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Joe Biden Needs to Stand Up and Fight Manchin Like Our Lives Depend on It
Daniel Sherrell, Guardian UK
Sherrell writes: "Even by the pathologically callous standards of Washington, it felt surreal to watch a politician jeopardize tens of millions of lives in a single 10-minute interview."
If we are to stand any chance in avoiding climate breakdown, Biden needs to act decisively – and now
A few days before Christmas, Joe Manchin appeared on Fox News to publicly retract his support for the Build Back Better Act. Even by the pathologically callous standards of Washington, it felt surreal to watch a politician jeopardize tens of millions of lives in a single 10-minute interview. But the stakes of his decision remain clear: without the act, the United States will fall far short of its climate goals, making a century of ecological collapse, economic devastation and civilizational upheaval not only more likely, but increasingly unavoidable.
In the wake of the announcement, despair flickered across the internet. Friends called me in tears. My generation has watched our government fail again and again to enact meaningful federal climate legislation. But this latest betrayal is almost too much to bear. It feels like we are being forced to say goodbye: to our democracy, to our future, to the world we were told we’d inherit.
If Build Back Better fails, Manchin may well be remembered as the man who killed the planet. Given the prospect of having to one day explain to his grandchildren why they can’t go outside in the summer, you think he’d at least attempt to marshal some plausible justifications. But his arguments collapse under the lightest scrutiny. His inflation fears have been thoroughly debunked, including by Larry Summers, the patron saint of inflation anxiety. His climate arguments are fundamentally unserious, anti-science propaganda copied straight from the big coal playbook.
The most generous interpretation is that he’s a mulish egotist: a man who sticks to his guns, even when his guns are firing blanks. But the bulk of the evidence points to simple bad faith. Since joining the Senate, Manchin has personally grossed over $4.5m from coal companies he owns. In recent months he has received millions in campaign donations from Republican billionaires and fossil fuel executives who want to see Build Back Better die a slow, painful death. Meanwhile, he has ignored the pleas of West Virginia mothers, tuned out the counsel of his own pope and bulldozed the very coal miners he’s so often wielded as political props. In the light of day, his motives seem as obvious as they are depressing.
Regardless of his true endgame, Manchin’s reversal raises a pressing question: what exactly is Biden’s strategy? He’s already forfeited his most obvious piece of leverage, allowing the bipartisan infrastructure bill to move forward without any promise of reciprocation. His “charm offensive” – an exercise in Beltway nostalgia, if not outright political delusion – has run aground on the brutal logic of contemporary petro-politics. When it comes to his signature policy agenda, his administration seems flustered, reactive and naive.
And yet, the bill must not be abandoned. Executive action alone probably can’t deliver the lasting emissions reductions that climate science demands. If the first Democratic trifecta since 2009 fails to produce ambitious climate legislation, both party and planet will suffer catastrophic consequences.
So Biden needs a new strategy, and fast. There are two basic options. The first is to take off the kid gloves and start playing hardball. If he doesn’t have any leverage, then he needs to get some, especially if Manchin is acting in bad faith. That means channeling Lyndon B Johnson and pairing noble intent with sharp elbows. Threaten targeted federal regulations that would cripple Manchin’s benefactors in big coal. Use the bully pulpit to call them out by name: Michelle Bloodworth, Chris Hamilton, Joe Craft, Jim McGlothlin – all the special interests ready to sacrifice my generation on the altar of their quarterly returns.
Have the justice department revisit allegations that Manchin’s daughter, former Mylan chief Heather Bresch, played a personal role in criminally inflating the price of life-saving EpiPens (as if corporate fealty and misanthropic greed were a sort of family tradition). Dare him to defect to the Republican party, where he’ll either kiss the ring of the autocrat he voted twice to impeach or be eaten alive as a Republican in Name Only, or Rino.
The second option is to publicly accept Manchin’s private counteroffer, get it to the Senate floor for a vote, and then dare him to renege. The $1.8tn counter-offer – which reportedly included universal pre-K, an expansion of the Affordable Care Act and $500 to 600bn in clean energy incentives – would fall short of what working people need. But it would offer some crucial support, while keeping America’s climate commitments alive.
There’s a chance Biden could still circumvent Manchin on extending the child tax credit, which would lift millions of American children out of poverty. No state has benefited from the popular policy more than Utah, and Mitt Romney has indicated a willingness to negotiate. Progressives could blanket his state in ads on child poverty while the administration buttonholes him on specifics.
Whichever path the administration chooses, they need to abandon their fixation on “projecting normalcy”. We are not living in normal times, and every American knows it. With each new failure, their genteel posture reads less like a steady hand and more like a form of sleepwalking.
It’s time they communicated candidly with the American public and made clear what is actually happening. Manchin’s intransigence is not an unfortunate product of normal democratic deliberation. It is a perverse and dangerous attempt on the part of fossil fuel oligarchs to prevent the demos from protecting itself against climate change. Republicans’ lockstep opposition to clean energy investments supported by almost two thirds of American voters is not the product of legitimate policy disagreement, but of a party actively and transparently opposed to majoritarian democracy.
As the Biden presidency enters what could be the final act of a political tragedy, the only way out is to break the fourth wall. Sound the alarm and enlist the public. Expose the actors standing between young people and a livable future; between working families and a dignified living; and between all Americans and their right to representation.
If Biden wants to win the war for democracy, then he must summon the courage to name it – loudly and repeatedly. Otherwise, his base will remain as we were after Manchin’s announcement: demobilized, despairing and deeply, justifiably cynical.
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Attorney General Merrick Garland. (photo: Carolyn Kaster/Getty)
Merrick Garland Is Saying the Right Things About Jan 6 - Will He Do Them?
David Rothkopf, The Daily Beast
Rothkopf writes: "Garland promises to do the right thing when it comes to holding the powerful accountable for their attacks on our democracy - and we are just going to have to wait and see if the Department of Justice's actions live up to the attorney general's carefully chosen words."
His talk about pursuing the facts wherever they may lead might have triggered chills in Trump’s inner circle.
Merrick Garland faced up to some of the most critical and divisive issues facing America on Wednesday afternoon. In an address to his Department of Justice colleagues that was broadcast live to the country, he said he understood the urgency around Jan. 6 with a measured delivery that could be seen either as appropriately dispassionate or worrisomely listless.
But the punchline in either case remains the same. Garland promises to do the right thing when it comes to holding the powerful accountable for their attacks on our democracy—and we are just going to have to wait and see if the Department of Justice’s actions live up to the attorney general’s carefully chosen words.
Garland clearly understands the threats American democracy faces. While he still appeared to be more jurist than the head of America’s largest law enforcement agency, he nonetheless made his contempt clear for those behind the Jan. 6 attack, for the escalating threats of violence to American officials at every level of government, and for the systematic attacks on voting rights that have been going on for years.
Indeed, his unhappiness with Supreme Court decisions (such as Shelby County v. Holder, which he specifically cited) diluting the Voting Rights Act was palpable. It was also clear he understands the expectations of those who seek punishment not only for the members of the mob that attacked on Jan. 6 but for those who instigated, planned and paid for the attack.
The very fact he delivered the remarks reflects that he is sensing the growing frustrations about the slowness of the Justice Department in holding accountable the people behind the coup attempt. He said the right words about the processes being followed and made it clear that his department was not only following its guidelines to ensure just outcomes but the best practices required if solid cases are to be built.
He made clear his intent was to pursue the facts wherever they may lead with a directness that might have triggered chills in Trump’s inner circle. He promised in no uncertain terms to hold the powerful to account. With each of these statements, it was clear he was not only articulating his objectives and those of his colleagues but also asking the public for patience, seeking to assure citizens that he and his team were proceeding the only way they could or should be.
In short, he said, judge us by our actions.
It is a reasonable request. If those actions ultimately demonstrate the attorney general’s resolve and the commitment of the DoJ to bring Trump and those around him to justice—as facts already in evidence clearly indicate must be done—then this speech should someday be seen as a useful placeholder, a stark framing of some of the great challenges of this moment and a well-grounded mission statement.
But of course, for all the merits of the address and the specific instances of progress which Garland enumerated, until the attorney general’s promises lead to actions, unease and frustration will remain. Because, of course, should this Department of Justice come up short, we will not know it until it is too late.
On Thursday, President Biden will speak on the anniversary of last year’s shocking and tragic events. His decision to do so is a sign that he recognizes that, like it or not, one of the key measures by which history will judge his administration is whether they found a way to rebuff the attacks on our democratic system and ultimately bring those who threatened that system— including the former president and those close to him—to justice.
On this pivotal issue, it is now up to Garland and his team to deliver.
One sign of whether Garland will do so will be whether he allows the statute of limitations on the Mueller counts of obstruction against Trump to expire—which they will start to do in a matter of weeks, as Yale scholar and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa lays out here. If Garland takes no action on these compelling charges, that will be deeply worrisome.
How Garland handles any charges referred to Justice by Congress will be another indicator of whether the key elements of today's speech were merely words or something more meaningful.
The longer Garland waits, the closer we may be to a GOP administration that could stop prosecution or pardon wrongdoing. Every day that this administration waits to act invites further GOP mischief.
One aspect of Garland’s speech was worrisome in this respect. When speaking of an increase in violence and threats of violence directed at public servants, Garland said that no one political party or group was responsible for this rise in dangerous incivility. That's just not true.
It is very clear Trump and the right have driven this trend, and this is an instance in which Garland's welcome instinct to remain non-partisan led him to distort the truth.
Garland's words were thoughtful, grounded in best practices, clearly delivered and made more credible by the litany of substantive achievements and metrics of progress they enumerated.
Now, it’s a question of deeds, and the actions he decides to take, or not, may well determine whether our democracy itself survives.
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Trump Supporters gather outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (photo: Getty)
How the GOP Became the Party of Trump's Election Lie After Jan 6
Ashley Parker, Amy Gardner and Josh Dawsey, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "On the Saturday in November 2020 when Joe Biden was declared president-elect, Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno took to Twitter to congratulate Biden and his running mate and to urge his 'conservative friends' to accept the results of the presidential election."
On the Saturday in November 2020 when Joe Biden was declared president-elect, Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno took to Twitter to congratulate Biden and his running mate and to urge his “conservative friends” to accept the results of the presidential election.
He wrote that there was probably some fraud and illegal votes cast, but concluded, “Was it anywhere near enough to change the result, no.”
But just over a year later, Moreno — now a candidate in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary — has deleted the tweets calling for unity and, in a new campaign ad, looks directly into the camera and declares, “President Trump says the election was stolen, and he’s right.”
“Just generally, the election was stolen,” Moreno said in an interview with The Washington Post. “There’s no question about that.”
Moreno is emblematic of the modern Republican Party, echoing former president Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen — a position that has become the unofficial litmus test for good standing within the GOP.
As the nation prepares Thursday to mark the anniversary of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Trump has pushed a majority of his party into a full embrace of his false election fraud charges, while simultaneously leading the ongoing efforts to whitewash the violence carried out that day by a pro-Trump mob.
At least 163 Republicans who have embraced Trump’s false claims are running for statewide positions that would give them authority over the administration of elections, according to a Post tally. The list includes 69 candidates for governor in 30 states, as well as 55 candidates for the U.S. Senate, 13 candidates for state attorney general and 18 candidates for secretary of state in places where that person is the state’s top election official.
At least five candidates for the U.S. House were at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots, including Jason Riddle of New Hampshire, whom federal prosecutors have accused of chugging wine inside the building that day.
Trump is “absolutely” the most influential figure in the party, Riddle said in an interview, but he doesn’t expect an endorsement from Trump because it would be too controversial. “He wants some distance from the rioters,” he said, adding: “I’d love it if he ran again.”
Riddle added that if he’s sentenced for Jan. 6 crimes, “I’ll run from jail. It will give me something to do.”
And of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last January for inciting an insurrection, each has received at least one primary challenger. Rep. Tom Rice (S.C.), for example, faces at least 10 primary opponents in his reelection bid and was censured by his own state party, which also did not invite him to a major Republican conference in his hometown of Myrtle Beach.
Others, like Reps. Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), have since announced they don’t plan to seek reelection. Another Trump critic, Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), was ousted from her leadership post and replaced by a Trump loyalist; she is now vice chair of the House select committee examining the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Daniel Ziblatt, a professor at Harvard University and the co-author of “How Democracies Die,” said that many Americans expected Jan. 6 to “be a breaking point, where Republicans would finally have an excuse to separate themselves from Trumpism.”
“But, in fact, what we’ve seen is very much the opposite, in which a lot Republican politicians have begun to think it is in their interest electorally to support the lie,” Ziblatt said.
Another striking illustration of the Republican Party’s evolution can be seen in its “Young Guns” program, which identifies candidates in competitive House districts who have shown they can raise money and whose campaign messages sync with the party’s views. One of the group’s early poster children, back in 2010, was Kinzinger.
Now, of the 32 candidates identified so far by the “Young Guns” program as having promise in the 2022 cycle, at least 12 have embraced the new Republican orthodoxy that fraud tainted the 2020 election. One of them, former Navy SEAL Eli Crane of Arizona, used Twitter to call on his state legislature to decertify the election and demand a criminal investigation.
Another candidate identified by the program, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, embraced a fantastical and discredited theory that machines made by Dominion Voting Systems were programmed to switch votes from Trump to Biden. Luna met with Trump in 2021 and has been endorsed by Trump as a “warrior” and a “winner.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee, which runs the program, has fundraised extensively off Trump while highlighting and recruiting candidates who have claimed the election was stolen. Yet its chairman, Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.), was among the minority of House Republicans who voted to certify the 2020 election results and has repeatedly encouraged Trump to move on from the topic in his public appearances.
“Candidates know the issues most important to their voters. Right now the midterms are going to be a referendum on Democrats’ rank incompetence that’s led to skyrocketing prices, rising crime and a crisis along the southern border,” said NRCC spokesman Michael McAdams, when asked whether Republican candidates still should be talking about the 2020 election.
Nonetheless, Trump has spent much of his post-presidency marinating in false voting claims and electoral conspiracy theories. He has pushed Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, and other Republican officials to claim on television that the election was stolen, and repeatedly pressed the topic with Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, according to Republicans familiar with the conversations.
The RNC is launching a range of new initiatives related to elections, including plans for filing lawsuits in states, hiring more elections-related officials and recruiting more volunteers, said Justin Riemer, the RNC’s chief counsel. The aim is to stanch some of Trump’s criticism while not endorsing his most incendiary and false rhetoric, party officials and strategists say.
“There is always going to be pressure on the RNC to try to do more than it has,” Riemer said in a recent interview.
NRSC spokesman Chris Hartline said the committee is focused more on efforts to change election rules in the future than a relitigation of 2020. “Our position is that there is a way to talk about this that is politically advantageous and actually charts a path forward,” Hartline said.
In interviews with Republican candidates seeking his endorsement, Trump almost always brings up the question of election fraud, though he does not base his final decision solely on that topic, two advisers said. The former president regularly calls political allies in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania — three of the five states that flipped to Biden in 2020 — to rail about the election results, one of the advisers added, and receives updates on what state lawmakers are doing to combat election fraud from Liz Harrington, his “Stop the Steal” promoter and spokeswoman.
Trump has been frustrated that some in the GOP, particularly prominent Republicans in the Senate, have not been willing to echo his claims — and that an overwhelming majority of the body voted to certify the election.
“Americans must have confidence in the voting process — a confidence that was destroyed by Democrats during the 2020 Election,” Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich said in a statement. “ . . . Voters demand it and Republicans across the nation are following President Trump’s lead to restore election integrity.”
According to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll in December, 58 percent of Republicans think Biden’s election was not legitimate, and 62 percent think there is solid evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Moreno, for his part, says that as he has learned more about the 2020 election, his thinking has evolved from those early tweets endorsing the outcome. He cited mainstream media and big technology companies colluding against Trump, states that changed election laws and what he views as the possibility that Trump’s claims of massive fraud are legitimate.
Moreno said “the door was flung open” to fraud and abuse during 2020 and he, like Trump, is still trying to answer one key question: “How much actual fraud was there?”
“That doesn’t mean that the results are overturned,” Moreno said. “What it does mean is that we need to learn and say, ‘Wow. What happened? And how do we make certain that something like this never, ever happens again?’ ”
Rewriting the narrative
The whitewashing of Jan. 6 began that very night.
Just hours after the insurrection — which resulted in five deaths, including a police officer — 139 House members and eight senators returned to the desecrated Capitol and voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump and his allies, too, began rewriting the narrative almost immediately.
Some falsely claimed leftist “antifa” protesters were behind the violence. Others falsely argued there was very little violence on Jan. 6 or, as Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.) claimed, the riot was simply “a normal tourist visit.” And some Republicans rebranded those arrested in the aftermath of the insurrection as “political prisoners.”
Trump and his supporters have also sought to make a martyr of Ashli Babbitt, the rioter who was shot and killed on Jan. 6 by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb through a broken window into the Speaker’s Lobby — the hallway just off the House chamber, from which lawmakers were still being evacuated.
Trump has described her death as a murder, and called for “justice” for Babbitt. In a posthumous birthday video he taped for her, the former president called Babbitt “a truly incredible person” and offered his “unwavering support” to her family. Babbitt’s mother and brother have said in recent interviews with The Post that they believe Trump is critical to drawing attention to her death — and reframing the public’s understanding of the day — and they continue to support him.
“He would be our best candidate to put forward at this point,” said Michelle Witthoeft, Babbitt’s mother. “He has an amazing way to move people that I have rarely seen — the people that are loyal to Donald Trump will walk through walls for him. That is a quality in a president that is rare. It is really impressive.”
But some Republicans are eager to move past the day, arguing that dwelling on the attacks could hurt them politically. Former vice president Mike Pence — who was a target of the rioters, some of whom were chanting to hang him for treason — has spoken only fleetingly of the events, largely criticizing media coverage that he says was intended to “demean” Trump supporters.
The impact of distorting or downplaying the Jan. 6 insurrection can be seen in public opinion. The Post-UMD poll found that 36 percent of Republicans described the protesters who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 as “mostly peaceful,” and that a majority of Republicans, 72 percent, say Trump bears “just some” or “no responsibility” for the attack.
Trump initially planned to hold a news conference at his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday, to try to reframe the insurrection on its anniversary and highlight his claims of election fraud. But late Tuesday, Trump announced in a statement that he was canceling the event amid growing concern among Republican lawmakers and some of his own advisers that he would face blowback for turning the somber occasion into a spectacle.
Nonetheless, the former president struck a defiant note, saying in the statement that protesters descended on Washington last Jan. 6 to fight “the fraud of the 2020 Presidential Election.”
“This was, indeed, the Crime of the Century,” he wrote.
‘I think Trump won’
In mid-December, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt co-moderated a Republican gubernatorial debate in Minnesota and opened by asking all the primary candidates the same, seemingly simple question: “In your opinion, did President Biden win a constitutional majority in the electoral college?”
Not one of the five hopefuls clearly stated that Biden had won the election.
The next day, on his radio show, Hewitt posed the same question to Josh Mandel, a Republican senatorial candidate in Ohio.
“I do not believe he won — I think Trump won,” Mandel replied. He went on to say that the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin still need to be “fully investigated — and none of them have.”
The answers underscore just how thoroughly Trump has remade the party in the image of his own false claims. The former president has spent the past year endorsing candidates who have embraced his view of widespread voter fraud, in some cases burrowing into even hyperlocal legislative races.
One such candidate is Mike Detmer, who is running for the state Senate in Michigan, and who once defended the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, in a Facebook post and tweeted repeatedly in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack that antifa and the Capitol Police were to blame.
“The Republican Party needs to focus on the truth, and the only way you can get the truth is to go look for it,” Detmer said in an interview, adding that he wants a “full forensic audit here in Michigan” to determine whether the election was truly stolen.
In his endorsement, Trump attacked Detmer’s GOP opponent, incumbent Lana Theis, who helped produce a legislative report finding that allegations of election fraud in the state were “demonstrably false.”
Trump has developed a particular fixation on Michigan — one of the states he lost to Biden — detailing in multiple statements in November that he wants a “new Legislature” because current lawmakers are “cowards” and “too spineless to investigate election fraud.” The state offers a clear glimpse of how extensively Trump is working to reshape the GOP.
In addition to state lawmakers, Trump has endorsed a candidate for Michigan secretary of state, Kristina Karamo, who claimed without evidence that she witnessed fraud as a poll-watcher in Detroit last year and has accused incumbent Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) of breaking the law in her administration of elections.
For Michigan attorney general, Trump is backing Matthew DePerno, who made a name for himself pushing lawsuits seeking to overturn Michigan’s 2020 results. DePerno is widely credited for launching the audit craze among Trump supporters with his early demands for such an examination in Antrim, Mich., after an early error in the conservative county put Biden ahead. The error was caught and corrected, but DePerno falsely claimed it was evidence that machines made by Dominion Voting Systems had switched votes from Trump to Biden.
‘Long-term, I think we’re screwed’
Democrats and voting-rights advocates say the threat to democracy that these candidates represent cannot be overstated. Secretaries of state set election policy and in some cases are responsible for certifying elections. Attorneys general have the power to sue to block illegal attempts to subvert an election result.
“There is no question that if I am replaced by Matthew DePerno, democracy falls in Michigan,” said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D). “Not maybe. Not possibly. Certainly. He has made it clear not only that he supports the ‘Big Lie’ — he’s one of the originators of the ‘Big Lie.’ ” DePerno declined to comment.
Among Trump supporters, the former president’s endorsement remains coveted, and that often means professing support for his baseless claims. One prominent Republican consultant who has advised clients on getting Trump’s endorsement said he increasing counsels candidates to walk a fine line.
The former president “isn’t going to endorse you if you say he’s wrong and there was no fraud, but you don’t want to make your whole campaign about that either,” the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share details of private conversations.
For Republicans like Paul Boyer, a state senator from Arizona, Trump’s demands of fealty to his false electoral claims are deeply troubling. Boyer was critical of Arizona’s 2020 election audit and was also the only Republican senator to vote against holding the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in contempt.
Boyer said he expects Republicans to do well in the 2022 midterms but that “long-term, I think we’re screwed as a party.”
“When you’ve got Trump telling the base the system is rigged, don’t vote, they believe him, and that’s why we lost control of the U.S. Senate, that’s why we lost the two Georgia seats,” Boyer said.
He is also frustrated that someone like him, a stalwart conservative, can suddenly find himself with no obvious place in the party. “If you ask any of my Democratic colleagues, they’ll tell you how conservative I am,” Boyer said. “And the fact that on one issue I didn’t agree with the party makes my belief on limited government, on school choice, on life, on public safety all out the window — it’s like, no, I’m not a moderate.”
Boyer plans to step down at the end of his current term and return to teaching high school literature and Latin. Part of him, he said, would like to run again, “to prove that part of the party wrong, that there is room for me in the party.”
“But I’m just so tired,” Boyer said.
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Tyler Shultz was not the only Theranos whistleblower, but he was the first to report troubling findings at the company to regulators. (photo: Deanne Fizmaurice/NPR)
How George Shultz's Grandson Brought Down Elizabeth Holmes
Bobby Allyn, NPR
Allyn writes: "Being a Theranos whistleblower would soon morph into a much bigger nightmare. Soon, he was dealing with private investigators Holmes hired to follow him. Lawyers tried to intimidate him. Holmes tried to destroy his life."
When Elizabeth Holmes jury deliberations entered its second week, Tyler Shultz got the jitters.
"I decided to deal with it by playing my guitar superloud. I probably disturbed my neighbors," said Shultz, an ex-Theranos employee who helped expose the once-hyped blood-testing startup. "I had a lot of nervous energy."
For Shultz, the moment had been building for some time. He blew the whistle on Theranos when he was just 22 years old. Now 31, he was ready for closure.
"This story has been unfolding for pretty much my entire adult life," said Shultz in a long-ranging interview with NPR from an in-law suite at his parents' home in Silicon Valley's Los Gatos.
On Monday, his phone buzzed with a message from his wife, he said, "It was a text in all caps: GUILTY."
The jury had convicted former Theranos CEO Holmes on four charges tied to investor fraud. Jurors also acquitted her of four counts related to patient fraud. The panel was deadlocked on three other investor fraud-related counts.
To Shultz, it was something else: the end.
"All of a sudden, it was just a weight was lifted," Shultz said. "It's over. I can't believe it's over."
And that, he said, was worthy of a bubbly toast with his mom, dad brother and some friends.
"My family said, 'Come on down we're popping champagne. We're celebrating,' " he said.
Shultz was not the only Theranos whistleblower, but he was the first to report troubling findings at the company to regulators. At the time, it was a risky and bold move, and it came at a high cost for Shultz. But it helped accelerate scrutiny that would ultimately end with the company's implosion.
From inspired to disillusioned: Shultz's Theranos story
It all started in 2011, when Shultz was just a college student. He was visiting his grandfather, the celebrated former Secretary of State George Shultz, at his home near the Stanford University campus.
His grandfather wanted him to meet someone. Her name was Elizabeth Holmes.
"She was wearing her all-black outfit, turtleneck. She had those deep-blue, unblinking eyes. I heard her deep voice," he said, describing attributes that came to define the charismatic tech executive.
When she started talking about Theranos, a company she dreamed up at 19 in a Stanford dorm room, Shultz's curiosity was piqued.
The idea was to make blood testing faster and easier and less painful with just a finger prick — all done on an innovative device that Holmes invented called the Edison. Shultz, a biology major, wanted to be part of that revolution.
"She instantly sucked me into her vision, and I asked her, 'Is there any way I can come work at Theranos as an intern after my junior year?' "
And he did. Eventually, he became a full-time employee. But it would only be eight months after getting hired that he would resign.
Shultz had worked countless hours in labs. Armed with this scientific know-how, he quickly realized something was amiss when he looked inside of the Edison device.
"There is nothing that the Edison could do that I couldn't do with a pipette in my own hand," he said.
Then he discovered another alarming thing: When Theranos completed quality-control safety audits, it was running tests not on the Edison, but on commercially available lab equipment. That did not seem right.
"It was clear that there was an open secret within Theranos that this technology simply didn't exist," Shultz said.
This emboldened Shultz to blow the whistle. He contacted state regulators in New York using an alias. He worked with then-Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou to reveal Theranos' shortcomings and exaggerations.
"I would not have been able to break this story without Rosendorff, Tyler and Erika," Carreyrou told NPR, referring to Shultz and two additional Theranos whistleblowers, Adam Rosendorff and Erika Cheung. "Tyler and Erika were corroborating sources, and that was absolutely critical."
For Shultz, it was not the path of least resistance.
"It would have been easier to quietly quit and move on with my life," he said. "And that's actually exactly what my parents advised me to do when I was a 22-year -old kid fresh out of college."
But he insisted on the harder path. And that involved confronting his grandfather, a legendary statesman who had a seat on the Theranos board.
"He didn't believe me. He said Elizabeth has assured me that they go above and beyond all regulatory standards," he said. " 'I think you're wrong' is what he told me."
It took some time for the elder Shultz to come around and believe his grandson. Their relationship was never the same and he never apologized.
"But he did say I did the right thing," Tyler Shultz said.
Shultz warned his famous grandfather: Hold Holmes accountable
Many of the marquee names that made up the Theranos board — former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Sen. Sam Nunn — were recruited by Shultz.
And Tyler Shultz made repeated attempts to try to salvage his grandfather's legacy, though he kept being rebuffed.
"I said, 'I know you brought all your friends into this, and you feel like you need to stay there to protect your friends, but there's still an opportunity for you to get them out too,' " he said. " 'You can lead the way for the board to do the right thing and hold Elizabeth accountable.' "
George Shultz, who has since died, would not be persuaded at the time.
For the younger Shultz, having a falling-out with his grandfather was just the beginning. Being a Theranos whistleblower would soon morph into a much bigger nightmare. Soon, he was dealing with private investigators Holmes hired to follow him. Lawyers tried to intimidate him. Holmes tried to destroy his life.
Shultz watched the Holmes trial mostly from afar, reading social media and news coverage, from his San Francisco apartment.
He did show up once, however, during closing arguments and sat in the courthouse's overflow room. He said it provided him with some closure to be able to see the trial live.
"I just wanted to listen to the closing arguments and make it feel real, rather than watching your life through a Twitter feed," he said.
Still, he did not want to create a scene.
"I had a jacket on. I had my hood pulled down past my eyes so nobody would recognize me," he said.
Reporters eventually recognized him, but he didn't want to share his thoughts until there was a verdict.
Think the blood test works? Prick the judge
These days, Shultz is running his own biotech startup focused on women's fertility issues. He is pitching investors and making grand promises.
"I'm under pressure to exaggerate technology claims, exaggerate revenue projection claims. Sometimes investors will straight-up tell you, you need to double, quadruple, or 10x any revenue projection you think is realistic," he said.
In a weird twist, the experience has him comparing himself to his now-notorious former boss.
"I could see how this environment could create an Elizabeth Holmes," Shultz said.
Shultz was on the government's witness list. He was never called to testify. He isn't sure why.
"I guess my emails just spoke for themselves," he said.
But he did imagine a scenario, partially in jest: that if he were summoned to court, he would appear with the Edison device.
"Let's prick the judge's finger and see what happens," said Shultz, laughing. "And it wouldn't work. I knew with 100% confidence that would never happen. They would never be able to prove me wrong."
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Starbucks Workers United, a Buffalo-area group of Starbucks employees, holds a news conference outside the store in November 2021. (photo: Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News)
Unionized Starbucks Workers Walk Out, Citing Health Concerns
The Associated Press
Excerpt: "Employees of a Starbucks store in upstate New York who voted to unionize last month walked off the job Wednesday, saying they lacked the staff and resources to work safely amid surging COVID-19 cases."
Employees of a Starbucks store in upstate New York who voted to unionize last month have walked off the job
Employees of a Starbucks store in upstate New York who voted to unionize last month walked off the job Wednesday, saying they lacked the staff and resources to work safely amid surging COVID-19 cases.
Six employees who had been scheduled to work formed a picket line outside the Buffalo store, leading Starbucks to close it for the day, the company said. Three other employees had remained inside.
“Pressure to go to work is being put on many of us, when some of us already have other health issues. The company has again shown that they continue to put profits above people,” Starbucks Workers United said in a statement.
All of the Buffalo-area stores have been operating as “grab-and-go” locations since Monday, Starbucks said. More than 15,000 people have tested positive in Erie County over the past week, the highest seven-day total to date.
Starbucks spokesperson Reggie Borges said the company has met and exceeded CDC and expert guidelines and offered vaccine and isolation pay.
“Over and above that, all leaders are empowered to make whatever changes make sense for their neighborhood, which includes shortening store hours or moving to 100% takeout only, which is the case in Buffalo,” he said.
The employees said they will return to work when they feel the store is fully staffed and safe, possibly on Monday. About a third of the staff is out because of illness or exposure, the union said.
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German government said Monday that it considers nuclear energy dangerous. (photo: Alle Rechte Vorbehalten/DPA)
Germany Calls Nuclear Power 'Dangerous,' Rejects EU Plan
The Associated Press
Excerpt: "The German government said Monday that it considers nuclear energy dangerous and objects to European Union proposals that would let the technology remain part of the bloc's plans for a climate-friendly future."
The German government said Monday that it considers nuclear energy dangerous and objects to European Union proposals that would let the technology remain part of the bloc’s plans for a climate-friendly future.
Germany is on course to switch off its remaining three nuclear power plants at the end of this year and phase out coal by 2030, whereas its neighbor France aims to modernize existing reactors and build new ones to meet its future energy needs. Berlin plans to rely heavily on natural gas until it can be replaced by non-polluting sources for energy.
The opposing paths taken by two of the EU's biggest economies have resulted in an awkward situation for the bloc's executive Commission. A draft EU plan seen by The Associated Press concludes that both nuclear energy and natural gas can under certain conditions be considered sustainable for investment purposes.
“We consider nuclear technology to be dangerous,” government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin, noting that the question of what to do with radioactive waste that will last for thousands of generations remains unresolved.
Hebestreit added that Germany "expressly rejects" the EU's assessment of atomic energy and has repeatedly stated this position toward the commission.
Germany is now considering its next steps on the issue, he said.
Environmentalists have criticized Germany's emphasis on natural gas, which is less polluting than coal but still produces carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — when it is burned.
Hebestreit said the German government's goal is to use natural gas only as a “bridge technology” and replace it with non-polluting alternatives such as hydrogen produced with renewable energy by 2045, the deadline the country has set to become climate neutral.
He declined to say whether Chancellor Olaf Scholz backs Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck's view that the EU Commission’s proposals were a form of “greenwashing.”
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It is the first time researchers have directly observed how border fences hinder the Mexican gray wolf, which is on the verge of extinction. (photo: Julio Cesar Aguilar/AFP)
An Endangered Wolf Spent Days Searching for a Mate. The Border Wall Blocked Him.
Albinson Linares and Noticias Telemundo, NBC News
Excerpt: "In his search for a mate or for better opportunities, the wolf tried to cross the dangerous Chihuahuan Desert, a region he knows very well because it has been his species' habitat since time immemorial. This time, however, he was unable to cross."
It is the first time researchers have directly observed how border fences hinder the Mexican gray wolf, which is on the verge of extinction.
One chilly early morning in November, a wolf roamed southwest of Las Cruces, New Mexico, on the southern border of the U.S. He was probably driven by the call for survival and wanted to mate, researchers say.
In his search for a mate or for better opportunities, the wolf tried to cross the dangerous Chihuahuan Desert, a region he knows very well because it has been his species' habitat since time immemorial.
This time, however, he was unable to cross. The barriers that make up the border wall prevented him from crossing the border into Mexico.
“For five days he walked from one place to another. It was at least 23 miles of real distance, but as he came and went, he undoubtedly traveled much more than that,” said Michael Robinson, the director of the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization that defends and monitors species that are in danger of extinction — like this Mexican gray wolf, whom they called Mr. Goodbar.
Robinson lives in Silver City, very close to Gila National Forest. He noticed the wolf’s adventures when he was reviewing a map from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that records the locations of the wolves using GPS devices they have on necklaces. It is the first time researchers have directly observed how the border wall hinders the life of the species, which is at risk of extinction.
“Mr. Goodbar’s Thanksgiving was forlorn, since he was thwarted in romancing a female and hunting together for deer and jackrabbits,” Robinson said. “But beyond one animal’s frustrations, the wall separates wolves in the Southwest from those in Mexico and exacerbates inbreeding in both populations.”
The dangers of the wall
The Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations have said the border wall cuts off connections for wildlife in the area. The center has filed multiple lawsuits to stop the construction of barriers between the two countries and protect the populations of gray wolves and other endangered animals.
The organization announced Dec. 21 that it plans to sue the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection for failing to protect ocelots and other species during the construction of border levees along the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
“It is hypocritical to use safety as an excuse to repair levees and then ignore federal laws that protect people and wildlife. These alleged repairs are seen more as an excuse to rush the construction of the border wall,” Paulo Lopes, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.
The organization said more than 13 miles of levees will be built on the land of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, traversing family farms and other private property in Hidalgo County, Texas.
Ocelots have been in danger of extinction since 1982, and according to official data, it's estimated that fewer than 50 of them remain in the U.S., all in South Texas.
Restoring their habitat, including creating wildlife corridors, is a priority for the Rio Grande Wildlife Refuge, but the levees project — which involves removing vegetation along the river to build a control zone 150 feet wide with new roads for law enforcement agencies, as well as lighting systems, cameras and sensors — threatens the ocelot’s habitat.
Building a wall on the border between Mexico and the U.S. was one of former President Donald Trump’s main campaign promises, and 450 miles of the project were completed during his presidency. The Biden administration suspended construction work, but Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, began construction of his own wall on Dec. 20.
“President Biden should knock down the wall,” Robinson said. “Allowing Mexican gray wolves to roam freely would do right by the sublime Chihuahuan Desert and its lush sky-island mountains. We can’t allow this stark monument to stupidity to slowly strangle a vast ecosystem.”
Challenges to survival
By March, the Fish and Wildlife Service had estimated that 186 specimens of the Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) were in the wild, an increase of 14 percent over 2020. The population has increased for five consecutive years. Only 35 of the wolves are in Mexican territory, according to Mexican government data.
In some ways, the fight to preserve the wolves is a success story, because, from 1915 to 1972, U.S. authorities poisoned and trapped almost all of the wolves in the wild. Three of the last five surviving wolves, captured from 1977 to 1980, were bred in captivity along with the progeny of four previously captured Mexican wolves.
Because of a lawsuit filed by the center, the descendants of those seven wolves were reintroduced in the Southwestern U.S. in 1998. On the Mexican side, the wolves' release began in 2011.
The subspecies is about 5 feet long, usually weighs 50 to 80 pounds and lives in herds of four to nine. Their gray and rust-color fur is abundant. They live from two to eight years, and, despite protective measures, very few die of natural causes.
Historically, their habitat has been the border: They used to live throughout southwestern Texas, southern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona and as far south as central Mexico. Today they are found only in the Gila ecosystem, in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, and in the Sierra de San Luis, in northern Mexico.
Despite the modest but constant growth of its population, activists and experts have made multiple calls to maintain the protections for the species. Mr. Goodbar, who was born at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas and was released in the desert area of Arizona in 2020, is the result of such measures.
The wolf's adventurous and exploratory spirit is part of the species' most basic instincts. It also runs in the family.
Wolves from Mexico twice entered the U.S. at the beginning of 2017. One crossed through the point where Mr. Goodbar couldn't make it and then returned to Mexico. Two months later, a female crossed into Arizona, and authorities captured her to appease complaints from people linked to the livestock industry.
She is Mr. Goodbar's mother, and she is still in captivity.
“If the barriers remain on the border, and more are being built, that is going to have an impact on the genetic diversity of the wolves, because it could affect their reproduction. If the wall could be knocked down, at least in some key areas, it has to be done. That will allow for wildlife connectivity,” Robinson said.
A problem of borders
Researchers at the Center for Biological Diversity say wolves aren't the only species threatened by the border wall.
The telemetry studies of Aaron Flesch, a researcher at the University of Arizona, have found that the mountain owl, a bird in the area, flies at an average height of 4.5 feet, so border fences would also affect it.
In addition, other animals, such as the cacomixtle, which is similar to a racoon, and the northern fox need to travel through large areas of the Chihuahuan Desert to feed and reproduce, so the barriers are obstacles to their habitats.
Aislinn Maestas, a public affairs specialist for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement published in the El Paso Times that it was "speculative" to suggest that a barrier may have affected the wolf's movements, adding that the wolf has continued to roam widely.
However, the ecological impacts of border barriers have been widely documented. Roads and farmland isolate wildlife, but nothing else separates some species as effectively as border walls.
The fence erected between Slovenia and Croatia in 2015 could lead to the gradual extinction of the lynx in the Dinaric Mountains. Carcasses of bears, deer and lynx that died horribly after they got caught on their quills are often found throughout the area.
The barrier between India and Pakistan has caused the population of the Kashmir markhor (a rare wild goat) to collapse. The world’s longest border fences divide China, Mongolia and Russia, isolating populations of wild donkeys, Mongolian gazelles and other endangered species from the steppes.
Modern wildlife researchers have warned that even in large protected areas, wildlife species are at risk of extinction if they can't disperse and mix with populations elsewhere.
Robinson, the activist, said that only once was he able to see a Mexican gray wolf in the wild. “They are incredible animals and play a key role in balancing nature,” he said.
After his days trying to cross the border in November, Mr. Goodbar headed north toward Gila National Forest, where most of the Mexican wolves live. The area is very close to where Robinson lives, and he usually hears the powerful howls and sees the footprints the wolves leave on their wanderings across the border.
“At any moment he will leave again. That is their nature, regardless of the walls that human beings build," Robinson said.
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