complicated.
I think he at the top has said the right things, has issued the right directives.
The challenge, especially again coming after 14 years of conflict, is channeling that down the chains of command.
And I think unquestionably, you know, back in March in the coastal violence that you described, that was clearly an issue of a complete lack of chain of command and control.
And thus, what ensued was chaos.
Violence we saw in July in the southern province of Sweden was different somewhat.
A lot of international misunderstandings, most of which have gone unreported.
Also a significant tribal component that lies outside of the government.
But it's complicated.
It's going to take time for those kinds of structures to take root in a country where basically the state had been completely hollowed out through conflict, but also corruption, mismanagement and everything else.
I do also just want to mention something around the steps that should be taken.
It's interesting that we had this horrific chapter of five or six days of violence on the coastal region in March.
The coast of Syria now is statistically the most stable region in all of Syria, and that is because security has been decentralized on that local level.
I mean, even just earlier today, there was a huge graduation ceremony for several hundred locally recruited forces.
So this is happening, but again, the consequences of that from March to today in November, it takes time.
Charles Lister, Reem Turkmani, we really appreciate your insights, especially as you were both in Syria.
We look forward to what else this meeting between the United States and Syria will bring.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And we go next to Mexico, where misogyny, harassment, and violence against women is in sharp focus.
Now, while walking between government buildings, President Claudia Sheinbaum was approached and groped by a man on the street.
Sheinbaum decided to press charges against the assaulter and has spoken out against gender-based violence.
And my reflection is, if I don't file a complaint, even though this is a crime, then what position does that leave all Mexican women in?
If they do this to the president, then what will happen to all the young women in our country?
Now, sadly, these types of incidents are all too common in Mexico, with 70 percent of women over the age of 15 reporting some form of violence in their lifetimes, according to a national survey.
So will President Sheinbaum action actually help end this endemic issue, and what more can be done?
Gabriela Jauregui is a Mexican poet, author, and women's rights activist, and she joins us now from Mexico City to discuss.
And I welcome you to the program.
On what is a very disturbing scene in the last week in terms of what Mexican women and others have had to hear, what does the speed and the brazenness of this assault on the President say about cultural attitudes towards women, and especially the issue of sexual violence?
Because we have to say so much of it goes underreported in Mexico as well.
Hi, Paula.
Thank you for having me.
Yes, indeed, extremely disturbing images that you just shared and that happened last week.
And I think that what this speaks to is a normalization of sexual violence and harassment.
And when this is so normalized, so much so that a pedestrian can just attack the president while walking from one building to another, makes these actions seem legitimate.
So, you know, I really appreciate that the president has decided to take, you know, take it seriously and file a complaint, because as you mentioned, statistically, it's horribly common and only about, you know, 3% of these crimes end up in a formal complaint.
So I think that this is a strong message.
>> And you say it sends a strong message.
And President Sheinbaum, her decision to file charges against the man, it is significant.
How is that being seen in Mexico?
>> I think that most people agree that this was an important step to sort of, you know, against the normalizing of harassment and in favor of the normalizing of speaking out against it and, you know, filing complaints.
Because of the small amounts of reporting, we don't even, you know, we don't even know how much of this is going on in all, in the whole country.
And also another thing that she called for is now a national plan against sexual abuse and harassment so that federal laws are homogenized and that, you know, sexual harassment becomes a serious offense in all 32 states in Mexico.
Not only that, it also calls for greater efficiency when women file complaints to authorities.
Because this, one of the reasons women don't file complaints, not only that violence is normalized, but it's also that women are usually re-victimized when they file a complaint.
So the President has called for greater efficiency from the authorities as well.
Yeah, chilling to think that if you report it, then you are at risk of retribution.
I do want to point out that on the campaign trail, Sheinbaum championed feminist ideals, right?
She declared that it's time for women.
But you can hear the critics, right, say that how can that promise ring true?
And people point to the deep cuts to women's services, and also her defense of a male member of the Morena party that was accused of assaulting his half-sister.
Her half-sister, pardon me.
Indeed.
And I think that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And this, I think, is a rampant problem that has been going on for, not just in this administration, but in previous administrations.
And as an activist, many women had hoped that this would change under this administration.
And I don't think we've seen the swift and serious action we had hoped for.
But one possible silver lining to this horrible incident is that maybe it's time for this to be taken much more seriously.
And I think that this isn't only the case in Mexico.
It's interesting to see that the disciplining of women's bodies through violence politically, especially women in public office, has been a serious problem here, but not just here.
In 2003, there were 36 female chiefs of states, or leaders, around the world.
And in January of this year, that number has been reduced to only 25.
And it's no wonder.
I think that the violence against women permeates all strata of society.
And this has been made very packed with this attack.
And President Sheinbaum obviously knows this is a problem, has known, and now unfortunately she knows this all too well.
Do you think though that her gender has amplified the criticism?
I mean, you know, you're in a Catch-22 as a woman and as a leader anywhere around the world, but likely especially in Mexico.
Absolutely.
I mean, on the one hand, more right-wing media, for instance, shared re-victimizing images of the moment of harassment, really images that shouldn't be shared, of any woman being attacked by a man, but specifically of a woman in office, they were really horrific.
And then, of course, the response on social media was a mixed bag, where critics replicated misogynistic words and sentences against the president because she's a woman president.
So I think that, yeah, gender violence against a woman in office makes it sort of cuts both ways, right?
And it's very - makes it really clear, makes the problem that goes on with women at all levels of society, it makes it really clear, especially in a country where 10 women and girls are murdered every day.
Yeah, it's astounding.
Gabriella, unfortunately I don't have a lot of time left, but I do want to ask you, do you believe that President Sheinbaum, that she will take this on now, that she will champion this and to what end?
How effective can she be?
I mean, I really hope that she does champion this cause.
And I also hope that in this national plan that she's asked the Secretary for Women's Affairs to make it so that the brunt of responsibility doesn't fall on women, on women reporting, et cetera, but also on campaigns aimed at men.
At the end of the day, the harassment happens at the hands of men.
So hopefully this will mean more educational and other kinds of policies aimed at men as well.
And I hope that this will be a cause that transforms and really makes this presidency sort of keep up its campaign promises that have to do with women's rights.
Understood.
Okay.
Gabriela Oregui, thank you so much.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you, Paula.
Now, the government shutdown has put millions of Americans at risk of losing their SNAP benefits, crucial for putting food on the table.
Now, so far, the Trump administration has shown little sympathy with its request to block a lower court's ruling for funds to be paid in full for November, rejected again by a federal court this weekend.
Now, meanwhile, the Agriculture Department directed states to, quote, "immediately undo food stamps for those in need."
Author Marion Nestle says she's shocked by how low-income families are being used as pawns in this political chaos.
She joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the impact.
And her new book is What to Eat Now.
Paula, thanks.
Mary, thanks so much for joining us.
Your most recent book, What to Eat Now, is kind of an update on a book that you wrote back in 2006, What to Eat.
Why did you feel you needed to write this?
Why did you feel you had to do it now?
What's changed?
Well, I thought it was going to be a really quick project that I could just whip off, and here we are four years later.
It turned out to be an enormous job looking at everything that has changed in the last 20 years.
The big ones are online ordering, plant-based, ultra-processed, the introduction of international foods into every section of the supermarket, the substitution of water for full sugar sodas.
I mean, I could just go on and on and on.
In every section of the supermarket, there have been profound changes that occurred.
I just wasn't paying close enough attention.
What's interesting is that you kind of look at this supermarket through the lens of decisions that most consumers don't know might have shaped the food that they're seeing on the aisles, what aisles they're seeing it, or what height they're seeing it at, right?
Right.
I mean, this is a book that sort of exposes the obvious fact that supermarkets are not social service agencies and neither are food companies.
They're businesses with stockholders to please.
Their purpose is to get you to buy as much food as you possibly can, as often as you possibly can, at as high a price as they can get away with.
You've got nothing short of what, 44 chapters about every possible section, every possible subcategory in the aisles.
One of the examples that you point to that I don't think most people think about is just bottled water.
How profitable has water become for the industry?
And I guess, what are the societal costs for the rest of us as we seem to embrace this shift?
One of the things I did was go to a water treatment plant in upstate New York to look at how they monitored the quality of water coming out of the tap.
Boy, it's pretty impressive.
And nowhere near that kind of monitoring goes into looking at bottled water.
And one of the things I do in the book is I do price comparisons.
So I look at the price of water that comes out of the tap, which is less than a tenth of a penny per gallon, and then look at how supermarkets sell water.
And you can buy bottled water for a dollar a gallon if it's tap water that's just filtered, or you can spend up to $40, $50 or more dollars per gallon if you buy bottled water in fancy bottles with additives of one kind or another.
And the whole thing is crazy.
This is just water.
You kind of really look at the design of a supermarket as something that companies have figured out how to maximize profit, not necessarily health.
So give us an example of something that a supermarket shopper should become a little bit more conscious of, and then maybe they can change their behavior accordingly.
Well, first of all, the supermarket is designed to get you to do as much exploring of the real estate as you possibly can, because the rule is the more products you see, the more products you buy.
So, one objective is to get you to look at as many products as possible.
And companies pay supermarkets to put their products in places where you can't miss them.
So this would be at eye level, and it would be at the end of aisles, that has a special name, end caps, and at the checkout counter.
When you see products at a checkout counter, let me tell you, those are not there in any random order.
Companies have paid many, many thousands of dollars to get those products placed in the checkout counter so that while you're checking out, you just kind of mindlessly grab whatever that's there.
And this is all done based on the most astonishing amount of research.
I can't believe the amount of research that goes into trying to figure out what makes people buy products.
And this has to do with the color of the packaging, the size of the packaging, the placement of the packaging, the lighting in the store, the way the aisles are designed.
Nothing in there is random.
You're making it sound like a casino where there are no clocks, there are no windows by design, right?
Well, and the company always wins.
That's right.
So, you also write that as much as 40% of the food produced in America is thrown away.
So we actually have the ability to provide calories for people who need it, but it's kind of how we're designing these calories, what kinds of food we're putting them in, that really you're saying that waste is built into our system today.
You're seeing waste as a food system problem, because in the United States, our food supply supplies 4,000 calories a day for every man, woman, and little tiny baby in the country.
That's food produced in the United States plus imports, less exports.
It's not what people are eating.
It's what's available for consumption.
Food companies have to sell that food.
So they are trying to sell twice as much food as the population actually needs.
So waste is built into the system.
But that waste is not equitably distributed throughout the food system.
Seventy percent of the waste occurs at the farm level, at the production level.
You know, it's due to bad climate, it's due to bad crops, it's due to all kinds of problems that occur.
Only 10% of it occurs at the supermarket level.
Supermarkets are really good at inventory control, and they manage their waste pretty well.
20% of it occurs in the home.
It's the extra vegetables that got rotten in the refrigerator, it's the cheese that got moldy, it's the milk that was there too long.
And that you as an individual could do something about, but that's only gonna be 20% of that 40%.
- Yeah.
- But still worth working on.
- We've had conversations on this program before about ultra-processed foods and how essentially people eat more calories when they're ultra-processed calories than if, you know, just was a bag of carrots, so to speak.
So explain for us like how it is that now more than half the calories, according to the CDC that we're eating are ultra-processed food calories.
Well, this occurred because of that 4,000 calorie a day problem.
You have to sell food.
So one way to sell food is to make it irresistibly delicious.
So food companies have figured out ways to make foods that you can't resist and put those foods in places where you can't miss them and also provide foods in larger portions that have more calories.
If I had one concept to get across it would be that larger portions have more calories.
It's not intuitively obvious.
But the ultra-processed food thing is really, it's a new concept.
It's a new way of describing this category of foods.
And it refers to industrially produced foods that don't look anything like the foods that they came from.
And they're formulated with a lot of additives for texture, flavor, and color that kind of cover up the idea that they're not real foods anymore.
And now there's research that shows that eating a lot of them is very bad for our health.
And that for reasons that are not yet fully understood, they encourage us to eat more calories and not realize it.
And not only a few more calories, but tons more calories a day.
No wonder everybody's gaining weight.
During Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
's confirmation hearings to become the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, he called ultra-processed foods "poison."
But some of this concern seems to have decreased when it comes to now, I guess, what the government is going to be trying to do, whether it's even trying to decrease them or just define them, what the health guidelines and dietary guidelines are going to be.
That date has been pushed back now until December.
Well, he got hit by lobbyists, just like everybody in government did.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
is a complicated figure when it comes to food, because on the one hand he has been calling for reduction in ultra-processed foods, make America healthy again, let's get rid of some of the harmful additives that are in food, let's get rid of mercury in fish.
A lot of the things that he called for seemed to me to be really good ideas and he scored two wins, two big maybe three wins so far.
One of them is he's gotten food companies to agree to take artificial color dyes out of food products, but if you take the color dyes out of a sugar sweetened cereal, it's still a sugar sweetened cereal.
If you take the color dyes out of candy, it's still candy.
I don't think that's going to make a big difference to health.
On the chemicals, he's gotten the FDA to say that it's going to do a better job of deciding which chemicals are generally recognized as safe.
So those are wins.
I'll grant that.
Another Maha win is that Coca-Cola has agreed to substitute cane sugar for high fructose corn syrup.
That is nutritionally hilarious.
It's not going to make any difference at all.
The calories will be the same, the sugars will be the same.
So this is all very complicated and must be taken in the context of Kennedy's destruction of the public health system, destruction of the CDC, making the FDA a dysfunctional agency and destroying the research apparatus, not to mention what he's done about vaccinations, which I consider to be one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century.
So, complicated.
Right now, we are, as we record this conversation, still in the middle of a government shutdown and that has disrupted supplemental nutrition SNAP payments and then there's new rules, really even blocking grocery stores from offering any other discounts to SNAP recipients.
So there's right now millions of Americans who might only receive possibly up to half their SNAP benefits.
Judges said that the administration has to fully fund these.
I mean, what kind of, what are the consequences, especially to this population who might not have access to healthy foods in the first place and the SNAP benefits are part of, a real crucial part of how they get nutrition?
Well, yes, and we're talking about 42 million people here who are beneficiaries of SNAP.
Most of them are people who have jobs, but their jobs don't pay enough for them to support their families and feed their families adequately.
And the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, is a lifeline for them for food.
And the idea that the government shutdown has cut off those funds is quite shocking.
And even more shocking is the Department of Agriculture's decision to punish retailers who are trying to help the poor with maybe giving them discounts or doing something that will make it a little bit easier for their dollars to go further.
It's quite shocking to use the poor as a pawn in this ridiculous political situation that we're in now.
I think we've known about this for a while, but I think it's becoming in more sharp relief that there's a direct correlation between the cost of the calorie and how nutritious it is.
The cheaper it is, the worse off it is for you.
I mean, you can kind of find out when you go to, you know, a dollar store, for example, which are real huge, huge parts of rural America and even in general food deserts, where technically if that's the only kind of grocery store you have versus a store that might have fresh produce, it is very likely to have a very different effect on your body if the bulk of your calories are coming from the dollar store versus from just a grocer.
Well, it's not just likely.
We have an enormous amount of research that shows that people whose diets are based on ultra-processed foods are not as healthy as people who eat more healthfully.
The dollar stores have to have some fruits, vegetables, grains, fresh foods, because in order for them to accept SNAP benefits, they're required by the Department of Agriculture to have a certain number of fresh foods.
But I've been to dollar stores, and oh my goodness, you don't want to buy your produce there.
It really doesn't look very good.
So we need to have a food system that serves people better in the United States.
And that's why, you know, that's why I think food is political.
Because these are political issues.
They're political choices.
We could feed everybody in America.
We could give everybody in America a universal basic income.
We could have universal school meals for kids.
We could have restrictions on marketing of ultra-processed foods to kids and mourning labels on some of these foods like they do in other countries.
There are a lot of things that we could do politically that would help people eat more healthfully.
I think one of the most important ones would be to subsidize healthier foods instead of the foods that we are subsidizing.
These are political choices.
The pushback against this relatively simple idea of saying, "Hey, tax the things that are unhealthy and encourage the things that are healthy," is that we hear this sort of political backlash saying, "Look, look, I don't want to live in a nanny state.
I don't want to be told what cookies I can eat and what I can't.
This is against the core values of America and independence.
What's the flaw in that thinking?
Well, I think we already live in an environment in which choices are made for us.
We just don't realize this.
So it's not a question of imposing some kind of new order on the population.
It's a question of tweaking the existing order to promote health rather than the current system.
I don't see anything that's wrong with that.
That seems just fine to me.
You still have a choice.
It's just that the easier choice will be healthier.
What's wrong with that?
Seems like a really good idea to me.
One of the things that you ask for and end the book with is kind of a call to action and reminding people that this isn't just sort of a health choice, that there are personal choices, political choices that all get rolled up into this.
What does taking action look like on a consumer level, on a societal level?
If you're trying to eat healthfully in today's food environment, you are fighting a multi-trillion dollar industry all by yourself.
I mean, you can't do that.
You can't.
You're not going to.
You can make healthy food choices for yourself and your family.
That's terrific.
But to do more than that, you must join with other people.
Advocacy requires as many people as possible to be working towards the same goal.
And that means joining organizations that are working on these issues.
It means writing your congressional representatives.
It means running for office.
Please run for office.
If you want political power, that's what you have to do.
And we have learned recently in the United States that some people can win elections, even if they have ideas that don't seem mainstream.
So it can be done, and the recent election should be an incentive and an inspiration for lots of other young people to run for office.
Please, we need you.
The book is called What to Eat Now.
Marianne Nestle, thanks so much for joining us.
My pleasure.
And finally for us, the COP30 flotilla has docked in Belém.
The boat carrying dozens of indigenous leaders arrived at the Brazilian coast a day ahead of the climate summit that started Monday.
Coming all the way from a glacier in the Andes, the group has been journeying for weeks, celebrating with caperinhas and a banquet as they reach their final destination.
As for why they've come, their main goal, to make sure that this year's conference achieves more for indigenous territories so that they're protected as they deserve.
And that's it for our program tonight.
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