Tulsi Gabbard Resigns; Rising Rates of Self-Harm in ICE Detention Centers

Summary

Podcast Summary: Here's the Scoop – Tulsi Gabbard Resigns; Rising Rates of Self-Harm in ICE Detention Centers

NBC News | May 22, 2026
Host: Yasmin Vossoughian
Notable Guests: Garrett Hake (Chief White House Correspondent), Julia Ainslie (Senior Homeland Security Correspondent), Dr. Akshay Sayal (NBC News Medical Reporter)

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Episode Overview

This episode of "Here's the Scoop" delivers two major news deep-dives:

1. The resignation of Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), examining the reasons and political context behind her departure from the Trump administration, and implications for U.S. national security.
2. Investigative reporting on skyrocketing incidents of self-harm and suicide within ICE detention centers, detailing new data and personal stories that illuminate the mental health crisis affecting detainees.
   A final segment touches on the debut of the ‘Enhanced Games’—an athlete competition openly embracing performance-enhancing drugs, with expert insights on the scientific and ethical dimensions.

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1. Tulsi Gabbard Resigns as Director of National Intelligence

[00:12–09:59]

Circumstances and Stated Reason for Resignation

• Tulsi Gabbard announced her resignation from DNI, citing her husband’s diagnosis with a rare and serious bone cancer (00:12).
• In her resignation letter, Gabbard stated she “must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle.”
• Gabbard is the fourth female cabinet member to leave the Trump administration in recent months.

Context and Analysis

• Gabbard’s departure occurs amid speculation about internal White House dynamics and cabinet instability.
• Garrett Hake:

  “She’s never been someone who is, like, fully in the President’s inner circle, never someone upon whose counsel he particularly relied.” (00:00)

• The possibility of political motivations or pressure surrounding her resignation is raised:

  “Is there any indication that Tulsi Gabbard may have been forced out instead of resigning on her own accord?” (Yasmin Desugin, 04:18)
  “I have no specific reporting to support it...she’s never been someone who is, like, fully in the President’s... inner circle.” (Garrett Hake, 04:18)

• Gabbard’s tenure is described as marginal to critical foreign policy decisions:

  “Where we have seen Tulsi Gabbard was in Fulton County, Georgia, watching the FBI seize voting machines earlier this year.” (Yasmin Desugin, 05:05)

• Marco Rubio emerges as the de facto key voice on national security, consolidating power as both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor.

Role and Political Value

• Gabbard, a former Democrat and antiwar figure, is viewed as useful in “broadening the coalition” for Trump’s 2024 campaign, particularly appealing to disaffected Democrats and independent thinkers.
• Garrett Hake:

  “She was really useful to the president as an endorser, as someone who gave him credibility with the type of voter that he needed in 2024.” (06:58)

Implications & Speculation

• The resignation is noted for its timing—Friday before Memorial Day—and alongside President Trump’s cancellation of personal events, raising suspicions of impending moves on Iran.

  “My spidey sense is tingling and I’m not leaving town either.” (Garrett Hake, 08:59) “If you were the President and you wanted to hit Iran especially hard... early on a three-day weekend would be, you could argue, the best time to do it.” (Garrett Hake, 09:11)

Memorable Quotes

• “They were kind of like finding stuff to pull out from under the furniture that would be interesting to the Trump base.” (Garrett Hake, 07:40)

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2. Self-Harm and Suicide Spike in ICE Detention

[12:17–21:11]

New Data and Shocking Increase

• NBC obtained data showing over 1,000 911 calls and at least 28 serious self-harm incidents from just six ICE facilities in the past year.
• At least five suicides by ICE detainees so far this year—a decades-high record (12:17).
• Incidents include attempted hangings, swallowing razors, and ingesting chemicals.

Stories and Patterns

• Julia Ainslie: Shares the case of a 33-year-old pregnant woman in ICE detention who repeatedly banged her head against a wall—highlighting extreme mental despair.

  “The banging of her head against the wall seemed that she was so desperate.” (Julia Ainslie, 14:42)

• Uncertainty, indefinite detention, and lack of parole or court dates drive hopelessness:

  “They are losing hope because they can’t see when the end is in sight.” (Julia Ainslie, 16:41)

• Unlike the criminal system, many ICE detainees have no clarity about release or appeal.

Mental Health Expert Perspective

• Dr. Sanjay Basu observes that indefinite detention erodes hope and precipitates mental breakdowns (16:41).
• Suicides and severe self-harm are likely “the tip of the iceberg.”

Legal and Policy Context

• Ongoing legal disputes about the government’s right to indefinitely detain immigrants.
• Recent administration policy changes further complicate detainees’ situations.
• Despite the data, there’s been no new nationwide ICE guidance on suicide prevention or mental health interventions.

Notable Quotes

• “For every case we actually see or were able to obtain about self-harm and suicide, there are probably so many more people who are in extreme mental distress.” (Julia Ainslie, 15:41)
• “No guidance has gone out nationally to change the way they do anything.” (Julia Ainslie, 17:41)

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3. New Policy: Green Card Applicants Must Leave the U.S. to Apply

[18:59–21:11]

• The administration announced a new policy requiring about 500,000 annual green card applicants to return to their country of origin to apply, even if they’ve lived in the U.S. for years.
• Described as a sweeping shift that may create a “perverse incentive” for some to remain undocumented rather than risk departure.

  “For a lot of people, going back to their home country is simply out of the question from a legal, economic and safety perspective.” (Julia Ainslie, 20:13)

• Implementation is abrupt, with little notice or comment period, creating immediate, significant impacts.

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4. Enhanced Games: A Doping-Positive Athletics Competition

[23:15–27:00]

Overview

• The Enhanced Games in Las Vegas invite competitors to use performance enhancing drugs, with 42 athletes participating, including former Olympians (23:15).
• 36 volunteers underwent a trial; 34 confirmed they used performance drugs like testosterone, growth hormone, Adderall, estrogen blockers, EPO, and steroids.

Medical and Ethical Insight

• Dr. Akshay Sayal:

  “My first thought when I heard about this was this is absolutely insane. You know, these athletes are on some very serious...drugs.” (24:15)

• Enhanced Games claim scientific objectives; registered a clinical trial for transparency (25:03).
• The event highlights society’s growing interest in “biohacking” and pushing physiological limits, even with unapproved substances:

  “People aren’t as afraid anymore to experiment... so it’s not surprising that you’re seeing this.” (Dr. Akshay Sayal, 25:27)

• Benefits (increased strength, faster recovery, better sleep) are acknowledged, but health risks (heart issues, diabetes, swelling) are significant.

Cautionary Note

• Professional supervision exists at Enhanced Games, but such experimentation is not advised for the general population:

  “For everybody else listening, this isn’t something that we recommend you try at home.” (Dr. Akshay Sayal, 26:58)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Tulsi Gabbard resignation: 00:12–09:59
• ICE detention center self-harm rise: 12:17–18:59
• Green card applicant policy shift: 18:59–21:11
• Enhanced Games performance drugs: 23:15–27:00

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Notable Quotes

• Garrett Hake (on Gabbard’s White House influence):

  "She’s never been someone who is, like, fully in the President’s inner circle, never someone upon whose counsel he particularly relied." (00:00)

• Julia Ainslie (on ICE data):

  "We found at least 28 incidents of self harm...One swallowed a razor, one took as many chemicals as they could find.” (13:13)

• Dr. Akshay Sayal (Enhanced Games):

  "These are all very serious compounds that are banned in regular sports for a reason. So, yeah, it's a little bit crazy." (24:15)

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Tone and Delivery

The episode maintains a clear, sober, and informative tone, offering in-depth expert analysis and on-the-ground reporting while balancing urgency with measured commentary.

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For crisis support regarding self-harm or suicide, the hosts urge listeners to call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org.

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Transcript

[Garrett Hake]

She's never been someone who is, like, fully in the President's inner circle, never someone upon whose counsel he particularly relied.

[Yasmin Desugin]

Hey, everybody, and welcome. Naheer's a scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Desugin. So Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, resigned today. So why is she stepping down? And what's going to be next for her? Plus, as the Trump administration seeks to deport as many immigrants as possible, data from ICE detention centers shows an uptick in incidents of self harm and even suicide amongst detainees. Also, athletes are gearing up for the enhanced Games in Las Vegas this weekend. So what is that, you ask? Well, I'm going to give you a little clue. It's going to be dope. All right, so Friday can be a typical day in which one hands in their resignation letter. And the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, announced her resignation today. But it looks like it's a bit more complicated than that. So in her letter to President Trump, Gabbard said she's, quote, deeply grateful for the trust that he placed in her and that she would be stepping away to take care of of her husband, who has been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. But Gabbard is the fourth cabinet member of the second Trump administration to resign in recent months. All women, by the way. So what precipitated this? Is it a further cleaning house in the administration? And what is her departure actually going to mean for some of the big national security concerns that we have right now? For that, I want to bring in our chief White House correspondent for NBC News, Garrett Hake. Hey, Garrett.

[Garrett Hake]

Hello.

[Yasmin Desugin]

So, Garrett, the reason that Dni Tulsi Gabbard said that she was resigning from her position was to take care of her husband, who was just diagnosed with this rare form of bone cancer. She said, and I quote, she must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle. What are we learning about his health and his prognosis?

[Garrett Hake]

Yeah, look, by all accounts, that is true. I mean, the limited information we've been able to get. I spoke to a senior administration official who's close to Gabbard, who confirmed this is rare and serious. That continues to be the language that we're getting. My colleague Kelly o' Donnell spoke to another official close to her. Regardless of other political reasonings around this, the fact that her husband is sick, potentially quite sick, and in need of serious care, I think is indisputable at this point. And I will just say, like Having covered Gabbard off and on since she was a member of Congress. They do have a, what in D.C. i think amounts to a fairly, a pretty close, very present marriage for a lot of people who are like, you know, trekking back and forth across the country to see their significant others. And remember, she represented Hawaii. Yeah, her husband was a pretty constant presence. He was a constant presence on the campaign trail where he often served as her videographer. So this is an un. What I would call an unusually close political marriage.

[Yasmin Desugin]

She. She represented Hawaii, as you mentioned. She was a Democrat when she did that.

[Garrett Hake]

That's right.

[Yasmin Desugin]

She was the vice chair of, of the DNC just a couple of years ago. She left the party in 2022, and then in 2024, she endorsed President Trump. The only other, quote, unquote, Democrat in the Trump administration is HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy. She's former military and has long been an outspoken critic of the open ended wars with Afghanistan and Iraq, and has not been outspoken when it comes to Iran, necessarily. But there have been questions as to whether or not she actually supported the war with Iran. And as we well know now, one of her top deputies, Joe Ken, actually resigned in protest over the war with Iran. But it seems as if the theme of this second term of Trump has not been firings, abrupt firings by social media. It has been soft landings, stepping down. Is there any indication that Tulsi Gabbard may have been forced out instead of resigning on her own accord?

[Garrett Hake]

I think it's certainly a possibility. I have no specific reporting to support it, but our reporting at NBC and some of the other reporting out there from I think news outlets that are pretty wired at the White House, has been that she's never been someone who is like, fully in the President's interest, inner circle, never someone upon whose counsel he particularly relied. So whether he ultimately got frustrated in some degree with her performance or found her unsatisfactory or had another candidate in mind, or whether she perhaps got tired of being on the outside looking in on some of these key decisions. I think all of those things are possible and will be targets for more reporting as this news has a chance to kind of percolate out into the MAGA ecosystem here.

[Yasmin Desugin]

The DNI normally would be involved in the meeting ahead of capturing the Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro. The DNI normally would be a part of the planning of a launch on a war with Iran. Instead. Where we have seen Tulsi Gabbard was in Fulton County, Georgia, watching the FBI seize voting machines earlier this year. So is her departure at all going to impact some of the ongoing national security issues that this country is dealing with right now? Because we have most recently the indictment of Raul Castro, former leader of Cuba, the ongoing situation with Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro. What's happening with Iran, the conflicts in the Strait of Hormuz. Does this resignation affect any of those?

[Garrett Hake]

It may not. You know, and I think that speaks to the degree to which she was kind of not a key player on a lot of those decisions. I would say the person who seems to have sort of absorbed most of the authority that might have otherwise on paper been Tulsi Gabbards, though, is actually Marco Rubio. I mean, he's dual hatted anyway as Secretary of State and as National Security advisor. And I think his role is actually even bigger than just those two jobs. I mean, he has really emerged as someone who the president trusts a great deal. But my sort of evolving view on this, and I emphasize evolving because we were in the early hours after this announcement even came out, was that Tulsi Gabbard was someone who was really useful to the president as an endorser, as someone who gave him credibility with the type of voter that he needed in 2024. She was an anti war voice. She was a disaffected Democrat. She kind of brought a unique portion of her own coalition to the president, as did RFK Jr. Of people who were kind of like, if you listen to Joe Rogan on a regular basis, you heard a lot about Tulsi Gabbard.

[Dr. Akshay Sayal]

Right.

[Garrett Hake]

She sort of heterodox political views that fit with a lot of people who the president was trying to reach. And so she kind of came along for the ride in a position that I think on paper matched up reasonably well with her resume, her military background. She was on a lot of these relevant committees when she was in Congress. But that she never fully jived with the rest of the president's team in that role. And I do think, by the way, that's why when you did see her pop up, it was on things that were much more in line with the president's political thinking than what you might think of as the dni you mentioned, Fulton County. I'll give you another one. She also was involved in declassifying some records very early on that suggested, in her view, I don't think this was ever borne out, that there was like investigative work that needed to be done to probe possible malfeasance by President Obama around the start of the 2016. You know, Russia related investigations. You know, they were kind. She was kind of like finding stuff to pull out from under the furniture that would be interesting to the Trump base. That's when we heard from her the most, like almost across the entirety of her tenure was trying to find those things that I think a reasonable person might look at as efforts to keep herself in the President's good graces, but not otherwise high priorities from a national intelligence perspective.

[Yasmin Desugin]

So I just kind of want to sum up what has taken place on this Friday before Memorial Day weekend as we look ahead to our next three days and a potential rare day off that some of us may be able to have in this news cycle. Trump's Director of National Intelligence has resigned on this Friday. He has canceled a trip to Bedminster this weekend, which he had planned to do. He has RSVP'd no to his son's wedding in the Bahamas, citing what I believe to be our ongoing conflicts overseas that he needs to deal with. So, Garrett, I gotta say, I'm a bit paranoid, but is something coming this weekend that we don't know about and that we should be anticipating?

[Garrett Hake]

My spidey sense is tingling and I'm not leaving town either. It is impossible to know. But all of the factors that you just laid out point towards at least the possibility of that. And I'll add one more. The President has given all of these evolving deadlines over weeks and weeks and weeks as it comes to Iran. And the most recent one, which he was talking about Monday, Tuesday of this week, was that he was gonna do another little pause for a couple of days. And he mentioned basically a pause till Friday. If you were the President and you wanted to hit Iran especially hard, maybe to resume the war all out, or maybe just to do kind of a one off to force them back to the table early on a three day weekend would be, you could argue, the best time to do it and not have to worry about the market reaction because the market's closed till Tuesday. So there are like all of these factors, what you might call circumstantial evidence, that point towards the possibility of that. So it could be nothing.

[Yasmin Desugin]

Yeah.

[Garrett Hake]

But I'm not leaving town this weekend.

[Yasmin Desugin]

Thank you, Garrett.

[Garrett Hake]

You bet.

[Yasmin Desugin]

All right, we are going to take a very quick break, and while you're listening to the ads, why not take a moment to subscribe to our podcast. You'll be the first to know about new episodes like episode three of our Supreme Court series, hosted by my colleague Laura Jarrett, which comes out tomorrow morning. It's about your cell phone location data and whether police can use a broadnet to snare a suspect.

[Garrett Hake]

Nobody expects that by just going about our daily lives with a necessary piece of equipment in our pocket that we think is for phone calls or for text messages or for going online, that we are somehow consenting to the government getting a full record of everywhere we've been.

[Yasmin Desugin]

All right, we'll be right back. Hello.

[Garrett Hake]

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[Yasmin Desugin]

I thought I paid that.

[Garrett Hake]

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[Yasmin Desugin]

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[Garrett Hake]

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[Yasmin Desugin]

And we are back with here's a scoop from NBC News. So NBC News has obtained data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement showing a concerning phenomenon. In the past year, six detention facilities placed more than a thousand calls to 91 1. And more than two dozen of the emergencies involved serious incidents of self harm. Now, some of these incidents have resulted in the worst. At least five detainees have died by suicide in detention facilities this year alone. That is the highest number in decades. So what is behind this? What is going on here? For that, I want to bring in NBC News senior Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainslie. Hey, Julia.

[Julia Ainslie]

Hey.

[Yasmin Desugin]

Yes, talk about this data and what it showed and what is making people say, wait a minute, something is actually going on here?

[Julia Ainslie]

Yeah. Well, my producers and I were able to obtain over a thousand 911 calls. And this is just from six facilities within five states. To put that in context, there are ICE detention facilities in every state. But these calls, just this fraction that we were able to obtain, really show a picture of something quite alarming that's happening here. In the calls to 911, we found at least 28 incidents of self harm heard about people attempting to hang themselves. One swallowed a razor, one took as many chemicals as they could find. Cleaning solvents, we presume. And this is all being described by the guards within these ICE detention facilities on the phone with their local 911 operators, asking them to send an ambulance. And what's clear from all of this, and we've spoken to immigration attorneys as well as epidemiologists who study rise in deaths and trends in health within U.S. prisons as well as ICE detention centers, is that there's been a real change. And this uptick is not just because there are more bodies. You would think, okay, well they're detaining more people and so therefore they'll have more people who are dying. Just sheer numbers wise. But what's actually happened is there's an increase in the rate and that is a bit of a discrepancy because DHS says that there is not a change in the rate.

[Yasmin Desugin]

Is there anything that you heard from these phone calls in your reporting that really stands out to you of a detainee and what they were struggling with?

[Julia Ainslie]

Well, there was a woman that we feature who is 33 years old, she's pregnant, she's in ICE detention. And the call that goes out from this facility in south Texas to 911 says that she's been banging her head against the wall and refusing transport to the hospital. Now, I'm a mother, you're a mother. You know, when that stage of life you're really trying to preserve yourself because you're caring for another person. And it just seemed the banging of her head against the wall seemed that she was so desperate. And I think the reason why that story really stands out, one, just because it was so hard to hear, but also just this desperation and a big piece of this. I talked to immigration advocates that they are hearing more desperation from their clients because they don't know when they will get out. It's really different from our normal penal system in the United States where you know, when your next court date Is, you know, how long been sentenced, you know, when you'll have an opportunity for parole. They're now detaining immigrants who have been arrested from the interior of the country, many of whom have been living in the US for decades, and detaining them without the possibility of parole. And they don't know when they might have an opportunity to make their case before a judge. And so this idea that there's no end in sight seems to really be affecting the mental health of people. And the physicians I spoke to said that often suicides are the tip of the iceberg because that's obviously the most extreme form of self harm. And self harm is an extreme form of mental distress, that there are probably so many more people who are in extreme mental distressed for every case that we actually see or were able to obtain about self harm and suicide.

[Yasmin Desugin]

And we've talked repeatedly about the conditions that these detainees face, and then you talk about the uncertainty of their future. I mean, how does that kind of state of mind and these facilities affect what is happening to these detainees and this uptick that we're seeing?

[Julia Ainslie]

Well, yeah, we talked to a doctor who is in Texas, he did his training at Harvard, Dr. Sanjay Basu, an epidemiologist and a practicing physician, who says that, you know, one of the things that happens in a carceral setting is when people lose hope. And that because of the way these people are now being detained without bond, they are losing hope because they can't see when the end is in sight. Yes, I should say this is a big question about whether or not this indefinite detention is legal. It's going through the courts right now. Previously, administrations could hold people in detention pending their asylum hearings, and if they had just crossed the border, it was a way to try to deter border crossings. But now with this population of people who have been taken from the interior of the United States, it's a new question. And the appellate courts are really split on this. One judge in the middle of the country just decided that states like Michigan and Tennessee and Ohio and Kentucky cannot indefinitely detain immigrants in detention. But other circuits have come up with a different opinion. So it's definitely likely to go to the Supreme Court very soon to determine if ICE is within its legal right to hold these people in the way that it is. In the meantime, the effects that it's having in this environment inside ICE and really inside the minds and the mental states of the people who are being held in there is very, very real and very serious. I will also say this, Yaz, I Mean, I've spoken to top level ICE officials about this data because after I saw it, of course needed to call some of my sources that if I'm seeing this now, of course they've been seeing this for a long time. And they said there's definitely concern about the rise in deaths and in self harm, but that no guidance has gone out nationally to change the way they do anything. That officers and guards within these detention centers are supposed to take people who are at risk of suicide and put them into a different environment where they don't have access to, say, sheets that they could hang themselves with, or access to sharp objects or access to the cleaning chemicals like the man who swallowed lots of cleaning chemicals. But no nationwide guidance has gone out to say that they need to go beyond the protocols that were already in place. And it's not clear if they are actually investigating these cases to see if the protocols that are in place were broken.

[Yasmin Desugin]

So one more thing I want to ask you about before you go. There's a new story out about green card applicants who are going to have to return to their home countries in order to apply for a green card. What is going on here?

[Julia Ainslie]

Yeah, I actually can't emphasize, you know, enough what a huge change in policy that is. And also the way that they're going about it may end up being something that this administration actually gets blocked in court for simply for the way they've rolled out this change in the green card policy. What this means is that for the million people who apply for green cards every year, about half of those usually apply from the interior of the country, meaning they've come in perhaps as an asylum seeker, perhaps as an employee on a work visa, or perhaps they come into the country and they get married and they want to adjust their status. This is the next step before they try to become U.S. citizens. That would mean that half a million in the United States have to leave and go back to their home countries. And when they do so, they'll have the big question of will they be approved, Will they be allowed back in? So it could end up having a perverse incentive of encouraging people to stay in the United States and not apply for that next step in the legal process and instead to get off of the legal path because of the risk they run of going back to their home countries and not being able to get back in. For a lot of people, going back to their home country is simply out of the question from a legal, economic and safety perspective. And so I want to get back again to the way they laid this out. We've seen a lot of changes in immigration policy during Trump's first and second terms. It's what keeps me busy around the clock. But what's so different about this is that they just said in this announcement today, this is a reminder to the officials who are approving green cards that we are in the right to ask people to leave the country to apply for green cards, and we are going to do so. Previously, you would see what's called a notice for propols, rulemaking, where they have to give an announcement, wait 45 days for a comment, and then the policy often is then implemented for 90 days. This is something, it seems, that they're able to start doing now that they're not going to approve any more green card applications from people applying within the country. At least that's the way the policy reads. There are no time parameters that keep them from putting this in place. It's like this is a reminder that we are within our rights to do this, and we will. And so now that's going to affect 500,000 people in this country overnight.

[Yasmin Desugin]

Julia Ainslie. Thank you. By the way, if you or someone you know is in Crisis, call or text 988 or go to 988lifeline.org to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. All right, we're gonna take a very quick break. And when we are back, a controversial new sports event where the athletes are gonna be competing while using performance enhancing drugs. That's next. Hello?

[Garrett Hake]

Hi, this is Regional Power and Utility calling to inform you of an outstanding balance.

[Yasmin Desugin]

I thought I paid that.

[Garrett Hake]

You're scheduled for immediate shut off unless it's resolved today. Uh, I can help you make your payment right now. Learn to pause, reflect, and protect yourself from scams with the help of the AARP Fraud Watch Network.

[Yasmin Desugin]

Nice try.

[Garrett Hake]

Visit aarp.org fraudwatchnetwork to recognize fraud. Sooner the younger you are, the more you need aarp.

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[Yasmin Desugin]

And finally, so I have asked our NBC News medical reporter Dr. Akshay Sayal to join us because there's something very interesting going on that I think we need to talk about. If you're someone who's athletic, right, you're into competitive sports. Well, there is a competition out there for you. We're talking about athletes that are using performance enhancing drugs at a thing called the Enhanced Games, which of course are normally completely off limits in competition sports. There's 42 athletes competing, including past Olympic medalists. But 36 of them took part in a 12 week trial supervised by the Games in Abu Dhabi. 34 used a custom drug regimen. Most common, testosterone and testosterone esters. Two others trained, quote, unquote, naturally. So we have some dopers, some enhancement users, and then we have a couple that said, I'm going to go this alone. I'm going to do this naturally. What are your thoughts on this, Dr. Syel?

[Dr. Akshay Sayal]

Hey, Yaz. You know, my first thought when I heard about this was this is absolutely insane. You know, these athletes are on some very serious, you know, drugs. And we have a list here. You know, you mentioned the testosterone and testosterone esters, Yaz. There's also growth hormone Adderall, there's estrogen blockers, there's epo, which is erythropoietin, which is doping. And then there's of course anabolic steroids. So these are all very serious compounds that are banned in regular sports for a reason. So, yeah, it's a little bit crazy.

[Yasmin Desugin]

I'm wondering, are they trying to do it to see how far the human body can actually go with these performance enhancing drugs? Is it a way to market these drugs for folks that are actually not into competitive sports? Is there any kind of science benefit to watching these types of athletes compete in this way? I mean, like, what do you think the actual objective is? Or is it just money?

[Dr. Akshay Sayal]

Yeah, I think it's all the above. I think. Yeah, there's, there's certainly some. Obviously, you know, a lot of money involved here. And the company is selling a lot of these, you know, compounds that these athletes are taking. You can actually get them on the website from Enhanced Games. You know, to their credit, they did launch a clinical trial. If you go to clinicaltrials.gov you can actually see the study that they've launched. So they are doing this for the purpose, as they say, to advance science and advance our understanding. But I think this fits into the bigger sort of trend we're seeing in medicine right now. Even with my everyday patients in 2026 about wanting to biohack, wanting to experiment, wanting to sort of push the envelope with what's possible, even if it's not necessarily safe or FDA approved or FDA sanctioned, people aren't as afraid anymore to experiment with some of these compounds. And so it's not surprising that you're seeing this at the level that you are in terms of the games here,

[Yasmin Desugin]

how much they actually improve performance. What have you seen on these athletic fields to say this actually makes people better athletes, this makes them faster, this makes them jump higher, this makes them go longer.

[Dr. Akshay Sayal]

Yeah. So, yes, you know, these drugs work. There's a reason that they're banned by the, you know, the World Doping Agency and by the International Olympic Committee. It's because they work. They essentially increase, you know, muscle synthesis, muscle recovery time. They help you sleep better. You know, when we talk about growth hormone, all these sorts of things, they work. But there's serious downsides to them. Yes. And that's, you know, when we talk about testosterone, it can affect your heart. When we talk about Adderall, it can also affect your heart. You know, growth hormone can lead to things like diabetes and insulin resistance and cause swelling in the body. So, you know, these athletes are going to be using them in a very controlled medical setting with a supervised medical team and world class physicians. And, you know, it's a little bit different than people who are looking to experiment, you know, at their home gym. So I'd like to think that the athletes this weekend are going to be hopefully all safe and hopefully, you know, everybody, no serious incidents happen. But for everybody else listening, this isn't something that we recommend you try at home.

[Yasmin Desugin]

Dr. Akshay Sayel, thank you.

[Dr. Akshay Sayal]

Anytime.

[Yasmin Desugin]

Okay, that is gonna do it for us at here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasim Desugian. My colleague Laura Jarrett is gonna be here in the feed tomorrow with the third installment of our here's the Scoop Supreme Court special. Talking about the cell phone in your pocket and whether the government has the right to collect your data when they're looking for criminals. So tune in for that. And remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, the Inside Scoop. It is a deeper dive on the main stories of the day that comes out every weeknight straight to your inbox. You can sign up for the Inside Scoop as part of our paid [e-mail] we'll see you Monday.

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