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Predicting the future used to be the realm of fortune tellers, looking into crystal balls or reading tarot cards. But now anyone can make a fortune, or try to anyway, by betting on the future in what's known as a prediction market. If you think you know who will win an election, or whether interest rates will go up. You can bet on it. As you might expect, critics are asking, isn't this just gambling in disguise?
Jolene Kent tells us all about it. Oh my god, Taylor's a fifth engage! Swifties everywhere rejoiced when Taylor Swift announced her engagement. But the ones who traded Taylor on the prediction markets might have been the happiest of all. In 10 years, I think prediction markets could be larger than the stock market.
Larger than the stock market. I think because really what we're building is something that can appeal to everyone. Later on Sunday morning, the booming business of betting on everything. This is deeper. In the recent nationwide elections, affordability was a key issue.
as millions of Americans struggle with the high cost of living. And for the working poor, that often comes down to something as basic as keeping a roof over their heads. Ted Coppel meets some families, living paycheck to paycheck. We're not talking about the unemployed. Celeste, for example, routinely works 50 hours a week.
Usually a minimum of $15 an hour. That's $750 a week. How much are you paying for a room? $80 a day. That's pushing $600 a week just for the room.
Most everyone also has gas money, taxes, and Oh yes. Food. How is it that someone who is working 50 hours a week still can't have a stable place to live? Working and homeless ahead. on Sunday morning.
Barstool Sports. It's the influential online media company, especially popular with young men. Its founder and creator is Dave Portnoy, and this morning he's in conversation with Tony DeCoppol. Dave Portnoy is the bro behind online media powerhouse Barstool Sports. A brash, bare-knuckled king of content.
In conflict, you like a fight. I don't like a fight. But if you are going to pick a fight with me, I will do anything I can. To to ruin you. Why what he says and does makes headlines and shapes our culture.
Dave Portnoy coming up on Sunday morning. Not me. With Luke Burbank this morning, we'll take in a stage show that's out of this world featuring Star Trek's William Shatner. and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Moraka meets the wizard behind the music and the lyrics for Wicked, legendary composer Stephen Schwartz.
We'll have commentary from best selling biographer Walter Isaacson. A story from Steve Hartman, and more. This is Sunday morning, november sixteenth, twenty twenty five. We'll be right back. Mm.
Jolene Kent starts us off this morning with a rapidly growing and controversial way for people to turn predicting the future into a money-making proposition. One that I have a thousand shares at 66 and a half cents. The market's actually moved against me. It's now at 64. Joel Holsinger just quit his day job to bet on the words famous people like White House press secretary Caroline Levitt might say in public.
I thought there was a very high likelihood she would bring up Thanksgiving in relation to the shutdown. From his computer, the 26-year-old makes about $3,000 a week trading on the prediction market, Kelchie. She did not say Thanksgiving, so we were out $700 yesterday. That hurts, right? Actually, like surprisingly for me, it doesn't hurt really much.
I have had times where I've lost, for example, like $6,000 on a bad trade, but also the inverse of that, I've made $11,000 on a trade. And so, you know, it's just ups and downs. The live streaming influencer is one of millions of people flocking to prediction markets like Calci, Predict It, and Polymarket, where you can wager on just about anything. Will egg prices go up this month? I think we'll hit $20.
Calci lets you legally trade on anything, anywhere in the US. Really? Yeah, it's pretty sweet, dude. People bet on anything, even stuff here at the SKU. Team, will the girls' soccer team win on Friday?
Will there be a snow day this month? What is a prediction market?
So a prediction market is uh it's like the stock market. But instead of buying and selling companies, you're buying yes and no. on whether something is going to happen or not.
So it could be whether Mom Danny was gonna win the last New York Mayor Race, or there's going to be a hurricane in Florida next month. Tarek Mansoor and Luana Lopez-Lara are former Wall Street traders, turned co-founders of Kalshi. People can make money on what they know. Actually monetize their knowledge, monetize their hobby, because everyone's an expert on something. Kelchie made a name for itself in the 2024 election.
Just over one week away from election day, and the race is neck and neck. It looked close. Unless you were keeping an eye on Kelchie, which called the race well before the TV networks did. It was like Kelchie, then Fox, then CNN. How did that feel?
It was crazy. Twelve months later, Kelchie was the talk of another election. When you see. The cowsy odds that have our chances of victory in the 90s. This is not.
Polling data. This is what people think is going to happen. Yes. Yes, it's people putting money on what they think is going to happen, and then the wisdom of the crowds in the markets come up with the probabilities of who's going to win. And you can bet on, or Kelchie says invest in, nearly 3,500 markets on the company's platform.
Like, who will be a bridesmaid in Taylor Swift's wedding? How do I know that someone close to Taylor Swift or Taylor Swift herself isn't participating in a way that will make her outcome more favorable? and let her take home a little extra cash.
So Cauchy is a federally regulated, fully compliant exchange and we have systems in place to monitor for any suspicious or unusual activity. We also have a lot of trading prohibitions in place. I think there really hasn't been any issues. Not one case. None.
Prediction markets are booming. The owner of the New York Stock Exchange is investing $2 billion in polymarket. And the sports betting platform FanDuel will launch its own prediction market next month. Let's say they win by at least 10 and a half. In fact, when it's not an election, the majority of the money traded on Kelchie is not on politics or culture.
It's on sports. You can bet on things that a traditional sports book would offer you. Author Jonathan Cohen has chronicled the rise of sports betting in the U.S. Kelchie says. This is an investment.
Sure. You don't buy that. No, the New England Patriots are not more likely to win their game because I bought a contract for them to win the game. It is a speculative instrument purely for my own use and my own entertainment, which to me qualifies it as gambling rather than investing. But Kelshi is not regulated like gambling.
Online sports betting is only legal in 31 states. Calci is available in all 50. The Biden administration tried to prevent Kelchie from offering sports markets. Then when President Trump returned to the White House, his administration vowed to break with past hostility. And earlier this year, the President's son became a strategic adviser to both Kelchie and its main rival, Polymarket.
Why did you guys make Donald Trump Jr. a strategic advisor? You have a lot of advisors and They span across the board, across different functions. Really, this is all about growing this industry, the prediction market industry that a lot of people really believe in. What kind of advice does he give you?
So it really is, again, about growing prediction markets. He believes in prediction markets, we believe in prediction markets. A lot of people believe in prediction markets, and it's really about go-to-market and expansion plans. Does he come to meetings? How much do you pay him?
What's his role? I mean, this is the son of the president. I mean we have a lot of advisors and whether it's our investors, whether it's people that we really trust and respect, whether it's-he's a direct line to the White House. We have a lot of advisors. Kelchie is embroiled in legal battles with several states, like Massachusetts, that say Kelchie's sports markets amount to unlawful sports wagering.
Are the states wrong? We are confident in what we're doing. We're confident in our position from Um the law and we're also confident in the fact that, you know, customers are actually finding a lot of value in basically what we're offering. Um so I would say yes. But for now, if you're over the age of eighteen, you can bet on just about anything.
anywhere. Any time. It's not enough to like Taylor Swift anymore. You have to use your knowledge of Taylor Swift to try to make money off of how many streams she's going to get in a month. Or it's not enough to.
I don't even like politics anymore. You have to gamble on politics. You have to make money on politics. That to me, It seems like sort of the canary in the coal mine of like a gambification of American culture that I think is sort of still on the rise, and we might not like what that looks like when it fully arrives. This is the story of the one.
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He's combative, he's colorful, and he's controversial. Our CBS Mornings colleague Tony DeCoppol is talking with Dave Portnoy. The Man Behind Barstool Sports. The boss's office is a mess. I have to say, this is a terrible office.
The worst. The headquarters resemble a frat house. This is got a dorm vibe. And faces aren't so familiar. And I don't even know who this guy is.
So it's like. Welcome to Barstool Sports. I thought. Ah, so this is Barstool. This is it.
All its glory.
Okay, Emerging Press Conference. A digital age company that is a force in American culture. At the center of it is Dave Portnoy. You have some pencil pusher in some ivory tower laughing at you.
Somebody laughing at you, a reigning king of content. And controversy. You like a fight. I don't like a fight. You don't like a fight.
I don't go out of my way. But if you are going to pick a fight with me, I will do anything I can. to to ruin you. August 27th, 2003 is the birthday of Barstool. What was once a free weekly newspaper of gambling tips, founded out of his mom's basement in 2003, is now an online empire.
Everything we do is real, authentic, and unfiltered. Worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
So how do you explain it to the average person, bar stool? What is it? If you're sitting at a bar watching a game with your buddies, anything you would talk about, that's what we're recording, how people interact with each other normally. And that's really what it is. podcasts and streaming shows of exactly that, people talking about pretty much anything.
Football, trivia, movies, food, one bite. Everybody knows the rules. Like Portnoy's own one-bite pizza reviews. This is as good as anything I've had in Manhattan. We have a bunch of Hopefully, creative, funny, talented people.
We let them just run wild and is managing that ship. As for managing himself, well He doesn't hold back. Best boss ever. Yeah, he's a kiss up. What is it inside that tells you, I don't care?
I feel like I have a good moral compass.
So I don't care what people say. I never have. Over the years, that's led to outrage and accusations that Portnoy is just another online troll. Sexist, racist, and as alleged by a 2021 article about his sex life, rough and demeaning in bed. allegations he flat out denies and have never led to charges.
Almost every time or every time your name is in the New York Times, it says Dave Portnoy, Who has a history of racist and sexist remarks? Close, whatever they're talking about. You object to that. I object strenuously to that, and I hate them. They're the ones who have said it, or people who don't like me.
I feel like virtually every single criticism, and some of them are brutal. Have context around them that a fair-minded person, if they looked at the evidence, would be like. What they're saying about him is just not true. But once it's said, It it will never go away. Raised in a liberal Jewish home outside of Boston, Portnoy now represents a movement in conservative politics.
a young, mostly male fan base who turned away from Democrats. and voted for Donald Trump.
So What happened to the Democrats? Why did they lose so many young men? People often think I have the answer. My nutshell is Generally they were very anti Normal guys. Like, if you there's what do you mean, normal guys?
It's okay. Are you saying there's only one way to be a guy? If that girl's hot, hey, that girl's hot. I want a drink. I want a party.
I like frat parties. I like that. That was all bad. Like, and to be honest, it's the white guy, and this sounds, but. Was the bad guy, became the bad guy.
And there's a lot of white dudes. Who are like, well, I'm not the bad guy. Like, what are you getting mad at me for? I wasn't here for colonialism or any of the stuff that you guys are complaining about 200 years ago.
Well what did I do? And even with the Trump stuff. He won the election, and you had a candidate basically calling you a deplorable, or you're a Nazi if you vote for Trump. I don't know if they use that exact word, but it felt like that. Lately, though, Portnoy has been in the headlines not for crossing a line, but for his efforts to draw one, on anti-Semitism.
I've seen in my own experience, just being barstool, the difference between How much hate I get, I never, I mean, occasionally you get hate. kike or Jew or whatever. It's every day now. Like there's a definitive shift in what's going on.
So yes, now I, for me being a Jewish person, like you gotta step up. You're kind of someone people look up to in the Jewish community. You have to be like, all right, this is not normal, haha, with the guys. People are coming up with real hate. How do you explain that line to people?
It's a tough one, and sometimes they always don't get it. And just last week, a man was arrested for using an anti-Semitic slur at Port North. While he was taping a video in Mississippi. The success of barstool. and yourself is based on not being afraid to offend, right?
Speech is speech, a joke is a joke. Do you see a connection between what you unleashed and what you now have to deal with? No, I it's Because I think Barstool and myself has always had a pretty good moral compass.
So. We've never stood for Hate. or anything of that ilk. I mean, do I think that Feminists should complain about a Diet Coke can being skinny, and that somehow is like leading to an eating disorder by Diet Coke having a skinny can. That I think is crazy.
And there are things that I think people get. far too worked up like he, she, verbs, like Crazy to me. Making jokes that you are trying to hurt people's feelings and are based in hate, that's never flown with us. I'll talk more. politics, probably unfortunately becoming my dad.
He's voted for Trump three times. Still, Courtnoy, who supports abortion rights, says these days he's disgusted by politics. I mean who the heck would wanna get into politics anyways? Like People always ask me, it's like, what are you crazy? You can get more done as a private citizen.
Everyone just hates your guts. And I don't know why half these people I feel like it gets the worst candidates, period. 99% of politicians are scumbags. But. Yeah.
You look at what happened to Charlotte Kirk. Serious stuff like I I don't want that in my life. It's at that level, okay.
Well, if you get into politics, like if that's what you're doing. Look, I just met with Governor Shapiro. He had his house burned down. Shapiro, somebody tried to kill Trump. Charlotte Kirk assassinated.
Pelosi's husband, I mean I like my life. Portnoy is legally separated and has no plans for kids. He does give back, boosting small businesses all over the country with his pizza reviews and with the tens of millions of dollars he raised for them during the pandemic. But at 48, he doesn't trust much of anything, including the media. Which made me wonder why say yes to an interview like this.
It was primarily because I loved the show. Uh And even on the way over here, I'm like, you know, if this turns into a hit piece on me, which happens a lot with reporters, and it's like, oh, that's stunk. I think it'd still be worth it to be on CBS Sunday morning. It's just part of it. I mean, I.
If you love a show, You want to be part of it.
Now, if it turns ugly, I'll probably hate the show after, but at least I'll be on it. Unadulterated loathing for your face clothing Let's just say I love it all. Wicked Part One was a global cinematic smash last year. But it only told half the story. The much anticipated Part Two arrives in theaters this week.
Moraka follows the Yellow Brick Road to meet the Wizard, behind the music.
Okay, so it's the ache of it. When I was a kid and playing my Beethoven, you know, and came to that, I would play that bar over and over again and cry. It's very embarrassing. When songwriter Stephen Schwartz sits at the piano, he feels the music. Beethoven, living in a world that has nothing to do with ours, but he writes.
And it speaks to us across the centuries. Schwartz knows a little something about speaking to audiences. He's the composer and lyricist of Wicked. The Blockbuster stage musical turned two-part movie musical. The wizard will see you now!
Now comes part two. The prequel to the classic Wizard of Oz. Wicked tells the story of Elphaba, played by Cynthia Arrivo, who grows up to be the Wicked Witch of the West. What sounds like power? And I came up with this.
Oh my goodness, this really her! And the bubbly Glinda. Actually, it's Glinda. Played by Ariana Grande, who becomes the Good Witch of the North. Popular.
I'll help you be popular. Um Uh If you hear those two things, you can describe those two girls. Schwartz has been telling stories through song for over five decades. My sort of glib joke, where people say, like, how you write a song, I just say, Tell the truth and make it rhyme. Tell the truth.
And if I can be honest enough, then that'll speak to other people. This was the theater that I wanted because if you look out there, see how intimate it is? Wicked opened 22 years ago. Making it the fourth longest running Broadway show in history. Where were you on the night of October 30th, 2003?
Well, that was the opening night of Wicked on Broadway, and therefore I was not at the Gershwin Theater because I don't go to my own openings. It's too nerve-wracking for me. I don't like the opening night parties where everybody's just waiting to hear what reviews come in. I'm working with my Rogers and Hammerstein. It's just packed into one person.
You're gonna be popular. Kristen Chenoweth originated the role of Glinda on Broadway. Sham. She and Schwartz have reunited for the recently opened new musical, The Queen of Versailles. Yeah.
Yeah. There's not five of him. There's one. He's an original, he's singular. And There's nobody else.
Like him. Stephen Schwartz grew up on New York's Long Island. A prodigy, he attended the prestigious Juilliard School as a high schooler. Just after college, he collaborated on the musical that became his first big hit, Godspell. Uh hee.
That's from the 1973 movie version. The musical features a ragtag group who help Jesus tell various parables. It's a musical. with Jesus as a central character. You're a Jewish guy.
Did you think, well, all right, I'll give it a go? I mean, I think one of the things that made Godspell work was the fact that I didn't know a lot of those stories.
So I think I came to it with a kind of Fresh I about not preaching to the converted, so to speak. In 1972, Schwartz brought that fresh eye to the story of Pippin. There was this little opening thing that. A young man searching for the meaning of life in the Middle Ages. I don't know what's going to happen when I sit down.
I'm like, oh, that's, I'm going to do that. It's this magical process. where I don't know what's going to come out my fingers. Hit number three, 1974's The Magic Show, starred magician Doug Henning. Schwartz was three for three, with all three playing simultaneously on Broadway when he was just twenty-seven.
a theatrical trifecta that he described as very dizzying. The truth is when you are very young and unprepared for success, it can be difficult to handle. It was difficult. for me to handle how so I think I got very quite full of myself. I got kind of difficult to deal with.
I kept thinking, well, why isn't everybody just doing exactly what I say? I lost somewhat the ability to collaborate. You know, it took some failures. to kind of learn how to deal with both success and failure. The failures came in short order.
A forfecta of flops. You haven't always been critics choice. I'm almost never critic's choice. What is that about? I have no idea.
I mean, I'll be frank about it. You know, I wish I got Steve Sondheim's reviews. But listen. great as he was, his shows didn't run the way yours have. Yeah, you know, the grass is always greener.
Uh In the early 1990s, Schwartz stepped away from the piano. Had you quit Broadway? Absolutely. 100%. Did you worry that you were out of juice?
Totally. Yeah. And in the 90s, I actually went back to school and started, I was pursuing a degree in psychology. You're kidding. I was going to become a therapist.
Studying to become a therapist turned out to be quite therapeutic. I think the time away reminded me of how to behave myself and how to collaborate and how to deal with. Other people and not just come in like a bull in a china shop. Have you ever heard? When he returned to songwriting, it wasn't for Broadway though, but for Hollywood, writing the lyrics for Pocahontas.
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain? Can you paint with all the colours of the wind? The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Enchanted, and music and lyrics for the Prince of Egypt. Record.
Well Yeah. Feeling He picked up three Academy Awards along the way. I mean, feel this. Whoa, that's heavy.
Okay. But Stephen Schwartz's home will always be the stage. I feel so blessed. And so fortunate that work I've done has this ongoing life that I know is going to keep going when I'm not here on this planet anymore. Listen, I'm 77 years old and they still let me do this.
We turn now to senior contributor Ted Koppel, who looks at a disturbing reality facing more working Americans than ever. Homelessness This intersection here, Memorial Drive and Candler Road, it's like you're crossing a threshold from this beautiful neighborhood, liberal arts college on that side, cafes, and then you cross over and it's dialysis centers, its liquor stores, its payday lenders, other areas of Atlanta are booming. but this area sort of stayed stuck in this period of decline. Brian Goldstone has devoted his book, which he calls There Is No Place for Us. to describing the challenges faced by literally millions of the working poor.
looking for a place to live. We're in Atlanta. the poorer out here on these peripheral areas. Goldstone has spent the better part of six years trying to understand why so many people who work full time jobs with low wages are homeless. The story we as a nation have told ourselves that hard work is the key to success, that work is an exit from poverty, not having a home, being homeless.
What these people show us is that there's something profoundly not true about that story anymore. In the course of his reporting, Goldstone met Celeste, whose name he changed to preserve her privacy. Celeste has been known to work two and three jobs at a time to support her eight children. All but one are now adults, and She's inspected boxes at a warehouse. Worked at a fast food restaurant, even sold plates of food from her room.
She is resourceful. I was working in a corner store from the time I was 10 years old. always gave me like a sense of pride to do a good job at whatever I'm doing. If she doesn't have a car, she'll walk to work.
Sometimes that boils down to cleaning and tidying up a convenience shop. Just surviving is a constant struggle. 'Cause at one point my car was my roof. I slept in my car for a month. With the kids.
Yeah. That's got to be tough. It was. What Celeste doesn't have is a passing credit score. I could have the most money.
But if my credit score is in a 700 then you don't want me and your property. What totally destroyed her credit score was when an ex boyfriend set fire to the home that she and her children were renting. Walking into that house was like walking into a black hole. We had nothing. What pushed her and her children into homelessness was the fact that this home was owned by a private equity firm who demanded that she pay rent for the current month's rent and an additional month as well.
and she wouldn't get her security deposit back. This was to break the lease on this home that had burned down. The sheriff put an eviction notice in the mail box of the uninhabitable house. By the time Celeste found the notice, the judge had handed down a default judgment, and by that point, her credit score had been destroyed. Which is what brought Celeste, what brings so many desperate people, to what's called an extended stay hotel.
Celeste lived here with two of her youngest children for about three months.
Now what were you paying here? $5.20 a week. About $75 a day? Yeah. And that's only if you book online now.
If you don't book online, if you have to pay them cash at the window, then you're paying the $80 a day. Over the years, Celeste has lived in about half a dozen extended stays like this. Extended stay. That sounds so elegant, doesn't it? It does.
Come to our extended stay. Yes. And that's how they advertise it, too. It actually says, come for a night. Stay for a while.
Tell me what's wrong with the slogan. It's a trap. A lot of the places are substandard. One of the places where I stayed there was you know how you put the mats down in the bathtub to cover supposedly slipping or falling or anything?
Well, I pulled my mat up and there was a big hole in the tub. Uh A lot of places have mold and mild do. They cause health problems. If you don't have them already, you will develop them. Celeste was still living in an extended state when things went from bad To a whole lot worse.
Celeste, at one point in there you found out you had cancer. Mhm. What kind of cancer? Breast and ovarian. Why didn't you go to the doctor?
Life. was lifing people who are the primary breadwinners in a a low income family. You can't take the time off to go to the doctor because me missing a ten hour shift at work That's the difference of me paying for my room that day. Of course, I want to keep a roof over my head.
So, sick and all, I'm still going to go to work. What struck me over and over again is just how incredibly resilient. You were. Be even after the cancer. How?
Why? Because that's the face you have to show the world. There were many nights. that I just was on my hands and knees. Praying.
And believe in that, God made me a promise. And I was gonna do my part because I knew he was gonna do his. Many of these stories are variations on a similar theme, and disproportionately they seem to impact people of color. Rhea, for example, has four children. In the last two years, she has lived with her kids in friends' apartments, in her car, and most recently, in extended stay hotel rooms.
Hello! This is where we stay. In England. There is a hell of a lot of room, isn't it? No.
No. There's not a single closet in the place, is there? And this is the little bathroom that we share. Three of the kids. Three of the kids sleep in the bed.
Three of the kids. And the oldest one sleeps down there. He's got the best deal of all. Yeah, I try to get one of them to sleep with him, but they don't want to. They all want to be piled in the bed with mom.
Rhea has been on her own with the kids since she left a domestic violence situation with the father of her children. Rhea says he never abused the kids. What about you? Yes, he put his hands on me a couple times. Rhea eventually got a temporary protective order.
No more abuse, but also. No more child support. He's not allowed to be around me or the kids for two years.
So I can't talk to him, his family, no one.
So everything is basically on me. Ria's 20-year-old son helps where he can, working some overnight shifts at Amazon. But she also has a seven-year-old son. with major medical issues. He was born with congested heart failure and he has severe asthma.
I've been in and out of the hospital with him three or four times a month. I'm in and out of ICU with him. And that makes it all but impossible to keep a full-time job. Rhea struggles to pay $375 a week. just for that extended stay room.
working a patchwork of part-time jobs. Like driving for Uber. I think what was so shocking is that this kind of living situation is not cheaper than an apartment. It's often double or even triple what an apartment down the street would cost. How do you explain that?
When people are desperate and those who own these properties know that there are people who are desperate, they will take advantage of that desperation. When we come back the big business of homelessness. Once again, Ted Koppel reporting on homelessness. in the ranks of America's working poor. It's a billion dollar business.
Homelessness has become big business. Author Brian Goldstone is introducing me to the underbelly of the hospitality business. These hotels don't look like much, but there is a lot of money being made off of them. Extended stay hotels that are often the last resort for low-income families. with poor credit who've become homeless.
It's happening in a lot of our cities, but especially here in Atlanta. urban renewal, the renovation and improvement of mostly low income neighborhoods, Restoration, gentrification. It's all good. Unless you're one of the families being squeezed out. It's the same Wall Street investors who are leading families and individuals to become homeless to begin with because they buy up the rental housing.
And then if you're even one day late on your rent, you have an eviction automatically filed against you. Before you know it, you're out. You don't have a home anymore. We're using a fake name. Right.
Why? Because privacy. You know privacy. Meet Maurice and Natalia. These days things are much better.
They have an apartment. The life is manageable. but only five years ago they were on the brink of disaster. Maurice worked for a rental car agency, and Natalia, for an insurance company. But when Natalia gave birth to this third child, Her salary stopped.
That threw everything off. I didn't get income for like a point in time. And then, next thing you know, you're out in the street with a baby. Because we were late. And I remember I begged her and she was like, Do you have it now?
Can you get it now? And all we needed was to get the payday. It was crazy because, like, my mindset was in, like, it was raining. The sheriff let me sit in his car. That still gives me anxiety.
Just getting that call from work and you having to leave work and a hairy and you come home and you see kind of does something to you as a man. Tell me. It transforms you, it breaks you. Um It will continue to break you if you allow it. Uh And when we get to storage, there's another family there too.
And it's like, we don't say anything to each other, but we know that look. And all you do is just nod. It's going to be okay. Put your stuff in there, try to figure out somewhere to go. When you see A family at a bus stop with luggage, you know, that going to the airport.
The thing that haunts me most is the black bags. The black bags. You already know when you get evicted, all your stuff.
Well, it was black, but now it's clear bags. When did you first realize that you really were homeless? I was like filling out paperwork, and you would hesitate. And you're like, you know, they'll ask you where you're living specifically. Right.
Are you renting? Are you a homeowner? Or are you homeless? You sit there and you struggle for a minute. You're like, well, I have a roof over my head, but it's not mine and it's temporary.
And I could actually literally be booted out tomorrow.
So you check the box, homeless, that's what we are. It was 2020 during the pandemic, and the family of five was living in an extended stay hotel. Natalia was working remotely, answering customer service calls. I got flagged because of the noise, and they were asking me if I could go to a quieter spot.
So I sent them a picture of where I'm at because I'm telling them I'm in a hotel. And I was like, oh, we travel to hotels all the time. You could just go over to this. Man, my bed is right here. The kitchen is right here.
And that's where I'm working from. Please help me find this quiet space. I'm trying my best. I remember just realizing this is like an expensive prison. I was just looking at the bill.
My kids can't go outside, there's no playground. We gotta keep the curtains closed because people walk through the hotels, they're gonna look into your room so there's no privacy. In eight months they spent seventeen thousand dollars on the extended stay room. nearly twice as much as they'd paid on their old apartment. It's really important that we not talk about all of these families and individuals as if they're falling into homelessness.
They are being pushed. This is an engineered neglect and at every turn, there are entire business models that are set up to capitalize on their predicament. Are you embarrassed about what happened? If I could be honest, yes. Cause remember it's not supposed to happen to people like us.
We do everything that we were supposed to be doing. We tried our best, but you know, you still end up in a hole, in a hell. Why isn't that supposed to happen to people like you? You're educated? Yes.
You're hardworking? Yes. And we tried our best. We follow all the rules of life. As does Rhea, remember the single mother of four who pays $375 a week for that small extended stay room?
A car is her livelihood right now, but She no longer has one of her own.
So I'm actually renting a car. My pay is $60 a day. Sixty. Yes. A day.
A 60 a day. How many hours are you working before you just paid off that day's car? If I go out and drive for Uber after work, it'll take me probably like two or three hours. Depends on how the rides come in. How many miles have on it?
A hundred and eighty seven. That's a hundred and eighty seven thousand. It's a lot of miles. Yeah, it's not. How'd the tires?
Horrible.
So when the tire goes. I have to replace them. Oh boy. When you lie awake at night, What are you thinking about?
Sometimes I want to give up. I couldn't understand that. But you've got children, so you can't my kids keep me going. It's so high right now, I don't even know.
Sometimes when things are at their darkest I'm not aunt. Help comes in the person of someone who's known hard times herself.
Someone like Sherry McCord. This is something you can drink in the morning for breakfast. It's really good. Who has a non-profit for the homeless? I wake up every day with a goal to help at least one person.
I love you. Rhea, call Sherry. Her angel. We are a mutual aid organization, so I reach out to our generous community, and oftentimes people donate, sometimes they don't, and that's when we dip into the reserves of good old credit cards. my own personal ones.
What does it take to keep your family going? Oh in a week. between my room, my car. And all the expenses, I'm pushing 12 a week. $1,200.
How hard do you have to work to make $1,200? I'm constantly driving from two in the morning and sometimes I won't sit down until eight o'clock at night. Could you work any harder? If I could, I would. Yeah.
There's a Sulu. Ease us back to minimum headway, conserve power as much as possible. Lieutenant Palmer. Tell Mr. Scott to expedite repairs on the warp drive.
Luke Burbank this morning has a story with real star power. Star Trek's William Shatner, and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
now appearing. Not long ago in Seattle, an astronomical event of sorts happened. Two superstars collided. Why? Are we going to Mars, for God's sakes?
Why did you go into space? There you go. William Shatner of Star Trek fame and Neil deGrasse Tyson, America's favorite astrophysicist, took to the stage to explore the nature of exploration. If you interrupt my origin story, I'll interrupt yours. Think of it as sort of Martin and Lewis, but with more quantum mechanics.
Oh, you're going to make fun of me, are you? I'm bothering you. It's a bromance. I think what... Bill Shatner and I have together.
should be The textbook definition of the bromance. If we have a bromance, I'd be very privileged. The two grew close last year on an upscale cruise to Antarctica. where they ended up being the after-dinner entertainment. And the organizer said, why don't we put the two of you on this mini stage that they have on the ship?
And we just. Just chew the fat. And then the organizer said, Why don't you guys take this on the road? Their first port of call, Seattle, where they debuted a wide-ranging, sometimes meandering, but always intriguing stage show they're calling the universe is absurd. Thank you.
Give me a sound bite. Pick anything out of the universe. Go. Anything, doesn't matter.
Okay. More than half of Pluto. is made of ice.
So that if it were where Earth is right now, heat from the sun would evaporate that ice. and it would grow a tail. And that is no kind of behavior for a planet. Yeah. Yeah.
That's a sound bite. For deGrasse Tyson, director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium and an authority on just about everything we know about the universe, it's a chance to get inside the insatiably curious mind of the 94-year-old. Yes, you heard that right, 94-year-old William Shatner. How does one become the director of a of a planetarium. You really want to know?
I really want to know. That's why I asked the question. All right, I'll back up a little bit.
Okay. Not too much.
Okay. Okay, what kind of magic Potion is he. Drinking. By the way, you can do the math. He's been alive for three billion seconds.
Okay, I did the math. You don't have to... Neil analysis of the guy's life.
So when Bill Shatner speaks. It's coming from a place way deeper. than any of the rest of us. can possibly Match. And for Shatner, who never formally studied astrophysics, it's a chance to make up for what he sees as lost time.
I feel bad about it because That knowledge of what constitutes the construction of nature. We know so little, but the little we know is so Awesome. It's so spellbinding. The fact that I wasn't conscious of how spellbinding it is as as a youth. I could have been much more educated about it.
Four years ago, Shatner became the oldest person ever to go into space. And he's been globetrotting ever since. They got air bubbles under their eyes? When they swim, their feathers trap the little air bubbles. Oh, really?
Do you Still scratch your head in awe Every night I look up. Every night. I look up. Is this essentially the dynamic between the two of you? What?
Mr. Shatner, you've got questions, and Mr. DeGrosse Tyson, you've got answers? Unfortunately, that's the way it is. No, but he's got wisdom.
and life experience that I value. And I respect.
So I'm here to To grab some of that. How about for you, Bill, thoughts about your friend Neil deGrasse Tyson? Just things about him that you find inspiring or interesting. You can say this in front of me on camera. He has access both because of the.
Is mentality and the books and the studies.
So he's into modern-day mysticism, which is the study of the stars and how it works and what goes on. You call that modern-day mysticism? Because you don't know for sure. That's what you're saying is absolute truth until more experimentation. But it's a frontier.
We're scratching our heads. Exactly.
So he is an explorer. He is an explorer. He is on that verge. He teaches that, and it is mystical. In every sense of the word.
But see, this is where I think you are politely and respectfully in disagreement because Dr. deGrasse Tyson will say something like, we know what the speed of light is and we know what the fastest things can move is. And you say, well, we'll see about that. Yeah, we've had that argument. It was a conversation.
Argument.
Well, I mean, argument under Frederick. We had that. Exposition. We had that. There you go.
That's what it was.
Meanwhile, deGrosse Tyson seems just fine not knowing everything. I've never been able to understand what was going on before the Big Bang. This very simple and yet profound idea of somethingness coming from nothingness. We don't know.
Next question. No, as a scientist, you need to be comfortable. in the presence of a question that does not yet have an answer. Of course, the ultimate question, the one we really don't know definitively, is where we go when we die.
something that Shatner, as he loses friends and colleagues, finds himself considering more often. You know, I vary between the fear of death My fear I have so much love around me. I have Wife and children and grandchildren. I even have two great-grandchildren. I have two great dogs.
I've had dogs all my life, all my adult life. This all my life is f fertile, this vibrant, is And I don't want to leave it. And that's the sadness. I don't want to go. Are you curious, though, about what you will find?
Not enough to die. Even your curiosity has a limit. It stops right there.
Okay, well, we found it. Where Bill Shatner's famous curiosity bumps up against the edge of his universe. Exactly.
As the show wrapped up in Seattle, Bill Shatner closed things out with one of his unique spoken word songs. accompanied by trumpeter Keon Harrell. The universe, it turns out, might be a bit absurd. But what an interesting ride. Do not grow old.
No matter how long that you live. Do not forget pain, but somehow learn. To forgive. To Steve Hartman with a real world civics lesson. For being just 19, Cameron Drew of Surrey County, Virginia is ambitious.
Some might say, overly ambitious. Hi, I'm Cameron Drew, candidate for Surrey County Board of Supervisors. In last week's election, the young Liberal took on the establishment. I wanted this job because I knew I could serve the people. I knew I could be an advocate for the youth and be an advocate for our county.
It's a confidence he credits to an old high school teacher. My favorite government teacher. Kenneth Bell taught Cameron civics. Y'all know this fellow, right? Mr.
Bell says he always knew Cameron would make a great politician. A wonderful young man. He would have been formidable against any opponent against whom he would have run. That guidance has helped me and prepared me so much for this moment. But to get elected, Cameron would have to defeat the incumbent.
A beloved lifelong resident and conservative, a local high school teacher. A civics high school teacher. You're the opponent. That's right. Cameron challenged his own mentors.
Not uncomfortable at all, they say. Because he was very receptive, we were both respectful about it, so it was never an awkward moment. In fact, during the campaign, Mr. Bell says he found himself defending Cameron. especially on the age issue.
Yes, yeah, he's young, but he's really invested in trying to make a difference. You know, this isn't how campaigning's supposed to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. You're supposed to put down the other guy. Yeah, well, you have to be a teacher, I think, to really know this and to see somebody that you helped to shape and mold take this brave step, not knowing what's going to happen.
In the end, Cameron. One. by eight votes. to the delight of both candidates. And what'd you say?
Congratulations and I'm so proud of you. And I love you. I'm just lost in words because of the fact that he's been so gracious. A glimmer of hope, perhaps. For what our politics Could be.
I pray that all my opponents are like this. It's not going to happen. I know that. With just months to go before the two hundred fiftieth birthday of these United States, thoughts this morning from best-selling biographer Walter Isaacson. We've got a big birthday coming up next year.
are 250th. Here's my wish. Let's not blow this opportunity. We're so polarized these days. that we may not be in the mood for a party.
Everything seems to divide us. But perhaps we can use this opportunity to celebrate what unites us rather than stoke the things that divide us, just like we did for our bicentennial. after the fraught years of Vietnam and Watergate. One way to do it is by reflecting on our shared creed. Proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence sentence that begins we hold these truths.
to be self-evident. I've just written a little book about how the drafting committee. which included Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and John Adams, went through four versions of the sentence. We hold these truths to be sacred. Jefferson wrote in the first draft.
Franklin crossed out Sacred and wrote in Self Evident. The declaration they were writing was intended to herald a new type of nation. one in which our rights are based on reason. not the dictates of religion. But then the sentence invokes the Creator.
Jefferson wrote that people derive rights and Adams changed it to they are endowed by their Creator. with rights. Thus we see our founders. balancing the role of divine providence and that of reason. in determining our rights.
they understood how to balance competing ideals. A talent we should relearn these days. At the signing of the declaration, John Hancock wrote his name with his famous flourish. We must all hang together, it said that he insisted. Franklin replied, alluding to what would happen if their revolution failed, Yes, we must indeed all hang together.
or most assuredly will all hang separately. As Franklin pointed out, Our life or death challenge as a nation is this. when there are so many forces dedicated to dividing us. How can we best? hang together.
One way to do it is by reflecting on our fundamental principles. the ones proclaimed in the declarations Great Senates. Happy birthday. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning.
Sunday, count on an NFL on CBS doubleheader with early action featuring a must-see matchup between the Buccaneers and Phils. Later, it's an AFC West showdown when the Chiefs face the division-leading Bunco. He's got him! Touchdown! It all begins at noon Eastern with the NFL Today, live in Denver.
You can always count on Sundays with the NFL on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus.
Now streaming on Paramount Plus. Dearest Eva, I think about you all the time. Once I find you and your daughter, then I will kill you both. Those words and those threats were absolute psychological terrorism. Surviving 12 years of terror.
You be prepared for my arrival. Oh my god. He found our house, and he was coming. My Nightmare Stalker, the Eva LaRue Story, now streaming on Paramount Plus.
