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- [00:00]
Clay Travis
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:04]
Buck Sexton
The Team 47 podcast is sponsored by.
- [00:08]
Selena Zito
Good ranchers making the American Farm strong again.
- [00:13]
Buck Sexton
Team 47 with Clay and Buck starts now.
- [00:18]
Selena Zito
We are joined by our friend Selena. Zito Book comes out today. I've got a copy because, you know, I know some people. Butler, the untold story of the near assassination of Donald Trump and the fight for America's heartland. Selena, you do great reporting. You're an excellent writer. You were right there that day in Butler as those shots rang out. Tell us, what was it like?
- [00:44]
Chris Wright
What happened?
- [00:46]
Clay Travis
Yeah, so, you know, when you're in reporting, you aren't. Your day starts out a certain way. Like, you're going to do this, this and this, and nine times out of 10, that's not what happens. And so that day, I was supposed to interview President Trump for five minutes before the rally. That changed about two hours after I'm at Butler, and it's going to be five minutes after the rally. And then they say, well, you want to, like, fly to Bedminster with the President and do the interview on the plane. I'm like, well, I never get an invite like that. I'm in. And then five minutes before he's supposed to go on stage, they come rushing back and say, it's go time. And I just assumed that they changed their mind and I was going to do it before the rally. So I raced through along with my daughter, who's a photojournalist. She did the COVID of the book and raced through the crowd. We get to the behind the stage, and I asked the young man, I'm like, where are we doing this interview? And the President's around the bend. He comes back and he says, not doing the interview right now. You're still going to Bedminster. He just wanted to say hi to you. And so that moment of him just wanting to say hi, he asked about my grandchildren. I've interviewed President Trump dozens of times, and at that moment, I'm then now stuck because I can't get back to the press riser. And I'm supposed to leave with him to go to Bedminster along with my daughter. So they put me in the buffer area. The buffer is sort of this. Well, that goes around the stage. And they said, just follow him out and then get over on the other side. Towards the end, you can just jump in the motorcade. That's why I ended up being just four feet away from the President when he was shot. Was right, if you can see me. And a lot of the photos just to his. That Would have been his Left.
- [02:46]
Buck Sexton
Selena, this is. I've got the book in front of me right now, and I read the opening chapter already. It's fabulously well done, and I'm actually looking forward to reading it. And we get a lot of books and I'm not able to read all of them, but we're coming up on the one year anniversary. Do you find it as hard as I do? As I think Buck does, and as I imagine the vast majority of people out there listening do that, we still know almost nothing about this guy who got onto the roof with that gun. Not much about his background, not much about his motivation on that day. Not even that much about how he came to come as close as he did to killing the President of the United States, which, by the grace of God, he did not achieve. But we're in a completely different universe. If that bullet is one quarter inch closer to the President. What do you think now, having been there, having witnessed it, does it still seem improbable that all of this happened?
- [03:43]
Clay Travis
It does seem improbable that all of this happened. And you'll find out in the book. The President calls me the first thing the next morning. And, you know, President Trump is a little hilarious if you don't have him picked up on that. The first thing he says is, hey, this is President Trump. Like, I don't know that, right? And then he goes, I'm so, I want to make sure you are okay, your daughter's okay, and I so sorry that we didn't get to do that interview. And, and that's, that's this moment with him, right, that you really understand. Like, like, this is, this is not the person you always think he is. And, and we have, we go on that day, and it's detailed in the book. We go on that day, he calls me seven times. And, and he really talks about the improbability that he didn't die. Any questions about purpose and about God, not in a fanatical, you know, religious way, but in a way that is very thoughtful. And, you know, you know, why didn't I die? Do I know? How do I have this new purpose? And I think he answers that question every day, whether you agree or not with everything that he does. He answers that question every day since he was sworn in, in January. But he does have purpose. This is not the presidency of a man going into his second term. This is a president's. This is not a lame duck presidency. He is approaching this as someone who was spared by God. And he says, that many times to me. But also as someone that has a purpose and he is meant to fulfill it, and he's going to go head down straight into it, because you never know what's going to happen to you.
- [05:38]
Buck Sexton
I think that what you just said is so important, and I think people are picking up on it now. I think even Democrats are. The biggest difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 is the quality of the people he surrounded himself with. Yes. But also, Trump is making decisions that he thinks are generationally in the interest of the country, and he's not concerned at all with anyone who might disagree with him. And I think that's partly because he feels spared based on what happened that day in Butler.
- [06:06]
Clay Travis
Yes. Though. So I have an interview coming out with him this week on Friday in the Washington Post, and he talks about that in a very meaningful and profound way. And, you know, part of who he surrounds himself also has to do with Butler. Like Butler changed everything. It didn't just change the American electorate. It didn't just change our coalition and galvanize people. And people will read that detail as I continue to cover the election in a way that none of you have seen us all, because the reporters were writing something completely different than what I was reporting in that moment, but everything changed in that moment. And I think this nugget's important because it goes to understanding Trump in a way that people don't understand, and it goes to understanding why he's going to do what he's going to do, because God saved him. And that is the moment that he says, fight, fight, fight. And I asked him about it the next day, and I asked him again about it two weeks ago. He said, and I just wanted to revisit it with him. And he had the same exact answer, because I didn't know if he would remember that or not. Right. That was a pretty crazy day. The next day, he said I was not Donald Trump in that moment. I had an obligation to be someone who shows resolve and be a symbol of the country, be a symbol of grit and exceptionalism, and we will go undefeated. And that is what America has always meant to me. And I had an obligation as a former president and possibly the next president to show that in a lot of ways, because I didn't want people to panic there. And they didn't, by the way. But also I didn't want people watching panicking out in the streets. I had an obligation to be presidential, not to be Donald Trump, to represent the office in the country with resolve.
- [08:07]
Selena Zito
Selena, honestly, wasn't that just the most amazing thing you've ever seen a president do? Amazing. Even for President Trump, who's done a lot of incredible stuff, Clay. And I still sit there and think I can't. It's hard to believe, even when you watch the video, even when we saw it the first time as it was happening, that a president took a bullet through the ear, was bleeding on stage, and turned to his people and raised a fist and told them to fight.
- [08:32]
Clay Travis
Yep. Yeah. It was that process that went through his head, that understanding that it was more. He was a man there. He was a president. He was America in that moment. Right. You know, that symbol of our country when you think about the American eagle. Right. Perseverance and strength and grit. He knew that people needed to know that he was fighting, that the country was fighting, and that something as dark, as demonic as what Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to do and would have caused immense chaos and unrest in this country was not succeeded. And he wanted to show that America is resilient. I don't know. And I remember him telling me that, and my reaction was, oh, wow, that's deep. Because it was. It was. It was. It was to think on your feet like that after you've been shot. Me, most people would be in the fetal position. Right. And I'm watching him, see, remember, I'm only four feet away, and I'm watching him, like, struggle with his Secret Service because he wants his shoes on, and damn it, he's going to get his shoes on. He is not walking off of that stage in his stocking feet across grabs. Were you able to be the United States?
- [09:59]
Buck Sexton
Were you able to go to sleep? I'm just kind of curious when something like that happens, were you able to immediately contextualize the historic moment of what had occurred? And the fact that I think for hundreds of years people are going to be watching that video and it's going to become even more iconic after the passions of the moment start to fade, because Democrats have whatever they think about Trump. But I think 50, 100 years from now, long after anyone who is listening to us today is not here, that moment is going to become so indelible and so iconic in American life. Did you understand that or feel that immediately? And second part, did you, like, were you able to sleep that night? I'm just kind of curious when you have that experience, how long it takes you to come down off the adrenaline rush just based on where you were, to say nothing of him.
- [10:53]
Clay Travis
I've still not come down from It. And. And, you know, I knew exactly. You know, as a journalist, you know, part of your job, even if it's a tiny thread, you're always covering history every day.
- [11:10]
Buck Sexton
Yep.
- [11:10]
Clay Travis
But I knew in that moment, you know, and he talks about purpose, but I also talk about purpose. There is a reason I was there. Right. And there was a reason I was supposed to chronicle this. And. And I knew that that was what my purpose was and to be. Be able to tell this story in. And because I have a gift of total recall. Right. I can remember every smell, every. Like I think in color. Right. Like, I can smell and taste and feel everything in that moment. And. And when they. When people say, when they've been in a. In a tragic situation, the time slows down. There's that. That was very true for me. And. And I watched the entire thing in, In, In. In these. These very fine layers. And because I have the gift of recall. And plus I have my recorder on and I'm taught, and I record everything that happens. I can hear everything the President says, but also I'm talking to my recorder, so I don't forget anything. And I probably started the book. I didn't even think about a book. I just thought, well, I need to write this story. And I did. But, you know, people came to me. It's like, you have an obligation to write this book. And so I immediately started writing it. But as I'm writing it, I'm still continuing to cover an extraordinarily historic election that I believe, as I'm watching it, that other people aren't covering what's happening. They're covering what they wish was happening. They're covering what they hope happens. But I'm on the ground there in Pennsylvania, in the middle of somewhere, Pennsylvania, and I'm covering this and seeing this entire country change, not just in the rural areas, but in the suburbs. I'm watching these young mothers who all was, who have never put a Trump hat on in the next weekend, have them on at their kids soccer games because. And there's interviews in the book. They said, hey, he can take a bullet for me. I can wear a damn hat and not worry about what people say. To me, everything changed in that moment.
- [13:29]
Selena Zito
Butler the Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland. Selena Zito's book out today. Selena's great. We really love her work. Get yourself a copy. Selena, thank you so much.
- [13:44]
Clay Travis
Oh, thanks. You guys have a great day.
- [13:47]
Dr. Marty Makary
You're listening to Team 47 with clay and Buck.
- [13:52]
Selena Zito
We are joined by the Secretary of Energy, the U.S. department of Energy, Chris Wright. Mr. Secretary, appreciate you being with us. We know we were just, you were just in a marathon cabinet meeting as a member of the Cabinet. A lot covered there. Wanted to just jump into what is in the big beautiful bill that affects directly U.S. national energy policy. Like what do we need to know about what's coming?
- [14:22]
Dr. Marty Makary
Actually quite a bit. But let me start out with maybe the biggest thing is it's the ending of about a half a trillion dollars of subsidies that would be paid out in the next 10 years. So roughly 50 billion a year. We've been paying these for many years and the biggest component to them is to pay people to put wind and solar on our electricity grid and subsidies to help rich people buy EVs. And so the problem of these subsidies is they not only cost the taxpayers a half a trillion dollars, but at the end they make our electricity grids more expensive and less stable. So we have to pay twice. So I think reducing the pressure, the cost of these subsidies and the pressure on the cost and stability of our grid is going to be a big win for Americans.
- [15:15]
Buck Sexton
When you look at the, at the price of gas, I think there's a big story that isn't being talked about enough. It's at four year lows, summer lows going all the way back basically to when we were coming out of COVID What does affordable energy, particularly when it comes to gas, mean for the overall economic environment as you see it?
- [15:37]
Dr. Marty Makary
Oh, it's huge. And you made some four year lows, which is true. If we correct for inflation and ignore the crazy year that was Covid, it's actually a 20 year low in the price of gasoline in affordability terms. So it's just tremendous. That's a significant expense that all Americans, all of us, pay every week to get to our jobs, to go on vacations, to visit our grandmothers and travel with our kids. If you make gasoline prices expensive, you just shrink the life opportunities people have. People visit their family and friends last, they have less adventures, they've got less money in their pocket for other expenditures. So I'm very proud about the administration's record. We have gasoline 25 to 30 cents a gallon cheaper today than it was 12 months ago. And that's going through a period of major conflict in the Middle east, but major productive conflict in the Middle east. Hopefully ending the 46 years of Iran as the troublemaker in the Middle east and really the threat to global peace, probably the largest global threat to peace over the last 45 years.
- [16:49]
Selena Zito
We're speaking to the Secretary of the U.S. department of Energy, Chris Wright. And, Mr. Secretary, if you could lay out for us what does a make energy great again? You know, mega, mega. What does a make energy great again policy under Trump look like going forward? Does it include nuclear? Is it new technology applied to fossil fuels? Like what? What is the Trump administration trying to accomplish so that not only are we doing as much as we can with the technology we have and the resources we have in the past, but that we do new things, innovative things going forward?
- [17:28]
Dr. Marty Makary
Oh, great setting of that table. So I mentioned that getting rid of a half a trillion dollars to make energy expensive. There's also in the one big beautiful bill just returning to rule of law and allowing oil, gas and coal producers to produce again on federal lands across the country. This will lower baseline energy prices in the coming years and decades in front of us. I squeezed that one in there real quick. But there's also, I'm a free market guy, so I'm not a fan of subsidies, but we do have tax credits in there for a finite period of time for next generation nuclear and for geothermal and for upgrades if we can get more power out of hydro. But, yeah, our administration is all in on trying to launch a new renaissance of nuclear energy. We should be building these small modular reactors. We should have it cheaper to build big reactors. Yeah, go ahead.
- [18:22]
Selena Zito
No, I was going to add. It's exactly what you were going into, which is what does that look like? Because nuclear unfortunately became a boogeyman of the environmentalist left in this country. And so we're behind, I think, where we should be in nuclear development for energy purposes in this country. What, what does it look like and what percentage do you think of our power could come from nuclear in the years ahead, given the Trump administration's willingness and your willingness to promote the free market principles and technology principles that can bring so much to the table when it comes to nuclear?
- [18:58]
Dr. Marty Makary
Well, it's a little bit less than 20% of electricity today. So after natural gas, which is by far and away the leader, nuclear is second. But yeah, I mean, that could, yeah, a couple decades from now, that could be 50, 40 or 50% of our electricity from nuclear. We got to build a lot to do that. But this is America. We can build a lot. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC, has just made it so expensive, so slow and so risky to develop nuclear power in the country. We basically stopped doing it for the last few decades. So we need regulatory Reform at the nrc. We need regulatory reform from NEPA so that it's just a check. Are we being smart about the environment, not a weaponized thing. You could just have lawsuits and stop anything from being built. We need to have permitting on federal lands. Department of Energy will be in charge of that. We will have next generation test reactors running 12 months from today at our Idaho national lab facilities there. Like the technology is there, the private capital is there, the interest is there. We just need the government to get out of the way and let capitalism and free market forces bring us a very exciting few decades with rapid growth in nuclear energy.
- [20:14]
Buck Sexton
We're talking to Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Buck just asked, and you are hearing a lot of talk about the need for nuclear power. Underscoring all of this, based on the people that I talk to is there isn't enough discussion about all of the power and energy that's going to be necessary for AI that the amount that this is going to demand, the amount that it's going to soak up is just off the charts. That I imagine is something you're spending a decent amount on as well. For AI, for the AI revolution to take place and for America to lead. What sort of energy do we need to create that isn't being created now? Is that accurate based on what you're seeing?
- [20:57]
Dr. Marty Makary
No, you're absolutely right. Let me give the numbers real quick. We had. So here we are, 20, 25, five years from now, we're going to need probably at least another hundred gigawatts of generation. A gigawatt is like a big coal power plant, a big natural gas plant, a nuclear plant. Some Nuclear plants are 2 or 3 gigawatts, but 100 gigawatts of additional power five years from now. And in the current plan, there is a plan to shut down 100 gigawatts of mostly coal plants over the next five years. If we did all that, we'd have to build 200 gigawatts of new power generation to meet that projected demand. And what's in the queue right now that's visible? Or applying for a permit or acquiring land of firm capacity? About 20 gigawatts. So a gaping hole, which is why this administration and my department are going to be very carefully scrutinizing. Does it make sense to shut down that coal power plant like the one they tried to shut down in Michigan? An over 1 gigawatt power plant 15 years left of plant life and for political reasons, we want to get rid of coal. We're going to Shut that puppy down. I used emergency powers to keep it open. Two days in that same Midwest grid, there was a blackout. Like, we've just got to stop shooting ourselves in the foot by closing existing plants. And we've got to make it much, much easier for American businesses to build new natural gas plants, to build new nuclear plants, to build new geothermal next generation electricity generating capacity. Just wind and solar just is simply not an answer. It's really hot in D.C. today, but the wind is still no wind power at time of peak demand. In the winter, it's really cold at night, but we don't have any solar power. And when you're in a cold, huge cold front, it's again a high pressure system, no wind. So we've just got to get smart about energy in the United States again. But it's business and private entrepreneurs that are going to drive this. We just need the government to be out of the way and a credible partner for permitting and any other infrastructure that needs to be built to support it. But I'm optimistic. This is America. We can build things again.
- [23:12]
Selena Zito
One more for you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for being with us. In terms of exports for particularly oil and natural gas, I know we've been doing very well and America is really the world's fossil fuel, the true fossil fuel superpower. We don't necessarily think of ourselves that way, but I think the numbers certainly bear that out. Is there going to be. Would you expect an increase in that and how do you see it affecting global demand?
- [23:44]
Dr. Marty Makary
Yes, there's going to be a huge increase of that. United States is already by far the largest exporter of natural gas in the world. And we will double that in the next five years. And the five or seven years after that, we could double it again. So America would just be the dominant supplier of natural gas around the world. That's 25% of global energy comes from natural gas and it's the fastest growing source of energy on the planet. So super excited about where all this could go. And I've got to jump on to.
- [24:20]
Selena Zito
No, we like the optimism. Thanks for joining us. Right after cabinet meeting, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. Thank you so much, sir.
- [24:28]
Dr. Marty Makary
Love the show you guys run. Keep up the Great work.
- [24:30]
Buck Sexton
The Team 47 podcast is sponsored by.
- [24:33]
Selena Zito
Good ranchers making the American farm strong again.
- [24:38]
Dr. Marty Makary
You're listening to Team 47 with Clay and Buck.
- [24:44]
Selena Zito
We are joined by Dr. Marty Makary. He is the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Makary, we appreciate you, sir. We remember you were a truth Teller in the dark days of COVID madness. And now you are at the FDA and part of the MAHA approach to America. Make America healthy again. I saw your op ed in the Washington Post on getting drugs approved much more quickly and efficiently. That should be. That would be helpful. But let's just start with this. What is the top of your agenda for maha? How are we gonna make America healthy again now that that is your portfolio.
- [25:27]
Dr. Marty Makary
Well, good to be with you guys.
- [25:29]
Chris Wright
You know, we are changing the entire approach to healthcare in the United States under Secretary Kennedy. It's not just chemotherapy and insulin and Ozempic. We're now having research on root causes at the NIH. We're investing in the food side of the FDA. People forget that the F&FDA stands for food, not federal. And so we are focused on healthy food for kids. We've got tremendous traction with the petroleum based food dye ban. We're going a step further, looking at all the chemicals in the food supply that are banned in other countries. We are focused on the drug side and device side. More cures for the American people. We'd love to see a cure for certain kinds of cancer, Stage four cancer, drugs that melt away cancer. We want to see a cure for type 1 diabetes, for Alzheimer's, we want to see meaningful treatments for als and we want to see a universal flu shot so we don't have to play a guessing game each year. And one of my personal missions is to make sure that our veterans have a rapid decision on treatments for ptsd.
- [26:42]
Buck Sexton
I really appreciate you coming on with us and the fact, Dr. Makary and I always want to go back and reemphasize this, that you were one of the truth tellers during COVID And I'm curious now as we are working through the MAHA movement and you have RFK Jr and you have you and Dr. Bhattacharya and I'm sure there's many, many more people that we don't even know the names of. Do you feel in many ways like all of the slings and arrows that you took and that many of your colleagues took have been vindicated in what you said and feel as if, hey, this is an opportunity to rectify a lot of the scientific wrongs on a big picture that came from somebody like Dr. Fauci lecturing everyone and saying, I am the science, don't challenge science. It has to feel in some way vindicating to be in the position that you are in now.
- [27:35]
Chris Wright
Well, I think this is a time for us to demonstrate humility the same humility we called for. When you don't know something as a doctor, you just need to say we don't know, or we think this might be the case. The absolutism that we saw during COVID which was not based on science, but it was under the guise of listen to the experts and don't question us, it did a lot of damage. I mean, ignoring natural immunity, putting masks on toddlers for three years, insisting schools stay shut for a year and a half. Somehow this became partisan, and it's really an ugly chapter. So we are trying to demonstrate transparency and humility throughout our health agencies and as role models. And I think, you know, we're making a lot of progress in that way. We, for example, put out a strong warning on myocarditis with the COVID vaccines. We're not approving Covid vaccines for healthy children without a clinical trial first. We're getting back to gold standard science and we're using common sense.
- [28:40]
Selena Zito
Dr. Makary, what are some of the ways that we can see improvements in the drug? I mean, this is what you wrote about in the Washington Post editorial, right? Getting faster approval. Because one thing I know right now from the look, people think pharma and a lot. And a lot of people on the right in particular get, you know, they bristle a little bit. But pharma does make things like statins, which save a lot of lives. Pharma has incredible drugs that are helping with increase with rare types of cancer. We want. We want there to be breakthroughs. We want there to be cures. What are ways we can get to those cures faster? And is artificial intelligence something that you see, helping just go through all the data and get to cures faster for the diseases that we want to see left in the past?
- [29:36]
Chris Wright
Absolutely. And look, as a doctor at Johns Hopkins, for most of my career, I saw how drugs would cure people and people got terrible diagnoses and they would ask, is there anything promising out there? I think we have to ask a big question that really hasn't been asked before, and that is, why does it take over 10 years for a new drug to come to market?
- [29:59]
Dr. Marty Makary
We have got to cut the red.
- [30:01]
Chris Wright
Tape and these unnecessary delays, all of the bureaucratic processes, and just get back to our job of making a prompt decision on safety and efficacy. And, you know, if there's a drug where there's no hope or there's a small population affected, I believe in both the spirit and the letter of right to try that the president has put.
- [30:31]
Buck Sexton
Out there, how Much of what you deal with is fixable from a cultural perspective. And let me build on that a little bit, make the question a little bit, maybe more understandable. One of the things we worry about, I think if you're out there and you're a parent like I am and like Buck is, is so much guidance is constantly shifting. And if Trump is in office right now, we're very thankful that you're the FDA commissioner. But let's say that Kamala Harris, God forbid, had won or that she wins in 2029, and we get a brand new team of leadership at many of these agencies. If the culture underneath is rotten, then it becomes very difficult to fix. Can you fix the culture of the fda? How would you assess based on your time there so far? The culture actually is, I think it.
- [31:20]
Chris Wright
Is culture that can be influenced. You know, I spend essentially every day on campus at the fda. It's a beautiful campus. I meet with the reviewers and the scientists and the inspectors and the folks that are working on childhood teen vaping reduction and all of the people. You know, The FDA regulates 20% of the US economy. I'm on the ground. And I think when you're insulated as a leader, you can become a villain. But when you're on the ground and people see that, hey, I'm a cancer surgeon from Johns Hopkins and I've got scientific credentials, I've published over 300 scientific peer review studies. All of a sudden now you're a scientific colleague and you're not some caricature. And so I've been on the ground. The culture at the FDA is strong and getting stronger. The trains are running on time. And so the FDA is going to continue to be strong.
- [32:19]
Selena Zito
What are some of the areas where you're hoping we could see major breakthroughs? I mean, broadly speaking. Right. Not. Not asking about any particular thing that's, you know, in trials or. But, you know, people are hearing about CRISPR technology, obviously. I brought up AI, and I do know there are some people, Dr. Makary, in the biotechnology space who think that we could be on the precipice of a golden age of discoveries that will just help. You know, you said that they're changing the approach to healthcare overall. Right? That's part of the mission. Where are some of the likely discoveries in the near future? I mean, over the next four years, do you think that we could see some pretty amazing things happen that either extend lives, save lives, improve lives, thanks to technology and research that's going on right now?
- [33:09]
Chris Wright
I do, I do. And Let me tell you why, Clay, because we're going to try to do everything possible during my time at the FDA to cut the unnecessary delays, the waiting around, the idle time, the time that drug developers and inventors say where they're just doing guesswork because they can't talk to anyone at the FDA to find out what they want in the application. We just announced yesterday that all of our decision letters are going to be public information. So companies are not going to have to do guesswork to figure out how the FDA thinks or what they want in an application. We're increasing communication so a company can call us and ask a question instead of doing guesswork for a year. And we have now a powerful AI tool that we just launched across the fda, all of the centers where reviewers have incredible computational power. Now to organize applications and to summarize these giant, gnarly hundred thousand page applications. We're getting away from paper. We're doing a lot to cut the waste.
- [34:17]
Buck Sexton
What should people know? Dr. Makary, and he's the head of the FDA, came on the show for years before he was the head of the fda. What is the absolute latest on the COVID shot? I know there's been, I think you came on right after the decision was made not to recommend it necessarily for, for young people that is very young. Where are we now? I don't even know what booster people are on, but for people out there who have kids, I know there's a lot of concern about the number of shots that they're getting. A lot of examination of what is necessary, what is not. What would you say parents should know about that?
- [34:56]
Chris Wright
Well, 85% of healthcare workers said no to the last Covid booster last fall. And that should tell you something. You know, maybe there's a high risk group where it makes sense. We're going to tell folks to talk to their doctor. The government is not your doctor. But are we going to just blindly rubber stamp Covid boosters for young, healthy teenagers every year in perpetuity, such that a 10 year old girl today is going to get 60 more Covid shots once every year for the rest of her lifetime? No, we're not going to do that without some clinical trial supporting that theory. So we're getting back to gold standard science and I think people appreciate it. We've outlined our, our whole framework for Covid vaccines in the New England Journal of Medicine and we're being very transparent about it. It's not, we're not doing deals with companies, we're being very public and transparent about everything. And I think if we can do this, if we can cut the red tape, be transparent, show humility, we can see cures for type 1 diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders, and we can get to a universal flu shot, for example, which is something in the works in early development so we don't have to guess every year what the strain is gonna be.
- [36:12]
Buck Sexton
Dr. Makary, we appreciate the time and we appreciate all the work that you're doing. Have a fantastic weekend and we'll have you on again soon. Don't hesitate to reach out anytime we can help get message out that. That you think's important.
- [36:26]
Dr. Marty Makary
Great.
- [36:26]
Chris Wright
Good to be with you guys. Thanks so much.
- [36:28]
Clay Travis
This is an iHeart podcast.