← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
A
First of all, thanks for joining us. Cohen and I just spent three hours watching the hearing that RFK had before the Senate Finance Committee this morning. It's Thursday. It comes in the wake of incredible controversies at the CDC and hhs and it promised to be a pretty combustible hearing, a lot of fireworks and frankly, I don't think it disappointed. I was talking in one of our Slack chats and we're going to get into recaps of the hearing. So if you haven't seen it, don't worry. Was talking to Slack chair. I can't recall a recent hearing, I suppose, where there was so much skepticism shared across the aisle for the person who was sitting there and in this case such a senior person in administration. He took a lot of very tough questions, not just from Democrats but from some notable Republicans too. And I thought his performance was pretty shaky. Honestly, I don't think it's going to doom him in the eyes of Donald Trump, which is what ultimately matters matters. But it's hard to see him coming out of this hearing with a better standing. If anything, he probably raised a number of very difficult follow up questions that he's going to have to deal with going forward. Before we get into the specifics of it, what is your what was your big picture takeaway?
- [01:19]
B
Jonathan yeah, So I had three so first of all, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Still lying all the time about vaccine safety, just repeating claims that have been discredited, shed a little bit more light on some of the people he's listening to and not listening to some of his conversations with Susan Menarez, the former CDC director who he pushed out, both confirming a lot of the reporting out there and also making very clear that what we've all suspected, that the people he's listening to are largely fringe voices peddling theories that just most of the scientific community rejects. And then the third, along with what Lon, you're saying this is sort of political observation, was that he did take, I thought, a lot of heat from some Republicans. And it was very clear to me from the and you really saw this with Cassidy. You saw it with a few others. Also, this attempt to sort of say warp speed is this great thing that Donald Trump did and you're against it. And it was so clear what they were trying to do, at least to me. I mean I'm not the most sophisticated political you're not so bad. But I mean it seemed pretty clear to me what they were really trying to do is kind of drive a wedge there. And for the infamous famous Audience of one Donald Trump say, hey, this guy's trashing your legacy. You really want this guy here. So, I mean, that was my read on it.
- [02:46]
A
I came into that exchange because it seemed like so much, like so much of the Republican inquiry fell around those lines. Before we do though, I think it's important to kind of set the stage here about what had happened prior to him coming before the committee. I mean, obviously the most significant development has been the ousting of top people. At the cdc Director herself, Suzumez, three of her top deputies resigned. She had refused to fire them and when she was pushed out, they left. So incredible disregard that agency. But it's not just that. Right. Like we now have. This came up during the hearing, the pulling of $500 million in funding for MRNA vaccines and then on top of that, the stacking of the advisory panel for vaccines with notable skeptics. And on top of that, recommendations for the COVID booster that restricted or said they would not recommend, I should say, for people under 65 and children. So that's the backdrop here. And you know, look, you talk to the people in the medical community more than I do. Like, you know, what is the sort of 30,000 foot view of what, what's going on at our health agencies as he stepped foot into the Senate today?
- [04:07]
B
Yeah, so I mean the 30,000 foot view is that he's destroying the CDC. At least that's not destroying the CDC, but he is turning it into an agency that no longer has the capabilities just because they're losing so many staff and they're losing so much money. But not only isn't it losing the sort of capabilities, but losing its credibility. When you think about, to me, it is all, these are all part of the same story. And the resignations and the firing of men are as. What were those resignations over? What was that firing over? And he talked about it a little bit in the testimony today and he was pressed on this. It was because these experienced scientists would not stand by, would not put their name by, would not agree to in advance or some version of that, what Kennedy was pushing on in terms of his anti vaccine agenda. And you know, he does this thing and it came up constantly in the hearings today where he'll say I am for the science and then he will pull out a scientist or two or a study or two. And if you don't, if you're not familiar with what he's talking about, it sounds plausible. But if you dig into any one of these at the end of the line. It's always the sort of same thing. It's one scientist who has a very kind of marginal view. Some cases, not all, they've been actually discredited for various reasons or the studies have been discredited. And so the scientists around the country, the doctors around the country, whatever their politics, and this is pretty much not universal, but the vast majority, whatever their politics, whatever their different judgment calls on different issues, because medicine does involve judgment calls, they are appalled, they are just appalled that the scientific health agency of the United States is out there putting out information that they all reject resoundingly.
- [06:02]
A
Yeah, that's the thing. And this is repeated. First of all, let me just stress for program purposes, I'm watching the live channel comments. And so if you have some questions, I'll try my best to get to them if you want to pose them in the channel. Secondly is this is a thing that. Here's Will. The great Will Salatin is joining us, which really ups our game tremendously. Hey, Will, thank you for doing this. Will. This is the thing about Kennedy. He's got this, this method where he throws around numbers and you know, it just comes at such a sort of gusher that you're like, what, what is he talking about? What are the. He'll have like a data point or a scientific study he'll point to and you have no clue who these people are. Unless you're like super in the weeds and it sounds all professional and scientific, or he'll just simply deny things he said in the past and you don't have the chance to look it up. There was at least three occasions during this hearing where he said something. He's like, I never said that. And I just went on Google and within five minutes found something that he had actually said. And the other thing that he does is that if you dare to push back on him, and this happened repeatedly today, you dare to push back on him in one of these settings, he'll call you a shill for pharma. He'll just say, you are in pharma's pocket. And he has this thing that includes Bernie Sanders. And it's very infuriating for the Bernie Sanders people. He says, well, you got $300,000 in donations from pharma. And what he's talking about is people who work for pharmaceutical companies, like low level workers, happen to donate to Bernie Sanders. It doesn't mean that Bernie Sanders is on the pharma payroll. But he uses this insinuation to diminish his critics. This happened time and time Again, I want to talk, though, about the minorities thing. We'll start there with the clips because this was one of the more surreal moments of the whole exchange where he's being pressed about why he fired Susan Manoros, a person who he had praised a month ago when she was confirmed as Donald Trump and his choice to lead the agency by Republican Senate. He has turned on her, and this is what he had to say to Warren. And this gives you a sense of how surreal this whole hearing was. Let's play the clip.
- [08:12]
C
Head of the CDC that if she refused to sign off on your changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, that she had to resign.
- [08:21]
D
No, I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, are you a trustworthy person? And she said no. If you had an employee who told you they weren't trustworthy, would you ask them to resign, Senator?
- [08:38]
C
So I'm sorry, but this is not what she has said publicly.
- [08:43]
D
She has said, I'm not surprised about that.
- [08:46]
C
So you're saying she's lying?
- [08:48]
D
Yes. Every conversation I had with her, there were.
- [08:52]
C
This is the same person that less than a month earlier, you stood next to her and described her as unimpeachable, and you had full confidence in her and that you had full confidence in her scientific credentials, and in a month, she became a liar.
- [09:12]
D
Yeah, you should ask her what changed. And by the way, a month ago, you were voting against her.
- [09:17]
A
All right, we can stop that. So first of all, the logic here doesn't really make sense. She's both a liar and admits that she's a liar. But anyways, I'm gonna ask someone who also admits to not being trustworthy, Will Salatin, who openly admits to not being who everyone be like, yeah, you're right. I'm not a trustworthy person. It makes no sense.
- [09:40]
E
I don't know where to start with this guy. Okay, so as you guys were saying, it can be very confusing to watch Robert f. Ken Kennedy Jr. Because he sounds like he knows what he's talking about, and he can cite a bunch of studies and numbers. He makes you feel like everything's in doubt because he seems to have stuff on his side. And as Jonathan said, you have to go research it yourself to find out that he's lying, delusional, come up with your explanation. Just wrong about everything. So you guys were talking about Elizabeth Warren. I mean, some of what Kennedy said in this hearing just doesn't pass, like a basic plausibility test.
- [10:12]
A
Like, what?
- [10:14]
E
Elizabeth Warren is in the pocket of industry. Can you guys, if you listed 100 senators. Where would she. She'd be number 100. I believe she'd be at the bottom.
- [10:23]
B
Of the list of.
- [10:24]
A
In the pocket of industry.
- [10:27]
E
Oh, Bernie, Bernie. Right up there, actually.
- [10:29]
B
Yeah, that's right.
- [10:30]
E
Yeah. And this, this episode, like, okay, there's he said, she saids about what happened in this meeting. Right. Under no plausible scenario did Susan Menarez say, no, I am not trustworthy. That is literally what his version of events. So we just know his version is wrong. The other one that he said in this hearing, he said he fired her because we need new blood.
- [10:56]
B
She was the new blood.
- [10:59]
E
He's like, we're putting in this person four weeks later. No, we need new blood. It's insane on its face.
- [11:06]
A
No, totally. And there's some stuff, though, that's like. I mean, that's. I'm not going to call this comical, because it's not comical. It's crazy. But I mean, it was so ridiculous that you had to laugh at it. But there are other places where, you know, I just was like, for instance, this one really got my go. He. He was, he accused the CDC of completely being negligent on diabetes. He says, you know, you failed on diabetes. No one is. I think his quote is, no one is doing anything about diabetes. Which of course is ridiculous, he was saying. And we might actually have. Yeah, it's clip number two. I'm gonna play it in.
- [11:40]
D
New data that showed that infant mortality has increased in this country in 2024. The first time in 20 years we've. Diabetes has gone up 98% in 20 years. Nobody's doing anything about it. CDC's job was to make sure that this didn't happen. And what we're going to do is reorganize CDC. But also, we've already righted the ship at NIH, at FDA and CMS.
- [12:08]
A
All right. Righted the ship at NIH. One of the things that has happened under NIH, under his leadership, is that they canceled a 30 year ongoing study into diabetes and pre diabetes. I mean, it's just, it's like the world is upside down and flat and, you know, I just don't know how you can contend or push back against someone who spouts all that bullshit cone.
- [12:31]
B
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if this is the most dangerous. It's not the most dangerous of his claims, but he's constantly saying this. You know, we've never addressed, you know, chronic disease. I'm the one who discovered this. And we're going to save all. I mean, Look, I've been covering health care for, like, okay, well, a long time. You know, basically 25 years or more. Like the first day, I'm pretty sure there was some conference on what are we gonna do about chronic disease. It's been an obsession for years now. We should probably, you know, we haven't figured it out yet, and it's a really complicated problem, but I promise you that slashing the budget for nih, getting rid of all the people at CDC who know what they're doing, and also cutting back on vaccines is not gonna make us healthier. And he says these things and there's a bit of a messianic. Is that the word I'm looking for? Kind of, you know, like, I'm gonna save us all. I have all the wisdom. You know, I know all this, and I'm gonna clean house. And it's just, you know, if you heard somebody like this, you know, like this on the, you know, you. I mean, I, you know, you have like your crazy uncle talks like this, except your crazy uncle's now in charge of the biggest federal agency in charge of American health.
- [13:42]
A
I think Bernie kind of hit on that point where he was like, everyone's corrupt. I'll do my burner. Everyone's corrupt. Except everybody is corrupt. Yeah. And so that's the thing. There is a messianic complex.
- [13:53]
B
This is.
- [13:54]
E
Wait, wait, so this is RFK's whole game for people out there, just understand this. His whole game is to create a false choice between dealing with chronic disease and dealing with infectious disease. Right. And his whole paradigm is everybody before me was only dealing with infectious disease, which, as you guys are pointing out, is just bs, Right? So he. Yes. His thing is, I'm the only one in this hearing. He said that the CDC had failed to do anything about the disease itself. Covid. He said to Ron Wyden, the senator, you've sat here in this chair while chronic disease went up and you've said nothing. I can assure you Ron Wyden has settled and done a lot. He said that we're going to tell people the truth for, quote, the first time in the history of that agency, cdc. And by his own admission, he had said to Manares, I think, that that CDC was like the most corrupt agency in the government. But these are astonishing statements and they speak to his degree of deception and self deception about the extent of fault within the health agencies.
- [14:56]
A
Let's play the. So much of the hearing revolved. We talked about a little bit, but so much of the hearing revolved. Around operation warp speed, I think rightly, because it's a proxy for a few things. One is for MRNA vaccine technology. The other is for just belief in vaccines in general. And the third is, of course, for whether Donald Trump can be brought back into believing that this was an achievement versus a dark stain in his legacy. Let's play the Mark Warner exchange and then from there, let's just have a conversation about how this played out in the hearing.
- [15:31]
F
So, again, some basic fact. Do you accept the fact that a million Americans died from COVID I don't.
- [15:37]
D
Know how many died.
- [15:39]
F
You're the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You don't have any idea how many Americans died from COVID I don't think.
- [15:47]
D
Anybody knows because there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC and there was diverse incentives. And these are modeling.
- [15:57]
F
You don't know the answer of how many Americans from COVID This is the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Do you think the vaccine did anything to prevent additional deaths?
- [16:09]
D
Again, I would like to see the data and talk about the data.
- [16:14]
F
You have had this job for eight months and you don't know the data about whether the vaccine.
- [16:20]
D
The problem is that they didn't have the data. The data by the Biden administration absolutely does what we.
- [16:26]
F
So when data chaos, who is politicizing? You're saying the Biden administration politicized all the data? Go back to what? Cantwell just go to the Trump surgeon General.
- [16:37]
D
They fired Dr. Grouch. They fired all the people who questioned the orthodoxy. They fired Dr. Gruber.
- [16:43]
F
Dr. Kaus, Chairman, Secretary of Health and Human Services, doesn't, no matter how many Americans died from COVID let them know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths. And you are sitting as Secretary of Health and Human Services. How can you be that ignorant?
- [17:01]
A
All right, Cohen, let's talk about that. He was trying, he being Kennedy in this case, was really trying to walk a weird tightrope here, simultaneously saying, yeah, Donald Trump should get the Nobel for Operation Worst Fee. But also, I have no clue if it was actually an effective vaccine.
- [17:19]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's a bit of a tough tightrope to walk.
- [17:22]
A
Right.
- [17:23]
B
He has been very critical of the COVID vaccine. And one of the problems here is that he said so many outrageous things. Unless you walk around with an encyclopedic brain to remember what exactly he said a year ago or six months ago or a month ago when he's standing in front of you and saying, I didn't say that, it gets really hard to do, actually, which my advice to Democratic senators next time they have him, assuming there's a next time, is have the quotes with you, put them up on a sign. Because I actually think it's quite hard to kind of nail that down. But this was such a classic case of how Kennedy does this. So he's got two claims here, right? So his number one claim is I don't know how many people died from COVID and then I don't know if the vaccine saved lives. And the thing he does so well is he picks out like a little bit of truth, a true fact out there, and twists it so it is true. We don't know exactly how many people died from COVID because the, you know, the measuring isn't perfect. And in fact, most likely deaths in this country are probably higher. They were probably under counted rather than overcounted. But he can say, well, we don't know exactly. Well, yeah, but the answer you want to hear from him, and what the normal answer would be is we can't be precise because these numbers are never that precise. But we know at least a million Americans died from COVID and it was a terrible disease, of course. And on the vaccines, he then he talked about this later. He said, well, we don't know because all the estimates of how many people who died was based on modeling. Well, yeah, I mean, how else are you going to do it? I mean, we're not going to take a checkbox and saying, you know this. There's just you have to model to estimate it. He could have said, look, we can't be precise about how many. We're having to make some projections, but we have very good reason to believe, and he kind of hinted at this later, that in fact it did save tons of lives. But of course he doesn't want to say that. He doesn't want to say lots of people died from COVID because in his world, the worldview he's advancing, Covid wasn't that bad and the vaccine was worse.
- [19:19]
A
Well, also, I mean, to your point of having those quotes readily available, I mean, he's on the record saying, and this is, quote, that the COVID vaccine was, quote, the deadliest vaccine ever made. I mean, this is not like, you know, it wasn't even that long ago. It's on paper, we have it. So to then go around and say, well, actually it was worthy of the Nobel is important. Before I get to you will, just on the science here, the decision to cut 500 million from MRNA research and funding, obviously the COVID vaccine was made with that technology. That also came up as a real area of concern. How big a setback is that for developing future vaccines and treatments? Karen?
- [20:02]
B
Oh, me.
- [20:03]
A
So, yeah, I don't turn too much for science, John.
- [20:11]
B
So, I mean, it's huge. I mean, this platform, the great thing about it is you can make the vaccine so much quicker. And, you know, we don't know when the next. We don't know when the next bird flu, some other kind of outbreak is going to happen. Having that ability ready to go could make such a difference, right? It could be the difference between having a vaccine in three months versus nine months versus a year and a half. And that's to say nothing of the sort of spillover knowledge we might get because we're already finding MRNA is a really useful platform potentially for. For treating things like cancer. So it's a huge loss. It's a huge loss to the American people and potentially for scientific knowledge as a whole. And one other element of it, which did come up kind of as an aside, but I always sort of think it's important to remember, which is that the companies that are going to sort of work on this, they're going to keep investing in this if they can. They're just going to go to countries that'll support it. And so we're going to lose the business, we're going to lose the innovation. And, you know, at some point, best case scenario, they keep working on these vaccines overseas and they are ready. But guess what? Now the next pandemic hits and we're going to be dependent on other countries for that technology.
- [21:21]
A
We're going to turn to China for help.
- [21:24]
E
Can I just point out Mark Warner's question was, did the vaccine do anything to prevent deaths? Anything? And the answer, you know, this is just an illustration of his extremism. You know, an answer could be, oh, absolutely, we're just not sure how many. But no, he wouldn't even give that part of the answer because it's part of his religion that the vaccine is bad. And he said elsewhere, how does Trump.
- [21:46]
A
Get the Nobel for that? I feel like the standards for the Nobel Peace Prize are a little bit lower here.
- [21:52]
E
So when Cornyn, Senator Cornyn, was interrogating Kennedy, Kennedy said, we relied to about everything about the vaccine. And he said as part of that answer, we were told that the vaccine would prevent infections and they knew that this wasn't true from the start. What the hell? I mean, there's tons of evidence on this, right? The original clinical trials, there's loads and Loads of evidence. He will not concede anything and he just makes things up. So you guys, correct me if you can remember this, I can't find it. He claimed that Joe Biden said that he would never take Trump's COVID vaccine. I don't find that anywhere. I find a statement from Joe Biden that he trusted vaccines and didn't trust Donald Trump. But this statement appears to be one of many of RFK's made up stories. I mean, he spent this whole hearing accusing the senators of making things up. He makes things up all the time.
- [22:46]
A
I vaguely recall not Biden, but I recall someone saying.
- [22:51]
E
Kamala Harris.
- [22:52]
A
Kamala Harris, yes.
- [22:53]
E
Kamala Harris said, and I forget what her exact quote. We will have to look that up.
- [22:58]
A
She will have it. She says she will take a COVID 19 vaccine if doctors say to, not if Trump does.
- [23:03]
E
Right.
- [23:04]
A
She was worried that Trump was rushing it to market before the election.
- [23:07]
E
Right.
- [23:07]
A
And so that's why she said there.
- [23:09]
E
Is no such statement from Joe Biden, as far as I know, in the record.
- [23:12]
A
Okay, I want to. So let's turn to the Republicans on this panel because everyone was waiting for Bill Cassidy, who, if people don't recall this, Bill Cassidy cast the most important vote for the confirmation of Kennedy to this current post. Not from his perch on Senate Finance, but from his purchase, the Chairman of help Committee. But Cassidy's also on finance and so he was going to have a chance to talk to or question Kennedy today. Everyone's waiting for this because they want to know what he was going to say, how angry he was going to be, so on and so forth. But before we even got to Cassidy, really, like, like the first real, actual surprise for me and a real telltale sign of how this was going to go for Kennedy came from Senator Barrasso, who is the second ranking Republican in the Senate, and I would argue a dutiful soldier. I mean, I can't ever recall this guy doing anything that would suggest he's off the reservation. He is a, you know, Trump sycophant. Also happens to be a doctor. Was a doctor. Anyways, let's play his clip because this was a real towel for how this was going for Kennedy.
- [24:18]
G
Vaccines. I'm a doctor. Vaccines work. Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I've grown deeply concerned. The public has seen measles outbreaks. Leadership of the National Institute of Health questioning the use of MRNA vaccines. The recently confirmed director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired Americans. Don't know who to rely on. You know, recent polls at 89% of voters, 81% of Trump voters agree vaccine recommendations should come from trained physicians, scientists, public health experts. So, you know, they believe, you know, Senator Marshall, Senator Cassidy, they believe me when it comes to vaccines. If we're going to make America healthy again, we can't allow public health to be undermined.
- [25:08]
A
Okay, so he's probably going to get primaried. No, I'm just joking. Well, how significant is that?
- [25:16]
E
Huge. Huge. And Sam, I'm really glad you pointed that. I was, I was going to flag it. We're 90 minutes into this hearing and I'm waiting because Cassidy, it's no, that that Cassidy is a critic of rfk Barrasso is the number two Republican in the Senate. He is, as you said, he's the Trump guy. For him to cross over and say, look, you're scaring people, nobody knows who to trust anymore, that is huge. Okay, so that's one sign. And I think you guys can correct me. Cassidy, Barrasso, Tillis, who else? Todd Young was sort of going there with Long Covid, but there were several.
- [25:50]
A
Republicans signaling for a little signal. But he was mostly on other topics. But yeah, there was at least a handful of Republicans who were not comfortable. Yeah.
- [26:00]
E
And I thought the other thing that was super interesting to me as a partisan matter was the large number of Democrats on that committee who were all playing the same game of Trump did this vaccine. You're against the vaccine. You're against Trump. Was it Warren? Somebody went after him about the. You said he was weak. You said that Trump was weak for going along with industry on it. They're playing to Trump's ego trying to drive away.
- [26:23]
A
Oh, yeah. Who showed the tweet? It might have been Tina Smith or Hasson. I forget which one on that frame. Let's play the Bill Cassidy clip. Cuz he also played that game. He's obviously.
- [26:33]
E
You're right, Sam. It was Hassan.
- [26:35]
A
All right, let's play the Bill Cassidy clip. Because he played that game that Will was talking about. And we can get into his motivations, too, on the other side of this.
- [26:43]
H
And I'm approaching this as a doctor, not as a senator. I am concerned about children's health.
- [26:48]
A
Get the camera out of the way.
- [26:49]
H
Seniors health, all of our health. And I applaud you for joining the president in a call for radical transparency. Thank you for that. I said yesterday, I believe it, that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed. If he had been President Obama, he would have gotten It. But because of Operation Warp Speed, forcing the federal government to come to a vaccine development within 10 months, when others said it couldn't be done. We saved millions of lives globally, trillions of dollars. We reopened economies, an incredible accomplishment. Mr. Secretary, do you agree with. With me that the president. That the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?
- [27:28]
D
Absolutely phenomenal.
- [27:30]
H
Let me ask you. But you just told Senator Bennett that the COVID vaccine killed more people than Covid. Wait, that was a statement.
- [27:40]
D
I did not say that.
- [27:42]
H
Okay, then let me ask, because you also.
- [27:45]
D
Senator, I just want to make clear. I cannot say.
- [27:47]
H
We'll check the record. That's a question of fact. You also said that you were also, as lead attorney for the Children's Health Defense, you engaged in multiple lawsuits attempting to restrict access to the COVID vaccine. Again, it surprises me that you think so highly of Operation Warp Speed when as an attorney, you attempted to restrict access.
- [28:11]
D
I'm happy to explain why.
- [28:14]
H
I have. I had 3 minutes and 30 seconds left.
- [28:19]
A
Cohen, unpack the history here with RFK. I mean, my recollection is that he was vehemently opposed to Operation Warp Seed in Real Time, in fact, suggested this might have been a pandemic. For people that don't know that's a government planned pandemic, and yet here he is trying to have it both ways.
- [28:41]
B
Yeah, I mean, I don't remember the details of where he was on Operation Warp Speed in Real Time. I do remember him filing that lawsuit calling for withdrawal of the authorization, which.
- [28:52]
A
Is what Cassidy was referring to there.
- [28:54]
B
I mean, he's clearly trying to have it both ways.
- [28:57]
A
And why do you think Cassidy went down this route? Cassidy has a whole host of things. He could have pushed him on the advisory panel at the cdc. He's been talking about a lot of the firings at the cdc. He's been worried about a lot. But he used this question for this. Why?
- [29:15]
B
Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's what we were talking about at the top. He's got a prime. You know, he's in Republican politics.
- [29:20]
A
Right.
- [29:20]
B
You can't get on the other side of Trump. You want to drive a wedge. I mean, this is the way to get. This is the. If you. If Kennedy is attached at the hip to Trump and you attack Kennedy, then you're attacking Trump. On the other hand, if you can separate the two and show Trump that Kennedy is not just separate, but is actually tarnishing Trump's legacy, you appealed to Trump to sort of to do something about it. And we've all been speculating and I think there's a little bit of reporting to suggest that in the Trump White House they are getting antsy. Most people believe in vaccines. Kennedy's really pushing the limits, I think even, maybe even within Republican politics of what you can say before it starts to really turn people against, you know, and I think the Republicans, it would be nice if Cassidy, a doctor who has been very clear that he believes in vaccines and believes all of this stuff from Kennedy is just nonsense, would just come out and say that he's not gonna do that. Obviously we've seen that.
- [30:21]
A
I mean, they got pretty close, man. They got pretty close. I'm not gonna say they didn't say it, but they were. The Cassidy and the Barrasso comments were about as close as I've ever seen them go to say you are like off the reservation.
- [30:37]
B
They are. And you know, but I mean, they could call for him to resign, right? I mean, they said because, you know, Cassidy has, could use his, you know, the health Committee to sort of, you know, call his perch there to, to do subpoena. I mean, he could be doing things and not just saying things when these, these hearings come up. And, you know, I think I might be trying to move in that direction. But I'm sure a lot of this is politics in Louisiana. Republican politics. It is for all of them. They're so petrified of the base and they're petrified that attacking Kennedy ends up looking like a cat attacking Trump. And we all know rule number one in Republican politics, you cannot ever say anything critical of Donald Trump.
- [31:15]
A
And rule number two, you always must defend the Kennedy family. That's a long standing tradition, Republican politics. It does create this weird imagery. Will, what do you have to say about that?
- [31:26]
E
So a couple things. First of all, there was this lovely moment when Bernie Sanders said, every member, every Republican member on this committee has received money from the farm. Are you saying they're all corrupt? So what Bernie is doing there is. He's playing on this division in the party. I mean, Kennedy is in this weird spot. He was a Democrat independent brought into the Trump administration, but he's got this whole anti corporate thing going in a party that's all about corporations. So Bernie's just twisting the knife. Like all you Republicans. You had a nice coherent thing going. The party of industry. This guy's attacking all of you. So that's one wedge. But the other one is this very personal thing about Donald Trump. Recall what I mean, Donald Trump never does the right thing for the right reasons. So there's entire industry of Republicans who work on Donald Trump trying to get him to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.
- [32:13]
B
And so they're like, that's true.
- [32:18]
E
So, like in Ukraine, it's like, you're never going to support Ukraine because you believe in protecting the victim country and fellow democracy. We're going to get you to do this. We're going to make you think that Vladimir Putin is personally offending you and personally ignoring you. And he's an affront. And so we're going to get so over here. It is all we need to get rid of rfk. So we can't persuade you that RFK is quack, which he is, but we can persuade you that he's undermined, that he's, as you said on, he's attacking your legacy. He's saying that this vaccine. And guys, as recently as within the last week, Trump repeated how much he, you know, he's. What a great achievement Operation Warp Speed is. He has not let go of the idea that's his vaccine.
- [32:58]
A
What was the tweet?
- [32:59]
E
They're playing on his ego very effectively.
- [33:02]
A
He had a weird post this week where he's like, it was a great success, but Pfizer needs to show me the data. Do you remember that one? Yeah, yeah.
- [33:09]
E
Somebody wrote that.
- [33:09]
B
They did. They posted. They posted. Look at all the studies. Because we have the data.
- [33:13]
A
And, you know, there was. Speaking of the Bernie moment, I forget who it was, but they're, you know, they're doing the whole. Well, you know, who is it that said you get a bunch of money for the people you put on the advisory, the ASAP advisory plan, where they all are, like, you know, plaintiffs on these earth, lawyers for these plaintiffs on these trials against the vaccine makers.
- [33:31]
E
Pointed that out.
- [33:34]
B
At one point.
- [33:34]
A
Yeah. She brought up during the confirmation hearing.
- [33:38]
E
That, by the way, I, I just got a flag. Did you guys talk about that before? Kennedy's answer was, oh, they may have a bias. These are paid witnesses.
- [33:45]
A
We haven't talked about this yet, but go ahead. What did he say?
- [33:48]
E
His answer was, it's not a conflict of interest. He literally said, it's not a conflict of interest. They're getting paid by the people. I mean, Kennedy has this whole conceit. It's the one Bernie talked about. Everyone else is corrupt, not me. What does Kennedy do? He goes on, like, Joe Merkle's podcast. Merkle has a whole industry of, like, putting out quack medicine. Like Kennedy. He makes. Kennedy has this whole industry of making money off of lawsuits against Pharma and his expert witnesses, his people are getting paid by his, his anti pharma industry. But somehow that's supposed to be insulated from inquiry and from interrogation. We're only supposed to talk about.
- [34:28]
A
Yeah, they're the pure ones. Let's just play quickly Bernie Sanders and then we can move on to a couple of the topics I want to hit with you guys. But let's watch Bernie Sanders. It got a little bit interesting. Two old men just yapping.
- [34:38]
I
Single Republican. I don't mean to be political here. Mr. Chairman has received PAC money from the pharmaceutical industry. Are they all corrupt as well?
- [34:47]
D
And I'm telling you the American Heart association has been co opted by the food.
- [34:50]
I
Everybody. But you said it. But you know what? When you ran for president, you know we have a corrupt campaign finance system. Maybe you will agree with me on that. Okay, you president, you got a billionaire behind it. You received $300,000 from people, not from the industry, people in it as I did from individuals.
- [35:09]
A
You corrupt.
- [35:09]
I
President Trump got $3 million. Every Republican got corporate PAC money for the pharmaceutical industry. Democrats as well. Everybody is corrupt but you. Is that what we're looking at? I don't think so. And I think the issue.
- [35:24]
D
I don't even know what you're talking about.
- [35:25]
I
Well, I think you're doing what I'm talking about.
- [35:27]
D
I don't know what you're talking about.
- [35:28]
I
The issue is every time anyone agrees with you.
- [35:31]
D
Are you saying the pharmaceutical industry was supporting my presidential.
- [35:36]
I
No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying the pharmaceutical industry is a greedy institution which is charging us the highest prices in the world. They are pervasive. But to suggest that every institution, the ama, the pediatrics people, is corrupt because they disagree with you, is it insulting?
- [35:55]
D
People disagree with me all the time. I have arguments in my agency, heated arguments, every.
- [36:01]
A
That's a lot of fun. A lot of fun. I love how Bernie just points. I want to go on to the other topic that I think was on top of mine for Republicans because beyond Cassie Tillerson Barrasso, the questions that they asked weren't necessarily all about vaccines or the CDC for that matter. A lot of times, Jonathan, the question centered around rural hospitals and this $50 billion fund that they have included to support rural hospitals. $10 billion coming, I think each year over the next five years. It is a drop in the bucket compared to the Medicaid cuts that are going to be happening on the scope of $1 trillion. This came up repeatedly. How did Kennedy navigate this one?
- [36:44]
B
Yeah, so Background for your readers, our viewers, our watchers. You can see I used to write for magazines readers. People still read, right. I remember one big beautiful bill took all this money out of Medicaid, about a trillion dollars. And Republicans continue to insist we didn't actually cut Medicaid or it was just waste and fraud. Big chunk of the money is going.
- [37:09]
A
To come out of rural hospitals, which already were struggling.
- [37:14]
B
And the argument, the party line from Republicans, which RFK Jr absolutely peddled as well, is that this bill is great, actually. It's not going to do horrible things to rural hospitals because we're giving rural hospitals $50 billion. Look at that. They are $50 billion. But if you break down the money and the cuts, the estimates, the best estimates I've seen suggest that rural hospitals are going to lose $150 billion in Medicaid cut. So, you know, we'll do a little math here. So you lose 150. Here's where you started. You'll lose 150. You come back 50. That's a cut, right?
- [37:56]
A
You're good at math, Jonathan.
- [37:58]
B
I am.
- [37:58]
A
I am very referred.
- [37:59]
B
I'm really good at math. You can tell. Point is, it is a drop in the bucket. And this is their effort to try to sell this thing as not cutting Medicaid. And the reason they're trying to sell it is because it's deeply unpopular. It's coming up all the time. We're seeing the town hall meetings and we're seeing real impacts. We're seeing rural hospitals close. We are seeing. I just was reading this morning, I want to say it was Idaho might have been a different state, announced they were going through their budget. And because they know the Medicaid money coming in, what they're going to do is they're going to start paying their doctors and hospitals less through Medicaid. That's going to make the problem even worse. And this is a big vulnerability for them because these are their voters, it's their constituents, it's their states. And they got a midterm and then eventually a presidential election.
- [38:44]
A
And the other thing. So the other thing that kind of tickled me a little bit. So Langford brought this up when he was asking, you know, thank you. He thanked him for putting together this hospital fund. So it's going to be so great for all hospitals to have this hospital. He thanked him for getting the NIH grant money back flowing. He's like, it's really helpful to have the credit. It's like, why are you thanking him? These are Two problems that they caused. I mean they, the need for a hospital fund is strictly because of the Medicaid cuts in the big beautiful bill. The fact that the NH money wasn't flowing is because it was organizational chaos and they made a proactive decision to hold back the funds for reasons that still remain somewhat unclear to the people who are on the receiving end of them. So thanking them for just not hitting you in the face is an act. And then the thing that Kennedy did when he was pressing this by Democrats is he just denied reality. So let's play that Warner clip. I think it's clip seven where Warner asks him about the Medicaid cuts and he has the following to say, well.
- [39:45]
F
Then how is, absolutely, well then how is that going to happen with the Medicaid cuts that are taking place?
- [39:51]
D
There are no cuts to Medicaid, sir.
- [39:53]
F
That is an absurd. There is not a single. So my Republican college. There is not a single study that does not. I can tell you, I was in Franklin, Virginia a couple days ago. The rural hospital is going to close. The hospitals are somewhat so afraid they wouldn't even let me have the meeting there. But that rural hospital is going to close and they are looking for where those folks are going to go. I mean you're supposed to be doing health care policy, not being the doctor in residence for all of America. I, I hope I can say I'm still going to trust my doctor rather than your health advice. And obviously.
- [40:34]
A
All right, well, I mean how do they just do that? Like there are no cuts to Medicaid. It's absurd. How do they pay for the tax cuts if there are no cuts to Medicaid?
- [40:43]
E
Right. I mean, look, part of RFK's job there is, we've heard there are no cuts to Medicaid. We've heard it from every Republican in Congress. His job is to be a self styled progressive and say the same thing. It's a lie. But like he's doing black protection for Trump from the left. That was his job all along on this stuff. And his opening statement, I mean think about it, if you're a progressive person, his opening statement, he talks about we're stopping child mutilation, AKA against the trans racist DEI open borders. I mean it's like Republican boilerplate. But because he is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And he styles himself as a consumer protection advocate, people on the left are so I think that he is supposed to serve this political purpose for Trump. If the result of this hearing and subsequent hearings and events is that he no longer effectively can do this flak job for Trump on the left. And he's created this fear and uncertainty around what is the government recommending in terms of vaccinations and medicine. And they successfully drive this wedge that he is undermining Trump's legacy on Operation Warp Speed. That's a pretty lethal combination in terms of his value to Trump.
- [41:58]
A
Well, let's. I want to push you on that. So. And we can probably close up around these topics and these questions, but, like, when do we know we're at that point? Right. I mean, this is really just comes down to Trump feeling like it's no longer a utility to have him around.
- [42:13]
E
Well, what we do is we sit and wait for the truth social post that announces that RFK is.
- [42:17]
A
We.
- [42:18]
E
We thank him for his service, and he's no longer.
- [42:20]
A
And we found what ambassadorship is he gonna get. No, but seriously, I mean, is. I don't know if there's evidence out there yet that he's a net negative. I guess it's anecdotal. I think Republicans like Barraso freaking out and openly talking about it is significant, but I don't know. It strikes me that Trump likes the idea. And Bannon, for instance, has been openly talking about the incredible importance of Trump. I'm sorry, of RFK in this coalition. Steve Miller, I think, called him the crown jewel. I mean, like, I don't know. When do we start to see that? Do we ever start to see it?
- [42:56]
E
I mean, we could see industry still has pull with Trump on various issues. And they may have. Obviously, they don't like him here. The medical. The medical establishment. You got doctors talking to Barrasso, who's saying, like, my colleagues are saying this Cassidy similar. So that could be a factor. But I do think there's gonna have to be something in polling probably, that's gonna register to Trump. Trump doesn't like. And some of what he saw today was bad TV by RFK junior.
- [43:24]
A
It was bad tv.
- [43:25]
B
It was bad tv. It was bad tv. I'd say just one other piece. I mean, I agree with all of that. And we'll see if the polling starts to turn. And maybe we were talking before on Slack about this. You feel like maybe we're close to a kind of critical mass where even people who have some questions about they're not 100% sure, but the COVID vaccine, whatever, are gonna start to recoil this news down in Florida, you know, where they're getting rid of the vaccine mandates. Just, you know, there's gonna be more and More people saying, well, what are we doing here? This is gonna alarm people. But the other little piece of this that I think could make a difference if it happens would be some sort of internal strife. I mean, you remember when he announced he was pulling the MRNA funding and then after it was a very weird rollout and there was like, you know, they didn't put up the backing information for a while and then they did and it turned out later there was a real, it was a real mess behind the scenes and there were people at the White House were upset because they hadn't been notified, Kennedy hadn't put it up there. And there's a sense that people around Kennedy there are not totally under the administration's control, that they're loyal to Kennedy, they have their own agendas, that he's got his own. The MAHA constituency, I mean his constituency is a little different than the MAGA.
- [44:41]
A
There's almost 20, 28 chatter too. I don't know if you've been picking up on that where it's like everyone's like, oh, he's going to run again and he, and he's going to use this as a springboard. So I mean, maybe that gets to Trump and he doesn't like that.
- [44:52]
B
Yeah, I mean, like you could see it. I mean, I think that there's a little bit of a wild card element there that even the Trump White House has got to be a little bit nervous about. And I just think that makes them a little bit more amenable to arguments when, if the poll numbers start to sink, like we were saying before you start hearing it from industry, it becomes a little easier to push on because maybe the people inside the White House, Susie Wilds, whoever, are less eager to defend him, if only because he's become such a headache.
- [45:21]
A
Let's close on this. This is for Cohn. So this was obviously an important inflection point, having him on the Hill getting grid like that matters. But there's a huge number of forthcoming issues before both the Senate and before hhs. For instance, filling the CDC vacancy, this apparently autism study that's coming in September, the advisory committee that is meeting what we're going to get for MMR vaccine guidance, things like that. So what are you watching? What are the big benchmark moments in the near term horizon here?
- [45:59]
B
Well, I'm absolutely watching for this autism report, see what they say. I am looking for the next ACIP meeting to see what if they change any recommendations for like the hepatitis vaccine, things like that. He just literally in the last 24 hours put seven. You know, he filled out the rest of the spots on the committee. People still sort of don't know who a lot of them are, but one or two of them have records of being critical of vaccines in one way or another. So I'm watching that and, you know, we will see what happens if there's any more moves to pull back permissions on any of the MRNA vaccines that are out there that already have approval. I will say that in general, I have been constantly surprised at how willing openly he is pursuing his agenda. I kind of figured it would be more subtle and more gradual.
- [46:57]
A
No, I've been surprised about that too, where it's like he's just going for it. And I think he feels like he has the liberty to do it, which gets to the point about leash and then will for you, what are you watching from the Senate? I mean, I guess there's going to be a help committee hearing. They probably will have Susan Menarez. It was hinted at during today's hearing that they will have Susan Minares up there since she apparently has admitted that she's not a trustworthy person. I don't know why they would do that. Well, but what are you looking for?
- [47:27]
E
It's so weird to literally have a he said, she said. That's what's going to.
- [47:30]
A
Yeah.
- [47:31]
E
You know, they'll try whatever Democrats can do within these chambers they don't control to arrange that they will do. So there will be things going on in Congress. I'm actually watching external events I want to see because something's going to happen. These guys are thinning out the Trump administration, including our thinning out the government. They're cutting research. Something's going to happen. My original models for this remember what happened in 2020. A thing happened. Covid came in and Trump, who lied about everything, couldn't lie his way out of it. It was an external event that was just too real and was hitting people. So I thought, you know, tariffs are going to be the thing that's, you know, there's going to be. Prices are going to go up. Fema, they thinned out fema. There's going to be a natural disaster that they can't explain or deal with. Here's one. Infectious disease. It's not going away. There's these viruses come in and we have a health secretary who openly said we're going to give infectious disease a break for eight years and infectious disease will come in. We'll be totally unprepared for it and there will be this obvious track record of him having abandoned it.
- [48:25]
A
And.
- [48:26]
E
And I think it will not be until something like that affects millions of people will they turn against the health secretary and Trump will dump them.
- [48:35]
A
Just got to take your vomectum, man. That's it. We're going to be good. I'm joking. It's also gloomy and awful, but it's critically important. And you see the stuff happening in Florida, too, and you're like, wow, how much will the populist tolerate here? I don't know, man. I just felt like at some point, people want their vaccines. They want to, like, feel safe. They want to feel like their kids are protected from diseases that have been dormant for decades. I just don't see how. And maybe I'm crazy, but I don't see how this goes over that. Well, where you're threatening people's access to vaccines that they felt they had access to, you're denying them a sense of security that they had taken for granted. How does that play?
- [49:17]
B
I mean, there's two ways I can see it playing aside. You know, obviously, we get an outbreak, something like that, for sure. Two others. I mean, we are now seeing people get upset that it's harder to get the vaccines at the drugstore. You know, Eric Erickson, the conservative, came.
- [49:31]
A
Up in the hearing.
- [49:32]
B
Yeah, yeah. So I do think that's, like, touching people. You know, that's a very real thing that people will see. And, you know, it's always in politics, right? It's always the people who are upset about seeing who can't get something or have had something taken away that are most angry. And so far, like, it's all been hypothetical. But now, you know, first, you know, lots of people don't want to get Covid, or if they get Covid, they don't want to be in the hospital. They actually like to get the. I like to get my booster. So people are going to notice that. And then obviously, it's a political question. We do have the midterms coming up. Can the Democrats prosecute this case? I mean, it's there. Our colleague Lauren Egan wrote that newsletter the other day, and Bill Kristol's written about this. I mean, it's kind of sitting right there. We kind of saw it on display in this hearing. You got cutting Medicaid, cutting access to healthcare, cutting research, cutting cdc, taking away vaccines. I mean, it's not. That shouldn't be that hard to put that into a kind of clear set of ads and arguments that should be, you would think, be effective in the midterms, but, you know, I guess we'll see.
- [50:34]
A
All right. Will, Jonathan, thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. Fun hearing. A little bit scary, too. To the people who have watched this live show with us, thank you so much. Said we would get to some of your questions, but then I kept reading the comments and there were no questions, just. Just comments. So I can't answer. How bad will this get before there was a serious outcry? Says, well, I feel like we addressed that. We don't need to go on. But thank you guys for watching. Thank you guys for participating in this. Subscribe to our YouTube feed. Become Bulwark subscribers, too. We got great written content that can get in your inbox all the time. Will, Jonathan, thanks so much. Everyone else, talk to you soon. Take care, guys.