← The Focus Group Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript104 lines
- [00:00]
Sarah Longwell
Okay, it's kind of embarrassing how bad I am at budgeting. Let me see your charges. Ugh, Fine. You spent over $600 on takeout last month. I can't cook. You know this. Yes, I have had your disgusting food, but you're literally paying for a meal subscription on top of that.
- [00:15]
Jonathan Cohn
Whoa, wait, wait, wait. That.
- [00:17]
Sarah Longwell
That can't be right. Look, just get Rocket Money. It shows you all of your expenses in one place and even tracks your subscriptions. And if there's a subscription you don't want, which for you, there are a lot you don't need, you can just cancel right in the app with a few taps. So you mean I don't call anyone to cancel? Nope. No hold times or anything. And they'll even try to get you a refund on some of the months of wasted money, which is a lot of money for you.
- [00:41]
Jonathan Cohn
Okay, okay.
- [00:42]
Sarah Longwell
And if you thought I was done, I'm not. The app can also help you make a budget that works for your income. Anytime you get close to your spending limits, it alerts you so you know exactly where your money is going at all times. All right, Emin, what do I have to do? Go to RocketMoney.com cancel or download the app from the Apple or Google Play stores. While holiday shopping is almost always fun, credit can be confusing. Download the MyFico app now and shop with confidence, knowing that you can stay on top of your credit 24. 7. Get your FICO score straight from the people that created it, plus free credit monitoring and a free credit report every month. No credit card required. FICO scores are used by over 90% of lenders, so trust the MyFico app to keep you in the know. Visit myfico.com free or download the MyFico app today.
- [01:30]
Jonathan Cohn
Foreign.
- [01:36]
Sarah Longwell
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the focus group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark. And this week, for our last full show of 2025, we're covering one of the under discussed but important subcategories in American politics. The Maha Voter or Make America Healthy Again. Because our lives are ruled by variations of this acronym. So one of the worst parts of the first year of the Trump presidency has been the ravaging of the public health apparatus. While measles cases have exploded, this has all been driven by a political faction that's getting more and more important within the Republican Party. And we're going to hear from some of them today about why they got so Maha pilled. My guest today is Jonathan Cohn, author of the Bulwark newsletter, the Breakdown, which is excellent. And he has been all over healthcare policy this year. Jonathan, thanks for joining us from Japan.
- [02:35]
Jonathan Cohn
Thank you for having me. Yes. From across the world, where they don't seem to be having the same issues with public health that we are in the United States.
- [02:44]
Sarah Longwell
No. Vaccines are still cool there.
- [02:46]
Jonathan Cohn
They appear to be great.
- [02:49]
Sarah Longwell
No measles for the Japanese. Congrats. Okay, so we're a year into the Trump administration. Is there anything that you think has gone uncovered about the way that they have approached public health? Which seems like an odd question because you cover it all. But, like, what do you just think people generally are missing?
- [03:10]
Jonathan Cohn
Well, there's two things going on. I think there's the general problem of the Trump administration that there's so much going on, it's hard to focus. I mean, I feel like so many of the things that have happened in public health. And let's be clear, we're talking public health there. Let's just leave stuff like Medicaid and Affordable Care act, like, to the side. That's healthcare, but that's, you know, that's health insurance. And we're not talking about that today. Right. We're talking about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. We're talking about vaccines. Maha. And he's done so much, I feel like it's hard for people to focus on. There are the changes to the vaccine policy, which have gotten some attention, but that's going on for a little while. And then, boom, something else happens, and there's some other announcement that he's cut funding for, say, the MRNA vaccine research, which I personally think is one of the biggest developments of the year. That scares me the most. And just for background, we had been investing $500 million in development of the next MRNA vaccine. That's the technology that we use for the initial Covid vaccines that were so successful. And scientists were basically like, hey, if we could have these ready to go in the future, you know, we get hit with a bird flu pandemic, which is like the thing that really scares the people who study this, because it could spread so quickly, it could be so deadly. You know, we could have a vaccine much more quickly. You know, a month, two months, three months, as opposed to a year or longer. And he just killed the funding for it because he thinks MRNA vaccines are dangerous, which they are not. So you have that. You know, he kind of moves from piece to piece. I would say the undercovered part of this is. And it's not undercovered if you follow it, but I just feel like, the nature of it is not the kind of thing that gets the headlines. He has just gutted the agencies that watch out for our public health. And it's true of the Centers for Disease Control. It's true at National Institutes of Health. You know, it's a combination of downsizing and firing people and also pushing people out who were the sort of senior career leaders. I know one person, sort of not that well known, someone who'd been like the 20 years infectious disease specialist at the National Institutes of Health. And so she's sort of quietly, you know, left after a while, finally, you know, and she's one of the top experts in the field, had been called in on bioterror episodes for both Republican and Democratic presidents. You know, just an incredibly accomplished scientist. And now she's gone. She's gone from the agency. And you multiply that by hundreds.
- [05:39]
Sarah Longwell
Just.
- [05:40]
Jonathan Cohn
We're losing so much expertise, and it's not the kind of thing you can put your finger on. Except when the next crisis comes, who's there to deal with it? Well, we've lost all the best people.
- [05:50]
Sarah Longwell
I totally take your point on the crises, but to me, it's also the inability to push advancements forward. So one of the things I had seen about MRNA technology is that they were seeing some really positive, exciting things around its ability to treat certain cancers. And, you know, when I saw that, it was like, oh, this is such a great breakthrough. And it's like, oh, but did we pull all the funding from studying this? It's so hard to quantify the loss of things that won't happen that we could have had as a medical advancement that we won't because of the brain drain. And the brain drain is going on everywhere. One of the reasons I. I wanted to have you on and I. I think it's important to talk about these things is it's. It's hard to remember. But when you. When they take away the fundings from the universities, right. A lot of that funding goes to medical research places like Harvard and Yale, and they attract the best talent to come to America and do research that then leads us to the best patents and, like, all of that stuff, no one will know what didn't happen, but we aren't investing in it the way that we need. One last thing, just up front, because you said something where you're like, oh, he's doing a lot. And then you named a whole bunch of things that he was, like, yanking away, like, he's doing a bunch of things, but they seem to all be Destructive or ways of taking things. Is there anything he's doing that's affirmative. That's like a change in approach because so many people that like him and wanted to see him there was like, well, he's going to, he's going to study these things or he's going to get these things out of foods. Is there anything he's doing that you think, okay, well that's a good move or that's interesting or yeah, yeah.
- [07:29]
Jonathan Cohn
So I mean the irony here is, right, Make America Healthy again. I mean it's the acronym, the MAGA acronym, but the concept is something I think would be universally supported by people on left and right and almost everybody who's in the public health establishment. You know, he sort of acts like he discovered this idea that, you know, well, we need to make ourselves healthy. I mean he has this, if you listen to him and when he's sounding more reasonable, he'll say things like we spend so much money taking care of people when they are sick, we don't do enough to keep people healthy. And it's like, yes, amen, that's wonderful. Now he acts like he discovered this. I mean this is, we didn't talk about this.
- [08:08]
Sarah Longwell
That very preventative medicine.
- [08:09]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah, preventative medicine and you know, and investing in health. And you may recall we had a first lady not so long ago who was very invested in getting people active, improving diet. She interestingly did not get the same reception on the right. She was scorned as a control freak and other things. I'm talking of course about Michelle Obama.
- [08:32]
Sarah Longwell
But I'm picking up what you're putting down.
- [08:34]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah, the concept. Great. And insofar as he is encouraging people to exercise, I'm not into the whole the pull ups and him and Hegseth and all that, but whatever. You know, he's encouraging people to exercise, getting food additives, you know, out of food, the food dyes, I'm not sure actually are all that harmful as he makes them out to be. But fine, you know, I mean, take them out, you know, it's certainly not going to make them worse and maybe there's some benefit. So I think that's a positive. I will say one other crusade he's taken on. I mean there is this weird politics. I know we're going to get into this with the focus groups a little bit. One of the interesting things about his agenda and the Maha movement, it's got this sort of cross cutting political coalition because it really does pick up on some very populist themes that we traditionally Associate, I think more with the left, especially when it comes to the pharmaceutical industry. One of the sort of causes he has taken up is to try to get rid of direct to consumer advertising, which the drug company ads, which are everywhere. You watch cable news, you watch sports, I mean, you can't get away from them. We're one of only two countries in the world that allows that. There's lots of evidence. It distorts the market. It gets people demanding drugs, asking for drugs and clamoring for them that really aren't helpful. Pharmaceutical industry uses them to pump up sales. It's bad. It leads to overmedication, mismedication, and he wants to clamp down on that, which I think is great. Now, the caveat to that is there have been efforts to do that before. Actually, turning that into policy is hard. You have to come up with a way to do it through law or regulation and. And you have to defend it in the courts. I'm skeptical that this administration and Secretary Kennedy in particular are going to get that done because follow through doesn't really always seem to be their thing. But hey, if they can, more power to them. If we can get rid of drug advertising on tv, we can make fun of New Zealand because they'll be the only country left that does it. Those damn Kiwis.
- [10:29]
Sarah Longwell
New Zealand. All right.
- [10:31]
Jonathan Cohn
I never figured out why it was New Zealand exactly, but for some reason they're the other country that allows it.
- [10:36]
Sarah Longwell
Well, I could do with fewer of those ads. They are ubiquitous. But. Okay, so I want to get into the way back machine real quick. When we first talked to Biden to Trump voters last year, Shortly after the 2024 election, it became clear, and it was clear in the run up to the election as well, that RFK Jr. Was a reason that many people knew people flipped to Trump like people who were flipping, who were swingy, that there was a real MAHA contingent to them. This is what these Biden to Trump swing voters sounded like on maha.
- [11:13]
Jonathan Cohn
I wanted a world that's going to.
- [11:14]
Sarah Longwell
Be here for my granddaughter who's 10.
- [11:16]
Jonathan Cohn
I want the waters cleaned up in everything that Robert Kennedy did around New York and the harbor and everything else and all these other pharmaceuticals and cleaning up all the environmental messes. I want that to happen.
- [11:26]
Sarah Longwell
And if Putin chump in the office by doing that and you put RFK.
- [11:30]
Jonathan Cohn
Behind some of those problems, we could start to work on making this a better place. Going into the Aquarian aids, the things.
- [11:38]
Sarah Longwell
That I appreciate about him. First of all, it is putting Kennedy in his cabinet I have mad respect for Kennedy. I feel like he will be a real asset to the administration with trying to improve our food supply and just make America healthy again.
- [11:57]
Jonathan Cohn
People are reluctant to appreciate RFK at the moment because of certain situations, aligns with conspiracy theories. But I feel like RFK stands for exactly what we need is a better health care system, better healthy foods for our kids and for ourselves.
- [12:12]
Sarah Longwell
So you've been on the healthcare beat for a long time, and it used to be the Democrats were the health care party and had a base that cared way more about health care than the Republicans. Is that still true?
- [12:24]
Jonathan Cohn
You know, again, I think we define health care here, right? So there's like, healthy living and, you know, sort of good health as opposed to, like, getting people health insurance. My sense is, in general, if you asked people which party is more likely to protect your health insurance, I think that still skews, and you would know better than I would. But I think that still skews heavily towards the Democrats as the party that are going to protect Medicare, protect Medicaid, access to health care. And I think if you looked at the people who really. That's a voting issue for them, that's the thing they care passionately about. They're much more likely to be Democrats. Does feel like there's been some change where it used to be, this sort of healthy living crowd. I mean, the sort of. I'm going to stereotype a little bit, but, you know, the California aesthetic, right? You know, less artificial ingredients in our lives, you know, more outdoorsy, all of that was more of a Democratic thing. It does feel like now there's a side of that on the Republican side. And it's very hard for me to tease out the cause and effect with Robert F. Kennedy as part of that, because, of course, Kennedy was a Democrat until not that long ago, right before he went to sort of join forces with Trump. So it's a weird group, but it definitely does seem like there is this subgroup of people who are now very. You know, you're a reporter and you're meeting somebody and they start to tell you who they are, and you're sort of processing in your head, you're like, okay, I think I know what kind of person you are. I know what you're going to tell me about your political views, because, you know, I grow my own whatever. And we live out in the country, you know, we don't whatever. I'm like, okay, you're a California Democrat, right? You know, that's who you are. You're a Green kind of person. And nowadays that is not the tip. Now it's like, well, maybe, or maybe you're a Trump supporter, I don't know. Or maybe you're a Kennedy supporter and you support Trump because of Kennedy. So there is definitely, I feel like, been some kind of shift there.
- [14:11]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, well, Trump was a Democrat. So was Tulsi Gabbard, so was Elon Musk. The world is upside down, I do think. I don't want to be unkind, I guess, but to me, this is in some ways part of the crank realignment. You know, in my Republican days, we would make fun sort of of the Democrats woo woo ways of looking at things. And those people are definitely part of the coalition now. Not entirely, but for the people who think the government is intentionally poisoning us with things, I would have put that before in kind of like a lefty crank thing. And those people, like are rushing to be in the Republican Party now. All right, so let's fast forward to the present day. We fielded a group of 20, 24 Trump voters who rated RFK Jr favorably and got a flavor for what they liked about him. And which parts of Maha appealed to them? Let's listen. As I mentioned from the beginning, I'm a cancer survivor. So for me, why I think he's doing a good job is he's addressing what's in our food. The certain dyes and things like that are banned in Europe. And we put them in our food and we feed them to our kid, which creates all kinds of health issues, which puts a strain on our health system. I mean, it's just a repetitive cycle. So for me, that is what I'm really loving, is that he's challenging our food manufacturers to actually be responsible with what they're feeding us. I've done a lot of research into this. That's why we have greenhouses and we really try to eat as organically as possible for, number one, for remission. But number two, you know, I have a son and you know, I want to be cognizant of what he's putting in our body. So for me, I'm 100% in love with challenging our food manufacturers and holding them accountable to safe eating. And plus, I just saw a video of him doing 70 chin ups in the airport, which was complete badass in your 70s. So my goal is to be able to do that one day in my 70s.
- [16:07]
Jonathan Cohn
I'm a fan of anybody who works 7 Jeans to begin with, so he has that. But mainly it's about the dyes and the Preservatives and what we're putting into our bodies. And so the moment that he started questioning, you know, artificial sugars and the dyes and all the preservatives, like, I'm listening because, you know, we are an obese nation, we are particularly unhealthy. And that leads to. What I like about the most is the questioning of the orthodoxy. Whether it's the COVID shot, whether it's the vaccine schedule, whether it's pushing back on Elizabeth Warren for taking so much money. Pharmaceutical companies. You have somebody in Health and Human Services who's actually questioning the way that we have done things in the past.
- [16:43]
Sarah Longwell
What I like is that he's bringing the President's fitness test back to the schools. He's bringing fitness back to the kids. You know, when I was in school, we had pe, we ran, we did gymnastics. We were busy doing physical stuff. And he's bringing that back, and I think that's great for the kids. Okay. So across a lot of the groups that we've done, when you ask people what they like about Maha, they talk about that food dye regulations and this nutrition type stuff way before they talk about vaccines, which is just interesting to me because I think of RFK and I think about the anti vaccine movement that came up in the wake of COVID as the reason for him. But I would say, broadly, people talk much more about just preservatives and food and things like that. Also, just real quickly, in terms of Elizabeth Warren, wait till they hear how much money Republicans take from the pharmaceutical industry. But, okay, whatever. So it seems like they're trumpeting food dye stuff, making junk food ineligible for SNAP benefits more than the vaccine stuff. So how has hhs, how's their public messaging focus differed from their policy focus?
- [17:56]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah, so it's interesting, right? I mean, he talks about, you know, food dyes, cleaning up the environment. He's made a big show of getting some voluntary agreements from various manufacturers to take the food dyes out and that, you know, that may or may not happen. You know, your Froot Loops might turn into a duller shade of purple and yellow and, you know, whatever. As myself a fan of Froot Loops, I'm fine. As long as they don't change the taste of the Froot Loops. It's my guilty pleasures. I eat Fruit Loop snacks on airplanes. That's how I like it. Helps my stomach. I know, weird, but that's who I am. Anyway. Revealing too much. But at the same time, so much of this administration is we get voluntary agreements on things and it turns out it's not really, you know, it'd be, you know, a company is promising to stop using a certain kind of dye or, you know, Coca Cola, you know, taking out corn syrup. And number one, you unpack these, and it's often not clear what the company actually agreed to. Number two, it's not binding. Right. It's a voluntary agreement that they may or may not live up to and may or may not stick to a year or two or three from now, which is not the same as changing a law. Right. I mean, if you want to make policy, you know, you change a lot. And they're not actually, like, passing laws on these things, because that's hard. Right? Meaning you have to work with Congress or you have to go through the regulatory process. But I think the most important part is all of this is against a much larger background of changes that the Trump administration is undertaking that completely work in the opposite direction and will overwhelm the effect. And so, just to take sort of two obvious examples, if you want, you know, to help people with healthy eating, you know, the number one thing is, you know, you talked before about, like, changing the rules on what food. Food stamps can cover. Well, that's great, but they're also cutting food stamps. Millions of people are gonna lose their food assistance. That's really bad for health. Kids starving is really bad for their health. And yet that's what this administration is doing. And you look at the epa, they're rolling back all of these regulations to limit dangerous chemicals like formaldehyde, for example, and Kennedy getting some voluntary agreements to sort of change food dyes, if indeed that moves the needle a little bit in the direction of health, and let's say, stipulate that it does. Well, all that other stuff, boom. It's hard not to sort of conclude that from the standpoint of the White House, having Kennedy out doing this is ideal because he's getting the good headlines. He's making the Maha people happy. And meanwhile, we got omb, we got the usual coalition of corporate interests that support the Republican Party completely running roughshod over environmental policy and. And taking away sort of income supports and supports for food and for health care. I didn't even mention cutting Medicaid, which, you know, want to keep people healthy. Generally speaking, you don't want to take away their health insurance. He says one thing, and it may or may not make a little difference. But meanwhile, the rest of the administration is moving the other way and is really doing great damage to America's health.
- [21:01]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, that Tracks for this administration. We're going to produce headlines that make people feel like something is happening, but not really do anything about it. This show is sponsored by Rocket Money. You might think you have a solid handle on your budget. Maybe your spreadsheet says you should have an extra thousand dollars left over each month. But if your bank account isn't reflecting that, something's off. Rocket Money helps you track every dollar, uncover hidden spending, and take control of your finances. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. My goodness, when I realize how many subscriptions I've got going and someone shows them to me, I immediately have to start canceling things. I can't even believe I still have that rolling. And look, there's only so much TV you can watch at any time. And I know I'm always looking to cut out some streamers that I never watch. Rocket Money shows you all your expenses in one place, including subscriptions you forgot about. If you see a subscription you no longer want, Rocket Money will help you cancel it. Rocket Money has saved users over 2.5 billion, including over 880 million in canceled subscriptions alone. Their 10 million members save up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com the Focus Group today. That's RocketMoney.com the Focus Group. RocketMoney.com the Focus Group. So we were really interested in how this group talked about vaccines. There were some who were down the line anti vax, but there were plenty whose frame was less, you know, vaccines are causing autism and more. I wish I had more control over these decisions or we just need vaccines to be studied more. Let's listen.
- [23:02]
Jonathan Cohn
I have a daughter coming in February 1st child. And so I've started looking into this just a little bit more because, you know, as a child growing up in the 80s and 90s, it was vaccines are good and they're going to protect you. And you get the standard ones, the mmr, and then started to roll out the, you know, chickenpox and other ones. And it was always like, this is what you need. And I accepted that. And I do feel that they are efficient and they're, you know, I'll say like, yes, the question which ones are probably should stick around MMR for sure. But you look at the vaccine schedule and how over the past 40 years, it's jumped from 10 to, you know, around like 130, let's say. You have to wonder how much of that is necessary and how much of that is actually helping and how much of that could potentially be a detriment.
- [23:48]
Sarah Longwell
He's questioning the efficacy of these vaccines and the need for them. You know, with as recent hepatitis B for the kids, I get it, they have to get it done. But you know, why? On the first day that they're born. And the preservatives, absolutely. You know, things that are banned in Europe, we still allow here. So, you know, I like it that someone's finally speaking up and questioning it. And it is a fight against Big Pharma that we were dealing with then. I do regret having to give my kids the vaccines because they had to get back to school. I just became more aware of it and started looking into the more homeopathic alternatives. And that's why I like his stance now. He's just making it more aware and more mainstream. So hopefully people will question it rather than going to the doctor. And their solution is, here, take this. Instead of saying, well, try exercising, try changing your diet and, you know, vitamins, supplements, whatever. It is an alternative to just popping a pill.
- [24:52]
Jonathan Cohn
The standard ones, like the mmr, tetanus, I think the tried and true ones have some value and you can't just discount everything. But some of it, I think is hard to. Because I don't think we even really. It's hard to make an informed decision because I feel like we don't know the facts fully. So we're just going off a doctor's orders or doctor's recommendations. And it's hard to really get down to what. What these things actually do, what the actual ingredients are. You know, it's not just the inactivated virus. There's a lot of other things in there. I really think that we need to.
- [25:23]
Sarah Longwell
Stop just blanketing them for everyone.
- [25:25]
Jonathan Cohn
I think they need to look into.
- [25:26]
Sarah Longwell
Them much more thoroughly and determine whether it's really something that everyone needs or people maybe with certain health conditions, certain racial backgrounds, different factors that could potentially.
- [25:41]
Jonathan Cohn
Cause them to be more likely to develop those diseases.
- [25:45]
Sarah Longwell
I just think that the doctors are trained by the pharmaceutical companies, and I don't think that they take any concern into, you know, like the hpv, you know, that my doctor pushed that on my kids and I never did it. And I'm thankful now because they're seeing the problems that it's causing. I'm for the basic ones, the ones that we've gotten My kids were at that age couple years ago where they had to get the hpv and they had two different pediatricians, same office, and they kept on insisting and I'm like, no, it's not going to happen. No. I just don't know enough about it. There's no need of those. I'm a little skeptical. I used to also get the flu shot when they were younger and they would get the flu shot. I've told them, you go in, you tell them, no, I don't get it either. Things like that. I'm not for it anymore. My son is, you know, going to be 10 here next week. I've given him most vaccines. He did not get the COVID vaccine. Every time I go in, they're like, hey, give him the, you know, I'm like, if you come near my child with that, we're gonna have a problem. What gives me reservation about the entire vaccine industry? It's pretty interesting that they're exempt from lawsuits. So how can we as the American people put like our faith into something that they're not held to? And how do we have any real data or statistics? Because you can't say like, oh, they were sued 7,600 times for this. You know, we live in a low trust society now. I hear versions of this across a ton of different issues. The kind of, I don't know what to believe. I don't think things have been studied enough. So the CDC is no longer recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns. And you wrote a newsletter called this Is what It Looks Like When RFK wins. What should medical professionals do to respond to these policy changes? And I know you're not a doctor. It must just be based on what I hear in focus groups. Doctors must be getting hit constantly now with pushback on the recommendations they're making around vaccines. And so what do they do to deal with this?
- [27:59]
Jonathan Cohn
They are hearing it all the time. I mean, I hear it all the time from doctors I know, from friends, parents, my kids friends. And you know, listen, it made me so sad really to sort of hear that there was so much lack of trust. I think you're right. It is like symptomatic of this broader culture of not trusting anybody. And it's the pharmaceutical companies and its corporations and it's the medical establishment. We do have data on this. And people do tend to trust their doctors when they have a good relationship with them. That does still matter. And I think that's really important. And I think doctors have enormous power that if they use it. They should be conscious of that. And I think the good ones recognize that you need to meet people where they are and you need to listen to them and take their concerns seriously. Because, number one, there are good reasons to be distrustful of a lot of our institutions and experts right now. That's not an unhealthy instinct. In the right places and in the right times and in the right doses, there are doctors historically who have been on the take from the pharma. I mean, that happens sometimes. In this particular case of vaccines, though, I'm not going to go through each one of the things that you heard there. But just as a general statement, vaccines are the part of our medical system that are studied for safety most closely, that we can feel most confident about that we've got so much data on, and they have been sort of thoroughly looked at. You know, every medical intervention has a chance of some kind of adverse reaction or ill effect. But the reason these vaccines are all recommended is that for years and years, we've studied them, looked at them, and said the benefits clearly outweigh any risks. And I think what doctors do, the successful ones are they listen and they take these concerns seriously and they provide information and they point people to the reputable sources and they say, look, you know, here are the studies. This is the truth. Here's something you can read, listen to the Mayo Clinic, maybe, or listen to the American Society of Pediatrics, unfortunately. And this is what's so depressing about this moment is that. And we've had people who've had these feelings for a long time, long before Trump came along. These last few years and in the past, you could say, well, look at the Centers for Disease Control. Look what CDC says. And people could take that seriously. And you can't anymore. You know, I was in Atlanta a couple weeks ago for this annual meeting of the Infectious Disease Society, right? Their big annual meeting, which happened randomly to be in Atlanta this year, which is, of course, where CDC is based. And it was amazing to hear all these professionals who've spent their lives, you know, on infectious disease one after another after another, saying, you can't trust the CDC anymore. Don't listen to the CDC because of how Kennedy has changed it, and it's no longer one of those trustworthy resources, which is just incredibly tragic.
- [30:41]
Sarah Longwell
You really want to be better with your finances. You try to put money away in savings. You look for deals. You wrote out a budget once a long time ago, yet you still overdraft from time to time, and you still have debt. The Truth is, managing money is not easy. But Rocket Money can help. Rocket Money shows you exactly what you're spending every month. From there, the app helps you make a budget that meets your financial goals. The app even gives you real time alerts when you're about to go over your budget so you don't spend too much. With Rocket Money, you can also see all of your subscriptions at a glance and cancel the ones you don't want right from the app. Rocket Money can even try to get you a refund for some of the money you wasted. Plus, you can use the smart savings feature to start putting more money away. Rocket Money analyzes your accounts to determine the optimal time to stow away cash without going over your budget. Our members report that the Rocket Money app save them more than $700 a year. Getting better with money doesn't have to be a pipe dream. Rocket Money can make it a reality. Go to RocketMoney.com cancel or download the app from the Apple app or Google Play stores. A new phone for Billy, a necklace for Sam.
- [31:44]
Jonathan Cohn
All the while on the lookout for scams.
- [31:46]
Sarah Longwell
A swipe here and tap there. Better make it go far. Turns out mom didn't know she needs a new car this year. Stay on top of your credit with the MyFico app. Get your Fico score straight from the people that created it. Plus free credit monitoring and a free credit report every month. No credit card required. So make holiday spending one less stress under the mistletoe. Visit myfico.com free or download the MyFico app today. Is it true you can't sue pharmaceutical companies?
- [32:16]
Jonathan Cohn
So you can sue. It's very hard to win. So the deal is, the background here is there is a program called the Vaccine Compensation Program. Did I get that acronym right? I'm gonna now. I'm gonna look it up afterwards, guys. But basically its origins are years and years ago. We ran into a problem where we ran into a shortage of pertussis vaccines. Pertussis, very serious disease, can be deadly, very painful. And that was because there were reports of some kind of very serious side effects, most of which turned out not to be real, were linked to the vaccine. There's a little ambiguity looking back, but there's probably there were a lot of exaggerations and they weren't real. But there were these lawsuits that would be filed. And, you know, if you file a lawsuit on this and you say my child got the vaccine and then they got very sick and, you know, it's hard to sort of prove a negative. You Get a jury award. And these companies were saying, wait a minute, we're getting sued, we're losing all kinds of money even though our vaccine didn't cause this harm and we're just going to stop producing them. Because if you're a drug manufacturer, there's lots of other ways to make money. You know, there's no shortage of profit opportunity vaccines are actually have not traditionally been that profitable. And there was a real concern we were going to lose our supply of childhood vaccines. So they came up with a system where basically it's like a no fault system, basically where you file for an injury and there's a review and if it's on a list of injuries that have been linked as possibly caused by a vaccine. Because again, vaccines like any medication, ibuprofen, Pepto, Bismol, you know, anything you can take your over the counter antihistamine, they all can have side effects now and then. So if you reported one of these side effects and it was sort of, you know, there was a plausible sort of timing and everything and it was reviewed, then you would get a payout. And the idea was it was worked for everybody. So basically if you're somebody who's had a kind of injury, you get a payout, you get it relatively quickly. It's a good amount of money. You don't have to go through litigation because from your standpoint, if you had to go through litigation, I mean, you might win, but you might lose. Right. And you have to go through courts. It's always a long process. But the companies then also got some security. They said, look, you're not going to get bankrupted. You don't need to worry about that. You pay into this system as a vaccine company, you sort of contribute to it. They all do. And it sort of builds up a fund. But this way, you know, you can make money on this. You know, not a crazy amount of money necessarily, but you know, you can have a market that won't destroy you and it's all that kind of bargain. That program is the foundation for our vaccines. You take that program away, which is something that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has talked about doing. We could go back to a situation and I think we would go back to a situation where a lot of the companies that are developing vaccines are going to be like, I'm out, don't need to do this anymore, I got other things I could make money on. And we'll be back in a situation like we really were again. We had a real world test to this. We'll be back in a situation where we don't have the MMR vaccine supply enough, kids are gonna have to like have to wait to give it to them because it'll be rationed. And that is a very real possibility.
- [35:12]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, that's interesting. You know, I, I am always surprised when I hear people say things in focus groups and I'm like, wait, is this true? Where are they getting this information? And it's clearly, you know, when you're plugged into the messaging, right, you really follow what RFK is doing or you follow wellness expert or not experts. But like YouTubers, I hear things all the time and I'm like, okay, well this is something that's in the water. They're getting this places. But I don't know if it's true or not. These are like not discussions people were having previously. Think about the last time you had a cancel subscription.
- [35:44]
Jonathan Cohn
There's probably some waiting on hold, some.
- [35:46]
Sarah Longwell
Guessing at your password, some mind numbing.
- [35:49]
Jonathan Cohn
Small talk, and maybe after all that.
- [35:51]
Sarah Longwell
You still weren't able to cancel it.
- [35:53]
Jonathan Cohn
Good news, it doesn't have to be this way.
- [35:56]
Sarah Longwell
Thanks to Rocket Money Rocket Money tracks, manages, and can cancel your subscriptions for you. When you connect your accounts, you'll see.
- [36:04]
Jonathan Cohn
A complete picture of all your reoccurring subscriptions all in one place.
- [36:07]
Sarah Longwell
Rocket Money organizes your subscriptions by due date and notifies you when something's coming up, so you'll never be caught off guard when you get charged.
- [36:15]
Jonathan Cohn
If you see a subscription you want.
- [36:16]
Sarah Longwell
To cancel, Rocket Money simplifies the process. Instead of waiting on hold for an hour, you can cancel it right from the app. Rocket Money will even try to get you a refund for the money you spent on subscriptions you forgot about. Stop wasting your time trying to cancel subscriptions the hard way.
- [36:31]
Jonathan Cohn
Make your life easier and go to.
- [36:32]
Sarah Longwell
Rocketmoney.Com cancel that's rocketmoney.com cancel or download the app from the Apple app or Google Play stores.
- [36:42]
Jonathan Cohn
While holiday shopping is almost always fun.
- [36:44]
Sarah Longwell
Credit can be confusing. That's when you get Myfico. Download the myfico app now and shopify with confidence, knowing that you can stay.
- [36:51]
Jonathan Cohn
On top of your credit 24. 7.
- [36:53]
Sarah Longwell
Get your FICO score straight from the.
- [36:55]
Jonathan Cohn
People that created it.
- [36:56]
Sarah Longwell
Plus free credit monitoring and a free.
- [36:59]
Jonathan Cohn
Credit report every month. No credit card required.
- [37:01]
Sarah Longwell
FICO scores are used by 90% of lenders, so trust the MyFico app to keep you in the know. Visit myfico.com free or download the MyFico app today. So one thing I was really interested in. We were talking to this group is why people got into the Maha way of thinking. So let's listen to what they said attracted them to this movement, because it is a movement now.
- [37:31]
Jonathan Cohn
I'd already been looking into it a little bit kind of before COVID in 2020. I had been taking care of my mom through that, and, you know, she had reached her 70s and starting to have issues. And I was. I'm an only child and was her caretaker. So, you know, I've always had a cautious trust of healthcare advice, and I was always wary of just the always, like, you know, we'll just give you a prescription for it mentality. So I just started really doing research and really got into more homeopathic, more herbal to complement the western medicine side. Especially as then once we got into 2020 and all that insanity, I feel like the establishment really showed what it really was on that my daughter was.
- [38:08]
Sarah Longwell
Born with some health conditions, and this was in 2003, and I was giving my kids flu shots. I was following all the rules, eating, eating the food Pyram. And it clearly wasn't working. We had a lot of health conditions in my family, but that my daughter's health conditions really, really got me going into, you know, digging in. And I've gotten some health certifications. I've gotten. I've taken several classes because I, you know, I remember asking her doctor when she was a little bitty about dairy. Does dairy affect this condition that she kept getting? And he's like, no, food doesn't have anything to do with it. When he said that to me, I was like, done, checked out. And sure enough, once I got her off dairy, the condition went away. The way that they started pounding out the vaccines and forcing people to get them to be able to go to work, to go to school, all the different mandates that they were putting out, I just thought, something is really, really wrong with this. I started looking into alternatives.
- [39:05]
Jonathan Cohn
My mom went through a health downturn, and we had to deal with hospitalizations and nursing homes and all kinds of stuff. And you just get so tired of medical professionals not willing to hear other options, you know, discuss the person as a whole. It's always just juggling medications and just trust me, do what I tell you. You know, you're. And you're constantly having to fight, like everything is a fight. Like, what are you giving me? What's going on? What kind of side effects are we talking about? Are there other ways we can try to work on this or whatever?
- [39:37]
Sarah Longwell
So I had cancer during The COVID time, I didn't know and I'm being naive. I didn't know kids in California had to get the job to go to school. That's not like that is here. So I think it's a little bit different state to state. There is definitely something weird. And I'm not saying that Covid isn't real, but when you're watching the news and you're seeing these numbers, like when it first came up and feel like somebody you know is going to die, we're all like sitting around and then nobody's dying. So I gotta say I have a great deal of sympathy for voters on a lot of these points, in part because we are not doctors. And when it comes to your health, you get scared. And when it comes to your kids health, you get really scared. And so like the trust becomes so important and some of it sounds perfectly, I don't know, reasonable to me to say, I don't know, man, it's a lot of vaccines now. Do they know how all of these things work together? Do they? You know, you can understand why people say, well, when I was a kid, I didn't get this many vaccines. Like, where did all these vaccines come from? Now there's also an alternative there to say, yeah, it's one of the most successful things we've been doing to figure out how to get rid of all kinds of illnesses. And some of the stuff about I don't feel like someone's listening to me, you know, I don't feel like I get heard when I try to say, is there an alternative to, you know, all this medication? I get that, I really do. But then there's the part where they kind of try to rewrite Covid history. And look, I was somebody who was like, gotta open things up. Like, we're waiting too long. We gotta get kids back in school. But the through line for a lot of the current skepticism around vaccines, including things like the flu shot, it comes from COVID And So what is RFK Jr. S attempts to rewrite history on the COVID pandemic? Like, what does that look like to your eyes?
- [41:29]
Jonathan Cohn
First, let me say I share all those sympathies myself and I think there's a lot to it. And anyone, I think in this country who's had a loved one go through a medical, serious, long term medical issue has at least at some point run into medical professionals who don't listen to you. And that's why I do think what we were saying before so important for anybody in, you know, Nurses, doctors, to, if they can, to really listen and meet people where they are and try to be sort of, you know, not just say, this is what you need to do or whatever to explain things. Obviously that's not so easy when you have 30 patients you're trying to see in an hour, but whatever. First, I just wanted to say that in terms of rewriting Covid, I think it sounds a lot like that final panelist we heard from who was saying, well, they said all these people were going to die. And look, no one died. Well, actually, more than a million Americans died and people, many, many more got very sick. And lots of people are walking around with long Covid, which is something we still don't fully understand. It was a terrible disease, still is a terrible disease to the people who it affects. What Kennedy has done is he has rewritten that history as well, you know, and not just Kennedy, but the people he's brought into hhs, well, it wasn't so bad. And we don't really know how many people died. And actually the vaccine probably killed more people than it saved. And just throwing out all of this sort of nonsense and, you know, I think it's part of his broader narrative, which is all about the sort of medical establishment, medical science is bad for you. It causes more harm than good. We were all better off when we faced all these diseases on our own. And, you know, without the sort of interventions. That seems to be the sort of through line of him. Right. If it's a medical intervention, it's bad. On the other hand, if it's a kind of wellness supplement, something where you can take control of, you're staying healthy underneath, then it's a good thing.
- [43:17]
Sarah Longwell
And.
- [43:17]
Jonathan Cohn
And, you know, we all need to just be stronger. I mean, there is a kind of flavor to that that has a bit of a kind of eugenics, kind of survival of the fittest. He himself doesn't really quite talk like that, but there are people around him who do. When you sort of get into these conversations about vaccines and you say, well, you've saved all these people, and they said, well, most people used to survive these and they were stronger. Well, yes, it is true. Most people used to survive most, you know, diseases like even chickenpox, right, which is a fairly root, you know, people treat as a routine disease, but, you know, people died from chickenpox. The fact that we have a vaccine that saves, you know, a couple hundred people a year from dying from chickenpox, that's a big win. We take that as a win and we should be happy about that, but he doesn't. And I think he's trying to rewrite Covid history in that way. As the medical establishment lied to you, they forced this vaccine on you that wasn't tested, that is dangerous, when in reality, this was a terrible disease. It killed more than a million Americans. The vaccine saved countless lives. And we can talk for a long time about the mistakes that were made, whether it was the closing, you know, closing schools for too long or overselling the vaccine, saying things we didn't know about what the vaccine could or couldn't do. I think there's a really. I think all of that happened, and hopefully we learn from that. But at the end of the day, it was a plague and we got a vaccine and saved a ton of lives. And in the world of public health, that should count as a win.
- [44:50]
Sarah Longwell
This is not usually the answer I give about what keeps me up at night, but if you ask me to list things that keep me up at night, this would definitely be on it, which is there has been a decimation of faith in public health, just in general, and that came from COVID We can all go in retcon or like, hindsight is 20 20. The overall impact that's gonna reverberate for a long time is that people are not gonna get vaccines as a result of the way that Covid happened. I remember being like, when do I get my turn to get this? For the love of God, let me out of my house. Trump was like, trump's the best thing he did when he was in office. But what keeps you up at night about how people are changing the way they think about public health and the way now our government is approaching public health.
- [45:50]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah. You know, I think two things keep me up at night. I worry about what we were talking about earlier, this sort of, you know, undermining efforts to continue to develop vaccines, you know, sort of seizing on this so we don't get the next vaccine. And again, I think that pulling of the MRNA funding is the clearest example of that. I mean, it may well be the case we're now on. You know, this may now actually happen. We're, like, going down this road. This isn't hypothetical. Where we've pulled this funding and they're going to. There's going to be less research into mRNA, and then at some point down the road, you know, we'll need an MRNA vaccine and we won't be able to have it as quickly. And that's a reality now. That could happen. I think about what if we have another say, like a bird flu epidemic or something like that? I mean, there are times when you do need to actually like shut down for a while in order to sort of stop. That is a thing that happens sometimes. Are people going to listen?
- [46:41]
Sarah Longwell
No.
- [46:42]
Jonathan Cohn
No. Are we going to be able to get a vaccine to people? And I think the public health establishment, people who were part of the COVID response, everybody needs to do some reflection on their part. I mean, lots of people made mistakes that contributed to the lack of faith that we now see. But it is to me, being overwhelmingly driven by people like Kennedy who are dishonest and lying and using that to erode this trust to exploit this situation. And yeah, I think we're in a very dangerous place right now.
- [47:16]
Sarah Longwell
Think about the last time you had to cancel a subscription. There was probably some waiting on hold, some guessing at your password, some mind numbing small talk, and maybe after all that, you still weren't able to cancel it. Good news, it doesn't have to be this way. Thanks to Rocket Money, Rocket Money tracks, manages, and can cancel your subscriptions for you. When you connect your account, you'll see a complete picture of all of your recurring subscriptions all in one place. Rocket Money organizes your subscriptions by due date and notifies you when something is coming up, so you'll never be caught off guard when you get charged. If you see a subscription you want to cancel, Rocket Money simplifies the process. Instead of waiting on hold for an hour, you can cancel it right from the app. Rocket Money will even try to get you a refund for the money you spent on subscriptions you forgot about. Stop wasting time trying to cancel subscriptions the hard way. Make your life easier and go to rocketmoney.com cancel. That's rocketmoney.com/cancel. Or download the app from the Apple app or Google Play stores a new phone for Billy, a necklace for Sam.
- [48:19]
Jonathan Cohn
All the while on the lookout for scams.
- [48:21]
Sarah Longwell
A swipe here and tap there. Better make it go far.
- [48:24]
Jonathan Cohn
Turns out mom didn't know she needs.
- [48:26]
Sarah Longwell
A new car this year. Stay on top of your credit with the MyFico app. Get your FICO score straight from the people that created it. Plus free credit monitoring and a free credit report every month. No credit card required. So make holiday spending one less stress under the mistletoe. Visit myfico.com free or download the MyFico app today. It's my comms brain saying, you know all of those people that were household names. We don't really hear from them. What if there was a public reckoning, like some kind of a, hey, here's what we got right? Here's what we got wrong. Here's why those mistakes got made. Here's how we'll handle something that. That attempts to rebuild public trust. Because one of the things that is strange to me is that there's total silence. But I don't know, I feel like a lot of people would accept that. Like, we get it. It was a once in a lifetime novel virus. You guys were doing your best. We appreciate the reflection and that you say that these were the mistakes that were made and here's how we can do better going forward as opposed to just seeding the ground. I say seeding the ground. I mean, he was elevated by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement to run hhs, but are there things that they could be doing to rebuild public trust?
- [49:42]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you know, it's funny when you talk to them, you know, when I interview them, they all very, very candid about that. I mean, you know, and, you know, I remember interviewing Dr. Dimitri Daskalakis, who's one of the CDC scientists who resigned in protest. We've interviewed him here at the Bulwark a few times. And I remember asking him, the first time we did the interview, I said, you know, what about the mistakes you guys made? He's like, we made tons of mistakes. You know, he's. He's very candid about that. And I think most of them are. But, you know, that's. That's not the headline. Because they're busy trying to push back on Kennedy, which I understand. I feel like we're in this loop of, like, lost trust and we can't get out of it, because what we need to get out of it is trust. I mean, to me, what would have been wonderful, what we should have done if we lived in. I would. I don't. Maybe I'm naive, but, like, if we leave 30 years ago and this happened, right? We came out of COVID it would have been great to have some kind of bipartisan commission. I know that sounds hokey, right? But you can imagine one, it's Mitt Romney, right, Who's a really smart guy, really, you know, very serious, you know, and pick someone from the left who's, you know, also sort of got respect on the right as a very smart person. Like the 911 Commission, right? You know, something where they spend a year or two and they issue a really big report and they say, here's what happened. And here's what we got, right? Here's what we got wrong. Here's a set of recommendations, right? And what we could do with it. And there was a time when that wasn't unthinkable. And there was a time when public health was mostly, not entirely, but was certainly more in that world where it was a little bit more removed from politics, where, okay, we'll fight about Medicaid funding, right? And maybe even find about how much funding to put into NIH research. And there will be issues around cdc. You know, they'll touch on hot button cultural issues, whether it's, you know, LGBTQ issues and HIV or whatever, but for the most part, like basic research into medicine, into cancer, basic disease prevention, vaccines. There was bipartisan consensus around that. And, you know, I feel like it would have been great coming out of COVID to do that, but of course, that is not the time we live in, Right. You can't imagine that. You know, in fact, so many of the look backs we had were all partisan. Right? It was a Democratic committee in Congress, it was a Republican committee in Congress, and it's incredibly depressing.
- [51:54]
Sarah Longwell
Got any good news for me as we head out here? This is like how we're closing out 2025 on the Focus group pod.
- [52:01]
Jonathan Cohn
Any good news? Yeah, I mean, I do think one of the things, there's been a bunch of people stepping up to say, okay, the CDC right now, you can't trust it. It's been commandeered, infiltrated. You know, it's like the Borg now. I mean, he really, he is literally purge that agency of its senior career leadership, all the scientists who knew everything, he's brought in political people and people who in one way or another share his views on vaccines. But we have seen this sort of rising up of people creating sort of independent authorities. We've seen states like California are like rebuilding, like they're going to use their own public health infrastructure to do what CDC did. And California is one of the few states that's big enough that they have some resources they can really put into. They just hired Susan Menarez, who was the head of the cdc, who was fired by Trump in the fight with rfk. There's a number of universities, there's something called the Vaccine Integrity Project, that sort of, they're doing their own research. And I think for the moment, at least in real life, in practice, when you talk to pediatricians, when you talk to even the insurance companies, they're all basically saying, look, we're not going to make any big Changes in the way we do things. We understand this is. This is a deviation. We're just going to stick with the way we've been doing things if we. As long as we can. And that muscle memory is going to be there for a while. So my hope is that this passes. Covid is going to be like something we're going to be studying for, like, 200 years of, like, this incredibly important event that changed our society and our politics. But, you know, I remember so, like, covering, like, the midterms and was the midterms. It would have been 20. Yeah, 20. 22 midterms in Michigan. And Covid was very much an issue that the Republicans were making in statewide races, the governor's race and the congressional race. And I certainly would meet people when I was interviewing them who were like, oh, the state. Whitmer closed the schools for too long. We couldn't do this. And the federal government was forcing these shots on us. And then there were the people who were actually quite grateful, and you never hear from them. There were people like, I was really glad they were being aggressive because my uncle died, and this was a really horrible thing. What I thought was so interesting is I met a lot of people who would basically say something like the following. I think the schools were closed for too long. I think some of these restrictions were ridiculous. They said the vaccine was gonna prevent transmission, and it didn't. But then there'd be a pause. They'd say, but, you know, and I'd say, oh, is that gonna affect your vote? And they'd be like, you know, it was hard, right? This was a really weird situation. And there was some grace there. There was like, as long as I saw my leaders trying to do the right thing and communicating with me, I had faith in them. And so I hope that group of people who sort of, you know, can sort of balance the idea that sometimes these are people trying to do their best. Yeah, they're going to get things wrong sometimes, but they're still trustworthy and the best we have. That's my hope for the future, is that that's where hopefully most Americans are.
- [54:55]
Sarah Longwell
Jonathan Cohn, thank you so much for joining us. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group group podcast. We will be back next year, but in the meantime, remember to rate and review us on Apple podcasts. Subscribe to The Bulwark on YouTube and become a Bulwark plus member at thebullwerk.com Happy Holidays to all of you. See you soon.
- [55:27]
Jonathan Cohn
If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant.
- [55:29]
Sarah Longwell
You know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering. With on time restocks, your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift and you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand.
- [55:47]
Jonathan Cohn
Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop.
- [55:50]
Sarah Longwell
By Grainger for the ones who get it done. VRBO Last minute deals make chasing fresh mountain powder incredibly easy. With thousands of homes close to the slopes, you can easily get epic pow freshies, first tracks and more. No need for months of planning. In fact, you can't even plan. Pow Pow is on its own schedule. Thankfully, somewhere in the world it's always snowing. All you have to do is use the last minute filter on the app to book a last minute deal on a slope side private rental home.
- [56:23]
Jonathan Cohn
Book now@vervo.com if you're a maintenance supervisor.
- [56:28]
Sarah Longwell
For a commercial property, you've had to.
- [56:30]
Jonathan Cohn
Deal with everything from leaky faucets to flickering light bulbs.
- [56:33]
Sarah Longwell
But nothing's worse than that ancient boiler.
- [56:35]
Jonathan Cohn
That'S lived in the building since the day it was built 50 years ago.
- [56:39]
Sarah Longwell
It's enough to make anyone lose their cool.
- [56:41]
Jonathan Cohn
That's where Grainger comes in. With industrial grade products and dependable, fast.
- [56:45]
Sarah Longwell
Delivery, Grainger can help with any challenge.
- [56:48]
Jonathan Cohn
From worn out components to everyday necessities. Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.