The Question That Left Trump’s NIH Chief Squirming - Bulwark Takes

Loading summary

Transcript38 lines

[00:00]
A
Hey, it's Will Saletan from the Bulwark. By now, I'm sure you've heard the Republican attacks on Tony Fauci, the guy who used to run the federal Covid response at the National Institutes of Health. But now there's a new sheriff in town. Donald Trump has a new NIH director, J. Bhattacharya. And Bhattacharya says Fauci was totally wrong about COVID And now he says, under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. We finally have medical advice we can trust. Right. I want to show you two interviews that Bhattacharya just did, because it turns out these guys who tell you that Fauci couldn't be trusted are even less trustworthy themselves. Okay, let's start with an interview that Bhattacharya gave to CBS News about a week and a half ago, right after the Republicans got a hold of Fauci's diary. Bhattacharya said the diary showed that Fauci recommended closing the schools in black and white.
[01:07]
B
There is in the diary a recommendation to people in California to close down schools. My kids stayed out of school for a year and a half. It kind of. Kind of hurt to see that.
[01:19]
A
A year and a half. Bhattacharya says his kids were out of school for a year and a half, and he blames Fauci. So let's check that out. Here is the diary entry where Fauci said he advised New York and California to close the schools. The date on that diary entry is March 15, 2020. That was at the start of the pandemic when Trump and and everybody else agreed that we were going to shut down for 15 days. And then we figured out that the schools were relatively safe. So in June, Fauci said, send the kids back. But also importantly, always make the goal that it is very important to get the children back to school for the unintended negative consequences that occur when we keep them out of school. That that was June of 2020. So I'm sorry that Bhattacharya's kids were kept out of school for another year and a half. But when Bhattacharya blames Fauci for that, he's just wrong. In the interview, Bhattacharya said countries that reopened their schools in the fall of 2020 were acting against Fauci's advice.
[02:36]
B
He was making decisions about closing schools, in my view, against what the actual evidence was saying at the time. Like, the European countries opened their schools in the fall of 2020 based on a lot of that evidence that he ignored.
[02:50]
A
First of all, Fauci didn't make any decisions about closing schools. What he did was he gave recommendations, and closing the schools in the fall of 2020 was not what he recommended. So then Bhattacharya took another shot at Fauci.
[03:07]
B
The NIH is now focused on actually doing scientific work that advances health and longe. I think the way that Tony Fauci acted during the pandemic, you know, he was the head of a research institute. He wasn't the head of public health, yet he acted as if he were the head of public health in this country.
[03:26]
A
Wait a minute. Joe Biden literally appointed Fauci to be his chief medical advisor. That was Fauci's title. It was his job. Now, Bhattacharya might not like that, but when he tells you that Fauci was. Was just a director at NIH and he had no business taking on this, the whole larger health portfolio, that is just not true. And then Bhattacharya suggested that Fauci, that Fauci himself may have caused the pandemic.
[03:58]
B
And I think that the. That the NIH under Tony Fauci made decisions to support research that. That actually might have led to the creation of COVID What I do know is that the decisions made by Tony Fauci during. In the years leading up to the pandemic very well could have led to the cause that caused the pandemic.
[04:19]
A
You've got to be kidding me. Okay, I've been over this before, but I guess I got to do it again. It is virtually impossible that the virus on which Fauci and NIH sponsored research in China could have become the COVID virus because they're just too genetically different. I've cited this fact check before, but here it is again. The viruses it says were 1,000 nucleotides apart. But Bhattacharya keeps trying to pin Covid on Fauci, and then Bhattacharya says he can't be sure that vaccines don't cause autism. Do you think vaccines cause autism?
[05:06]
B
I mean, I don't know for certain. I mean, if you ask me specifically about, like, what my view of the evidence is, that I'd say that there isn't evidence that any vaccine I know of for certain cause autism. Do I know for certain that all vaccines don't cause autism? Well, that's a different question.
[05:22]
A
Look, technically, you can never be 100% certain of anything. I mean, look, you can drop a basketball 100 times, and it. It still Won't prove that basketballs never float up. But the idea that vaccines cause autism is one of the most thoroughly studied questions in medicine. So why does Bhattacharya mumble and stumble and tell you he doesn't know for sure? Because that is the new orthodoxy under Trump and Kennedy. They literally changed the CDC website to say that it is not, quote, evidence based to say that vaccines don't cause autism. Look, Bhattachary is a real scientist, but he's trapped in an insane administration. And that is why he won't tell you bluntly that vaccines do not cause autism. And guess what happens when kids don't get vaccinated? We get these outbreaks of measles. But Bhattacharya says, oh, no, that's not my fault. It's not Kennedy's fault. No, no, no. Bhattacharya blames Fauci.
[06:35]
B
Right, so you've seen Canada lose its measles vaccinations eradication status. Mexico's on its way, the uk A lot of this is stemmed from the fact that during the pandemic, there were claims made about the COVID vaccination for kids that caused many people around the world to lose confidence in all vaccines.
[06:54]
A
This is just amazing. Bhattacharya works for Kennedy. Kennedy has been trying to scare people away from vaccines forever, but Bhattacharya says, no. The reason people stopped getting vaccinated is that Fauci. Fauci was too pro vaccine. Okay? But fortunately, fortunately, the interviewer, Matt Gutman, knows that that's not true, because Gutman reported on the decline of measles vaccination before COVID I distinctly remember covering a measles outbreak in a community called Vancouver, Washington, before the pandemic. And that was largely linked to a cultural shift there that parents believed that childhood vaccinations were linked to autism and they elected not to vaccinate their kids. So I'm not sure that it is linked to Covid so much. In other words, it was people like Kennedy with their scare talk about autism. They drove the decline in vaccination and the increase in measles. But Bhattacharya doesn't want to offend Kennedy, right? So he glosses over the history and he just repeats this line that it all goes back to Fauci and Covid.
[08:16]
B
But the real worldwide collapse in trust in public health that happened during COVID I think is the root cause of the drop in vaccination.
[08:24]
A
Okay, all of that is bad, but this is worse. Now, I'm Gonna show you Bhattacharya's interview on Sunday on Face the Nation. So Margaret Brennan tries to ask him about the guy who opened fire at the Centers for Disease Control a year ago.
[08:43]
C
You were down in Atlanta this past week. This is one year since that horrific shooting at CDC headquarters. Officer David Rose was honored this past week. He was killed last year protecting CDC employees from a gunman. The shooter was motivated by misinformation about the COVID vaccine. That is why he shot over 100 bullets into the windows of the CDC. Is enough being done to counter this kind of misinformation?
[09:15]
A
She was asking about anti vaccine misinformation that motivated the shooting and Bhattacharya would not answer the question.
[09:27]
B
I want to focus on attention on Officer Rose because I think the shooter did was horrific. And I think you can talk about why shooters do things, but really fundamentally.
[09:36]
C
Well, his father said he was brain about the COVID vaccine and thought it was making him suicidal.
[09:41]
B
That's what I mean. I mean, the thing is, to talk about the shooter puts the emphasis on somebody who's. I mean, I think we shouldn't be putting our emphasis.
[09:49]
A
He says it right there. He doesn't want to talk about why shooters do things. Now, if a shooter is Muslim or transgender, oh, then the Trump administration, they're happy to talk about the shooter's motivation. But if it's about vaccines, if it comes from, you know, the kind of propaganda that Kennedy puts out. No, no, no, no, let's not talk about that. Instead, Bhattacharya tries to blame the media for supporting Fauci's policies during COVID No,
[10:23]
C
I am on misinformation about Fauci.
[10:25]
B
I mean, I think the key thing is there's a loss of public trust in public health. That happened in part because of a lot of. Frankly, even on this network and on other networks, there was a particular single point of view put across during the COVID pandemic about how, you know, that led to things that really did cause harm to people. The school closures are probably the number one thing.
[10:45]
A
School closures. She is trying to ask about a shooting at cdc and he is trying to change the subject to schools. And instead of answering her question about vaccine misinformation, he says, oh, well, what about the other side? What about their misinformation?
[11:03]
B
What I'm saying is you want to talk about misinformation. The kinds of decisions and sort of the public, sort of face of public health during the pandemic led to many people losing trust in public health, the Trump administration officials. No, I mean, I mean like Biden. So Biden, for instance, stands out.
[11:20]
C
Megan, under the Trump administration.
[11:22]
A
She's right. Even if you didn't like Fauci's advice during COVID he was giving that advice from the White House podium. He was standing next to Donald Trump.
[11:34]
D
This message is brought to you by Soul. Now, if you're anything like me, your day and night routines are not always routine. Whether it's doom scrolling keeping you up or just the Sunday scaries keeping you down, bad habits can throw you off your rhythm. Something I found helpful to balance out my bad habits is sold Mood Gummies, sold as a wellness brand that makes delicious hemp derived CBD and THC products designed to make feeling good. Pretty simple. Sol's new mood gummies have precise dosing, clean ingredients and formulations designed for predictable effects so you can choose how you want to feel while staying in control. Seoul has three mood gummies with three intentionally crafted formulas. And all of them have the same great taste. Whatever the moment, there's a Soul Mood Gummy to match. Now make today a good day and get yourself some soul gummies. Right now, Seoul is offering our audience 30% off your entire order. Go to getsoul.com and use the code bulwarktakes. That's getsold.com promo code bulwarktakes for 30% off.
[12:35]
A
Bhattacharya, who used to be an independent voice when he was at Stanford. See, now he has a job working for Trump. So he can't admit that Trump bears responsibility. He can't even admit that Kennedy lied about the vaccines.
[12:52]
C
RFK Jr called the COVID vaccine the deadliest vaccine ever. That is misinformation. And we're not being clear about that. And I think that is dangerous.
[13:01]
B
Wouldn't their job, Margaret, because the Biden administration censored people.
[13:07]
A
Look over there. Look over there. Don't look at my boss lying about the vaccines. Look at all the bad stuff Joe Biden did. Is this what we want from the director of nih? Bhattacharya says Fauci was too political. He says, oh, everything's different now. We have a new NIH and it's just going to do science. But then Bhattacharya talks exactly like a politician. He shouts down the question and he tries to change the subject to his own talking points. And when and when Brennan tries to remind him that the question was about the shooting at the cdc, Bhattacharya goes all in on defending the boss.
[13:50]
B
And said, look, you can't even talk about COVID vaccine harms. Yeah. And I'm talking about why you have the kind of distrust that's led to the kind of sort of problems that you were talking about earlier in public health. That distrust was not caused by President Trump. It wasn't caused by Bobby.
[14:08]
A
Look, this is really sad. I've seen a lot of people criticize Fauci and this guy Bhattacharya. He was the best of them. He tried to be honest and he tried not to be political. And now, now that he has a job working for Trump and Kennedy, he's become just another flunky. And the saddest part is you can't trust him anymore. Here is what Bhattacharya said yesterday about the COVID vaccine mandates.
[14:41]
B
People lost their jobs because of these vaccine mandates that didn't make any public health sense. So if you want to talk about public trust, you have to embrace that fully.
[14:50]
A
Look, there's a lot of things that you could say about those vaccine mandates. You could say it was wrong to force them on people. You could say they backfired. They made people even more stubborn about not getting vaccinated. But to say that they didn't make any sense for public health. Those vaccines were the single most effective weapon against Covid. Every study shows that. So when Bhattacharya tells you that the mandates made no sense for public health, he's the one you can't trust. And he's so fixated on Covid and his grievance about being censored that it's clouding his ability to see what we're dealing with. Now, he says you should vaccinate your kids against measles. And he's right. But then he says no matter what is going around, you should send your kids to school anyway.
[15:45]
B
In no way, shape or form should this show or any other show like it perpetuate the idea that sending their kids to school is worse because there's going to be some health risk there when it's just not true.
[15:57]
A
Wait a minute. It's true that you should send your kids to school if what's going around is Covid, because kids are pretty safe from COVID and they need to be in school. But if what's going around is measles, and if your kid isn't vaccinated, that kid has a 90% chance of getting measles. If he is near an infected person, he's got a 5% chance of getting pneumonia, and he's got roughly a 1 in 500 chance of dying. Not everything is about COVID Look, I'm not here to tell you that Fauci got everything right during COVID But when Bhattacharya and Kennedy and all these guys, when they tell you that Fauci was wrong about everything and that they've cleaned up NIH and the politics are all gone, and you can trust them to tell you the truth when they tell you all of that? They're full of it. See you next time.

Summary5 min read

Bulwark Takes: "The Question That Left Trump’s NIH Chief Squirming" — Episode Summary

Main Theme: This episode, hosted by Will Saletan, critically examines recent public statements and interviews by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the newly appointed NIH director under President Trump, particularly in the context of Bhattacharya’s criticisms of Dr. Anthony Fauci and his handling of pandemic-era policies. The episode highlights how Bhattacharya and allies of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have shifted medical messaging and accountability regarding school closures, vaccine skepticism, and the consequences of pandemic misinformation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Fauci’s Role in School Closures (00:00–03:07)

Misrepresentation of Fauci’s Authority:
- Bhattacharya claims his children were kept out of school for a year and a half due to Fauci’s recommendations for school closures.
- Saletan clarifies: Fauci’s recommendation to close schools was made at the start of the pandemic (March 15, 2020)—a period when bipartisan consensus supported short-term closures. By June 2020, Fauci was urging that schools re-open as soon as safely possible.
Selective Blame:
- Bhattacharya blames prolonged school closures on Fauci, ignoring broader political factors and local decision-making.

Quote:
"A year and a half. Bhattacharya says his kids were out of school for a year and a half, and he blames Fauci...But when Bhattacharya blames Fauci for that, he's just wrong."
— Will Saletan (01:18)

Claims about Public Health Authority & Origins of COVID (03:07–04:18)

Fauci’s Role Reframed:
- Bhattacharya argues Fauci overstepped his research role at NIH by acting as "the head of public health." However, Saletan notes that President Biden appointed Fauci as chief medical advisor, legitimizing his broader public engagement.
COVID Lab Origin Accusations:
- Bhattacharya insinuates NIH-funded research under Fauci might have led to COVID's creation. Saletan counters with established scientific evidence showing the viruses studied were too genetically distant from COVID-19.

Quote:
"The decisions made by Tony Fauci...very well could have led to the cause that caused the pandemic."
— Bhattacharya (03:58)

Vaccine Skepticism and Autism (05:05–06:34)

Ambiguous Answers about Autism:
- Pressed on whether vaccines cause autism, Bhattacharya equivocates, refusing to state definitively that vaccines are unrelated to autism despite overwhelming scientific consensus.
Official Policy Shift:
- Saletan highlights how the Trump/Kennedy administration has changed CDC language to no longer assert it is "evidence based" to say vaccines don't cause autism.

Quote:
"Do I know for certain that all vaccines don't cause autism? Well, that's a different question."
— Bhattacharya (05:13)

Decline in Vaccination Rates—Blame Shift (06:34–08:23)

Blaming Fauci for Vaccine Distrust:
- Bhattacharya attributes drops in measles vaccination and outbreaks to public distrust generated by the COVID response, not to anti-vaccine activism led by figures like Kennedy.
- The host and a cited journalist note that vaccine skepticism and measles outbreaks predated COVID, fueled by autism fears—often promoted by Kennedy.

Quote:
"A lot of this is stemmed from...claims made about the COVID vaccination for kids that caused many people around the world to lose confidence in all vaccines."
— Bhattacharya (06:44)

Addressing Anti-Vaccine Violence Avoided (08:23–13:49)

Mass Shooting at CDC Prompted by Vaccine Misinformation:
- On Face the Nation, host Margaret Brennan presses Bhattacharya about action against misinformation that led to a shooting at CDC headquarters.
- Bhattacharya sidesteps the question, avoids direct condemnation of anti-vaccine rhetoric, and pivots to blaming "loss of trust in public health" and mainstream media for pandemic fallout.

Quote:
"I want to focus on attention on Officer Rose because I think the shooter did was horrific...really fundamentally."
— Bhattacharya (09:26)

Reluctance to Criticize Kennedy or Trump:
- Bhattacharya avoids criticizing Kennedy's anti-vaccine record or Trump’s role, redirecting attention to alleged censorship by the Biden administration and media failures.

Vaccine Mandates & Public Health (13:49–15:45)

Mandate Rejection:
- Bhattacharya asserts vaccine mandates “didn’t make any public health sense," which Saletan rebuts with evidence that mandates were effective in controlling COVID outbreaks.
School Attendance During Measles (15:45–15:56):
- Bhattacharya advocates for always sending children to school, even amid outbreaks, which Saletan criticizes as dangerous, especially if vaccinations lag and measles risk is high.

Quote:
"In no way, shape or form should this show or any other show like it perpetuate the idea that sending their kids to school is worse because there's going to be some health risk there when it's just not true."
— Bhattacharya (15:45)

Notable Quotes & Moments

“The idea that vaccines cause autism is one of the most thoroughly studied questions in medicine. So why does Bhattacharya mumble and stumble and tell you he doesn't know for sure?”
— Will Saletan (05:21)
“If a shooter is Muslim or transgender, oh, then the Trump administration, they're happy to talk about the shooter's motivation. But if it's about vaccines, if it comes from, you know, the kind of propaganda that Kennedy puts out. No, no, no, no, let's not talk about that.”
— Will Saletan (09:49)
“RFK Jr called the COVID vaccine the deadliest vaccine ever. That is misinformation. And we're not being clear about that. And I think that is dangerous.”
— Margaret Brennan (12:52)

Important Timestamps

00:00 — Host sets up episode: Bhattacharya’s claims vs. Fauci’s record
01:07–03:07 — School closures: Bhattacharya blames Fauci, Saletan refutes
03:58–05:21 — Lab leak allegations & vaccine-autism question dodged
06:34–08:23 — Blame for decline in vaccinations misattributed to Fauci
08:23–13:49 — Discussion of CDC shooting, vaccine misinformation, and refusal to condemn Kennedy/Trump
14:40–15:45 — Bhattacharya on vaccine mandates and school safety

Tone & Style

Saletan’s approach is sharp, skeptical, and fact-driven, with pointed rebuttals and a tone of exasperation at what he sees as revisionism and evasion by the new NIH leadership.

Summary Conclusion: This episode spotlights how the Trump/Kennedy-era NIH is recasting the pandemic narrative and avoiding accountability for anti-vaccine rhetoric and its consequences. Through careful fact-checking and pointed commentary, Saletan argues that political loyalty is now distorting science at the NIH, leaving Americans less able to trust their health leadership.

Loading summary

Transcript38 lines

[00:00]
A
Hey, it's Will Saletan from the Bulwark. By now, I'm sure you've heard the Republican attacks on Tony Fauci, the guy who used to run the federal Covid response at the National Institutes of Health. But now there's a new sheriff in town. Donald Trump has a new NIH director, J. Bhattacharya. And Bhattacharya says Fauci was totally wrong about COVID And now he says, under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. We finally have medical advice we can trust. Right. I want to show you two interviews that Bhattacharya just did, because it turns out these guys who tell you that Fauci couldn't be trusted are even less trustworthy themselves. Okay, let's start with an interview that Bhattacharya gave to CBS News about a week and a half ago, right after the Republicans got a hold of Fauci's diary. Bhattacharya said the diary showed that Fauci recommended closing the schools in black and white.
[01:07]
B
There is in the diary a recommendation to people in California to close down schools. My kids stayed out of school for a year and a half. It kind of. Kind of hurt to see that.
[01:19]
A
A year and a half. Bhattacharya says his kids were out of school for a year and a half, and he blames Fauci. So let's check that out. Here is the diary entry where Fauci said he advised New York and California to close the schools. The date on that diary entry is March 15, 2020. That was at the start of the pandemic when Trump and and everybody else agreed that we were going to shut down for 15 days. And then we figured out that the schools were relatively safe. So in June, Fauci said, send the kids back. But also importantly, always make the goal that it is very important to get the children back to school for the unintended negative consequences that occur when we keep them out of school. That that was June of 2020. So I'm sorry that Bhattacharya's kids were kept out of school for another year and a half. But when Bhattacharya blames Fauci for that, he's just wrong. In the interview, Bhattacharya said countries that reopened their schools in the fall of 2020 were acting against Fauci's advice.
[02:36]
B
He was making decisions about closing schools, in my view, against what the actual evidence was saying at the time. Like, the European countries opened their schools in the fall of 2020 based on a lot of that evidence that he ignored.
[02:50]
A
First of all, Fauci didn't make any decisions about closing schools. What he did was he gave recommendations, and closing the schools in the fall of 2020 was not what he recommended. So then Bhattacharya took another shot at Fauci.
[03:07]
B
The NIH is now focused on actually doing scientific work that advances health and longe. I think the way that Tony Fauci acted during the pandemic, you know, he was the head of a research institute. He wasn't the head of public health, yet he acted as if he were the head of public health in this country.
[03:26]
A
Wait a minute. Joe Biden literally appointed Fauci to be his chief medical advisor. That was Fauci's title. It was his job. Now, Bhattacharya might not like that, but when he tells you that Fauci was. Was just a director at NIH and he had no business taking on this, the whole larger health portfolio, that is just not true. And then Bhattacharya suggested that Fauci, that Fauci himself may have caused the pandemic.
[03:58]
B
And I think that the. That the NIH under Tony Fauci made decisions to support research that. That actually might have led to the creation of COVID What I do know is that the decisions made by Tony Fauci during. In the years leading up to the pandemic very well could have led to the cause that caused the pandemic.
[04:19]
A
You've got to be kidding me. Okay, I've been over this before, but I guess I got to do it again. It is virtually impossible that the virus on which Fauci and NIH sponsored research in China could have become the COVID virus because they're just too genetically different. I've cited this fact check before, but here it is again. The viruses it says were 1,000 nucleotides apart. But Bhattacharya keeps trying to pin Covid on Fauci, and then Bhattacharya says he can't be sure that vaccines don't cause autism. Do you think vaccines cause autism?
[05:06]
B
I mean, I don't know for certain. I mean, if you ask me specifically about, like, what my view of the evidence is, that I'd say that there isn't evidence that any vaccine I know of for certain cause autism. Do I know for certain that all vaccines don't cause autism? Well, that's a different question.
[05:22]
A
Look, technically, you can never be 100% certain of anything. I mean, look, you can drop a basketball 100 times, and it. It still Won't prove that basketballs never float up. But the idea that vaccines cause autism is one of the most thoroughly studied questions in medicine. So why does Bhattacharya mumble and stumble and tell you he doesn't know for sure? Because that is the new orthodoxy under Trump and Kennedy. They literally changed the CDC website to say that it is not, quote, evidence based to say that vaccines don't cause autism. Look, Bhattachary is a real scientist, but he's trapped in an insane administration. And that is why he won't tell you bluntly that vaccines do not cause autism. And guess what happens when kids don't get vaccinated? We get these outbreaks of measles. But Bhattacharya says, oh, no, that's not my fault. It's not Kennedy's fault. No, no, no. Bhattacharya blames Fauci.
[06:35]
B
Right, so you've seen Canada lose its measles vaccinations eradication status. Mexico's on its way, the uk A lot of this is stemmed from the fact that during the pandemic, there were claims made about the COVID vaccination for kids that caused many people around the world to lose confidence in all vaccines.
[06:54]
A
This is just amazing. Bhattacharya works for Kennedy. Kennedy has been trying to scare people away from vaccines forever, but Bhattacharya says, no. The reason people stopped getting vaccinated is that Fauci. Fauci was too pro vaccine. Okay? But fortunately, fortunately, the interviewer, Matt Gutman, knows that that's not true, because Gutman reported on the decline of measles vaccination before COVID I distinctly remember covering a measles outbreak in a community called Vancouver, Washington, before the pandemic. And that was largely linked to a cultural shift there that parents believed that childhood vaccinations were linked to autism and they elected not to vaccinate their kids. So I'm not sure that it is linked to Covid so much. In other words, it was people like Kennedy with their scare talk about autism. They drove the decline in vaccination and the increase in measles. But Bhattacharya doesn't want to offend Kennedy, right? So he glosses over the history and he just repeats this line that it all goes back to Fauci and Covid.
[08:16]
B
But the real worldwide collapse in trust in public health that happened during COVID I think is the root cause of the drop in vaccination.
[08:24]
A
Okay, all of that is bad, but this is worse. Now, I'm Gonna show you Bhattacharya's interview on Sunday on Face the Nation. So Margaret Brennan tries to ask him about the guy who opened fire at the Centers for Disease Control a year ago.
[08:43]
C
You were down in Atlanta this past week. This is one year since that horrific shooting at CDC headquarters. Officer David Rose was honored this past week. He was killed last year protecting CDC employees from a gunman. The shooter was motivated by misinformation about the COVID vaccine. That is why he shot over 100 bullets into the windows of the CDC. Is enough being done to counter this kind of misinformation?
[09:15]
A
She was asking about anti vaccine misinformation that motivated the shooting and Bhattacharya would not answer the question.
[09:27]
B
I want to focus on attention on Officer Rose because I think the shooter did was horrific. And I think you can talk about why shooters do things, but really fundamentally.
[09:36]
C
Well, his father said he was brain about the COVID vaccine and thought it was making him suicidal.
[09:41]
B
That's what I mean. I mean, the thing is, to talk about the shooter puts the emphasis on somebody who's. I mean, I think we shouldn't be putting our emphasis.
[09:49]
A
He says it right there. He doesn't want to talk about why shooters do things. Now, if a shooter is Muslim or transgender, oh, then the Trump administration, they're happy to talk about the shooter's motivation. But if it's about vaccines, if it comes from, you know, the kind of propaganda that Kennedy puts out. No, no, no, no, let's not talk about that. Instead, Bhattacharya tries to blame the media for supporting Fauci's policies during COVID No,
[10:23]
C
I am on misinformation about Fauci.
[10:25]
B
I mean, I think the key thing is there's a loss of public trust in public health. That happened in part because of a lot of. Frankly, even on this network and on other networks, there was a particular single point of view put across during the COVID pandemic about how, you know, that led to things that really did cause harm to people. The school closures are probably the number one thing.
[10:45]
A
School closures. She is trying to ask about a shooting at cdc and he is trying to change the subject to schools. And instead of answering her question about vaccine misinformation, he says, oh, well, what about the other side? What about their misinformation?
[11:03]
B
What I'm saying is you want to talk about misinformation. The kinds of decisions and sort of the public, sort of face of public health during the pandemic led to many people losing trust in public health, the Trump administration officials. No, I mean, I mean like Biden. So Biden, for instance, stands out.
[11:20]
C
Megan, under the Trump administration.
[11:22]
A
She's right. Even if you didn't like Fauci's advice during COVID he was giving that advice from the White House podium. He was standing next to Donald Trump.
[11:34]
D
This message is brought to you by Soul. Now, if you're anything like me, your day and night routines are not always routine. Whether it's doom scrolling keeping you up or just the Sunday scaries keeping you down, bad habits can throw you off your rhythm. Something I found helpful to balance out my bad habits is sold Mood Gummies, sold as a wellness brand that makes delicious hemp derived CBD and THC products designed to make feeling good. Pretty simple. Sol's new mood gummies have precise dosing, clean ingredients and formulations designed for predictable effects so you can choose how you want to feel while staying in control. Seoul has three mood gummies with three intentionally crafted formulas. And all of them have the same great taste. Whatever the moment, there's a Soul Mood Gummy to match. Now make today a good day and get yourself some soul gummies. Right now, Seoul is offering our audience 30% off your entire order. Go to getsoul.com and use the code bulwarktakes. That's getsold.com promo code bulwarktakes for 30% off.
[12:35]
A
Bhattacharya, who used to be an independent voice when he was at Stanford. See, now he has a job working for Trump. So he can't admit that Trump bears responsibility. He can't even admit that Kennedy lied about the vaccines.
[12:52]
C
RFK Jr called the COVID vaccine the deadliest vaccine ever. That is misinformation. And we're not being clear about that. And I think that is dangerous.
[13:01]
B
Wouldn't their job, Margaret, because the Biden administration censored people.
[13:07]
A
Look over there. Look over there. Don't look at my boss lying about the vaccines. Look at all the bad stuff Joe Biden did. Is this what we want from the director of nih? Bhattacharya says Fauci was too political. He says, oh, everything's different now. We have a new NIH and it's just going to do science. But then Bhattacharya talks exactly like a politician. He shouts down the question and he tries to change the subject to his own talking points. And when and when Brennan tries to remind him that the question was about the shooting at the cdc, Bhattacharya goes all in on defending the boss.
[13:50]
B
And said, look, you can't even talk about COVID vaccine harms. Yeah. And I'm talking about why you have the kind of distrust that's led to the kind of sort of problems that you were talking about earlier in public health. That distrust was not caused by President Trump. It wasn't caused by Bobby.
[14:08]
A
Look, this is really sad. I've seen a lot of people criticize Fauci and this guy Bhattacharya. He was the best of them. He tried to be honest and he tried not to be political. And now, now that he has a job working for Trump and Kennedy, he's become just another flunky. And the saddest part is you can't trust him anymore. Here is what Bhattacharya said yesterday about the COVID vaccine mandates.
[14:41]
B
People lost their jobs because of these vaccine mandates that didn't make any public health sense. So if you want to talk about public trust, you have to embrace that fully.
[14:50]
A
Look, there's a lot of things that you could say about those vaccine mandates. You could say it was wrong to force them on people. You could say they backfired. They made people even more stubborn about not getting vaccinated. But to say that they didn't make any sense for public health. Those vaccines were the single most effective weapon against Covid. Every study shows that. So when Bhattacharya tells you that the mandates made no sense for public health, he's the one you can't trust. And he's so fixated on Covid and his grievance about being censored that it's clouding his ability to see what we're dealing with. Now, he says you should vaccinate your kids against measles. And he's right. But then he says no matter what is going around, you should send your kids to school anyway.
[15:45]
B
In no way, shape or form should this show or any other show like it perpetuate the idea that sending their kids to school is worse because there's going to be some health risk there when it's just not true.
[15:57]
A
Wait a minute. It's true that you should send your kids to school if what's going around is Covid, because kids are pretty safe from COVID and they need to be in school. But if what's going around is measles, and if your kid isn't vaccinated, that kid has a 90% chance of getting measles. If he is near an infected person, he's got a 5% chance of getting pneumonia, and he's got roughly a 1 in 500 chance of dying. Not everything is about COVID Look, I'm not here to tell you that Fauci got everything right during COVID But when Bhattacharya and Kennedy and all these guys, when they tell you that Fauci was wrong about everything and that they've cleaned up NIH and the politics are all gone, and you can trust them to tell you the truth when they tell you all of that? They're full of it. See you next time.