← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Tulsi Gabbard resigns as chief intelligence official
00:41:41
Tonight on The Beat: GOP lawmakers speak out against Donald Trump’s “slush fund.” Also, the Trump Justice Department indicts former Cuban President Raúl Castro. Plus, Trump uses billions of taxpayer money for projects. Plus, data centers are linked to environmental issues. And the Ebola response in Africa is hindered by USAID cuts. Rep. Madeleine Dean, Barbara McQuade, Lisandro Perez, Tim O’Brien, Maily Kocinski, and Dr. Vin Gupta join Antonia Hylton.
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A
Welcome to the Beat. I'm Antonia Hilton in this evening for Ari Melber. Today, Tulsi Gabbard became the latest woman to leave Donald Trump's cabinet. She submitted her resignation as the nation's director of national intelligence after her husband was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. In a social media post, Donald Trump wrote, quote, unfortunately, after having done a great job, Tulsi Gabbard will be leaving the administration on June 30. Tulsi has done an incredible job and we will miss her. Her highly respected principal, Deputy Director of National Intelligence Erin Lucas, will serve as acting director of national intelligence. The Guardian reported last month that Trump was asking cabinet members whether he should replace Gabbard after she, quote, declined to condemn National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, who had resigned after arguing that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. The people said Trump expressed particular frustration about Gabbard seemingly defending Kent and appearing reluctant to defend the administration's position to attack Iran. This comes as the latest poll from Donald Trump's favorite channel shows that 60% of voters oppose U.S. military action in Iran, up from 5 points last month. The latest Fox News poll shows a deep decline in support for Trump. Fox News reports, quote, approval of Trump's overall job performance is 39%, down three points since last month and 10 points since his second term started and only one point above his lowest in November or October. Excuse me of 2017 a record 61% disapprove of the job he's doing, including 48% who strongly disapprove. Trump approval is at all time lows. Among Republicans, 80% non MAGA Republicans, 54% whites, 43% rural voters as well 71% disapprove of Donald Trump's handling of the economy, 58% say cost of living is the issue they're most worried about. 77% say the economy is in bad shape right now, 76% disapprove of his handling of inflation and 51% say their finances are in worse shape than one year ago. And if you're one of the 45 million Americans triple A predicts will be traveling this Memorial Day weekend, well be prepared to pay some of the highest gas prices we've seen in four years. Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, writes, quote, Americans will be spending $2 billion more on gasoline over the four day Memorial Day weekend compared to just last year. That's according to GasBuddy estimates, or roughly that translates to about $22 million more every hour. According to AAA, the average price of gas is now $4.55 more than 50% higher than it was before Trump's war with Iran began, which is why voters overwhelmingly view Trump's war as responsible for the spike in gas prices. But while Donald Trump, who said last week he doesn't think about American's financial situation, he is thinking about his financial situation. This morning Trump posted quote, I gave up a lot of money in allowing the just announced anti weaponization fund to go forward. Donald Trump has repeatedly denied any involvement in the $1.776 billion so called anti weaponization fund. Trump's refusal to rule out taxpayer funded payouts to those responsible for the January 6th violent attack on the Capitol faced of course widespread condemnation from Democrats. And now Republicans are openly breaking ranks with Trump over that fund, threatening one of Trump's top priorities. Opposition from Republican senators derailed leadership's effort to pass a reconciliation package this week. Today, Donald Trump lashed out at Republican Thom Tillis saying, quote, I called him a nitpicker, always fighting against the Republican Party and me mostly on things that didn't matter. Now he can have all the fun he wants for a few months with some of his RINO friends screwing the Republican Party. On Wednesday, Senator Tillis called Trump's fund stupid on stilts.
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C
I think it's stupid on stilts.
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D
Why?
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C
Because it will invariably put us in a position where your taxpayer dollars and my Taxpayer dollars could potentially compensate someone who assaulted a police officer, admitted their guilt, got convicted, got pardoned, and now we're going to pay them for that. That's absurd. The American people are going to reject this out of hand. When you take money from me to give to a purpose that I vehemently disagree with, that's tyranny.
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A
Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi of New York have introduced the Bipartisan Transparency for American Taxpayers act to block the use funds for payments made through Trump's fund. In a statement, Representatives for both Fitzpatrick and Suozzi call it, quote, this is the first bipartisan bill of its kind. And joining me now is Democratic Congresswoman Madeline Dean of Pennsylvania. She is a member of the House Foreign affairs and Appropriations Committees. Congresswoman, it's great to have you this evening. I want to start with the resignation of DNI Tulsi Gabbard and what it signals to you at a time of such chaos. We are still mired in Iran. We may now escalate in Cuba. And then there is all of this bipartisan outrage on Capitol Hill.
- [06:47]
E
Antonia, it is very good to be with you this evening. And I'm thinking very much of the fact that we are walking into Memorial Day. I'm very mindful of families I met yesterday with a couple of gold star families. Remember what this holiday is all about, those who gave their all for this country. And what a jarring week it has been against that very selfless service to country. In terms of Tulsi Gabbard, I can only wish her, her family, her husband, the very best of health, the very best of everything as they move forward. It was clear to me and I had the chance to serve with Tulsi briefly in my first term. We served on Financial Services committee together in 2019 and beyond. But we saw that she was ineffective in her position. So whatever the reason for her resignation, whatever the reason that the administration is moving on, what I worry most about is the security of this nation. You know, DNI was established after 911 to make sure that we put together the intelligence community and the intelligence information that was so important to be in front of all of us, not to be siloed in different places. So I fear that she was not effective in that role. And I wonder what we will do now and what this administration will do now to make sure that all of the intelligence information is brought in, culled together with the greatest of security for this country and for the world.
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A
Well, there's the open question of what this administration will do. Now there's also all eyes on Congress and what Congress's role may be on so many fronts at the moment. But I want your take on what's happened in the nation's capital over the last several days. Republicans seemingly in a sort of open revolt, unable to get Trump's desired additional DHS money through because of this so called slush fund and the just outrage that it has caused across the country. And I wonder for you what you see as the moment where the dam sort of broke, politically or psychologically, what did it?
- [09:06]
E
I don't know. It's going to take me a long time. But I have to admit to you, Antonio, I don't think I'm alone in saying this was one of the longest weeks in congressional history. It was sad.
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A
It felt that way from over here, too.
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E
You felt it too? My team felt it. And they said, Matt, remember they canceled Monday, Tuesday. I happened to come down, but they canceled Monday, Tuesday. This only was Wednesday to Friday and Friday got canceled. Madness, Absolute chaos, fecklessness. You saw what happened in the Senate yesterday and then the trickle over impact was you saw us on the floor yesterday in the House and obviously, well, maybe not so obviously was in the chaos of the moment and the chaos on the floor of the House, it was very clear that Gregory Meeks, ranking member of Foreign affairs, whom I admire and serve with, had a war powers resolution that was about to pass. And there is a very tight time frame. You know, procedurally there's a tight time frame. And of course, the feckless Republican majority over on the other side of the House desperately did not want that to happen because the Senate had passed a war powers resolution. The whole idea is to curb the president's appetite for war because it is actually Congress who must declare war. But what happened is, of course they pulled that bill, they canceled today's votes in order to procedurally make sure that this could be delayed, Delayed. Delayed. What madness. What chaos. The American people deserve so much better. And on the seriousness of a war in Iran, the American people deserve so much better.
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A
Congresswoman, I have to ask you too, before we go about what's happening on the Democratic side as well, with the release of this widely criticized, to put it diplomatically, DNC autopsy, if you can call it an autopsy. I mean, there are just entire sections missing from it. I want your take on its release. And really the most important question here, which is should Ken Martin continue to lead the DNC in your view?
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E
Well, I have said either release the doggone thing or say it as proprietary. It's important inside information to make sure we examine what we did right and what we did wrong and what we can learn from the cycle, the election cycle that we were unsuccessful at. I'm disappointed. I'm a former professor of writing. I'm somebody who cares about when you write a report, it ought to be good, it ought to be peer reviewed, it ought to be data certain. So it's a very disappointing report. What I hope is that I don't have a call on whether or not we replace the DNC chair. What I hope is that the chair recognizes what he has to do, which is what we all have to do. Regain the trust of the Democratic Party, of the people who work so hard in this party, my constituents and committee members and so many people, and make sure that we wisely walk forward with truth and honesty. And let's be clear about what we got wrong. And much more importantly, let's be clear about what the American people want. They do not want what we just saw this week, that billion, no, excuse me, $1.8 billion slush fund. Notice how that was the breaking. That was the crossing of the Rubicon for some Republicans. Stunning. We all kept saying, what's it going to take? At what point will they say too much? That is too much. The Democratic Party is positioned very, very well because our values are positioned well. So the report stinks. It's disappointing. There's tons we can learn and there are things in the report that we can learn from. As I said, as a professor of writing, I care about getting it right. But much more importantly, the American people know that the Democrats have our values right? And that's where we're headed.
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A
Congresswoman Madeline Dean, it's always good to see you. Thank you for joining me this evening.
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E
Thank you.
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A
Have a very good and safe. And joining me now is you as well, Barbara McQuaid, former U.S. attorney and law professor at the University of Michigan Law School. She is an Ms. Now legal analyst and the author of the new book the Fix Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob style government, out June 2nd. Barbara, I gotta ask, you know, can you see into the future? I don't, I don't know if your book could be better timed given the headlines that we have seen this week.
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F
Yeah. You know, this weaponization fund is everything I write about in this book about how the Trump administration is, is looting our country, is engaging in corruption, and is stealing our money in plain sight. There are solutions, though, to all of these things. And one is, can come from Congress. Congress has the ability to pass legislation to block this fund. We see lawsuits that have already been filed to try to stop it. So there are ways that we the people have the power to stop this if we have the political will to do it.
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A
Can I get your take on this fund, the sort of substance and the structure here? So my understanding is it would be administered by these five commissioners, four of them appointed by the attorney general. And while the attorney general keeps trying to tell people that, look, you know, this isn't just about people who are associated with the Biden years, not just about January 6th, it seems like Trump and his personal influence will be hanging over all of it. Is that your read here, too?
- [14:56]
F
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, Antonio, to go even back just a little bit further, this case is not a real case to begin with. Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against his own administration asking for $10 billion in damages for the leak of his tax returns. Now, his tax returns were leaked and it was unlawful, no doubt about it. But what we saw here is a judge expressing skepticism about how, how can a president who is the chief executive sue agencies that he oversees? And two days before the briefs were due to answer that question, President Trump dismissed the case. Why did he dismiss the case? Because he knew it was going to be dismissed anyway. And one of the things that were highlighted about this case is, unlike most cases, the Justice Department did not invoke the two year statute of limitations. This harm occurred in 2019. The lawsuit doesn't get filed until seven years later. He's out of time. There was no effort to trace the $10 billion in harm to suggest that he actually suffered any kind of financial harm, let alone financial harm amounting to $10 billion. And the Justice Department made no assertion of sovereign immunity. So all of those things make this fund very, very suspect to begin with. Then they set up this fund, and instead of having a judge administer it, as would have happened if they hadn't dismissed the case, Trump dismisses it. So now it can all be handled off stage, outside the scrutiny of an independent, objective observer. As you pointed out, Todd Blanche is going to select the commissioners, and they are fireable by President Trump himself. So they essentially control who's going to get paid out of this fund.
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A
Unbelievable. Barbara McQuaid, always good to see you. Thank you.
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E
Thank you.
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A
Donald Trump's already stuck in a war in Iran. Now he's got his sights set on Cuba. The beat is back in 90 seconds. First it was Venezuela, then Iran. Now all eyes are on Cuba. To see What Donald Trump is planning next. And all the signs seem to point in one direction. A familiar playbook used just a few months ago in Venezuela. As military assets enter the Caribbean, the CIA is on the ground. The indictment of a head of state, in this case, the former Cuban President Raul Castro, widely regarded as still the most powerful leader in the island nation. Cuba's ambassador to the United nations suggested all of this is Donald Trump creating a pretext for the US to attack Cuba. Quote, I cannot call it another word than a circus. A circus they are now mounting as one more action to justify military aggression against Cuba. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now directly calling Cuba a national security threat. Cuba has always posed a national security threat to the United States. They, by the way, have been one of the leading sponsors of terrorism in the entire region. If there's a threat to the national security of the United States, the president not just has the right, he has the obligation to address that national security threat. A day earlier, Marco Rubio released a direct Spanish language appeal to the Cuban people that, quote, trump is offering a new path between the US And a new Cuba. It's not clear how many Cubans actually heard it, though. As millions there scramble to afford food and supplies. They're getting by with only one to two hours a day of electricity and often have no access to the Internet. The New York Times reports Cuba is facing a moment of rising crisis as the country's oil supplies for domestic use and power plants have been exhausted after Mr. Trump effectively imposed a blockade on fuel shipments from any country. On Wednesday, the aircraft carrier Nimitz and its escort warships entered the southern Caribbean Sea, where it is expected to remain for at least a few days. Earlier this week, Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel said any US Military action against Cuba would lead to a, quote, bloodbath with incalculable consequences, plus the destructive impact on regional peace and stability. Cuba poses no threat, nor does it have aggressive plans or intentions against any country, he said. Donald Trump made the calculation that Iran would go the way Venezuela did, and it didn't. And as the Wall Street Journal reports, it's unlikely things would play out that way in Cuba, too. Trump officials have cited Maduro's capture as a blueprint for Cuban regime change. US Officials have been searching for Cuban government insiders in the hope that they can cut a deal to help push out the Castro led government. But many observers say that Venezuela isn't Cuba. And what the US Calls success in Caracas may be a lot harder to replicate in Havana. Joining us now is Lisandro Perez, professor and Chair of the Department of Latin American Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Lisandro, it is great to see you again. I wanna start right where I left off there. And why you think an operation against Cuba might not be as straightforward and as simple as, as what Trump pulled off in Venezuela.
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Well, I think there's several factors there. I think one is Cuban security is actually pretty good. They've taught other countries about their own security. So I think they're keeping Raul Castro very secure at this time and they might pose a bigger strategic obstacle than Venezuela did. I think another reason is that there's a great deal of solidarity, I think, within the Cuban ranks. This is not a case of different sort of sectors within the government. Raul Castro, who's the real power now in Cuba, is an individual who personally led the armed forces and the top generals and the military establishment is personally loyal to him. So I think it's not a case where we might expect that Cuba or the Cuban leadership, I should say, will crack with simply the abduction of, of Raul Castro.
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A
What do you think that abduction, if it were to happen, really would symbolize here? I mean, he is 94 years old and of course there are many Cuban Americans who have wanted him to face the music, the consequences for a long time. But the reality of capturing a 94 year old, having him stand trial in the United States, I mean, it's sort of difficult to imagine. And that's before you even get into just assessing the quality of the United States claims against the former president there for you, I guess I want both your personal take as a Cuban American, but then also your assessment here of whether it's part of a real strategic doctrine or if it's really just a sort of South Florida almost cultural favor to do something like this.
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G
Yeah, I think that would have a very symbolic sort of impact on Cuba. Not a real one perhaps. I don't think that it will mean, for example, that the Cuban regime will in any way crumble or make it easier for there to be a regime change in Cuba. But at the same time I think, you know, you've got to consider that, that Raul Castro is one of the historic leaders of the revolution. And there may be a lot of people who want change in Cuba. I think everyone wants changing Cuba. Everyone want to see, wants to see the conditions change in Cub. But it's quite another thing to present Cubans with an external threat. Many of the individuals or sectors of Cuba who may still be loyal to the revolution will of course rally behind this. There was a rally, of course, today in Havana in support of Raul Castro. And I think that in many ways that nothing, you know, tends to promote solidarity more than an external threat. Look at Iran, for example. There were demonstrations against the government, massive demonstrations against the government. Since the war with Iran, there hasn't been any, in part because it gives the government in power the ability to crack down. But also it means that people who might be soft on support for the government might say, well, you know, we'd like change, but we don't like this change. So I think the posing of an external threat plays a great deal into the hands of the Cuban leadership. And it's always been that case. They have a long history of dealing with external threats by the us. Will they be able to survive this one? We'll see. But in many ways the external threat is something that helps them to try to rally support.
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A
Absolutely. And on the island, the New York Times reported that one 70 year old Cuban retiree said whatever the US's decision, they should just hurry up and take it. If they're going to do it, they should come in and if not, they should stop talking so much. Lisandro Perez, it's great to see you and thank you.
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G
Thank you again. So it was a pleasure talking to you.
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A
Same here. Still to come on the beat, Donald Trump has diverted billions of taxpayer dollars towards his personal vanity projects while his personal bank account has swelled in second term. Tim o' Brien joins us next.
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Simone Sanders Townsend and I have known each other for more than a decade, tussling over politics and policy when she
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worked in the White House and I reported on it. And now we're friends and colleagues. And on our podcast, Clock it, we are positioning ourselves at the intersection of culture and politics.
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Clock it is where we talk about
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what we see and hear in the news.
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So you can start to clock it too. Clock it with Simone and Eugene. All episodes available now.
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Senators skipped town to start their Memorial Day weekend early before they had the chance to vote down what Mitch McConnell calls Donald Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund, as well as Trump's $1 billion ballroom, which has proven to be unpopular with enough Republican senators and 56% of Americans who say they oppose it. But there is still the estimated $1 billion Trump has already taken from American taxpayers to outfit a secondhand Qatari private jet for an American president. While Americans are cutting back their summer travel plans right now because of high gas prices, there is new reporting that Trump hopes to be taking his inaugural flight on the refurbished jet by the Fourth of July. So Trump will be able to mark America's independence from kings with a ride on a hand me down jet from a dictatorial royal family. Your tax dollars hard at work there? Trump, who considers himself a shrewd developer, gave a no bid contract to a contractor linked to a Trump golf club to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Don't ask why. And now the cost has skyrocketed there from $2 million to 20 million.
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C
I originally thought I'd do it for two or three million dollars just to a base, but now we're fixing up the exterior of it. We're doing so, we'll probably be in
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it for less than 20 million.
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Look, I know that contractors often underestimate the time and the cost that it's going to take to get a project done, but 10 times the cost. 10 times. Look, Trump is paying for all this with your money, not his. When it comes to his money, Trump is doing just fine. Reuters reports new financial disclosure forms released by the U.S. office of Government Ethics cover the first three months of 2026 and list transaction values in broad ranges rather than exact amounts, showing a cumulative value of between 220020 million and around 750 million. The purchases included securities linked to companies such as Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Oracle, Broadcom, bank of America, and Goldman Sachs, as well as trades and municipal bonds. Reuters ads A spokesperson for the Trump Organization wrote in an emailed statement, neither President Trump, his family, nor the Trump Organization plays any role in selecting, directing, or approving specific investments. Joining me now is Tim o', Brien, senior executive editor for Bloomberg Opinion and author of Trump Nation. He's an MSNow political analyst. Tim, let's start there. Neither President Trump, his family, nor the Trump Organization plays any role in selecting, directing, or approving specific investments. So end of story. No more questions needed, Right?
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C
Right. I mean, even if we stopped there and said, okay, they're telling us the truth. There's the curious reality, however, that while those trades were being made. There were policy decisions coming out of Washington and the White House that directly affected the profitability and the prospects of the companies whose stocks the Trump family was trading. That's another layer of this that makes their argument that they had nothing to do with, with the decision making around these trades suspect, as it would when we learned that floods of trades on oil came into various markets around the globe and into prediction markets prior to developments in Venezuela and in Iran, which all hinged on people having access to information from the Trump White House. J.D. vance got on a mic about when he was asked in a news conference about these trades and laughed about it. And he said, come on, do you think Donald Trump sits in his home, sits in the White House with a computer, and is just trading stocks, thousands of trades a day? He probably isn't. That's what he pays other people to do.
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A
He's on Truth Social.
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C
He's on Truth Social and often he's tweeting things that affect the value of the stocks he's trading or his representatives are trading. So no one is, is, is saying that he's on Vanguard or, or any other app trading stocks for the fun of it and for his own, you know, financial gain. He's obviously doing it through advisors. But the timing of these trades, the stocks involved, and the policy decisions happening in Washington had a confluence that makes it very suspect and, and, and should be examined, unfortunately. Here's the other wrinkle, Antonia. The entities that would have to investigate that also report into Donald Trump. The Security and Exchange Commission, for example. So he's got every piece of this pie covered. And anyone else doing this would be investigated flat out simply to clear it up. And the ethical president wouldn't do it to begin with. I've been a business journalist for decades. I don't own individual stocks for the simple reason that I don't want someone to say I edited a story or wrote a story about a business because I had a financial interest. My colleagues do the same thing. You know, if, if Barack Obama had picked up $5 on a street corner, the Republicans would have investigated him the next day. And why aren't they raising alarms about all of this stuff, from the Reflecting Pool to the jet, to his trades, to his cryptocurrency dealings. Donald Trump has made more money in two years in the White House over a two year span than he ever did in decades as a real estate developer because he's grifting off of his position in the White House.
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A
You know, Tim, it seems sometimes like part of the strategy here is to be so overt that it's therefore hidden in plain sight.
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C
Yes, man, yes.
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A
Tim o', Brien, good to see you. Thank you so much.
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C
Good to see you, Antonio. Thanks for having me.
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A
Coming up, data centers are bringing big money and big problems to communities all across the country. We're going to find out what's happening in one small town in Wisconsin next. A new industrial boom is spreading across the country. But instead of looking at smokestacks, we're seeing massive AI data centers. These warehouse size complexes may be impacting the digital economy, but they come with enormous and largely hidden environmental effects, too. That's what Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez pointed out to a Trump EPA official this week. I have a jar right here. This is the current drinking water in Morgan County, Georgia, right after a data center was constructed, the metadata center was constructed. The only difference between the clean water and this was that data center. I think both of us can agree that neither one of these things are drinkable. These families now have to ship in a rural area, have to ship water to their house in order to cook and bathe themselves. The United States has more than 3,000 operational data centers, according to Pew. And polling shows that more than two thirds of adults oppose the construction of the massive and costly centers, with most people saying they'd rather have a nuclear power plant in their backyard instead. The negative impacts of these data centers are not unique to Georgia. Our next guest, Maile Kaczynski, has lived in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, her entire life. Her home is located less than two miles from a Meta data center that broke ground in 2025. Now, the creek that runs through her property, she says, is revealing the environmental impact of the data center. Milky water, chemical smells and significant erosion. And joining us now is Maile Kosinski. It is great to have you and good to see you. I want to start by just letting you explain to us what you started to see on your land, on your grass and in your water. Hi.
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H
Good morning, Eric. Good afternoon. Thank you. I live about a mile and a half from the metadata center. We have a beautiful creek that runs through our front yard on the way down to our barn. I came down to do chores one morning and the creek was bone dry without rainfall. It came rushing back about a day later. And this has happened repeatedly all construction season long and we have still not been able to find an answer. We're just about reaching a year here that this has been going on. We've been reporting to the DNR and trying to get people to investigate and figure this out to the point where we've had to resort to our own testing. Amanda Bell, a hydrologist formerly with usgs, has been reaching out and helping us interpret those results. But a lot of this has fallen upon us to try to find answers. I think what people don't realize when you live near a project like this, you don't live next to a data center. First, you live near a massive construction project.
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A
So when you commission studies of your own water, that can cost you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars out of pocket. I mean, you're up against corporations here that are getting tax incentives super fast approvals. I mean, in some cases, these corporations have been able to force some towns into NDAs before they even begin the construction process. And you're a schoolteacher. I mean, how has this impacted you personally, financially? Do you feel like anyone is on your side?
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H
I feel trapped and I feel really scared. The hard thing is that this data center was put into the township that I live in, but it was annexed into the municipality of Beaverdam. I'm not represented by the city and the township doesn't have jurisdiction over the project, so that leaves me to have to reach out to state representatives and they are gaveled out for the season right now and we are forced to try to look into this. And like you said, this is a trillion dollar corporation and I don't think anybody's going to make it easy for evidence to point back at them. And just getting answers from the DNR has been really difficult. It's a pretty fragmented system and no matter how dead the staff is, you know, there's hundreds of permits on these projects. There just doesn't seem to be enough funding and staff to make sure permits are being followed. And those water testing that we have been commissioning on our own, we have both private well water and creek water. It's about $500 a test. And then trying to navigate what those test results mean and are showing and we, we cannot drink our water.
- [36:33]
A
I'm so sorry. I mean for you to be spending, you're out hundreds of dollars on these tests, Meta. I mean a mega corporation and then to not have a single agency or office that you can call and hold accountable for all of this, it must be incredibly stressful and confusing as it all unfolds. Miley Kosinski, thank you so much.
- [36:54]
H
Yeah, thank you. I mean nobody builds near a data center. They get pushed in here and we, we need a lawyer, we need representation to help us navigate this really tricky thing. And if it truly is the data center, it needs to be regulated. And that's where we need I think we need some federal input to come in and put moratoriums in place so that counties and municipalities, villages and townships can protect themselves with some zoning ordinances.
- [37:23]
A
I can tell you as a reporter who's been speaking to people about this, there are a lot of people on your side. I think they all live in different areas and they're trying to figure out if they can afford Lawy and how they can find each other. But I think there is a movement building here. Miley, thank you.
- [37:37]
H
Thank you.
- [37:38]
A
Still ahead, an Ebola outbreak is raging. And thanks to Trump and Elon Musk, USAID isn't there to help stop it. Dr. Ven Gupta joins us next.
- [37:49]
B
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- [38:19]
C
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- [38:52]
A
Once a champion of USAID overseas, Marco Rubio now says we are addressing something that's directly related to the national security of the United States. We are involved in places all over the world. You're asking me about Ebola. Important, but Ebola is in Africa. Cuba's 90 miles from our shores. It is that kind of posture from the Trump administration that may be at least partially responsible for the current Ebola outbreak spreading through the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring Uganda, the New York Times reports. Public health experts around the world and health workers on the ground say that the Ebola response has been significantly hindered by the near absence so far of the United States. Historically the leader in any major outbreak. The United States used to fund robust disease surveillance networks across the region and maintained emergency teams to take charge in public health crises like this one. Much of that work ended with the shutdown of the US Agency for International Development early last year. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also lost hundreds of experts, including some in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who could have helped contain the epidemic. The Washington Post reports. Sweeping aid cuts by the United States and other Western nations to Congo and the World Health Organization, which took effect last year, left frontline health agencies dangerously under resourced as the Ebola outbreak erupted and spread with alarming speed. Aid groups and health officials say they lacked the staff, surveillance systems and emergency supplies needed to quickly detect early infections or contain the virus as cases surged in recent days. Joining us now is Dr. Vin Gupta, a practicing pulmonologist and an affiliate professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. He's also, of course, an Ms. Now medical contributor. Dr. Good to see you. So I want your big picture take on how this response compares to past outbreaks. But I was really struck by the fact that former CDC director Rob Redfield said that normally when we have these Ebola outbreaks, normally we recognize them when we have five, 10 cases, you know, at most. And then he said this one really wasn't picked up until there was over 100 cases. That shocked me.
- [41:08]
D
Shocked me, too, Antonia. And I'll say that I've been 13 years U.S. air Force Reserves and the U.S. military historically, and I've seen this just close up, plays a very important complementary role to the agencies you just mentioned in the t up to all our viewers, the US Military, usaid, pepfar, other State Department entities work in synergy to respond to a public health emergency like they did in 2014 with the West Africa outbreak of Ebola. And that even though that was significant, there were boots on the ground. Very quickly, US Military helped with command and control, logistics, movement of material and supplies, and they moved around diagnostic tests. And that's what's missing here, Antonia. In the eastern Congo, we don't have enough diagnostic tests to detect this strain. And really what we're realizing here is that public health is diplomacy with tangible results. We're seeing the numbers here come out, 1.4 billion dedicated to this region from USAID, other budgets in 2024, 21 million is allocated in 2026. We will bear the brunt of that shortsightedness because we're going to be dealing with these outbreaks across the world, not just in these regions.
- [42:21]
A
You know, how are we to make sense of this administration's public health posture and strategy right now because on the one hand you have them, you know, actually requiring people who got off that hantavirus afflicted cruise ship to stay quarantined to an extent that's actually shocked some public health experts. Those folks are stuck right now in Omaha. And then you have them also dismantling all these networks that prevent crises from these like happening in the first place. So how are we to read this? Is it just a slap dash whatever they think is sort of politically expedient in the moment kind of policy, or do you see a through line here?
- [43:03]
D
I think it's a combination of both. You know, when we contextualize this, these are relatively small investments that will have significant downstream return on investment. When we think about stymieing an outbreak at its point of origin, then dealing versus dealing with it on our shores, I mean, that is very clear, number one. Number two, they are in some ways executing on a playbook to take out whatever frustrations and whatever their base politically, in my opinion, felt in the wake of COVID 19 and the pandemic. And so if you don't have data coming in, if we're not surveilling, if we're not testing for outbreaks or emerging pathogens, if we're not giving people access to health care, so that's the through line here. These are decreased budgets and investments across both global health and domestic health. If you don't have those inputs, Antonia, then you're not going to be made aware when there's a problem. And I also think they recognize that the life course and the outcomes and consequences of these short sighted decisions is going to be far la or will be realized in decades years after they leave office. So they're not going to have to deal with ramifications.
- [44:12]
A
That is incredibly frightening to think about. Dr. Ven Gupta, thank you for joining me as always. And we're going to be right back after a very quick break. And that is the beat for this Friday night. You can see me again tomorrow night on the weekend primetime. We're going to be joined by Congressman Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, and our own MSNow legal analyst Andrew Weissman. That's Saturday at 6pm Eastern right here on MSNow. Thanks so much for watching.
- [44:42]
I
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