How do you talk about a monster of an issue when the two sides are so far apart? Mónica brings together two unlikely guests to find out: Dr. Francis Collins, a man who helped shape the U.S. COVID response (and was Dr. Fauci’s boss!), and Travis Tripodi, a New Hampshire resident who believes that response was deeply wrong and misguided. In Part one of this two part story, Francis and Travis describe how they weathered very different challenges during the pandemic, their radically different perspectives on what went wrong during the crisis, and the extraordinary way that their perspectives first collided last summer in Gettysburg. What makes COVID disagreements so painfully divisive in the first place? Mónica and April follow up to unpack the giant barriers that complicate these conversations, and how their experiences both during the pandemic and in its aftermath have shaped their own novel perceptions on power, truth and morality.  

• Additional Background: Derate the Hate Interview with Dr. Francis Collin
• Additional Background: Derate the Hate Interview with Travis Tripodi
• NIH: Vaccine Q&A with Dr Francis Collins (May 7, 2021)
• Braver Angels Convention Panel: A Deplorable and an Elitist Walk into a Bar
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