B (2:45)

What was the major frustrations with Bondi from our understanding?

A (2:48)

I think there's a couple of things here going back to September that was really the first time we got a whiff of these frustrations. Folks may remember when the President posted something on Truth Social that looked like it was meant to be a message to Pam Bondi. It begins with him saying Pam and then focuses on what he felt at the time and I think still feels was insufficient vigor being put into the prosecution of his political enemies. He talked about Letitia James, Adam Schiff, a couple of other people. The President has been frustrated for a while that the DoJ isn't doing what he thinks it should to go after those folks. He wanted to see aggressive prosecutions and they weren't happening to his satisfaction. And I think the other part about this has been her handling of the Epstein files, which has been clumsy from the jump, suggesting very early on in the administration that she had the files on her desk ready to go, handing out information that turned out to be pretty much nothing to a bunch of conservative influencers within the first few weeks of the administration and then this kind of slow, ham handed rollout of the files since the law was passed to compel their release. The President and his staff here at the White House, his team have just been wholly unsatisfied with the way in which that's been handled and the fact that the President has had to be kind of the tip of the spear on taking questions about Epstein, not the Attorney General, who in the view of some people around the President, got him into this mess in the first place. And so I think those things were sort of compounding series of errors that she had been responsible for, at least in the President's mind. As to what was the straw that broke the camel's back, I think that's still very much kind of a target for us today and this week. But her stature with the President and with those around him was really only going one direction and that was down.

B (4:36)

What is Pam Bondi's legacy after having served in the Trump administration as the Attorney General? Because she did execute on many things that the President did in fact, want going after his, you know, presumed enemies. There were many things in which the President, it seems, had instructed Bondi to do that. She, she followed through on.

A (4:58)

Yeah, I mean, look, guessing a legacy long term is always a little bit challenging. But as I sit here today, I think it's probably at least in part, that she was responsible for or was at the watch for, the erosion of the typical firewalls, the typical distance between the Department of Justice and the White House. I mean, all of these agencies with Cabinet secretaries are nominally independent to one degree or another. Some considered historically much closer to the executive branch, and some historically have operated with a much greater degree of independence. The DOJ is at the farthest end of that spectrum as the agency that operated with the most political independence from the White House ever since Watergate. That is no longer the case in Donald Trump's Washington. And Attorney General Pam Bondi oversaw that change in her time in the job.

B (5:45)

You know, what that makes me think of, Garrett, is, you know, you and I obviously have been working together basically since Trump 1.0. And we talked a lot then about how the President would call Bill Barr his Attorney general. Right. And we would talk a lot about the separation of powers within the branches of government and how Bill Barr was not the President's attorney. Right. He was the Attorney General for the United States. Right. But it makes me think of it when you talk about how Pam Bondi basically made that jump and became essentially the president's attorney.

A (6:18)

Yeah. I mean, look, Bill Barr is a good example because this is a guy who was certainly MAGA in his political inclinations, but also was an institutionalist. He had worked for George H.W. bush, and he had his view of where the lines between the DOJ and the White House were, and the President had his. And when they came into conflict, Bill Barr wasn't the Attorney General anymore. Pam Bondi was much more willing to cast herself as the president's attorney or someone who did the work that the White House wanted. And the great irony here, Yasmin, is the person who's gonna be replacing her, at least in the short term, is in fact the president's former personal attorney in Todd Blanche, who was the president's defense attorney when he was just Donald Trump candidate in the interregnum between his two terms. And now, at least for now, he's been the deputy Attorney General. He will be the acting AG again, at least in the short term.

B (7:06)

Do we think he's likely to stand the job?

A (7:08)

I think it's possible. I mean, he obviously has the trust of the president. I think he's pretty widely considered to be like, a serious professional. I mean, he was a U.S. attorney and a prosecutor, a federal prosecutor before he was a defense attorney. He's considered, I think, in Washington to be a grownup. And he has the trust of the president. That's a pretty potent mix. I'm not exactly clear on how the Federal Vacancies act would apply here, given that he was already the deputy, he was already Senate confirmed for the number two role. But I think a lot. Ultimately, the president's gonna want somebody with the full title in that job. He's got three years left on his term. I can't imagine him just shifting the deck chairs around every 120 days or whatever it ends up being until the term is over. But I think Blanche has as decent of a shot as anybody else in holding onto that job longer term.

B (7:57)

It's coming just a month after the firing of Kristi Noem, the secretary of Department of Homeland Security. Now, no longer is this kind of the beginning of cleaning house. Right. We didn't see any firings in the first year of his second presidency, but now we've seen two so far in just a of one month. What's next?

A (8:14)

Yeah, look, we'll see. I mean, there have been plenty of rumors and reports of the president's frustration with other members of his Cabinet in recent weeks. But I think one of the big differences between Trump 1 and Trump 2 has been his reticence to come out and fire people quickly. You know, he talked a lot as a candidate. His acknowledgement that one of the big weaknesses in Trump one was, in his view, how it was staffed. And the people he surrounded himself with in Trump, too, they tried to eliminate that weakness by bringing in more people who were more loyal, kind of cutting out positions that they didn't feel like were necessary close to the president. And also when they felt the need to move on from people, they've tried to keep them in house. Even Kristi Noem has basically a patronage job still in the administration, working at the State Department on one of these kind of side projects. Keeping people in the tent keeps them from going out and trashing you on cable TV or on the podcast circuit. That's cut down on the sort of outside chaos in this version of Trump, too. Whether this is sort of a harbinger of a change in that regard to come, I think remains to be seen. But you still have Susie Wiles, the same chief of staff at the helm who's still sort of the architect of that strategy of, like, not taking people who know where all the bodies are buried and making a mad at you by firing them and embarrassing them.

B (9:32)

Garrett Haig, thank you.

A (9:34)

Thank you.

B (9:37)

All right, we're going to take a very quick break, and when we are back the rising cost of health care and how it is impacting Americans already struggling with higher prices. And while you're waiting, I want to ask you to do us a solid. Subscribe to here's the Scoop and then leave us a review and a comment. It will really help us with the algorithm. We'll be right back.

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C (10:33)

Gone south has been a podcast about crime in the American South. But for our new season were widening the lens. Through deeply reported narrative driven stories and conversations with journalists, historians, musicians and people who've lived these stories firsthand, we're digging into the myths, scandals and power structures that still shape the south and in a lot of ways, the country itself. From re examining the cultural meaning of the Alamo to tracing the family history of Alex Murdoch to investigating the federal indictment of New Orleans former mayor, each episode stands alone. But together they paint a picture of what this region really is and how it came to be. With 40 new episodes released weekly, gone south is a show for people who want to understand how history lingers and why it still matters. Now follow and listen to gone South Season 5 An Odyssey podcast, available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows.

B (11:43)

And we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. So the war with Iran has left gas prices soaring. Then you have inflation, which has been eating into household budgets across the country. But there is another cost that is rising even faster and that is health care insurance and hospital bills have been outpacing inflation for years. For millions of Americans, the Sophie's choice of whether to pay the mortgage or pay for the surgery that actually saved your life. It's not hypothetical anymore. It is reality. So for that, I want to bring in NBC News senior financial and investigative reporter Gretchen Morgenson, who has been digging into this as part of our NBC series Unaffordable America. Hi Gretchen, how are you? I'm good. It's great to see you in studio here.

E (12:27)

So Nice to see you.

B (12:28)

This is a really important story and I think what's so interesting about today versus even 20 years or so ago is when I was growing up, the cost of insurance did not seem to be as much of a thing. Right. It, it didn't seem to be a concern the way it is now. In 2025, KFF, which is a health policy nonprofit, estimated the average cost of insurance for a family of four, $27,000. And if we compare that to the median U.S. income, according to census.gov, that's around $83,000. Right. So 27,000 of 83 is a lot of money for a family of four. Why is it that insurance seems to have become a luxury item? What contributing factors have gotten us here?

E (13:21)

It's really the cost of the healthcare that is making the insurance go up. That is hospital prices. Hospital prices have gone up far faster than inflation, according to Zach Cooper at Yale University. He's done a study on this. And so what happens is the insurance companies say, okay, well, we're not going to eat those costs, we're going to pass them on to you and you and you and you and all the people who are insured. And good grief, if you're not insured, you are even worse off because then the hospital just charges you their so called list price and you really, really are in trouble. And as you know, Yaz, medical debt is the main reason consumers file for bankruptcy.

B (14:03)

What role is the Affordable Care act playing in any of this? And also now the current president, President Donald Trump's big beautiful bill.

E (14:13)

Well, it's going to increase by at least $10 million.

B (14:16)

The big beautiful bill.

E (14:17)

Yes. Okay, yes. Because of a one is that the ACA subsidies will go away for a lot of people. They'll have to pay way more for their insurance, won't be able to afford it, so they'll have to go uninsured. And then Medicaid work requirements are also going to bounce a lot of people from the insurer roles. And so you're going to have more than 10 million people that we have now who are uninsured facing these monster bills.

B (14:44)

So you're going to have people that are uninsured in a time in which health care is higher than ever before.

E (14:48)

Correct.

B (14:49)

In which literally going into the emergency room and getting something routine like stitches costs a heck of a lot more today than it did 20, 30, 40 years ago.

E (14:56)

Absolutely.

B (14:57)

You spoke to a lot of people, folks that are facing really high deductibles so that their insurance costs are actually Lower out of network surprises as well. What are some of the things that you heard?

E (15:08)

First of all, people are completely flummoxed by the problems that they face when they go to a hospital. You can't shop for an affordable hospital. You can't look at the prices ahead of time. Even though there was a law written, you know, in 2021 requiring hospitals to post their prices. And this was supposed to make it easier for if you're having elective surgery, say you need to have your ACL replaced, you can go and find, you know, a hospital that might have a price of that that you could afford. Well, these files are impossible to read. And so there is just a real black box element to hospital pricing. You also have this really interesting element of care. So, for example, if you're a nonprofit hospital, you are required to offer financial assistance programs to patients because as a nonprofit, you don't pay taxes at the same rate that a for profit hospital would. And so the give and take on that is okay. If you're not going to pay taxes, we're going to make you offer more financial assistance to people. Okay. So I hear from people all over that they can't get the answers they need on the financial assistance programs from the hospitals.

B (16:28)

You mentioned the high cost of care and you spoke to a guy in Texas, Randy Slaughter. Right. What happened with Randy?

E (16:38)

Well, Randy went to the hospital in College Station, Texas. He was having extreme stomach distress, went to the emergency department and they never were really able to determine what was causing his distress, but they did do a couple of procedures. He was there for three days and the bill that he received was something like $33,000.

B (17:07)

And he didn't get a heads up on that?

E (17:08)

Well, he asked for an estimate. Okay. He also asked whether he might qualify for financial assistance because of his income. He felt that his lowish income might enable him to take advantage of that. The person who came into his hospital room, according to him, said, no, you don't qualify now. So, you know, he assumes that's right. And so he gets the bill. Now he's insured. Yes. So he's not even one of the worst off people.

B (17:39)

He's insured, but with a very high deductible.

E (17:42)

Very high deductible, $10,000 deductible. So he ended up receiving the out of pocket bill of around 9,300 anyway. So he had to pay that out of pocket because his deductible was so high. So he starts paying it. He can't afford to pay it right away. He calls the hospital, they give him the opportunity to have a monthly pay down of this.

B (18:08)

Okay.

E (18:10)

And one day he goes on their website thinking, I'm just going to look at the financial assistance program. And it's like a year later, nine months later, after the surgery, he goes and he finds it and he sees that he believes he qualifies because of his income level.

B (18:25)

So he actually made a call to the building department of Baylor, Scott and White Medical center in Texas. And we actually have some of that phone call that he made making that appeal to them about the financial assistance and lack of knowledge. Yes, about it.

E (18:40)

And this is just one of his calls. He had many.

A (18:44)

I cannot afford to keep making these payments. I need assistance. Had I been informed that I did qualify, I would have applied for the financial assistance from my hospital bed on my tablet. But I was told I didn't qualify.

B (19:03)

So then what happened?

E (19:05)

He was told he didn't qualify first because he made too much money. Then the second reason he didn't qualify was because he had missed the one year deadline. So this was all extremely frustrating for him. And he and I connected and I went to the hospital and told them, you know, his story chapter and verse. And the hospital, they didn't want to talk about his particular care because of the privacy regulations, of course. But ultimately, Yaz, it turns out that they gave him some of the money back that he, after you called, already paid after we called and they wiped his remaining balance clean.

B (19:48)

Did they give an explanation as to why?

E (19:50)

They didn't really. But it was one of those things where you sort of wonder if the spotlight on the problem creates a motivation that might not have been there otherwise.

B (20:05)

So in your reporting, what does this come down to? Why are you prices skyrocketing when it comes to medical care?

E (20:12)

You know, health care costs are 18% of gross domestic product in the United States of America. That is enormous. It is partially because you can't shop for this product. You can't go to the hospital and say, is this a better deal than that deal? Right. So the prices just keep going up and up and up because they can. And the insurance companies respond by saying, okay, it's going to cost more to insure people. And they go up and up and

B (20:44)

they're nobody holding them accountable.

E (20:45)

Nobody holding them accountable. There was one very interesting fact that I found in this reporting and that was looking at all the states, the United States of America, and how many what the average hospital charges over and above what Medicare pays for the same procedure. And these were 600 common procedures. We had this analysis done and the average across the country was almost five times for those 600 procedures what Medicare pays.

B (21:17)

Wow.

E (21:18)

Now in some states very high, like Nevada, I think was 12 times or something like that. Maryland was only one. And Maryland has since 1971 had a state agency that monitors hospital prices. And so it makes you wonder if it's not something that really needs to be handled by a regulatory framework in the states so that they can be sure that they're not ripping people's lungs out.

B (21:52)

For folks that don't have Gretchen Morgenson to call up the hospital and say, why are you charging this person so much money and then get it wiped, don't we all wish we had one of you? What are people supposed to do? How can they be more aware when they are going to the hospital, when they are going to the doctors, when they are choosing their insurers?

E (22:15)

I think that what patients can do is they can try to access these databases of what hospital pricing is. Until it gets to a consumer friendly level, we are not there yet. If readers and viewers want to come to nbcnews.com to look at this story, there is a link to a tool that you can use to see if to flag any kind of duplicate bills that your hospital bill might have included. So you can feed the hospital bill into this tool and red flags might pop up. It's just a way to kind of double check.

B (22:54)

So do your due diligence, basically, right? Ask questions.

E (22:56)

Do your due diligence, ask questions. Ask about financial assistance programs. And especially if it's a nonprofit, that is a requirement. And so you really ought to ask very forcefully about what the financial assistance programs might be.

B (23:12)

Gretchen Morgenson, thank you.

E (23:14)

Thank you. Yes.

B (23:17)

We're going to take a very quick break. And when we are back, an Easter basket staple may not be all that it is cracked up to be. That's next in the headlines.

C (23:30)

For years, Gone south has been a podcast about crime in the American South. But for our new season, we're widening the lens. Through deeply reported narrative driven stories and conversations with journalists, historians, musicians and people who've lived these stories firsthand. We're digging into the myths, scandals and power structures that still shape the south and in a lot of ways, the country itself. From re examining the cultural meaning of the Alamo to tracing the family history of Alex Murdoch, to investigating the federal indictment of New Orleans former mayor, each episode stands alone. But together they paint a picture of what this region really is and how it came to be with 40 new episodes released weekly. Gone south is a show for people who want to understand how history lingers and why it still matters. Now follow and listen to gone South Season 5 An Odyssey podcast, available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows.

D (24:38)

Hey guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Academy award winner Matthew McConaughey to talk about his career from Dazed and Confused and his thoughts in a new book on a better direction for the country. You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts.

F (25:03)

Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the Drink. This month, Demi Lovato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there, it wasn't simple. Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood young and why she now thinks thinks she may have started too soon. She talks about recovery, her new marriage and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook. The Drink is always about the journey to the top, and this was an honest conversation about what that takes. Hope you'll listen and follow the Drink wherever you get your podcasts.

B (25:42)

And we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. Let's get to some headlines. So the partial government shutdown is continuing. The Senate sent their DHS funding bill back to the House, but the House didn't take action in its pro forma session today. Both chambers are in recess. This is the same version of the bill that the Senate passed last week. It funds the Department of Homeland Security except for ICE and Customs and Border Protection. House Republicans had initially rejected it but are now on board. They plan to fund ICE and CBP through the budget reconciliation process, which would not need any voting from Democrats. The next pro forma session is on Monday. It is not clear whether the bill will be on the agenda then. In a post on Truth Social, President Trump said he would sign an order to pay all DHS employees, although we do not have any specifics on the order yet. In the meantime, the new DHS boss, Mark Wayne Mullen, is streamlining the approval process for expenditures and ending a policy that was created by his predecessor, Kristi Noem, that she had to personally approve any spending over $100,000. Critics say it put a particular burden on FEMA and its disaster response and recovery efforts. Rescinding the rule is expected to help ease a spending bottleneck, though the impact won't be felt until the end of the DHS shutdown. It is the first major action from Mullen, who replaced Noem after she was fired back in March. The National Capital Planning Commission, a panel led by Trump appointees, has voted to approve President Trump's ballroom plans. But the project is also facing a new legal hur. Earlier this week, a federal judge issued an order temporarily blocking construction and any additional demolition of the East Wing. The National Capital Planning Commission met last month to evaluate the plans and public comments, many of which blasted the project as, quote, appalling, a monstrosity and vulgar. And finally, so you know those like little mini chocolate eggs from Reese's, the ones that are staples of like every single Easter basket, they just melt in your mouth. They're so yummy. They're the best. So I want you to guess how much chocolate is actually in one of those. I'm gonna give you a second. All right? If you guessed zero, none, then you were right. In fact, most of the Reese's spin off candies, Reese's Pieces, those little hearts they make for Valentine's Day. They have a chocolate flavored coating, but no actual chocolate. But starting in 2027, that is going to change. Hershey's says all of its Reese's and Hershey's products are going to use, quote, classic milk and dark chocolate recipes by then. They say the change has been in the works for a while now, but it does come just a few months after Bob Reese, yes, the grandson of the original inventor of Reese's, called the company out for skimping on chocolate. I guess you can call that some sweet revenge. That's gonna do it for us. At here's the Scoop from NBC News, I'm Yasmin Vesugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, 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 subscription@nbcnews.com we'll see you tomorrow.

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