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Is America's health secretary RFK Jr a danger to public health?
00:31:06
We get an inside view on new claims by Trump linking autism, paracetamol and pregnancy
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
Okay, we're going to be talking about some big questions in today's episodes. We always talk about big questions, but these are particularly big ones. Ones about science, about health, about disease, about medicine and the role of public health in America, and particularly what has been happening recently with vaccines. At the center of all of this is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He is the secretary of health in the Trump administration and he has been promising a radical transparency in his department.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
We will scrutinize the chemical additives in our food supply. We will remove financial conflicts of interest from our agencies. We will create an honest, unbiased, gold standard science at hhs, accountable to the president, to Congress, and to the American people. We will reverse the chronic disease epidemic and put the nation back on the road to good health.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
But critics say he has been delivering something very different. In fact, some of the main scientists in charge of public health in America have either been forced out or directly sacked by RFK Jr in recent weeks. And they say that they are being forced out because RFK Jr is making decisions based not on public health, on science, but on ideology. So are these criticisms valid or is RFK Jr bringing this radical transparency and reshaping American public health and making America healthy again, as Donald Trump likes to say. Welcome to americast.
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Podcast Promo Voice
Americast americast from BBC News, when Donald.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
Trump calls, they say, yes, sir, right.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Away, sir, to lick your boot, sir.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
We are the sickest country in the world oh, dear.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren
Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry?
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Of course the President supports peaceful protests. What a stupid question.
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Donald Trump
Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
Hello, it's Anthony in the BBC bureau.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
In Washington, D.C. and it is Mariana, aka misinformation. Not in the worldwide headquarters, but actually in San Francisco where I'm doing this documentary for BBC2 about social media algorithms. So I am even further time difference back than Anthony, which is something I'm.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
Not used to, but closer to me on the same continent, although we're on opposite sides of it. Welcome to America. So we've got a really interesting topic today to cover, and we have a really interesting guest who is going to be joining us in a little bit. Someone who has been at the center of this controversy surrounding American public health for more than a decade under both Republicans and Democratic presidents. Her name is Dr. Deborah Howery, and she was Chief Medical Officer at the Centers for Disease Control, a government agency based in Atlanta, Georgia, until she resigned just recently, objecting to RFK Jr. S leadership. This was last month?
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Yeah. And it feels like a very, very timely moment to be speaking to her, not least because we've had this news this week on Monday, this, this press conference that happened where Donald Trump and RFK Jr were essentially telling women not to take Tylenol when they're pregnant, which is similar to paracetamol that we have here in the uk. Here in the UK we have there in the UK because of links with what they say are links with autism. Now, that link is unproven and there are lots of medics and scientists who have taken issue with the press conference and the suggestion of this kind of causal connection. Another interesting thing that came up as well was Donald Trump talking about the MMR vaccine. So that's the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. And normally when babies have that vaccine, it's given all in one go. But basically Donald Trump was suggesting that it should be taken separately and that mixing it together could be a problem. That is again, completely unproven and contrary to the scientific evidence, which suggests that having that combined vaccine is broadly pretty effective. And this is what Donald Trump had to say about MMR in babies.
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Donald Trump
But I think when you go for the shot, you do it over a five time period, take it over five times or four times, but you take it in smaller doses and you spread it out over a period of years. And they pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies. It's a disgrace. I don't see it. I don't I think it has. I think it's very bad. They're pumping. It looks like they're pumping into a horse. You have a little child, a little fragile child, and you get a VAT of 80 different vaccines, I guess 80 different blends, and they pump it in.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
I mean, it sounds like Donald Trump was really going off script there. 80 different vaccines. That's obviously a gross overstatement, but it's something that Donald Trump has talked about in the past. I remember early on when he was running for president in 2015, and they were asking at a debate whether the candidates thought that vaccines cause autism, and Donald Trump expressed an openness to that.
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Donald Trump
Autism has become an epidemic 25 years ago, 35 years ago. You look at the statistics. Not even close. It has gotten totally out of control. I am totally in favor of vaccines, but I want smaller doses over a longer period of time.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
So maybe it's not surprising then, Marianna, that Donald Trump would return to this again at this event, even though the event was kind of supposed to be focused, I think, on Tylenol and what they claimed were the risks of taking it while you were pregnant.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Yeah. And it felt a little bit like a throwback to the kind of early days of the pandemic when you'd have the kind of president, along with health officials or whoever, standing alongside, giving these briefings. Only in this case, you've got two political figures. And I think that's been the strong criticism, certainly from lots of the medical community, health professionals, scientists. Is. Hang on. How much of this is about the science and what the facts tell us and what we do or don't know? For example, a lot of this is unproven. And how much of it is ideological, it's actually about something else. It's about something around freedom of choice or this decision to, you know, that they'd said previously that there was going to be this announcement about autism in particular. And it feels a little bit like Donald Trump and RFK Jr. Were kind of like, oh, okay, right, right. We need to crack on with this and come up with something. I think it's really worth saying that when we talk about a lot of the things that Donald Trump does or says, you know, his post on Truth Social or wherever it might be, it feels like we're down the serious end of things that Donald Trump says that aren't just sort of sideshows but really matter.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
Yeah, exactly. The concerns that I think medical professionals have about this is that it's going to erode support and trust in vaccines, full stop. And I guess we did kind of see this coming. I mean, RFK Jr. Has a long history of so called vaccine skepticism. He's expressed conspiracy theories about drug companies, pharmaceutical companies motivated by profit, not fully researching the drugs, the vaccines that they're rolling out. I mean, Marianna, you know, immersed in, in your world of, of social media and conspiracy theories, I'm, I'm sure you've seen a lot of this and a lot of what RFK Jr. In particular has been saying, huh?
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Yeah. RFK Jr. Is, is a longtime vaccine skeptic. There are other elements of his health policies that people have not minded so much or quite liked, for example, around healthy eating and general wellness. But it's the vaccination stuff that has really caught people's attention. And during the pandemic in particular, he managed to grow a huge following essentially online by posting a lot of these alternative health ideas. It wasn't that he didn't hold them before, but rather that that was the time where they really became prominent. They came to the fore. He was very, you know, he was accused of promoting disinformation about the pandemic, about COVID 19 vaccines. And he has remained adamant that he's not anti vaccination, that that's not the stance that he takes. However, he has certainly at the very least not disavowed a lot of the very extreme anti vaccine profiles, anti vaxxers who promote him, support him, and share completely not true claims about vaccinations. And this goes way beyond legitimate questions about big pharmaceutical companies or, you know, examples of where vaccines can and do have side effects and people have lost their lives or there has been harm caused in a small minority of people. This goes past that. And, and actually RFK Jr. Has been crucial in legitimizing, I think might be the right word or mainstreaming some of those ideas. Even though he's, he's adamant that that's, that's not his intention. It feels like there's, and I don't know what you think about this, Anthony, but this kind of gap between what he had, what he's been saying online and the kind of other ideological leanings that he's shown and then what he said and the actions that have subsequently followed, and then what he said during those confirmation hearings when he was being questioned about how he felt about vaccinations, it feels like sort of two parallel realities.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
Right. And I think that that's exactly it. There were very real concerns in the Senate and the Senate committee. And so what you saw were Democratic senators in particular and a handful of Republicans, I'll say, focusing in on RFK Jr. S past comments and warning quite publicly that while RFK Jr. Was promising that he believed in vaccines, that he would not change things dramatically at the Health and Human Services Department when he took over, that that was just a cover. And there was one exchange we'll play here now with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts that I think kind of illustrates the tenor of those questioning and the concerns that Democrats had.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren
No one should be fooled here. As Secretary of hhs, Robert Kennedy will have the power to undercut vaccines and vaccine manufacturing across our country. And for all of his talk about follow the science and his promise that he won't interfere with those of us who want to vaccinate his kids. The bottom line is the same. Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it. Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy can keep cashing in.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Senator, I support vaccines. I will, I support the childhood schedule. I will do that. The only thing I want is good science and that's it.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
And Anthony, it's probably worth us just going through. So since then, what has actually happened to this point about the kind of gap between what he said at that time and the actions he's subsequently taken? We've seen how he has essentially fired 17 members of the Vaccine Advisory Commission, the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Commission, and replaced several of them with vaccine skeptics, people who really do have a reputation for engaging with anti vaccine sentiment ideas. And then in late August as well, the director of the cdc, Susan Manarez, who had been confirmed by this bipartisan committee with having, quote, unimpeachable scientific credentials, was fired less than a month into the job. I mean, Anthony, all of of those things do not seem to match so much with what he was then, what he was previously saying about. No, no, no, I'm not, you know, I'm not anti vaccine. That's not going to impact the way I do this job.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
Exactly. I mean I think that that this does show that, that RFK Jr. When he came in was, was ready and willing to make pretty significant changes and particularly to the cdc, the Centers for Disease Control, which is the sprawling government agency that oversees all sorts of disease management research protecting the American public from infectious diseases. Obviously it played a major role in the COVID pandemic response.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
And Anthony, you explained the CDC there. What is ACIP as well?
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
So that's the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and it is a group that issues recommendations to the CDC director as well as the health secretary on, on the safety of vaccines, the recommended uses of vaccine. It sets together that schedule that we heard talked about in that last clip about when to have vaccines, what order to have them in the timing of it, and the importance of them. And so it's a key committee. It's an advisory committee, obviously, but it is an important. It plays an important role in determining the rules for vaccines that most Americans follow, or certainly recommended, encouraged to follow.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Yeah. And Anthony, it feels like those various changes we're just chatting about has been this kind of like, drip, drip, drip of, oh, hang on a second. Okay, why is RFK Jr doing this? This feels like quite a big change. And then when in at the end of August, like I mentioned before, the director of the cdc, Susan Menarez, was fired only a month, less than a month in. And then other people also working at the CDC resigned in protest of that. That felt like a kind of culmination of, oh, what's going on behind the scenes here? And why are these people who are really well respected and experts in their field suddenly turning around and saying, we don't want to do this anymore? This was what RFK Jr said when he defended those changes, including that one during a Senate hearing, which was a few weeks ago.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Finally, I would like to address the reason shake up, said cdc. These changes were absolutely necessary adjustments to restore the agency to its role as the world's gold standard public health agency with a central mission of protecting Americans from infectious disease. CDC failed that responsibility miserably during COVID when its disastrous nonsensical policies destroyed small businesses, violated civil liberties, closed our schools, caused generational damage in doing so, masked infants with no science and heightened economic inequality. And yet all those oppressive and unscientific interventions failed to do anything about the disease itself. America is home to 4.2% of the world's population, yet we had nearly 20% of the COVID deaths. We literally did worse than any country in the world. And the people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
So there's one term there that we keep seeing pop up again and again. And that's the idea of a gold standard of science relying on science. RFK Jr says that's what he wants to do. His critics say that he's not doing it. This does seem to be something that. That comes up time and time again, doesn't it? Mariana, what is good science? How do you define It. And it's a battle for defining that term.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Yeah. And I think it's who you're relying on for that good science as well. I mean, what is interesting is that RFK Jr. In particular has quite frequently relied most heavily on scientists, doctors who have been quite criticized and are very much not aligned with the body of evidence. And I think what's difficult is sometimes it feels like you've got, you know, RFK Jr inhabiting this particular world where the experts are, you know, that they're all the contrarians, are the experts. And anyone who is in line with the mainstream body of science, like the mainstream consensus, they're perceived to be wrong only because they are supporting the mainstream. And that doesn't. That doesn't mean that they're wrong. And it feels like that's the difficult place that America has got to, which is that anything that's perceived to be part of the institutions or part of the establishment is somehow incorrect. But actually, that's just not how science works, is it?
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
Right. So we've heard RFK Jr. S defense of that shakeup at the CDC and within the Health Department writ large, including the firing of Manares. Well, here is Susan Menarez testifying for herself before that same committee, and she obviously has a very different take on whether RFK Jr is following science and whether these shakeups were warranted.
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Susan Menares
On the morning of August 25th, Secretary Kennedy demanded two things of me. They were inconsistent with my oath of office and the ethics required of a public official. He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause. He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign. I responded that I could not pre approve recommendations without reviewing the evidence, and I had no basis to fire scientific experts. He told me he had already spoken with the White House several times about having me removed.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Okay, now let's speak to someone who did resign in protest at the firing of the director. We were talking about the former director of the cdc, Susan Menares, and just the general running of public health under RFK Jr. S leadership. She's the former chief medical officer at the CDC. Her name is Dr. Deborah Howery, and she worked there for 10 years under four different administrations. Hi, Deborah. Thanks for joining us.
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Dr. Deborah Howery
My pleasure.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Talk me through the decision to resign. What?
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
What?
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Like, when did you first start thinking about that?
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Dr. Deborah Howery
So I actually first started thinking about it in March of this year. It was one of those things to where I was the transition lead for the agency. And so I was. I'd read RFK Jr's books, had developed some big ideas to really support his priorities, and was optimistic to try to find some areas of alignment. But as some of the staffing cuts were initially proposed, I couldn't support them, and at that point, point was going to resign, but was able to appeal and actually protect several of our programs and staff. But over time, things kept happening. Like in a measles toolkit, they wanted to put information on two medications that weren't evidence based and not recommended for measles. And I couldn't do that. And I pushed back on that because I don't want to do harm. We have to do what's right in medicine. He also, the secretary ordered the removal of a scientific document on thimerosal, which is an additive on vaccines. And to me, that felt like political interference and not radical transparency if you want the public to know all the data. Over time, those things began to happen. And I was looking forward to Dr. Minarez joining the CDC. I'd spoken to her in the interim, and she was excited to bring a rigorous approach to science and make some changes. Within our first week, she tried to make some changes to the committee. Y' all were talking about the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and the department wouldn't let her. And I knew at that point she was gonna be ineffective in trying to make change. And when the department called her in to terminate her, myself and two of my employees who work on vaccines knew that that was the time to sound the alarm. And we resigned at that time.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
Yeah, you know, we just listened to that clip of RFK Jr. S testimony when he was being confirmed. I'm sure you heard him. You were listening to him. I'm sure you were paying a lot of attention to it. I mean, were you reassured by hearing him say those things? And how much of a shock was it as this was all kind of unfolding, seeing what he was doing? Did you feel like he misrepresented himself?
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Dr. Deborah Howery
Yes. I'm not so reassured is the right word. But, you know, I was hopeful when I heard his testimony, but he was quickly, you know, not acting, you know, in accordance with what he had said. During the height of the measles epidemic in the United States, we were hitting record numbers of cases. He was promoting vitamins over vaccines, you know, and saying misinformation on vaccines. And I had to send, you know, some talking points to our leadership team to share with the department to try to Rectify that, but obviously that. That didn't help. And then he said he wasn't going to change the vaccine committee, and he did. And then he said he wasn't going to change access to vaccines, but he did. He changed the CDC COVID vaccine guidance, which in fact, I learned about as the agency's chief medical officer on Twitter or X. I saw the video, and when asked to implement those changes, we replied back and said, we can't make changes to vaccine policy on a social media video like we need a written directive. But very different from any other administration. I worked with, you know, the prior Trump administration, much more collaborative, appreciated scientists. So this is really unprecedented is almost an understatement.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Yeah.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
I mean, it's interesting you say that, right? I mean, this isn't the first Trump administration. There were four years that you worked with them, worked through those four years. I mean, obviously it was a critical time because of the COVID pandemic. And here we are. It's different. I just wonder, because it's a question we have a lot. Why is this time different? What changed? And. And since you were kind of there in the middle of it, at what point did you realize, oh, my gosh, this is a different game this time around?
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Dr. Deborah Howery
I would say probably within the first month or two of Secretary Kennedy starting under the prior Trump administration. You know, we regularly had interactions with the secretary and their leaders under Secretary Kennedy. I never briefed the secretary and neither did my center directors. And you would think, you know, when the secretary has priorities on vaccines or there's a measles outbreak, he would want to hear from senior career scientists at the agency. And he did not. We had offered, but we were not picking up on those offers. So there was really no collaboration or even expert advice that we were able to provide with the secretary, and completely different from any other administration I worked with.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
And, you know, one of the things that RFK Jr. Has mentioned time and time again is his criticism of the CDC around the pandemic and kind of say they didn't get anything right. And I think they handled it really badly. What's your response to that? Because I guess there's, you know, there's. It's not the case that science will always get stuff spot on, particularly in an evolving situation where you don't quite know what's happening.
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Dr. Deborah Howery
Oh, totally. And, you know, some of that criticism is founded and some are certainly unfounded. What I would say is during, you know, the pandemic, CDC learned a lot. This was a novel pathogen that you Know, we didn't have the science and the data on. And so as new things were learned, guidance changed. And I think the agency could have been more proactive early on, saying what they knew and what they didn't know and explaining how science changes. But after that pandemic, I actually led a lot of our reorganization and moving forward efforts to look at how we could do things differently and better. And I wish that's what the secretary had listened to, is that CDC changed after the pandemic. Data is much more timely on dashboards. Lab quality had been addressed in working with the private sector, and we had staff trained to respond to outbreaks. So cdc, you know, did have missteps during the pandemic, but learned, and that's what's unfortunate, is under Secretary Kennedy, many of the things that move forward and that were learned during the pandemic are now being completely dismantled, and so the United States will be less prepared now.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Do you think it's had an impact that, you know, I guess a combination of that erosion of trust within some communities or some people when it comes to public health following the pandemic, and then the. And then the rise of someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Who appeals to people who do feel distrustful of health officials, scientists.
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Dr. Deborah Howery
Yeah, I think it was really the perfect storm. You know, certainly with social media and with distrust, you could see them, you know, people posting a lot more and misinformation continuing to spread. And then the secretary spreads misinformation, you know, and also spreads doubt and experts. It was really disheartening to me that the only time I met the secretary is when he came to our campus at CDC after the shooting. You know, there was a violent attack on CDC based on Covid misinformation. And the secretary came three days later to tour the campus. Later that afternoon, he did a media interview where he said, don't trust the experts. That's not what's needed during a time after a violent attack based on misinformation. That's where the secretary should be, condoning violence and spreading correct information about what we know and what we don't know.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
Right. And that was your one time meeting him in person. Since he was secretary, you said you didn't brief him at all. What was it like being there with him and seeing him in person?
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Dr. Deborah Howery
I've had very little interaction with him. I thanked him for coming. He essentially did the tour of the campus, had a short briefing on the violent attack, and then he left. I was glad he came to see the damage, but I was very disappointed by the lack of engagement that he had with the staff and the lack of, really support for Officer David Rose, who lost his life. And any follow ups after the shooting with our staff, he didn't have any.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Has that ramping up of misinformation, particularly health misinformation, and then the hate that that has triggered, directed at officials at the cdc. People like you, has that had a personal impact? You know, have you had to deal with online abuse? Think about your safety. Did you ever imagine when you first started that job that that could end up being the case?
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Dr. Deborah Howery
No, I never quite imagined being in this position for sure. And how people really won't have productive conversations. You know, they assume things about people and are quick to criticize and threaten. Really, really depersonalize. And, you know, for our staff after the shooting, you know, many won't put their names on papers. In the vaccine committee meeting, you talked about our subject matter experts actually were in a different room just to provide a bit more cover for them so that they, you know, weren't as visible. And certainly with the hearing last week, I was worried about safety.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
What was your reaction to this joint press conference and the discussion of Tylenol and the unproven link to autism that was made by Donald Trump and RFK Jr. And then also the mention of the MMR vaccine, given the outbreak that was happening in Texas earlier this year.
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Dr. Deborah Howery
So, you know, I really hope the President listens to people other than Secretary Kennedy. It's obviously that Secretary Kennedy has been briefing the President and that's where he's getting his information or lack of information from. You know, Tylenol, there's been some studies have shown an association with autism. There's some that show that there isn't an association and some that should know it's actually protective. And the most well done study showed that there's no association. When you look at genetics and other associations, the FDA themselves came out with a very, I'd say, watered down statement later on saying, you know, there may be an association, but there's not a causal link. And it's still the safest medication to give in pregnancy for fever. That's not what we heard at the press conference. And, you know, the President mentioned vaccines, which was interesting because it wasn't in any of the materials that came from the White House after the event. So I think probably the President and the Secretary had been talking about vaccines and they weren't necessarily ready to share that yet. But, you know, aluminum is safe. There was a Danish study that came out recently and you know, the president talked about removing that from vaccines, which has been something the Secretary has talked a lot about. And MMR, the CDC vaccine committee did recommend to not do the MMRV, but to do the MMR and the varicella vaccines separately for those under age 4. But when we have an unprecedented level of measles cases in the US Is not the time to try to change measles vaccination in the United States or to sow any doubts.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
So bottom line, Deborah, can Americans trust the CDC anymore? Should they be looking towards these other groups for their science, for their recommendations? How trustworthy is the Trump administration on health issues at this point?
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Dr. Deborah Howery
I'm very concerned. CDCA actually updated its landing page last week. If you look at the About Us webpage on cdc, it doesn't look like any other CDC About Us webpage ever has. It has a lot of things on policies and it doesn't reflect, you know, CDC's overall mission. And during the Vaccine Committee, I saw the CDC x social media handle really leaning in more on questions about vaccines and even some studies that were from other countries and many years ago, versus having a balanced approach. So at this point I would be wary of looking at some of the information that's coming out of cdc, particularly around vaccines.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
All right, Deborah Howery, it has been really great having you on here and giving us an insider's view of the cdc. Not just over the past year, which has been very tumultuous, but over the past 10 years you've seen a lot of in the Heart of America's Infectious Disease response. So thanks for being on.
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Dr. Deborah Howery
My pleasure.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Thanks so much.
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Anthony, BBC Bureau Reporter
That's it for this episode, but if you want to hear more on how we started our conversation today on autism and the myth that childhood vaccines cause it, our sister podcast, the Global Story, delves into the roots of it, starting with the disgraced British doctor Andrew Wakefield and his influence in America. You can find them in the place where you normally find your podcasts. Bye y'. All.
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Podcast Promo Voice
AmeriCast AmeriCast from BBC News.
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Podcast Host/Outro
Well done for getting all the way to the end of another AmericasT episode that makes you officially an Americaster. It's not easy navigating your way through the news in America, particularly at the moment, but you did it and we're delighted to have you with us. So if you do have a comment or a question about any of the stories we've talked about or anything you'd like us to to talk about, do please get in touch. You can email us americastbc.co.uk you can WhatsApp us a message on 033-01-239480. And we do answer your questions every single week on the podcast. You can always join the discussion in our online community on Discord. The link is in our podcast description in your app, and we'll be back with another episode very soon. Till then, see you all later.
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Mariana, aka Misinformation
Bye bye.
- [32:17]
Susan Menares
America is changing, and so is the world.
- [32:21]
Mariana, aka Misinformation
But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
- [32:29]
Susan Menares
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
- [32:31]
Mariana, aka Misinformation
Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global story.
- [32:35]
Susan Menares
Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
- [32:41]
Mariana, aka Misinformation
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.